Does God Exist for Haiti? Part 2.

The first blog about this topic focused on poverty. This article focuses on suffering and how to interpret suffering in light of God's word. The following passage from Luke shows how Jesus responded to the news of two horrible circumstances.

Luke 13:1-5
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Leon Morris on the disaster of the Tower of Siloam
Jesus goes on to speak of another disaster in Jerusalem, also unknown to us apart from this reference. His hearers are not to suppose that the eighteen people who had been killed when the tower in Siloam fell were worse offenders (really 'debtors'; people owe God obedience) than others. But their fate is a warning to his audience of the urgency of repenting. Luke uses a present imperative (with continuous force) in verse 3 and an aorist (of a single decisive action here. Repentance is both a once-for-all event that shapes the whole subsequent course of the life and a day-by-day affair that keeps putting sin away. (pp. 239 - 240, Luke (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries)

Jesus refuses to answer their question directly. Everyone, except for Jesus, sins and deserves death. Jesus's point is that the degree of sin is unimportant in these disasters. They are all sinners. Jesus is urging them to reflect upon the suddenness of death. The people who were killed by Pilate and who died from the tower did not have time to repent. Repent now and keep repenting. Use every opportunity now to ask for forgiveness and turn back to God, because you never know when your death may come.

There is a very similar passage in the gospel of John. Read the entire encounter of Jesus and the blind man, but what concerns the topic at hand is the beginning.

John 9:1-7
As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

Leon Morris made some good observations about the passage.

Leon Morris
So the disciples were not manufacturing an imaginary problem. It is clear that among the religious teachers of the Jews there were some who thought a person might well be punished for sins he had comitted before birth, and there were some who held that even very serious afflications might be the punishment of parental sins. So this blind man presented them with a problem. It was not easy to see how he could have sinned before birth a sin serious enough to merit such a heavy punishment. Nor could they see why the heavenly Father of whom Jesus had taught them so much would punish a man in this terrible fashion for the sins of someone else. But in their culture these seemed the only possibilities. So they ask Jesus. Whose sin was it? (p. 348, Expository Reflections on the Gospel of John)

Leon Morris
This blindness, Jesus said, was "so that the works of God might be made manifest in him." I do not think that Jesus means that the man was made to go through all his life up to this point without ever having been able to see, simply in order that Jesus might effect a cure and thus manifest "the works of God." Rather he is saying that the blindness something in and through which God's "works" are manifest.(ibid, p. 348)

Leon Morris
That the works of God are made manifest has its consequences for the people of God: "We must," said Jesus, "work the works of him who sent me" (v. 4). God chooses to do his mighty works through those on earth, at least as a general rule. He can do mighty miracles without human participation, but normally he chooses to let his people have a part in the great works he is doing. (ibid, p. 348)

I have just a side thought, Morris doesn't think God made the man blind his entire life just "to effect a cure." I am sure he is right. However, what would you say if you were the blind man? What if you were told that you have to be blind for decades, but at the end of this time: Jesus will come, Jesus will touch you, Jesus will heal you, you will meet Jesus, you will talk to Jesus, and you will spend eternity with Him? Is that not worth the cost of the blindness? God uses suffering to draw people to Himself.

It is impossible for us, unless we have divine revelation, to tie a particular life circumstance or disaster to sin. Job's wife and friends tried to do that with Job and they were wrong. The apostles, using the bad doctrine of their day, were wrong about the blind man. We are all under the curse of Adam. All death and suffering is tied to sin, but to say one person is a bigger sinner on this earth because he is suffering more is faulty logic. We do not know how God is using suffering in a person's life, or in a town, or in a nation. A Christian sees the suffering around and should feel sorrow and anger. This is not the way the world is intended to be. However, the Christian's response is not bitterness or depression or hopelessness. A Christian sees hope because God is in control. A Christian knows that suffering is not pointless. God gives suffering a meaning and will use it in our lives (Romans 8:32). A Christian is assured that God will eventually bring suffering to an end to those who love Him.

How then shall we actively respond to suffering? If we are an unbeliever and if we do not have Jesus Christ as our Lord, we should repent and confess Jesus as Lord. If we are believers, we are in the body of Christ. As His Body, we should emulate Christ. Christ's response to suffering was "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work." We, as Christ's Body, are to do the work of the God the Father. We should do as Jesus did on the earth: Preach the Gospel and perform good works.