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From Pastor Ahonen's Desk
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The Reverend Jeffrey A. Ahonen
Peace Lutheran Church
2929 South First Street, Garland, Texas 75040
(972) 278-5868
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“As An Example”
A Sermon For The Ninth Sunday After Trinity Based Upon 1 Corinthians 10
“Why do bad things happen to good people?” Or, better, “Why do bad things happen to God’s people?” “If a person is a Christian and loves Jesus,” the reasoning goes, “then why wouldn’t Christ protect that person from all harm, and not let anything bad happen to one of His own people?”
It is a good question. Because bad things do happen to “good” people—to God’s people. Becoming a Christian does not save us from the problems of life in this world; Christians face the same difficulties with the things of this world as do others in this world. There are financial difficulties for God’s people, resulting from job losses and a host of other circumstances; we don’t get to live on Easy Street during our days on earth just because we are Christian. There are afflictions of the body and the mind that affect God’s people, too; we Christians are not immune from all disease and safe from all injury, and we, too, will someday find ourselves at death’s door—every one of us.
So why do bad things happen to good people, God’s people, Christian people? God gives at least a part of the answer in the Epistle for this day, where he speaks to us through the mouth of St. Paul regarding the reason why God allowed many from His people Israel to die in the wilderness during the Exodus from Egypt: “Now these things become our examples.” There is a key phrase: Our examples—as illustrations for us. And, again, St. Paul speaks, “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition.” Our admonition—as a warning to us. And so we can say this much: That “bad” things happen to “good” people as an illustration for us—as a warning to us—about the consequences of not being good.
Yes, it is a very clear lesson about the wrath of God against the sinfulness of man. It is a way in which the Lord takes us into the “School of Hard Knocks” and allows us to be knocked around a little bit in order to grab our attention—to shake us awake—to awaken us all to the reality of our common situation. He tries to teach us in other ways too, of course, but we don’t pay such good attention to Him when things are going well for us. “Times are good,” we say to ourselves. “I’ve got money in the bank and a car in the garage and a chicken in the pot and I’m feeling fine; I’ve got it made. What? ‘Give thanks to God for all that I have?’ Why? Is it God Who gets up at 5 am every weekday and makes that commute and works all day and fights the traffic back home? See, some of this I’ve earned on my own. . . . What? ‘Live for the things of God, rather than the things of this world?’ Well, maybe later I’ll let you tell me a little bit more about that; right now, I’m enjoying life pretty well as it is, and I’m pretty busy with the things that I really like to do.” Yes, when “good” things happen to “good” people, we are so easily overcome by the temptation that is common to all men: putting our self in the place that rightfully belongs to God alone. Chasing after the desires of our own sin-filled hearts, rather than seeking after the desires of God’s own heart. Serving our own selfish needs first, rather than serving God by meeting the needs of our neighbors with the bounty that God Himself has placed into our hands. Letting the glory for any of the good that we do fall upon ourselves and doing things for the praise of men, rather than giving all glory for all good to God alone. In short, loving the self—rather than God—with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, and loving your self more than your neighbor. That is not good, for that is the breaking of every commandment of God; it is replacing God‘s rule with our own rule—it is putting ourselves into God’s place. In doing this, we show that we are not acting like “good” people, like God’s people, like Christian people. And so God takes us to school. He wakes us up to this reality by revealing His wrath against our sin, by letting hardship fall upon one of us for a time. This one loses a job. Another one develops cancer. Another one mourns as a family member nears death. In all of these things, God is providing examples to us all of the consequences of our sinfulness, of just how far our wickedness has twisted God’s very good creation out of its original shape. Yes, God lets “bad” things happen to “good” people as an example—an example not only to the one who is so afflicted, but to all of us—that none of us are really “good” at all, and deserve everything that the truly “bad” will truly receive: the double death penalty—death at the end of their days in this world, and the eternal living death of Hell.
But, lest we fall to the temptation to despair completely over our miserable condition, take notice that God has provided the way of escape. He has provided the way of escape even from our sinfulness through the person of the One Who says, “I am The Way and The Truth and The Life.” God has given to us the Way of Salvation from the ultimate consequence of our sinfulness by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. And here again, even in the life of Jesus, we have a clear example of why “bad” things happen to “good” people—even to God’s people—even to God’s own Son. Jesus, God’s “Good” Son, suffered during His life on earth, too. He suffered poverty, relying on financial assistance from others for His daily bread. He suffered fatigue and weakness, needing to withdraw from His daily work from time to time to restore His bodily strength. And He suffered death upon a cross. But He had to suffer all these things—He had to suffer all of the consequences of sin—because He was sinful. Though not with His own sin, no! The Sinless Son of God became sinful only by taking into Himself our sins—the sins of all men and women, past, present, and future—and in that moment became “bad” so that God His Father could punish Him in our place. Yes, “bad” things happen to “bad” people, and that was true for Jesus, too, when He stood in that place. There again is an example for us, written for our admonition, of the deadly serious matter of our own sin. But Jesus is at the same time truly “good,” for He is truly the Holy Son of God, and so The Father kept His promise to let “good” things to “good” people, raising up His faithful Son to life again on Easter morning and declaring to all the complete forgiveness of all sin because Jesus had suffered its consequences once and for all! And so, in the person of Christ Jesus, the Savior of the world, we see the lesson of why “bad” things happen to “good” people—to God’s people—even to the Son of God Himself: So that God can work a greater good for all people, providing the way of escape from sin and death and Hell!
So it is among us. God does permit “bad” things to happen among us, the people of this world, the people of these United States, His People in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, His People of Peace. But He does so with the intention to work a greater good among us. God permits “bad” things to happen to His people in order to wake us up to the seriousness of our sin, to judge it, to condemn it, and to compel us to turn away from all of it. Yet God permits it also so that we would turn to His Word and Sacraments of the Gospel, and receive through them His Holy Spirit, the Spirit Who declares us to be “good” as He forgives us our former sinsfor the sake of Christ, and assures us “good” people of everlasting life with God in His “very good” Heaven, and raises us up to new life in Christ—the “good” life with a pure heart oriented toward the things of God and the needs of the neighbor, all for Christ’s glory alone, living examples of the “goodness” of Christ like the saints who have gone before us, living as “good” examples—even when “bad” things happen—being “good” examples for our children, our spouses, our parents, our fellow Christians, our neighbors in the community, our neighbors throughout the world, that many may learn of the goodness of God toward us and take them to be with us in the circle of saints around Christ’s heavenly throne forevermore.
Yes, even to “bad” people, “good” things do happen! God’s “good” things ever be yours, “Good” People of Peace! Amen.
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