I was one of those kids that went to youth gatherings in jr. high and high school. In fact, I can remember every year one of the highlights was going to the Iowa District West Senior Youth Gathering in Des Moines for a weekend in the fall. Not only did I get to spend time with my best friend, but there was cool music, great speakers, and fun mission opportunities. All in all, it was always a good time. I can remember coming home from those gatherings as excited about God as I’d ever been. It seemed that Scripture made more sense, that Christian music was all I wanted to listen to, and that I could hear God speaking to me like never before. 
If you ever went to church camp as a kid, you probably know what I’m talking about. You spent an entire week immersed in God, reading your Bible, singing worship songs 3-4 times a day, praying, and learning all kinds of new and exciting things about what it meant to follow Jesus. So you went home “on fire” for the Lord. And maybe you even managed to maintain that same level of excitement and commitment for about a week or so… But we all know what eventually happened, don’t we? You forget to read your Bible one day and it turns into a month. You skipped morning or evening prayers. You lost interest in wrestling with questions of faith. And maybe you felt like God had left you. You asked questions like, “Why can’t I hear God like I did at camp?” and “Where is God now?”
Eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani? [Mark 15:34]
Regardless of whether it was a youth gathering, a camp, a concert or whatever, we’ve all had those “mountain top” experiences. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, we can admit that there are times when it is easy to believe in God and times when, well, not so much.
In case you didn’t know, one of the things I’m passionate about is EMS. My full-time career aspirations lay in EMS and fire service, and it’s something I’ve been doing part-time for 3 years now. When people find out that you’re in emergency medicine, one of the first questions they always ask is, “What’s the worst call you’ve ever had?” I always hestitate to answer. No doubt what they are expecting is something like they’ve seen on “Third Watch” or “Rescue Me”, a story of fire or car accidents or something like that. My worst call ever was nothing of the sort. I’m not a huge fan of talking about it, but in January of 2009 my partner Brad and I coded a 15 week old baby girl, who later died. Like I said, there are times when it is easy to believe in God and times when, well…
I would love to tell you that, more than a year later, I’m “okay” with it. The truth of it is, I’m not. It’s not one of those things that I think I will ever truly come to terms with. Babies aren’t supposed to die. This poor girl never had a chance to ride a bike, have a first kiss, fall in love, tell her parents she loved them or anything of the other things that make up a life. Never had a chance. I don’t think about it often anymore, but when I see so many people around me contributing so little to society and wasting the gifts given to them, I can’t help but wonder why this girl died and others live.
Just like any relationship, faith has its good days and its bad ones too. I’d count that cold January day as a bad one for me. The truth is that sometimes it feels like God is no where to be found, doesn’t it? And it’s not just in the face of physical death, it’s the people we lose to addiction, to decite, and to shame.
Ask yourself this quesiton: have you ever felt like their was more evidence for God’s absence than his presence?
Me too.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will cause all of my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion… There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back…” [Exodus 33: 19; 21-23]
I would love to be able to sit here and tell you why that 15 week old baby girl had to die and why all of the bad things that happen to people happen. The honest truth though, friends, is that I have no idea. What I have realized is that sometimes we don’t see God until he has passed by. In the moment of our grief and our brokenness, God is mostly certainly present, but more often than not it doesn’t feel that way.
I have to believe that God is not sitting by and watching his creation fall to pieces. I have to believe that in the moments when I would swear God is no where to be found, he is present in hidden ways. I have to believe that when we cry about death and brokeness that God cries along with us. Because if not, then this is all we have, and that is something I refuse to believe.
Why didn’t God reach down and bring that child back to life? Why weren’t we able to bring her back? Why? I honestly I have no idea.
What I’m considering now is that sometimes we don’t see God except after he’s passed by. I’ve been changed forever by what I’ve experienced and even though I can’t tell you what God is up to in my life, I’m trusting that one day I’m going to look back on that day and understand. I fully expect that, in this lifetime, I will come to understand what I am supposed to understand about that January morning. That doesn’t make it okay and it doesn’t make it any easier.
Our desire is to know exactly what God is up to all the time. Why can’t we see and hear God all the time? What possible good could come from the brokenness that you and I have experienced? In the face of the pain that we have all seen and see everyday, how can we possible believe that God even exists, let alone is on our side?
The answer, I believe, is resurrection.
“The story, the big story, of the Scriptures is not, ‘Hey, someday we all abandon this place,’ the story is ‘God has not abandoned this place,’ and in fact something new has begun to put this place back together. To renew this world, to redeem this world, to restore this world, to reconcile this world. To bring heaven and earth together here. The Bible begins here and the Bible ends at the end of Revelation, God takes up residence here… It’s about this world, the world that God loves, the world that God has not abandon.” – Rob Bell, “Resurrection”, a sermon from April, 04, 2010.
The Bible, the story of God and his people, tells us that the day the women went to Jesus tomb they found it empty. He is not here. The good news of the resurrection is not where you get to go when you die, the good news of the resurrection is that God’s restoration of this world has begun with declaration that everything you thought you knew about death and life has gone out the window. With the empty tomb God institutes a new world order, a creation that is has he intended, a world in which love wins. The good news of the resurrection is not “you are going…” the good news is, “God has come.”
It started with Jesus and it continues with us. Just as we can look around and see death, pain, and sadness, we hear stories of lives changed, of miracles happening, and of a God who has not given up on this world.
I recently had a conversation with a good friend who’s grandmother had passed away. He said to me, “It’s difficult now, but we know we’ll see her again.” I asked him a question that I’ve asked to many people, “Can you imagine going through this without knowing that? Without God?” He said back to me, “It would be impossible.”
Even in the midst of his sadness and grief, my friend understood that even though it felt as though God was distant, he was present.. and he knew that was better than no God at all.
I don’t have a good explanation for that baby girl’s death.
I do have an empty tomb.
He is not here. He is risen.
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