291. When Suffering Makes No Sense - In Response to Big Church Festival Tragedy

[00:00:09] Hi friends, welcome to another episode of Making Disciples. My name is Chris and I am your host. Hey, welcome back to a new term. Well, a lot has happened over the summer as some of you who listen regularly will know. Becky and I and the family packed up our home. We lived in East London for 16 years and we packed up our home and we grieved and left the church that we were able to revitalize in 2010.

[00:00:39] We planted and then we've now moved to Birmingham. We are in Erdington. There's a story to tell. There's more to come on that. But I get to minister now in Birmingham and as part of relocating we moved into a house. And the house we moved into doesn't quite have the room we needed. My wife Becky, she needed an office.

[00:01:05] I needed a place to record podcasts and all the video stuff that I might do. And the long short of it really is moved into the loft. Moved into the loft and boarded it out and I have now got my own upper room. So up here in the loft we've got the upper room and as I look out the window I can see the Aston Villa football ground. Which some people will absolutely love and others will absolutely hate. But it's an amazing view over the city of Birmingham.

[00:01:35] It's just amazing to kind of look out. Right now it's a beautiful sunny afternoon. There with Aston Villa ground. Got all these housing estates around us. Quite a lot of trees. It's quite amazing. But yeah here in my little upper room I get now to work and record my podcast. So welcome to the upper room. This wasn't the episode that I was planning on putting out today. So let me just explain. There is an episode that I recorded which will re-edit.

[00:02:05] It will come out in the next couple of weeks. This isn't the episode that I plan to put out. But just over the last couple of weeks there's been an event that kind of rocked the Christian world. An amazing conference for those that listen from outside of the UK. This amazing conference. A Christian festival in the UK called Big Church. It used to be a Big Church Day Out. It's now a Big Church festival. And on the day that it started the Friday.

[00:02:35] There was a tragedy. And Pastor Robert Guenco sadly lost his life as a huge sign that welcomed you to the event. In the weather it was very, really windy. Blew down and a number of people were injured. But Robert, Pastor Robert lost his life. And Big Church Day was paused.

[00:03:04] And then eventually it was cancelled before the end of the day. A whole stream of reasons why it needed to be cancelled. It was the right decision to make. A difficult one. My family were there. My kids were there. My mum was there. And everybody got really excited to go. Daisy had saved up her money to get a ticket. I was really looking forward to hearing the bands that were going to play. She'd been saying for months how excited she was to go to Big Church.

[00:03:31] And then before it really kicked off, a tragedy hit and the sign fell. And Pastor Robert lost his life. And what ended up happening was, so many of us online, I was at home and we heard that they'd all been sent back to their accommodation. And your mind starts spinning, doesn't it? You know, what's gone on? What's gone on? And then you found out what went on. And your heart just goes out for the family. But there was a question that really emerged. And it emerges all the time.

[00:04:01] But it emerged. And I think it emerged for us in the UK because we've not really seen tragedy within the church in this way. That's affected so many people in one foul moment. And the question that emerges and is emerging all over the world all the time is why does suffering happen? When suffering sometimes it just makes no sense. What do we do with that?

[00:04:31] And what ends up happening is we go, well who's to blame? Who's to blame? Who can we, who can we put a finger on and say that's their fault? It's their fault this happened. And of course within the church, the fault is, you know, well it's God's fault because God, God could have stopped this at any time and God didn't stop this. So it's, it's, it's gotta be God's fault, isn't it? So what do we do with that? What do we do when suffering makes more, no sense?

[00:04:58] What, what do we do when somebody who loves the Lord, loses their life in that way? Where do we park that? What do we do with that? How do we process that? And of course the family are processing it one way as you, as you would expect. And then the Christian landscape is processing that in a very different way.

[00:05:25] So I just wanted to say, you know, we must hold the family in prayer. What a horrendous tragedy. What a horrendous tragedy. And what was really interesting, just a total side note, what was really interesting, you know, we all found out on the Friday what was going on. We're at home. Well, on the Saturday morning, this is just amazing. Numbers of Christian conferences across the UK.

[00:05:50] So you've got people like Spring Harvest, which I'm a part of, New Wine, Awaken and others. Actually we hopped on to a Zoom calls on the Saturday morning at 10 o'clock and we were praying together. And because for us, when one Christian conference goes through something like that, our hearts break. Because we just know the impact.

[00:06:14] And, you know, any Christian gathering that's in the UK who, you know, so was playing out, you know, you can't help but go, gosh, you know. That could have been any conference that could have had a tragedy just like this. Your heart goes out as we turn to prayer. And so just to bring encouragement, isn't it? I just think it's amazing that the Christian landscape, the Christian conference landscape as well. We're just so out for one another.

[00:06:42] We want to see people from Big Tears, David's tent, John and his as well. People just want to cheer each other on. And when tragedy hits like that, your heart breaks. So, you know, let's be praying for the family. But what I want to just tackle today is something around this question of when suffering makes no sense, what do we do? How do we process this? Who is to blame? Is blaming the right thing to do or is there something else?

[00:07:09] So that is exactly what I want to explore this evening as I'm recording this. You'll be hearing this in the daytime. But this is exactly what I want to be exploring today. So I hope you find this interesting. Interesting, hopeful, encouraging and reflective and thoughtful. That's exactly how I hope you might engage with this episode. So friends, welcome to Making Disciples. New season, new location for me as I'm recording.

[00:07:40] And let's dive in as we take a look at and a thought on when suffering makes no sense. So let's dive in and take some time to reflect and think about this topic of when suffering makes no sense. The central question, I guess, is this.

[00:08:05] Why would God allow a pastor, you know, a good man, somebody who served the Lord diligently, carefully? So why would God allow a pastor who was gathering with thousands of other Christians to worship? Why would he take a pastor like that and allow him to die suddenly in a random accident? Why would God do that?

[00:08:34] God is capable of seeing all things. Why would he allow this? And I think one of the things you'll see as we go through this episode, I really struggle when people give simplistic answers to complex questions and then they just don't connect. You think, God, that means nothing to me. That doesn't work for me. Or that doesn't answer anything for me.

[00:09:00] You've left me feeling that there's an even bigger gap now. And so sometimes these huge questions, there's huge answers. You know, there's big, big things to, you know, lots to think about. It's not simplistic. So we often want an explanation, don't we? But Christianity gives us something deeper. What Christianity doesn't do is give us a straight answer to these questions.

[00:09:25] But actually what Christianity does is Christianity, our faith gives us a way to face suffering when we do not have an explanation. Friends, there is no explanation to what happened here. This was a tragedy. And therefore we go, well, what's the answer? The answer is, well, there isn't an explanation.

[00:09:49] But what Christianity gives us is something much deeper, a way to face suffering when we do not have the answer. So there's five things I'm just going to reference, talk about, mention in this episode today. So let's jump in. Number one, some suffering genuinely makes no sense. We want everything to be in boxes. We want them to be nice and tidy and easy.

[00:10:18] We want to try and say, well, actually, one plus two, well, that equals three. So dot, dot, that is this, that is this. Actually, friends, it doesn't work like that. Some suffering genuinely makes no sense. And the unsettling thing is how ordinary random things like this are. This is ordinary. People have experienced tragedy like this every single day.

[00:10:45] It's a part of the landscape in the world that we live in. I guess we'll talk about that in a minute a little bit more. It's quite unsettling, isn't it? It is unsettling that tragedy can hit at any time. And it doesn't have to make sense. There could be no sense to it at all. He wasn't doing anything dangerous. He was simply walking through the festival.

[00:11:12] He wasn't expected to die. There was no warning. It really makes no sense. And this is the kind of suffering where we end up asking this question, why did God let this happen? God could have done anything in that moment to intervene and to stop it from actually occurring.

[00:11:40] Friends, we instantly want a reason. We instantly want to know why this happened. Why did this occur? Was it God's will? Was it spiritual attack? Well, actually, this is interesting. So one of my experiences is very often when tragedy occurs and there's no clear reason, we can hyper-spiritualize and go, well, actually, it must be a spiritual attack. Actually, sometimes tragedy is a spiritual attack. There's more going on.

[00:12:10] There's something sinister going on. And friends, there were other times where there's nothing sinister going on. It was just a tragedy. It went wrong. They veered off the road or something fell or something happened. Sometimes these things make no sense. And it's not spiritual attack. It's just kind of the chaos of the world that we're in. So people say, was it God's will? Was it spiritual attack? Was it God teaching us something?

[00:12:39] We like to be able to say, oh, God must be teaching us something. There's a reason this happened. God's teaching us something. Friends, sometimes God is not teaching us something. This is tragedy. Was there a purpose behind it? Did God have a reason? Did God have a purpose? If we can find a way that God might have a purpose for doing something, then at least it gives us an answer. Friends, sometimes there was no purpose behind something. It is just a tragedy.

[00:13:10] But sometimes the most honest Christian answer is this. I don't know why this happened. It's just a horrible tragedy. And I guess I want to just warn us and tell us to be careful about trying to diagnose why something happened. God must have done it. God's got a reason that there's something that God knew that we didn't know and he allowed it. Or, you know, it was a spiritual attack.

[00:13:39] God is actually showing us something, teaching us something. You know, there's a bigger purpose behind it. Friends, I can see what we're trying to do. We are trying to find a reason in the chaos. But friends, sometimes this is just a horrible tragedy. We don't know why it's happened. You know, God wasn't up to anything. There was not a spiritual battle happening in that sense. God was not trying to teach us something. There's a purpose behind it. Sometimes it's just tragedy.

[00:14:07] But everything that happens to us comes with an explanation we can get hold of. Sometimes there is no explanation because it is just chaos. So, number one, some suffering, genuinely, it makes no sense. And to try and make it make sense, actually I think it's being dishonest to the tragedy. There is no reason this happened. It is just horrific. There is no...

[00:14:36] So don't cheapen the horrible thing that has just happened by trying to find a reason in it. Sometimes there just isn't. Number two, Jesus refuses to give easy explanations. I don't know if you know the passage of scripture from Luke 13. Let me just read this to you. Now, there were some present at the time who told Jesus about the Galileans.

[00:15:02] It's a group of people whose blood Pilate had mixed with the sacrifices. So you basically, Pilate had murdered and killed a group of Galileans who come to the temple in Jerusalem to give sacrifice. Pilate has murdered them and their blood has got mixed with the blood of the sacrifice. Jesus answered, do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans? Because they suffered this way. There is always a...

[00:15:31] Why did this happen? Why is it that these Christians lost their life to Pilate? Their blood was mixed with the blood of the sacrifice. What was going on? Ah, well they must have sinned. They must have sinned and therefore God allowed it. You know, we try to look for a reason. Well, obviously they were bad people because God allowed it because they were bad people. No, they weren't bad people. These were Christians. These were people that loved the Lord. And Jesus, you know, turns to them. Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners?

[00:16:01] Do you think they were bad people? Worse than all the Galileans because they suffered this way. Because this is a group of people who have experienced tragedy. Do you think somehow they're worse than anybody else? I think there's an interesting thing here, isn't there, about death. If you die well, well you must have been a good person. And if you have a tragic death, well, well, something must have gone on because, you know, God would have given it. No friends, there's tragedy and Jesus is kind of showing.

[00:16:28] Do you think that these Galileans, there was something wrong with them because they've lost their life. And they've suffered in this way. What does he say? I tell you no, Jesus says. I tell you no. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Look, have they done something wrong that's meant that this has happened to them? No, but let me let you know, Jesus says, be careful.

[00:16:51] Be careful because if you don't repent, then something could happen to you in a very similar way. And then he goes on. All those 18 people who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them. Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?

[00:17:27] Do you think there's anybody else in Jerusalem that's not going to be guilty? Do you think they were more guilty than the others that lived in Jerusalem? Do you think there's anybody else in Jerusalem that's not going to be guilty? Do you think there's anybody else in Jerusalem that could have deserved that? Or do you think everybody else is better because it's not falling on them? I tell you, what did Jesus say? No! That's not what's going on here. No! No, but unless you repent, you too will perish.

[00:17:56] So, be warned, Jesus is saying to them, if you don't repent, then when you die, you're going to experience this eternal death. So here we have an incredible passage where, here is tragedy, and they were clearly putting it down. There was a reason why they died. They died because there was something wrong. Some, they were doing something. They were up to some shenanigans. And that shenanigans meant they were unclean, unholy, they were sinners, and therefore God allowed it to happen.

[00:18:26] And Jesus says, no, that's not how it works. So the natural question was probably, why them? Why had God allowed the tower at Siloam to fall on them? And Jesus rejects the idea that they were greater sinners or worse sinners, or they were sinners beyond others than everybody else, and that's why it happened.

[00:18:53] And same with the Galileans who lost their life to Pilate. Jesus just says, no, this isn't why it happened. Neither does Jesus say, look, I'm going to be honest, this is why the tower fell. He doesn't say something like, God was judging those 18 people. He doesn't say they died because of some particular sin.

[00:19:15] Instead, Jesus challenges the people by asking a question, do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? So Jesus challenges them, do you think they were more guilty? And I think there's a challenge to us. He says, do you think someone dies tragically because they deserve it? Because they've done something, they've got some secret sin in their life, they've got to say, well, it's fine for them to die because I know something you don't know. Jesus is going to say, no, that's not what goes on.

[00:19:43] In other words, what is it Jesus is saying? He's saying there's tragedy. There are just some things that happen in the world that are horrific. They're horrific situations. And sometimes they just answer. So there's an important distinction here, isn't there? Jesus doesn't give an explanation for the tragedy. He gives us a way of responding to tragedy. Jesus is giving them a response. Come back to that in a sec.

[00:20:13] Jesus doesn't assume suffering means somebody deserved it. Jesus doesn't turn someone else's tragedy into a theological explanation. And Jesus let mortality confront us with the seriousness of all our own lives. He's saying to these people, you know, about a pilot killing these Galileans. And he's charging us like this is going to happen to you at some shape or form at some point in your life. You will lose your life. Repent.

[00:20:43] Repent and enter into what God is doing. So there's a real important distinction here. So Jesus doesn't give an explanation to the tragedy. He gives us a way of responding to the tragedy by looking at ourselves going, Gosh, if this happened to me, where am I right now? Where is my faith right now? Have I given myself to Jesus right now? So Jesus is giving us a response to tragedy. The third thing I want to say is this.

[00:21:11] Christianity doesn't explain suffering from a distance because God enters it. This is the uniqueness of the Christian faith. This is the uniqueness. Jesus enters in to the suffering. So we're going to move on from Luke 13 and just reflect on Christ, Jesus, what he has done on the cross. Our answer to this can't be simple. God has a plan. So don't worry about it.

[00:21:38] You know, you can't, oh, you can't simplify a tragedy and somehow say, well, God's got a plan. So it'll all be okay. Oh, I know what you're trying to say when you say something like that. But you're, you're achieving the tragedy. Sometimes we've got to sit and go, actually, this is shocking. This is a shocking tragedy. Christianity says God has entered human suffering himself through Jesus's life, death on the cross.

[00:22:09] And of course, we've got the resurrection as a part of the whole package. But Jesus enters into suffering with death, death on the cross. So Jesus experiences injustice, violence, betrayal, abandonment, bodily suffering, experiences death. So the cross tells us something profound. God is not indifferent to human suffering. He enters in, he gets his hands dirty and experiences the suffering for himself.

[00:22:38] So God doesn't stand outside of suffering as this detached observer from the heavenly realms. God enters in and the resurrection says suffering and death don't have the final word. God has entered into the suffering. He's holding the suffering, he's aware of the suffering and he's working out that suffering. And it's an important distinction. Redemption does not mean that tragedy itself was good.

[00:23:09] When Jesus died on the Good Friday, there was nothing good in terms of what happened to Jesus. The flogging, the crucifixion, the death, there was nothing good. It was horrific what happened to Christ on Good Friday. Now we look at that and go, well, actually something good came out of it. Well, that's fine. But it doesn't mean what Christ went through was not disturbing. I think it's one of the things.

[00:23:36] We overlook the tragedy, the horrific nature of Christ's death because we end up celebrating the resurrection. Oh, something good came out of it. So essentially, sometimes what we do is we're looking for the silver line on the rainbow. A silver line on the... What's the phrase there, isn't there? Silver lining? You know exactly what I mean if you don't Google it. But we look for the good to try and explain the bad.

[00:24:06] We don't need to say, it was good that this happened because God had a purpose. We can as Christians say this, this is terrible. And God can nevertheless bring redemption through it. God can do something with this, but it is still terrible. And I think that that is much more honest in terms of Christian hope. God can do something with tragedy, but tragedy is tragedy. It is horrific.

[00:24:35] What people can experience in a moment, in an instant, as their life is lost or the accident happens. It's tragic. And to try and find a silver lining, actually you can undermine how tragic something is. And I love that as Christians we can say this, Jesus' death on the cross is terrible. What he went through is terrible. The flogging is terrible.

[00:25:04] The death on the cross is terrible. We can also hold on to God has nevertheless, but can bring redemption from it. He can bring redemption, but he must never remove the fact that something is terrible. God can and will do something amazing, something redemptive through the death of Pastor Robert. But that does not in any way undermine the tragedy.

[00:25:30] And a number of things that I saw online were Christians who were basically trying to brush away the tragedy. So God will do something with this. God, something good will come out of this. And I was like, yeah, God, something good can come out of this. But don't overlook the tragedy. Number four, we don't get every explanation, but we do get a promise. I want to think about Job for a moment. Job is a great example. He lost his wife, his family. He gets covered in boils. He's got skin disease. He loses his home. He loses everything.

[00:26:00] And God never gives Job a neat explanation that he wants. And the book of Job is essentially Job looking for an explanation. His friends looking for an explanation of what he's gone through. And Job's friends try to explain suffering. And their theology is exposed as inadequate. It doesn't work. Everything that Job's friends try to say to explain it theologically doesn't work. Suffering is suffering. Sometimes faithful Christianity means being willing to say, I do not know.

[00:26:30] I just don't know. I can't see why this has happened. And we've got to look at it as it is without trying to say, oh, the evil one is up to something. Friends, the world is broken. And this always leads me to Romans chapter 8, verse 19.

[00:27:10] 22. Romans 18. Romans 18.

[00:27:33] Romans 18. Things are happening. The Christian response, friends, is this. We are waiting for Jesus Christ to show up to bring redemption. We are waiting for Jesus Christ to show up to bring redemption. Creation is groaning. And we live in a world that is not yet. It's not as God wants it. It's not as God intends it to be. Death, decay, suffering.

[00:28:02] All these are realities that we are living with. These tragedies. We are living between the resurrection and the new creation. So what do we actually say when somebody asks, why did God allow this? We don't know. We don't know why this particular thing happened. Why did God allow? I don't know. I don't know why he would have allowed this to happen.

[00:28:31] And to pretend that we know a reason why is foolish. It's foolish as far as I can see. We shouldn't blame the person who suffered. It's not their fault. You know, they've not done something wrong. We shouldn't call something good simply because God could redeem it. But neither do we have to believe that tragedy is the end of the story. You know, the Christian hope isn't everything happens for a reason that we can understand. That's not it. It's this. God is with us in suffering.

[00:28:58] God can redeem what is broken. And ultimately, God will defeat death. It's the now and not yet. We don't know. And it concerns me when Christians, we try to find the reason. We try to find an answer. Sometimes it simply is this. We don't know. We just don't know. And to try and pin it on something else or find an answer, it's foolish because it means we are not sitting with the weight of the reality of it. Actually, we don't know. There isn't an answer here.

[00:29:29] So, I just want to bring it down to this. I want to return to the Tower of Siloam for a second. And Jesus doesn't explain the Tower. He says, unless you repent, you too will all perish. He says that not as a threat, but as a confrontation with our mortality. We will all die. We will all lose our lives. Some of us will do that as old people. Some of us will do that losing our life to something like cancer, to sickness.

[00:29:59] Some of us will lose our life in a tragedy, a car accident, a bike accident. And you don't know. You just don't know. And Jesus says, unless you repent, you too will perish. He is allowing us to really go. Do you realize you are all mortal? And you're going to lose your life. And are you prepared for that? For me, it's a stark... Jesus is not giving answers to suffering. He's saying, look, suffering is happening.

[00:30:29] Towers are falling down. People are losing their lives. Have you repented? Have you got yourself right with God? Because that's the only thing that you can do. So perhaps the question isn't only why did God allow him to die. The question is this. Why does his death remind me? What does it remind me about the life that I have been given? What does it tell us about the life that we have been given? Friends, life is fragile. None of us knows how long we have.

[00:30:58] So don't waste the gift of today. Love people. Forgive. Follow Jesus. Bear fruit. And when suffering comes and we can't explain it, don't manufacture an answer that tries to wash it away. Tragedy reminds us that we are mortal people and we're going to lose our lives. But yet there is good news in Jesus Christ. That ultimately he wins. So friends, as Christians we get to sit with a mystery. We get to grieve honestly.

[00:31:29] We get to ask the Lord hard questions. And we get to hold on to Jesus. And so you understand Jesus' suffering. You understand the tragedy. You experienced it. You've seen it. My last thought is this. The Christian response to explicable suffering isn't that we know why it happened, but that we know who God is in the middle of it. And we know how the story ultimately ends.

[00:31:58] Friends, I hope you will join me in praying for the family of Pastor Robert praying for his church in Eastbourne. Please join me. Would you join me in also praying for Big Church Festival? There were stall holders. There were bands who were, you know, planning for a year to play at something like Big Church. If you're a young band, your entire year of gigs can come off the back of playing at something like that.

[00:32:26] You know, if you had a stall or if you wanted to cater it, like the knock on effect for people and their lives is huge. Can we be praying for Big Church Day, Big Church Festival, the organizers as they try to navigate this? I'm sure like I know we don't want to talk about finances at a time like this, but friends, as somebody who runs a festival, a conference, there'll be big questions now about the finances. You know, people ask for their money back and all of this stuff. Big questions about finances.

[00:32:54] And what we don't want is for something like Big Church Festival to be kind of knocked on the head, you know, can't run because of the financially stuck because of something that happened like this. Would you join me praying for Big Church? And I want to pray that they would be fruitful in the future, that in the years to come, they would have amazing years,

[00:33:14] that God would use them and that site and use the bands that were playing and the stall holders, you know, all of it. We're going to pray that God would continue to use it. So let's just pray for God's provision, his presence, his healing, his peace. Of course, we've got to be praying as well for those that saw it. There's trauma, PTSD, those that were on the site, on site when it happened. You know, it's horrific to see something like that happen, you know, you sleepless nights.

[00:33:44] Let's be praying. Let's be praying for, and let's not move on for those of us that weren't there or those of us that didn't directly experience it. Let's not move on. Let's pray. Let's be praying for the church that is grieving, struggling, wondering, lots of questions. Lots of young people who saved up their money to go to this thing and then got kind of sent home the first night. Pray for them.

[00:34:09] For the young people that have been brought by friends who were hoping that might respond to Jesus as it went home. Pray for them. Friends, bless you. And big topic has come back on and I'm sure I've not covered as much as I really could. But what I wanted to do was give you some of the thoughts that were on my mind, particularly coming from this Luke 13 passage and the Tower of Siloam. Friends, until next time, grace and peace. Have a blessed week and I will catch up with you soon. Bye.