Goodness in Our Midst

Mark 5: 21-43

21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. 22Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ 24So he went with him.
Some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” 36But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ 37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ 40And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ 42And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Sometimes the Gospels can be confusing to our hearts when they tell of Jesus performing miracles such as healing the sick and raising the dead. Too many of us have been in the position where we have prayed desperately for Jesus to touch and heal us, or someone we love, and healing doesn’t come. If a child or a partner dies, we cannot understand, in our agony, why death is allowed to take the ones we love. Is it Jesus’ will that a child should die? Is it his will that a spouse should die? Is it his will that people endure long-term sickness and physical pain?

If we say, “No, it was not his will.” then what happened? Is he in control of life and death or not? Was it our faith that was at fault? Was it too weak? Did we not believe hard enough, even though we know we desperately wanted to believe strongly enough to move God’s hand?

If we say, “Yes, it was his will that a person should suffer or die,” it makes him seem to be a capricious, harsh, cruel and arbitrary God, one who willfully sends suffering to his people, a God we could come to fear and hate and perhaps reject.

I think the problem lies in our daring to say anything at all.

C.S. Lewis, one of the most respected theologians of modern times, expressed a very startling idea about God in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. The children, Lucy, Susan and Peter, are being taken to see Aslan, who typifies Jesus in the Narnia series. Before setting out on the journey to find Aslan, they are trying to find out who he is:

“Is – is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not! I tell you he is the King of the Wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king I tell you.”
“I’m longing to see him,” said Peter, “even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point.”

I read the Narnia series first as a child and then many times since and I still get the shivers at how C.S. Lewis expressed deep theological and contemplative truths in these simple stories. Since my childhood I have had the words of the beaver impressed upon my mind, “Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” Real faith is a deep belief that God is good, not because he always does what we want but because he always does what is…good.

We are human. We are limited. We live in an incomprehensible universe and we cannot see one day ahead; we cannot even see one minute ahead. It is so natural to want God to be a safe God, a God who follows our plans and who is predictable. We want to know there are ways to pray and believe which will always procure our desired results and keep us from hurt and sorrow. We want to know these things because we are small and we are traveling in an alien land. We are often scared to death even when actual death is not staring us in the face.

Are we honestly open to the goodness of God? Can we believe that his goodness is not what brought death and suffering into the world? Are we able to believe so strongly in God’s power and goodness that we are willing to risk abandoning our limited ideas of what we think should be happening and trust that what is happening is soaked in his goodness?*(see note at end) His gracious goodness. Yes, he has the power to heal, to raise the dead, to calm storms, part seas and move mountains and at times he inserts himself very obviously into our lives and shows us these wonders. And other times he does not. Why? Because he is Good. He cannot do anything else than what he does because he knows eternities and universes and eons of consequences, effects, repercussions and results. Whatever he chooses to do, he does because he is Good, because he can do nothing but good and because he loves us in a way we will never comprehend. We will never fully understand unconditional love that is not a love that always gives in to what we want but a love that never fails to lead us to himself.

For God, “good” is not a label or an adjective. It is who he is. And if what happens in our lives causes us pain and suffering, he does not abandon us or hide in the shadows. In his goodness he becomes one with our pain. The word Compassion means ‘to suffer with’ and he is always one with our suffering; we cannot separate him from it. There is absolutely no space between our pain and his.

No one can say to us, “Just believe and whatever you desire most, God will do it.” But what Goodness does say to us is, “Just believe and whatever God does is what you will desire the most.”

* “Bonum est difusivum sui.” – a latin tag meaning “It is the nature of goodness to diffuse itself (spread over a large area)” or “The good capable of spreading, spreads to those capable of receiving it.”