After quoting Luke 13:1-5 in his book The Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul addresses the question “Why do innocent people suffer?” In light of the death of my friend Larry, and of Steven Curtis Chapman’s 5-year-old daughter, I thought perhaps now would be a good time to give an excerpt from this great book I’ve recently finished reading.

…The question is raised, “What about… the innocent people killed by the falling of the tower? Where was God in these events?” The question under discussion was: “How could God allow these things to happen?” The question is actually a thinly veiled accusation. The issue was, as always, how can God allow innocent people to suffer?

We can hear the implied protest in the question. The eighteen innocent people were walking down the street minding their own business. They were not engaged in playing “sidewalk superintendent.” They were not heckling the construction workers. They were not running away after robbing a bank. They just were “there,” at the wrong time and tin the wrong place. They suffered the consequences of a fatal accident.

We might have expected Jesus to explain it like this: “I am very sorry to hear about this tragedy. These things happen and there is not much we can do about it. It was fate. An accident. As good Christians you have to learn to accept the bad with the good. Keep a stiff upper lip. Be good Stoics! I know I taught you that the One who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. But that was a poetic statement, a bit of hyperbole. Do you realize what a difficult task it is for My Father to run the universe? It gets tiring. Every now and then He must take a nap. On the afternoon in question He was very weary and grabbed forty winks. While He was nodding the tower fell. I am sorry about that and I will report your grievance to Him. I will ask Him to be a bit more careful in the future.”

Jesus might have said: “I know I told you that My Father notices the landing of every sparrow and that He numbers the hairs on your head. Do you realize how many sparrows there are flying around? And the hairs on the heads! The afternoon the tower fell my Father was busy counting the hairs on the head of a particularly bushy-haired fellow. He was concentrating so hard on the fellow’s head that He overlooked the falling tower. I will suggest that he get His priorities in order and not spend so much time with sparrows and hair.”

That is not what Jesus said. What He said was, “Unless you repent, you too will all perish.” In effect what Jesus was saying was this: “You people are asking the wrong question. you should be asking me, ‘Why didn’t that tower fall on my head?'” Jesus rebuked the people for putting their amazement in the wrong place. In two decades of teaching theology I have had countless students ask me why God doesn’t save everybody. Only once did a student come to me and say, “There is something I just can’t figure out. Why did God redeem me?”

We are not really surprised that God has redeemed us. Somewhere deep inside, in the secret chambers of our hearts we harbor the notion that God owes us His mercy…. What amazes us is justice, not grace….

…We have come to expect God to be merciful. From there the next step is easy: we demand it. When it is not forthcoming, our first response is anger against God, coupled with the protest: “It isn’t fair.” We soon forget that with our first sin we have forfeited all rights to the gift of life. That I am drawing breath this morning is an act of divine mercy. God owes me nothing. I owe Him everything. If He allows a tower to fall on my head this afternoon I cannot claim injustice….

…We must not take His grace for granted. We must never lose our capacity to be amazed by grace…. [The Holiness of God, by R.C. Sproul [Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1985], quoted from pages 159-161, 164, 167]

The excerpt above was not intended to solace or comfort the grieving, but rather to orient all of our minds around a Godly response to such suffering in this world. We should always “weep with those who weep” and extend God’s comfort to those who are sorrowing. But we must never give in to the temptation to blame God or claim he is unloving in what He allows.