“It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” – Jesus.
I was raised in a tradition that said bad stuff happened to bad people.
Whenever something in my life goes wrong one thought in the back of my head is “What did I do wrong? Am I suffering from someone else’s sin?” This theology would have worked well with the apostles view of God and the suffering of man. In the back of most of our heads is this view in some form. If someone is going through something, they or someone else must have done something to merit it. Right?
It is true that God can use sickness and disease as punishment. It happened to Herod in Acts 12:23. Paul told the Corinthians it was why some in their church had died. God uses suffering for refinement. This is the case with Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:7-10. This should make us stop and be retrospective. Recently I became pretty sick. My sickness will soon pass. Some guys I know of are going through rough bouts with cancer and may or may not survive. I have coworkers waiting for their parents to die within the week. The list unfortunately goes on.
Yet, sickness, disease, and suffering can also be for something we just don’t really tend to believe. All these things can be for God’s glory to shine through us.
Some think of this as a Old Testament problem with people like Job and his suffering. Reality is this, suffering reached in to Jesus day and in to our day for the same reason it occurred in Job’s day. We live in a sin ravaged world. More importantly though Jesus answer transcends the human angle and draws us directly before God. “That the works of God might be displayed in him.” This is a conditional response on four things occurring that (a) God, (b) might be, (c) displayed, (d) in him.
First (a) God has to be directly or casually part of it not just indirectly casual in his sovereignty of all things. Some suffering is directly allowed because of God’s divine purpose to display his glory to be manifested to all. It may be healing. It may be in the dignity of how the person suffers well. It may be to show us our great weakness and need for God. (b) Might implies that something may or may not occur. God knows the details better than the person going through it. It is hard to accept but God’s ways are not our ways. (c) When God is casually in it whatever happens displays his glory. It is made manifest. People notice. (d) In him means it happens in someone’s life that people know.
The blind man when he was healed made God’s goodness manifest to all those around him. God got glory in the midst of personal tragedy. It was made manifest to the religious leaders. It was made manifest to the man and it led to him worshipping God in Jesus.
The proper question should be “what is God doing in this?” Not who sinned.
ADDITION: Some words from Patrick McConnell on Merciful Contentment on his blog. Worth a click through. Some good words on Job from The Jakers.
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