The Why of Jesus

Our men’s group is reading “Is God Really in Control? Trusting God in a World of Hurt” by Jerry Bridges. It deals with our response when adversity hits, the Whys that arise when we go thru hard times. It seeks to have the reader look at God’s character.A good book overall that is worth reading.

Behind the question, “Why did this happen to me?” (or as an accusation, “Why did You allow this to happen to me?”) often lie the more basic questions that test our foundations, whether or not God is sovereign and whether or not He is loving. We usually ask the question in relation to ourselves personally, “Is God sovereign in my particular situation?” and “Does God really love Me?” If doubt is allowed in here, spiritual growth is stopped; life in Christ becomes confusion.

The Lord Jesus asked many questions of His followers and the crowds, many Why questions: Why are you anxious about clothing? Why are you so fearful? Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Why do you not understand My speech? There are many more and they are always rhetorical, Jesus already knows the answer to His question. All the Why questions are like this, except one: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27)

To be forsaken, to be apart and alone from the loved one, truly is heartbreak. For the Lord Jesus, heartbreak is magnified as shortly before His death, He testified, “He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” (John 8) And it’s true, everything Jesus ever did always answered to the pleasure of God, was according to the will of God. Even the cross, “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush Him, putting Him to grief,” or “It pleased the LORD to bruise Him. . .” (Isaiah 53) How much sorrow is found on the cross in Jesus’ why?

The Old Testament story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 speaks so clearly of the sacrifice of Christ and the love of God; that a father would willingly sacrifice his son. But that story differs in that there is a substitute for Isaac in the end. Another difference is that on the way Isaac cries out, “My Father!” and Abraham answers, “Here am I, my son.” At the cross, there is no answer to Jesus’ why. The other side of the heartbreak of Jesus’ why, is the heartbreak of the Father in the silence.

We will never understand or ever enter into the depths of what happened between the Father and the Son at the cross. Our darkest days and deepest wounds do not compare to the mystery of what the Father and Son sacrificed at the cross.

This is truly good news for us, we need not know death in this way. . . the awful abyss and separation. Hebrews 2 says “But we see. . .Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” For us, there is the promise and invitation of abiding. . . of being alive to God in Christ, never separated. In Matthew’s account, Jesus last words to His disciples, some of whom still had questions and doubts, were, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” And the testimony of Paul, as one who was tested like few others, was “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. . .” (2 Corinthians 4)

There is in the Lord Jesus a living fellowship in God that can withstand all the temptations and opposition of this world. May we find in Christ the answer to all our questions as we walk in this world. So often our questions burrow and fester and ruin our foundation. May our Whys be replaced with “Here I am, ready to do Your will, O Lord,” so that we embrace all that God leads us into with joy, rather than merely endure things until they are over. May the Spirit make these things true in us as we follow Christ.