Why and How

I keep seeing honest, faithful people (or people who wish they were faithful; or who are resentful because they can’t see the sense in being faithful) asking this heartfelt question: “Why?”

“Why did God let that happen? God is supposed to be the All-Mighty; the All-Knowing; the General of the Heavenly Army, so why doesn’t God get up off his Celestial Throne and come down here and fix things?”

I have to confess, this question doesn’t make much sense to me.

There has never been a single moment in my life in which I was the least bit tempted to worship the kind of God who is separate from me. My single greatest aversion to that sort of God lies in my understanding that power cannot be exercised unless it is exercised in the favor of one thing over another. Power is always preferential.

It wasn’t until several people showed me a different picture of God that my resistance dissolved. It wasn’t until someone taught me a different way of reading Scripture that my heart softened, and my fear was relieved.

It wasn’t until I learned how to read between the lines; to connect all the stories together in one great consistent web of meaning; that I finally caught the beguiling scent of God, like a faint fragrance easing through an open window in the night— too delicate and haunting to ignore.

It wasn’t until I figured out that the picture of God as a divine despot is a pernicious lie, that suddenly everything fell into place. A god who rules from above and only intervenes when he receives an adequate bribe; or is sufficiently amused by human antics as we jump through all the flaming hoops he’s placed in our path; that god does not resemble in the slightest the God portrayed in Scripture.

I shake my head in bewilderment when people read a story of brutality, or tragedy, or desperation in the Bible, and instead of asking themselves what God actually does in such terrible circumstances, and reading on to find out; they stop dead in their tracks and start asking why God didn’t do something. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that God is already (and eternally) doing something, and that God would have to stop doing that consistent and endless thing in order to do something else instead.

We don’t seem to ever ask ourselves what would happen if God stopped doing the thing that God does, and started doing what we wish God would do instead.

I read a reflection today about the story of the Holy Innocents. The author, whom I know personally, was troubled and heartsick about the idea that God would protect the infant Jesus but not the other children who died at the hands of King Herod. Her poignant question was this: “Was God not able to save more babies?” She wonders why the story is even in the bible, and speculates that “perhaps (it) serves as a reminder of the brutality of the times the Christ child was born into.”

She uses the words “unpalatable” and “distasteful” to describe her reaction to the story, and goes on to say that she feels a kind of existential tension between faith and honesty.

She explores the ways that readers might deal with this tension regarding the ‘hard sayings’ and harsh stories in Scripture— asking if such harsh realities are “to be ignored” or “swept under the carpet.”

I was struck by her phrase, “the brutality of the times,” because on first reading, it seemed to me that she was implying that our times, modern times, are less brutal.

She talked about reading this story and looking around at her house “still full of lights and decorations to welcome the Christ child,” and feeling the incongruity of such an awful story coming in the midst of ease, comfort, and celebration.

I have to say, I don’t think that ‘our times’ are any less brutal than the times in which Jesus was born. I do think that I, the author of the reflection, and the readers she is trying to reach, are all living really privileged lives.

(It occurred to me that we, in our privilege, could easily identify with those who got the warning and escaped while others were ruthlessly slaughtered, but writing about that will have to wait for another day…)



Today I want to talk about what the point of this harsh story might be.

Instead of asking why God didn’t save the other babies,  I want to ask why God inspired the writer of Matthew’s Gospel to tell that awful story, and why it’s placed just where it appears in the narrative.

I think I know why. It foreshadows the crucifixion. It reminds us that God, our God of Love, doesn’t fight back. It reminds us that God lives in those slaughtered babies and their grieving, shocked mothers and fathers. It reminds us that God also lives in the murderers who killed them, and makes a home buried in old Herod’s black heart, as well.

This Gospel (as all of the New Testament) was written with the benefit of hindsight, years after the events it describes.

It is telling us that God cannot be the Love, Light, and Truth in which we all dwell and, simultaneously, also be the far-off Emperor sitting on a throne in the sky.

It just doesn’t work that way.

No, when the story in  Matthew’s Gospel tells us about those Holy Innocents, it’s reminding us that Jesus didn’t really escape; that he too was a slaughtered innocent.



It’s showing us how death is conquered by death.

It’s showing us that God is with us, that Love never dies.



It’s showing us that Light is buried deep within all of us—

even in every murderer, rapist, pedophile, terrorist, and hate-monger—

and that nothing can extinguish it.



It’s showing us that we all have the power to know the Truth.





That no matter what happens, no matter how awful—



God With Us lives on, and the Light shines in the darkness.







That’s how God is All-Powerful.



That’s how Love intervenes.



That’s how we know the Truth.