One day Jesus asked about a group of Galileans who were slaughtered with their sacrifices by the Roman governor, Pilate. Then he brought up a disaster where eighteen died when a tower collapsed in Siloam. Were these disaster victims worse sinners than those who were spared? Jesus answered his own question with a “no” (Luke 13:1-5). It was the same answer he’d given when his disciples inquired of a man blind from birth. Had the man or his parents sinned? “Neither,” Jesus told them. (see John 9:1-3)

Jesus’ words are unexpected. Most people want to believe that by behaving well as opposed to badly they have some control over the outcome of their lives. Instead, Jesus teaches that events are not necessarily the consequence of our own good or bad behavior. God has many reasons for why things happen: not just our goodness or badness. The world—and God’s purposes—are a bit more complex than we’d care to imagine.

Bad things can happen without warning and without reason and it isn’t because God is mad at you or loves you less than those who didn’t suffer that day.

When you’re driving down the freeway and traffic slows in front of you and you put on your brakes to stop, is it your fault when the person behind you doesn’t and plows into the back of your car? Of course not. You may drive carefully. That doesn’t make your neighbor drive carefully. Were you a worse sinner than the driver in the lane next to you who went on unscathed? How about that crack dealer who was beating up his girl friend a block away?

The New Testament book of Hebrews talks about the great people of faith. At the end of the listing, its author writes:

There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. (Hebrews 11:35-39)

Sometimes, in this life, it just doesn’t work out. After all, sooner or later, death claims all of us.
The author of Ecclesiastes records:

I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

But after the sad recitation in the book of Hebrews, it’s author did not stop with verse 39. Instead, he concludes with a bit of hope:

God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:40)

As Paul wrote:

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a human being. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:19-22)

The resurrection is indeed coming. For this reason, we do not lose hope.

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