Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli
In the midst of our present crisis, there is a haunting question that keeps intruding itself into our thoughts. A disturbing interrogative. Not new. Not uncommon. In fact, it is found in the biblical narrative of Judges. It is Gideon’s question: “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?” How could God allow so many people to suffer and die from an illness that knows no age, no race, no nationality? If God is all powerful, why does he allow this? Why does he not intervene?
These questions plague even the strongest people of faith. We wonder if our prayers have any worth. Does it matter that we storm heaven with our constant pleading? In a period of depression after the death of his wife, C.S. Lewis wrote, “Meanwhile, where is God? ... Go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside” (C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, p. 4). Lewis agonizingly wrestled with the problem of suffering and death. In the end, his faith in an all-loving God became even stronger.
Facing today’s pandemic, many find themselves in the same situation, struggling to believe and to hope. The coronavirus has brought us face to face with the problem of evil in the world. Sickness is an evil. Death is an evil. Why does God allow these things? Is he not strong enough to wipe them away? Does he not love us enough? The question of evil in the world is ultimately the question of God. Is there really an all-loving God? Some of the world’s greatest thinkers have tried to reconcile the fact of evil and the existence of a loving God and they have come up short of an answer.
God is a mystery. We should never delude ourselves into thinking that we can rationally explain everything there is to know about God and his ways. As we read in Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways…For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Is 55:8-9). Yet, acknowledging that God is a mystery, we still search and yearn for an answer.
We are very much like Gideon who lived in the 12th century before Christ. It was a time when Israel was under attack by a powerful enemy. The Midianites were swiftly sweeping across Israel, devastating the land and dealing death. The nation cried out to God. And, in response, God sent an angel to Gideon, a man of the tribe of Manasseh.
The angel’s first words, The Lord is with you, appeared to Gideon to be so incongruous with the suffering of the present moment. Gideon immediately responded, voicing the bitter anxiety of an entire nation under oppression: “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are his wondrous deeds about which our ancestors told us when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ For now the Lord has abandoned us and has delivered us into the power of Midian” (Jg 6:13). How different Israel’s situation in Gideon’s day from Israel’s glorious past! Then God had intervened. Now he seems to have withdrawn.
Gideon challenged God, sarcastically accusing him of not caring for his people. God directly speaks to Gideon. He does not explain to him why they are suffering. Rather, he tells him how to end the suffering. He commands Gideon to remove the oppression. And, he does! By God’s power. It is a struggle. But, in the end, Gideon defeats the enemy.
East of Eden, we live in an imperfect world subject to pain, suffering and death. As we battle against the silent enemy of disease, heaven remains silent to our question of why this is happening. But God is providing the answer of how to defeat the enemy. Science. Medicine. Charity. Respect for law. God has gifted us with the means to deal with the evils we face. The many health care workers, the doctors and nurses, our government officials, religious leaders, volunteers and all people of good will who are doing their best to fight this battle: they are God’s response. It is the same answer he gave to Gideon: by my strength, you can do it!