During church yesterday, I got a lot of food for thought about the recent hurricane that hit southwest Florida, and as hurricanes are wont to do, caused so much damage and loss of life. I often think when suffering comes upon the world in some catastrophic way, how prone we are to lament it’s happening, and rightly so. The Bible never embraces suffering as a positive moral good. Nor are we to respond in Stoic indifference, and just grin and bear it, but rather always look at it in light of the Creator God of the universe.
When it was apparent Hurricane Ian was heading our way, I thanked God (I Thess. 5:18), and prayed for those who were going to be impacted by it in big and small ways. I often think of the story of the tower of Siloam in Luke 13. Jesus uses these stories of apparently senseless suffering and death to tell us why such things happen. Some Galileans had been killed by Pilate in one, and in the other a tower fell on eighteen unfortunate people and they died. He asks if these people were worse sinners than those who did not die, and then says:
5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it.
Nothing happens by accident. As Christians, we believe in God’s providence, as David says in I Chronicles 29, that he is “the ruler of all things.” The Hebrew can be translated as to have dominion, or to reign. That includes weather events such as hurricanes.
We’ve been so indoctrinated by secularism and the word “nature,” that we are tempted to see creation as somehow “natural” and that it runs on its own. We’re even tempted to see hurricanes as merely weather events. You know, this high and that low, warm water and air, positive and negatives electrons, it all moves around, and you have a hurricane! Well, yeah, but that’s not the whole story. Jesus stilled a storm by his mere words (and freaked the disciples out!), and he is still sovereign ruler over all of his creation now, including hurricanes like Ian.
Early Tuesday morning I turned on my computer and looked at the hurricane tracker, it was heading directly at Tampa (we leave around 20 miles northeast), which was a bit disturbing. However, as the day wore on that tracker moved consistently south and east, and I thought maybe we’ll get off easy. That, of course means other people would not, and it landed about 100 miles south of Tampa, wreaking the havoc we’ve all seen on our screens. My prayer was and is for all those affected that they might take Jesus’ words to heart, and repent, realize life is terribly short, and there are far more important things than avoiding suffering, pain, and loss in this life. I hate suffering, pain, and loss as much as anyone, but God allows these things in our lives not to define us, but to refine us.
Paul in 2 Corinthian 4 (the text for today’s sermon) gives us the proper perspective when life throws its worst at us:
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light momentary affliction are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
English cannot do justice to Paul’s description of this eternal glory. He uses the Greek word from which we get hyperbole back-to-back to, so hyperbolēn eis hyperbolēn, and this very emphatic term means superlatively, beyond measure. And it’s ironic when you see the phrase “light momentary affliction,” and realize the extent of Paul’s suffering. You can find his horrific list of these in 2 Corinthians 11:16-33, and he wasn’t using hyperbole!
So, as in all things in life, the reason for hurricanes is to teach us how to trust God and proclaim his sovereign rule over all things for our good and his glory (Rom. 8:28). This is the reason we can give thanks in all circumstances as Paul commands, even when it’s very, very hard. We sing hymns in our church, which I love because that means we sing theology, which means they are about God and not me. We sang “God moves in a mysterious way” by William Cowper, and when life doesn’t seem to make sense, it’s a good hymn to mediate upon to keep our focus where it needs to be, upon Him:
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.
He plants his footsteps on the sea, And rides upon the storm.
Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds you so much dread,
Are big with mercy, and shall break, With blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace.
Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour.
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan His work in vain.
God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.
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