Where Was God When...?

• Second Sunday of Lent
with 2 Samuel 12:15b-23, the child of David and Bathsheba dies

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• Current Bible reading plan, 2 Samuel 10-19 Several chapters in life of King David.  I was reminded of Kind David's humanity. Sinless he was not. He made some bad choices, choices that caused rifts between him and God, choices that brought suffering to himself and to others. He was human. And he made good and godly choices at times. He was human. He was in need of God's grace, and he was sometimes the vessel of God's grace as well. May we be vessels of God's grace.

• On October 2, 2006 the nation reeled at the horrific news of a school shooting in Lancaster County PA. Ten girls were shot. Five survived, five were killed, and the shooter took his own life. Unspeakable tragedy.

Not only did the nation reel at the shooting, they reeled at the response of the Amish community. The Amish community not only offered forgiveness almost immediately, but they comforted the shooter’s family that day and eventually set up a fund to provide long-term care for the shooter’s wife and three children.

People around the nation and the world wondered
Where was God,
How could God let this happen,
Why didn’t God stop this?

And the Amish themselves respond:
God was present during the whole thing.
See how God was active…
See what God did in the midst...

• Imagine the inner struggle going on in the shooter's mind. Soul. Torn between pain and the right thing. I can imagine the spirit of God pleading with him at each step of the way, Don't do it. Don't take out your hurt on these others.

• More than a dozen were saved before the shooting began. Of 30 or so people initially in the school building, 20 or so were released. The Amish credit God.

- Of the ten girls who were shot, five survived.
By the grace of God, only five died.

- The shooter had supplies consistent with sexual assault,
but the Amish will say that God prevented any of the girls from being sexually assaulted.

- The shooting occurred in a community that turned the spotlight onto forgiveness and gave the world an example of living in God.

- The shooting occurred in a community that extended grace and compassion to shooter’s family. They were vessels of God's grace.

• People frame tragedy through theology, and the Amish taught the world an incredible lesson in their response to a man’s sickness.

Also, in their forgiveness, they teach us something about grief.

Bitterness not allowed to fester. Healing is effected.

• Two things about the shooter: he said in suicide note he was afraid of molesting again. He was also angry at God that his firstborn, a daughter Elsie, died shortly after her premature birth, 9 years prior.

• Our scripture reading today shows another sick broken man (David lusted after Bathsheba, raped her, and then killed her husband Uriah). David also grieved the death of a child, but without cursing God. While the infant lived, he was sick, and David fasted and prayed, fasted and prayed. And when the child died, David cleaned up, worshiped God, and ate.

That part of the story perhaps you have been familiar with.

What I had not done before was question Wait a minute, God took the life of an innocent infant because of the sin of the infant’s father, and that is not right!

• Several responses to that.

- People frame tragedy through theology. Perhaps the story of David was told in such a way that emphasized sovereignty of God no matter what, and obviously if the child died it was because of the father’s sin. Like the friends say to Job. While that explanation may be so, I still find it abhorrent.

• God is beyond understanding. God is not like people. My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8).

God is patient, not wanting any to perish,
but to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

In all things God works for good, for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Finally, where this event fails to effect redemption, there’s another biblical event which demonstrates the ultimate power of God and willingness and desire to forgive: God’s son Jesus Christ is an innocent son (Son of David!) whose death actually brought about forgiveness, and did so once and for all (John 3:16, Hebrews 10).

I lift my eyes to the hills. From where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1-2

• Hymn 142 If Thou but Suffer God to Guide Thee
words and music by Georg Neumark, Germany, 1657
Georg son of a tailor. G was traveling away to attend university, father had sewn prayer book and money into lining of his clothing. G was robbed of everything he had, but the hidden money remained. G didn’t have enough to get where he was going, but he comes across a family in a town that hired him as a tutor. He gets on his feet. Gives God the credit for guiding him through peril.

2 Samuel 12:15b-23 (NRSV)

The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became very ill. ¹⁶ David therefore pleaded with God for the child; David fasted, and went in and lay all night on the ground. ¹⁷ The elders of his house stood beside him, urging him to rise from the ground; but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. ¹⁸ On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead; for they said, “While the child was still alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us; how then can we tell him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.” ¹⁹ But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, he perceived that the child was dead; and David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.”

²⁰ Then David rose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes. He went into the house of the Lord, and worshiped; he then went to his own house; and when he asked, they set food before him and he ate. ²¹ Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while it was alive; but when the child died, you rose and ate food.” ²² He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me, and the child may live.’ ²³ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” ò