Change of Plans for This Morning

I apologize for announcing one text and title for this message
and putting all that off until next week and going in a different
direction. Everything in me in the last few days has been moving in
another direction. Almost all my thinking and all my emotional
energy has been spent pondering and holding fast to the great
reality of God's sovereign goodness in the bitter providences of
our lives.

There are at least five things that have conspired to
crystallize what I believe God wants to say to all of us this
morning, but especially to mothers. First, Mother's Day every year
brings up the memory of my mother's death on December 16, 1974. It
was a bus collision in Israel, and a very strange thing that my
father sitting next to her lived. He was exactly my age when she
died.

Second, I have had to think and pray a lot about the reality of
$6.5 million instead of $9 million for our new educational
building. And I thank God for every dream and every sacrifice in
your hearts.

Third, Wednesday night's vote did not go the way I hoped it
would, and I have been steadying my heart with God's sovereign
goodness ever since.

Fourth, Christianity Today arrived in my mailbox on
Friday, and the cover story is about the debate over "openness of
God." The introduction says, "A few theologians are now teaching
that God doesn't know the future precisely because the future does
not yet exist. Thus, while God is very good at calculating the
odds, he still takes risks – especially in dealing with his
free creatures." It is a great sadness to many of us that the
leaders of our college and seminary do not see this unorthodox view
of God as serious enough to exclude from what will be promoted as
evangelical by at least of one of our faculty. And what makes the
matter relevant this morning is that Christianity Today is
exactly right to say, "These theological debates have enormous
implications for piety and pastoral care – especially for how
we respond to the tragedies that invade our lives"
(Christianity Today, vol. 45, no. 7, May 21, 2001, pp.
39-40).

Finally, what put me over the edge in planning for today was
reading the cynical Washington Post article in the
StarTribune yesterday (Saturday, May 12, 2001, Faith &
Values Section) about another mother who was killed, with her baby,
while sitting with her husband in a single-engine Cessna 185
floatplane over the jungles of Peru about four weeks ago. The
Peruvian Air Force mistook the missionary plane for a drug plane
and opened fire. Missionary Veronica Bowers, age 35, was holding
her seven-month-old daughter Charity in her lap behind MAF pilot
Kevin Donaldson. With them were Veronica's husband Jim and
six-year-old son Cory. The pilot's legs were shot and he put the
plane into an emergency dive and amazingly landed it on a river
where it sank just after they all got out. One bullet had passed by
Jim's head and made a hole in the windshield. Another bullet passed
through Veronica's back and stopped inside her baby, killing them
both.

How Do You Handle Bitter Providences?

So the question is: How do you handle the setbacks, the
disappointments, the abuses, the heartaches, the calamities, the
bitter providences of your life? And I ask it specifically to
mothers, because to be a mother is a call to suffer. When Jesus
looked for an analogy of suffering followed by joy, he said (in
John 16:21), "Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because
her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no
longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has
been born into the world."

To be a mother is a call to suffer. Not just at the beginning of
life, but also at the end. Simeon said to Mary, Jesus' mother,
"Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in
Israel, and for a sign to be opposed – and a sword will
pierce even your own soul" (Luke 2:34-35). Mothers suffer when
their children are born. Mothers suffer when children leave them
and go to the mission field. Mothers suffer when their children
die. Mothers suffer when their children are foolish. "A wise son
makes a father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother"
(Proverbs 10:1). To be a mother is a call to suffer. Oh yes, it's
more. But it's not less.

So what do we do? Do we go the way of openness theology to
handle the disappointments and heartaches and calamities of life,
and say with one popular writer, "When an individual inflicts pain
on another individual, [one should not] go looking for 'the purpose
of God' in the event . . . Christians frequently speak of 'the
purpose of God' in the midst of tragedy caused by someone else. . .
. But this I regard to simply be a piously confused way of
thinking."In other words, God had no particular purpose for taking
Roni and Charity Bowers and leaving Jim and Cory. Were all the
words of Elisabeth Elliot and Steve Saint and Jim Bowers at Roni's
memorial service a "piously confused way of thinking," and no true
ground for comfort and strength?

A Biblical Foundation

I'll tell you what they said in a moment. But first let me lay a
Biblical foundation, because in the end it is not the testimony of
man that settles us, but the testimony of God in his Word, through
Jesus Christ.

Consider two passages of Scripture, one from the Psalms, and one
from the Gospel according to Matthew.

In Psalm 105 we have an inspired interpretation of an inspired
Old Testament story, the story of Israel going down to Egypt
preceded by Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers. We
learn two crucial things from verses 16-17, "And [God] called for a
famine upon the land; He broke the whole staff of bread. He sent a
man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave." Notice two
things: the governance of God over natural calamities, and the
governance of God over the sinful actions of men. It says "God
called for a famine" – that is a natural calamity that came
on the world. And it says, God "sent a man before them, Joseph, who
was sold as a slave."

That was sinful of his brothers to do, and in that sinful act
God had a purpose – so much so that the psalmist called
their sinning God's sending – just like it
says in Genesis 50:20 (Joseph to his brothers), "As for you, you
meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring
about this present result, to preserve many people alive." When it
says, "God meant it," it says more than, "God used it." This is the
exact opposite of what openness theology teaches. God does have
good purposes (good intentions, good meanings) in the hurts that
others inflict on us. And we may and should take great comfort in
this sovereign goodness in the setbacks and disappoints and
heartaches calamities and bitter providences of our lives.

Then consider the words of Jesus on why missionary candidates
should not fear to go to the hard and dangerous places, and why
mothers should not fear to let their sons and daughters go –
or even take them. In Matthew 10:28-31 Jesus says to his disciples
to get them ready for suffering:

Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the
soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell. (29). Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not
one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. (30)
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. (31) So do not
fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

Notice three things. First, Jesus knows that people will kill
the bodies of his missionaries. This is going to happen. But, he
says, don't fear those who can only kill the body, and can't kill
the soul (verse 28). Second, he says that we don't need to fear
this hostility because no sparrow falls to the ground apart from
God. And you, his disciples, are more valuable than many sparrows.
So how much less will you be shot out of the sky apart from God!
God governs the flight of a sparrow, and God governs the flight of
arrows and bullets. This is the basis of every Bible story about
the victory of God. "The horse is made ready for battle but victory
belongs to the Lord" (Proverbs 21:31). Because bird flight and
arrow flight and bullet flight belong to the Lord. This is the
solid ground of our comfort in calamity: God's sovereign goodness
to all who trust him.

Testimony of Jim Bowers

Now listen to the testimony of Roni Bowers' husband at his
wife's memorial service – and words of Steve Saint and
Elisabeth Elliot. These testimonies don't increase the authority of
the Bible. But they do show the power of the Bible to sustain in a
way radically different from the way openness theology tries to
comfort.

Two weeks ago (April 27) Jim Bowers stood in front of twelve
hundred people in Calvary Church of Fruitport, Michigan and said,
"Most of all I want to thank my God. He's a sovereign God. I'm
finding that out more now. . . . Could this really be God's plan
for Roni and Charity; God's plan for Cory and me and our family?
I'd like to tell you why I believe so, why I'm coming to believe
so."

And then he gives a long list of unlikely events in and after
the shooting, and alludes to God's sending his Son to the cross.
Here are some of the key sentences that only those who trust in
God's sovereign care for his own will truly understand.
He said,
"Roni and Charity were instantly killed by the same bullet. (Would
you say that's a stray bullet?) And it didn't reach Kevin [the
pilot] who was right in front of Charity; it stayed in Charity.
That was a sovereign bullet. . . ."

He speaks of his forgiveness to those who shot at the plane.
"How could I not," he says, when God has forgiven me so?" Then he
adds, "Those people who did that, simply were used by God. Whether
you want to believe it or not, I believe it. They were used by Him,
by God, to accomplish His purpose in this, maybe similar to the
Roman soldiers whom God used to put Christ on the cross."

Testimony of Steve Saint

Steve Saint was at the memorial service. In 1956, when Steve was
a boy, his father was speared to death by the Auca Indians of
Ecuador. Steve came to the microphone and looked down at Cory, the
six-year-old boy whose mother and sister had been killed.

Cory, my name is Steve. You know what? A long time ago when I
was just about your size, I was in a meeting just like this. I was
sitting down there and I really didn't know completely what was
going on. . . . But you know, now I understand it better. A lot of
adults used a word then that I didn't understand. They used a word
that's called tragedy. . . But you know, now I'm kind of an old
guy, and now when people come to me and they say, "Oh I remember
when that tragedy happened so long ago." I know, Cory, that they
were wrong.

You see, my dad, who was a pilot like the man you probably call
Uncle Kevin, and four of his really good friends had just been
buried out in the jungles, and my mom told me that my dad was never
coming home again.My mom wasn't really sad. So, I asked her, "Where
did my dad go?" And she said, "He went to live with Jesus." And you
know, that's where my mom and dad had told me that we all wanted to
go and live. Well, I thought, isn't that great that Daddy got to go
sooner than the rest of us? And you know what? Now when people say,
"That was a tragedy," I know they were wrong.

Then Steve Saint looked up at these twelve hundred people and
told them the difference between the unbelieving world and the
followers of Jesus. He said, "For them, the pain is fundamental and
the joy is superficial because it won't last. For us, the pain is
superficial and the joy is fundamental."

Words of Elisabeth Elliot

Finally, I mention what Elisabeth Elliot said to the family.

You wonder what God is doing, and of course, we know that God
never makes mistakes. He knows exactly what He is doing, and
suffering is never for nothing. . . . He has given to you, Jim, the
cup of suffering, and you can share that with the Lord Jesus who
said, "The cup the Father has given to me, I have received."

She ended with a poem by Martha Snell Nicholson (a "mendicant"
is a beggar):

I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne

And begged him for one priceless gift, which I could call my
own.

I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart

I cried, "But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my
heart.

This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou hast given
me."

He said, "My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to
thee."

I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt
sore,

As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and
more.

I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,

He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His
face.

That's where we have been in Romans 7. It isn't law-keeping that
justifies us before God. It isn't first law-keeping that sanctifies
us. It is the lifting of the veil so that we see Jesus for who he
is, dying in our place and rising again so that we receive him as
the treasure of our lives.

And if it takes a thorn to pin aside the veil – if it
takes disappointment and loss and heartache and calamity and bitter
providences – then, for Christ's sake, and for the sake of
our eternal joy seeing and savoring him, let it come. Amen.

Greg Boyd, Letters from a Skeptic (Colorado Springs:
Chariot Victor Publishing, 1994), pp. 46-47.

[2] All the quotes from the memorial service are taken from the
internet on 5-12-01,
http://www.abwe.org/family/memorials/service_michigan.htm