What This Week Made Me Think About

In my nearly forty years of involvement with my alma mater -- four as a student and now 35 as a teacher -- I have never seen a week like this week.

This week marked a sad anniversary for two of our high school seniors. One lost her father in a car accident nine years ago; his birthday was this week. Another lost her sister who, as a senior in high school, was killed in another car accident; that was four years ago this week.

Two school families are dealing with brain cancer and surgery. And grief and anxiety and confusion.

Two students lost their fathers within the past two months, one of them this week.

A local pastor died of a massive stroke at age 69. Many of our students attend his church. His funeral is today.

And young man who graduated from our school last year will be buried tomorrow; he died of heart problems last week. His funeral -- the memorial service and burial of a boy who walked across our platform to receive his high school diploma just four months ago -- will take place tomorrow.


I feel so helpless to know what to say to these students in their grief. Cliches and platitudes come readily to mind, of course, but we all know how useless they are. So do I say nothing because I don't know what to say? Or is it worse to say nothing at all? After all, isn't that the one thing Job's comforters did right? They sat silently with their suffering friend for seven days before they opened their mouths and made a mess of things.

I realize that one thing this week has done is make us all think about death. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since we're all going to face death some day. If a doctor were to deliver a devastating diagnosis to me, if I were to learn that I have not decades to live but months, that would change things dramatically for me and my family. But in some ways it would change nothing.

A man with a terminal diagnosis isn't different from other men because he knows he will die. We all know we will die. It's not even certain that he will die sooner than his healthy friends. What's different about the man with the diagnosis is only that he has some idea when and how he will pass from this life into the next. The man with the diagnosis is forced to consider a reality the rest of us want to avoid.


In class the other day one of my student prayed that maybe we might come to understand why such a young man would have to die. I've walked with God long enough to know that it is more likely we'll have to live with not knowing why such things happen. I think we'll have to be satisfied with not knowing the plan, so long as we know the Planner.

Regardless of what we ever come to understand about all these things, one thing we can know is that this week in the Valley of the Shadow is not the worst-case scenario. The worst thing that could happen on earth has already happened. Two thousand years ago we killed God; He became a man and we killed Him, even though we knew he was innocent.

I remember watching The Passion of the Christ and wishing that Jesus could somehow be rescued from his tormentors. It happens all the time in movies: someone speaks up for the innocent man and persuades the blood-thirsty mob to relent, or someone rides into the last scene and executes a daring rescue and the victim is saved. But then I remembered that no, I don't want Jesus to be rescued. He had to die; it was His Father's plan, and Jesus agreed to go through with it, and His death was the only way I could have peace with God. I must conclude that it is a good thing that God allowed the worst thing that ever happened.

If the worst thing that has ever happened took place within God's sovereign plan, if God was involved in that cruel injustice and actually planned for it to happen, I can be sure that even the suffering of this week is ultimately an expression of God's wisdom and compassion. I cannot know the plan, but I know the Planner.


I read recently of a missionary family living in the jungle who discovered a giant snake in their kitchen. They ran out of the house to get help. A machete-wielding neighbor strode into the kitchen and decapitated the snake in one stroke. He walked back outside in triumph, but he had one piece of bad news: the snake wouldn't know it was dead for some time.

The missionaries had to stand outside for hours as the headless snake thrashed about smashing furniture and windows in its death-throes. Standing there in the heat while their house was being destroyed, the missionaries had a sudden insight: that snake is like Satan. He's defeated and his end is certain, but he still is doing lots of damage.

The point of the snake-story? Two points, actually: 1) Watch out for that Enemy; he can still injure and destroy. But 2) don't worry about the eventual outcome. The outcome was determined long ago, when the worst thing that could happen did happen.

You can see my thoughts are jumbled. It's hard to string together any coherent string of thoughts. The grief and anxiety keep knocking my focus off-kilter.


I suppose the important thing is to keep steadily in view the few things that we know: that God is wise and good, that our view of things is limited and cloudy, that in the end God's wise and good purposes will prevail. Beyond that, we wait and we pray and we try to comfort one another as best we can.