When Faith Gets Tested

            As many of you know, the community of Gettysburg suffered a terrible tragedy this week.  Two men, a father and his twenty-year-old son, died in a sewer gas accident.

            A lot of people in Gettysburg are just kind of numb.  It just doesn’t seem possible.  One moment, both of them are alive, healthy, active, productive and important members of their community.  Then, all of a sudden, they’re not.  They’re gone.  There’s nothing we can do about it, no second chance, no nothing.  They’re just gone.

            It’s hard to come to terms with it.  Any death is sad, of course, but when someone who has reached a ripe old age passes away, it’s easier to deal with.  We can console ourselves with the thought that they lived a full life and got as much out of life as anyone could reasonably expect.  In this case, we cannot do that.  It feels so unfair.  It feels like they got cheated. 

We know, of course, that these things happen, but they’re supposed to happen to other people.  They’re not supposed to happen to people who are in the inner circle of our lives.  Not only does it feel like they got cheated, it feels like we got cheated, too.  These people were not supposed to be taken out of our lives so soon.  The whole thing just seems fundamentally wrong.

For those of us who have faith, this is a time that really tests that faith.  The natural thing is to wonder where God was at a time like this.  We wonder why God allows things like this to happen.  We may not believe that God actually caused it, but if we believe in an all-powerful God, then we have to believe that God could have prevented it.  For some reason, God chose not to.  We’d like to know why.

It’s not just this incident where this question comes up, of course.  People die in auto accidents every day.  People die in hurricanes and tornadoes and all sorts of things.  Every day, somewhere in the world, someone dies unexpectedly and inexplicably.  And everyone who’s close to them would like to know why.

Unfortunately, we don’t have an answer, at least not one that satisfies us.  We can say “accidents happen”, and they do, but why does God allow them to happen?  We can say, “it was God’s will”; I don’t really believe that, but even if it is, it begs the question:  why was it God’s will?  We know this is the way life is, but we don’t know why.  And we’d like to.

That’s why this is such a test for our faith.  We will never get an answer to the question of why, at least not while we’re on earth.  So, when something like this happens, we find out if we truly believe the things we say we believe.  Do we really believe that God loves us?  Do we really believe that God is good?  Do we really believe that God is always there?  Are we really willing to trust God at all times and in all circumstances, no matter what?

Each of us has to answer those questions for ourselves.  There’s no nice, pat, easy answer I or anyone else can give you.  I will, though, be willing to discuss it with you.  We can have that discussion in person, on the phone, by email, or any other way you want to have it.

The one thing we know is that, when things like this happen, we need to be there for each other.  The wonderful thing about small towns is that we all know each other.  We all, in a way, consider ourselves part of the same family.  When one of us hurts, we all hurt.  When a tragedy strikes one family, it strikes all of us.

So let’s resolve to be there for each other.  Let’s love each other, and care for each other, and pray for each other.  Even if you don’t know what to say, just show up.  Be there.  Not just today, but in the days and weeks and months to come.  Let’s love each other every chance we get.