The
righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away,
and
no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death. (Isaiah 57:1-2)
Here is the reality around us: Barbara, a young missionary wife and her two young girls are waiting deep in the African bush for their husband and papa to come home. Instead, two African pastors come to visit. They are quieter than usual. They seem to know something. Shortly, the phone rings, and she understands why the pastors are there - her husband of 7 years, she hears, is dead. A few hours later on another continent, a mission representative knocks on a door. Two parents, who had pled with their 19 year-old daughter not to go to Africa, learn that she too is dead - only 2 days after they had bid her farewell. A similar scene is repeated some hundreds of miles away as another family learns that their 46 year-old daughter and twin sister has been killed, ending 16 years of service in Chad. All three of them – Rudy, Barbara’s husband, Sandra the 19 year-old, and Kathrin were killed senselessly – crushed to death in their vehicle by a speeding bus on a sharp curve in central Chad. Had they arrived at that curve half a second later, they would be alive. But, no, in a seemingly capricious twist of fate, they are dead. Rudy and Kathrin were our dear friends, and we grieve for them. We weep for Barbara and the little girls who will grow up never knowing Rudy. We weep for Kathrin and Sandra’s parents and siblings. This is the hard, tragic reality of the world. It is the reality of missionary service in Africa. And given half a chance, it is this hard reality which would accuse theology with the bitter taunt “What kind of God can allow this?” The accusation is, of course, poorly put – the death of our friends is prejudiced as bad, and God is prejudiced as negligent. But what if we call reality’s bluff? What if we said “Ok, here’s reality – what kind of theology would it take to make sense of it?” Such a theology would call into question much that we take for granted. It would have to ask: What if being dead really is better than being alive? What if being dead really isn’t being dead at all but being alive in a different dimension of reality? What if this other dimension of reality is really a lot better than this one? What if God intends that we should not spend a minute longer than necessary in this tragic dimension? What if, in the hands of God, every tragedy in this dimension is turned to our everlasting benefit? They may seem far-fetched, but these suppositions would make sense of the death of our friends. In fact, historic Judeo-Christian theology answers a resounding “yes” to each of them – at least for certain people. After Rudy’s death, Barbara made a remark to the effect “We knew the risks when we came.” Indeed, we all know the risks of Africa, and yet we go. We go precisely because we DO answer these what-ifs with a Biblical “yes”. Quite simply, with such a theology, we can afford to put ourselves in harm’s way. We can afford to be reckless with a holy recklessness. We can afford to live in a place where insane bus drivers careen around curves and crush us; where our children die from appendicitis because the hospitals are too far away; where our wife dies from a disease no-one has ever heard of; and where a man can minister for 40 years and be stabbed to death only weeks before his retirement. All of this has happened to colleagues we knew personally in Chad. The purists will be pleased to know that we did do our theology first, and decided to live with the dangers of Africa second. And with such a theology, we can look at the tragic death of our friends square-on, and then go back to Africa, as we shall, on the 20th of October. For
all the saints who from their labor rest, who
thee by faith before
the world confessed, thy
name, oh Jesus, be forever blessed. Alleluia, Alleluia. (William
How, 1864)
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