Why Do Bad Things Happen?

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Twenty-five years ago this week, there were a lot of anxious people, especially in America.

I remember that morning—probably shouldn't admit this, but I was playing hooky from school. I was a senior in high school, and senioritis came on a little early since it was still Fall semester. I was playing video games while listening to the radio, when the news came over the radio that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. And I thought, "What?!”

I thought maybe a little Cessna or something had had a malfunction, or something. So I turned to the news on the TV, and no—it was something major. And about 30 seconds later, the second plane hit. And I remember sitting there in stunned silence, trying to process what I had just witnessed. Had the pilot been trying to figure out what was going on and somehow missed that there was a building in front of him?

Then Tom Brokaw's voice came across the airwaves: "Someone has declared war on America." And it clicked. It made sense. As we continued to watch in the following hours, reports came in of an attack on the Pentagon, and a plane that had crashed in Pennsylvania, potentially on its way to the White House.

And our world got turned upside down. People flooded to church that Sunday because they wanted an answer. They wanted to know what was going on.

We can normally ignore those kinds of things. We can keep the anxieties in our life confined to just the small things. But every now and then, the big things intrude in our face—whether it is a terrorist attack, or Pearl Harbor, whether it is in the hospital room when the doctor gives us the news, or the phone call telling us that a beloved family member is no longer with us.

Then it is in our face, and it is unignorable, and we have that question: why do bad things happen? Which is what is behind anxiety, because we do not want those bad things to happen. And so it is not just "why do bad things happen to good people," it is simply "why do bad things happen?" And the Bible tells us it rains on the just and the unjust alike—or, maybe more appropriately for our past few weeks, it does not rain on the unjust and the just alike.

And the short answer is that bad things happen because of sin. We are told this all the way back in Genesis chapter 3—this is where death enters into the world. And bad things are just expressions of death. Illness is just death prolonged.

We try to stave off death. We try to do everything in our power, which leads to our worries, which leads to our anxieties. "What will I eat? What clothes will I wear?" Now, back then, you maybe had two sets of clothes. If a person from Jesus' time walked into your closet, they would think you were the richest person in the world, with all the clothes that you have today. So it is not "what am I going to wear," as in "what's popular, what's cool, what's clean?"

I remember not having to worry about food, because my parents would make whatever dinner was. And then you get to college age and move out on your own, and if you want cereal at 10:00 at night for dinner, you can have cereal at 10:00 at night for dinner.

And then you get married, and it turns out that sometimes your wife wants cereal at 10:00 at night for dinner as well, and you are like, "Yeah, this isn't that bad." But then you have kids, and kids don't want to be hungry until 10:00 PM. They want food now! And you have to feed them now, and you have to plan out your meals. And so, "What will I eat, and what will I drink?" And at first they eat everything, and then they become picky eaters, because they do not like the same foods that you like. And I love my kids, but they are the sharpest food critics I know.

Coming back to the point, why do bad things happen? There is sin in the world, and there is going to continue to be sin. God knows what we need for this life—this is what Jesus tells His listeners.

God knows. "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and those things will be added to you." See, we confess this all the time—we teach this, that God has created us and that God sustains our life. That every good gift comes from God. Good government is from God. Clothes are from God. Food is from God. Family that watches over us and takes care of us is from God. Our church family is from God. He does these things because He knows what we need to live, and we need those things to live.

But what we cannot do is save ourselves.

God does not want us focused only on this side of eternity. Not that this side of eternity is unimportant, or that we should become disinterested in it, but there is an eternity waiting for us. And so, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. In other words, seek first the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Seek first God’s answer to why bad things happen. And that answer is the cross, where an expiration date is given, and all sin is placed upon Him. All evil is placed upon Him, and He suffers death for all mankind. He suffers death for all creation, and lives in the forgiveness of God—that is His kingdom—for one day that timer will tick down and hit zeros across the board, and Christ will return, and eternity will come with Him.

When you have that peace, when you have that comfort, it changes who you are, and sometimes in dramatic ways—not just in the little things, but the big things. Have you ever heard of St. Blandina? I hope I'm pronouncing her name right. She was 15 years old. She was martyred in 177 A.D. She was a slave girl. Her master was a Christian and she was a Christian. What happened in those times was that the Roman authorities would arrest the whole household, and they would try to get the slaves to make up lies about their masters, promising that they would let the slaves go.

But St. Blandina, even though she was tortured, would not lie, and she would encourage the other slaves with her: "Don't give in to the torturers." And she would pray for her torturers in the midst of her torture. They got so fed up with her that they put her in an arena full of lions, and the lions lay down, and she pet them. And they said, "Well, this isn't working out." And so they burned her, and yet she lived, and she still prayed for them. So they put her in an arena with raging bulls, and if you look up her picture, a lot of times she looks like a cowboy at a rodeo, tossed into the air—and that is how she died; she was tossed. She became so revered that, to the vexation of the Roman authorities, Christians considered her greater than the emperor. A slave girl of 15 became a mother figure in the early church.

And the question is, why? With all these bad things happening to her, why?

Because she had the hope of Jesus Christ.

It does not matter if it's December 7th, or April 19th, or September 11th—we have the hope of Jesus Christ, and we know of a better thing to come. We know of the good. It does not matter if it's 5:45 p.m. and the kids are hungry, or it's 10:00 p.m., the kids are in bed, and you're hungry.

We have a hope in Jesus Christ. We know that bad things are going to happen, and we are going to use everything in our power to try to mitigate those bad things, because that is one of the callings that we have from God.

But we also know that in the cross of Christ, all evil is answered and shut up once for all. Death is locked away in the grave, and life springs forth. And that hope, and that peace, and that comfort carries us through—in the happy times, when we are not anxious, and in the deep, dark nights of the soul, when we wonder what in the world is going on.

Place your trust in the One who does not fail. Place your trust in the One who saves—the One who conquers death, the One who conquers sin, the One who conquers Satan. Place your trust in the Lord, and be confident of the life eternal He has given to you, even in the midst of the trials and tribulations of this world, which cannot be revoked, because they were bought with the precious blood of the Lamb.

In Christ's name, Amen.