A dictator in Africa is building up his secret bank account, becoming a very wealthy man, while the people of his country are literally starving to death.

         A woman is burned, her face pushed down on the kitchen stove’s electric burner because her husband came home and supper wasn’t quite ready.

         A little four year old with long blond hair is crouched in the corner of her room, trying to make herself invisible so her daddy won’t see her and rape her again tonight.

         A man lies dying in a hospital bed from a disease that has eaten him alive, and there’s nothing anyone can do except pray that death will be merciful and come quickly. 

         There is no denying it.  Great evil exists in our world – real evil.  And it touches not only the guilty, the sinful, the wicked, but it touches the lives of the good and the innocent as well.  And we, as Christians, are left with the question that has haunted us from the beginning of time.  Why?  Why do such things happen?  Why would a good and loving God allow such things to happen?

         Somehow we believe that if we only knew the answer to that one question, then we could make things right again. If we knew why, then we would understand, and if we understood, then we could gain some kind of control over what was happening, and we could make sure that it never happened again, that no one would ever suffer from the touch of evil’s hands again. 

         So we search for an answer.  We put all of our intelligence and wisdom and understanding to work on finding a solution.  And no where is that search so eloquently recorded as in the book of Job.

         This righteous man has been touched by evil’s hand.  His wealth has been destroyed, his children brutally murdered, his body struck down with running sores.  Finally, his wife leaves in despair, telling him to curse God and die. 

         Yet Job has done nothing wrong.  He has led a good life.  He has always served his Lord.  So he expected things to go well.  Now in the midst of his tragedy, in all of his grief and despair, he simply wants to know why and his constant cry to God is just that --- Why?  Why had all this happened to him when he had done nothing to deserve it?

         And the search for an answer is on.  His friends try to help him --- or so they say.  The first, Eliphaz, confronts him with the accusation that Job is wrong.  He does deserve what happened.  He must have sinned, because God is a kind and gracious God and would never have allowed this kind of tragedy if Job did not somehow deserve it.  He has to deserve it – or the universe would make no sense.  And so, he holds Job guilty. 

         But Eliphaz is wrong.  Evil does happen to those who have done nothing --- absolutely nothing --- to deserve it, and Job is our case in point. 

         Then comes Bildad, who basically says that what Job needs is to pray more.  He needs to pray and have faith, to learn from what has happened because everything has a purpose, a reason behind it, and while things might look bad, it’s really only God’s way of helping Job out and teaching him a lesson that will make him a better person.

         Job responds, in beautiful poetry and in righteous anger.  He basically says, “If that’s how God acts, then I want nothing to do with Him.”  Job knows that his God would never treat him like that.  Besides, how could this teach him a lesson if he didn’t even know what it was he was supposed to learn?

         So Zophar steps forward and has his try.  Job’s guilt deserves punishment.  You get what you deserve.  It’s basically Eliphaz’s argument, only with a slightly different twist.  In fact, all three of these friends have the same basic argument.

         Somehow, we deserve what we get.  The only comforting thought behind that line of reasoning is that at least it would seem that in the end we have some kind of control over what happens in this life.  If we can just figure out how to be good enough, how to have enough faith, how to never make God angry or upset, then nothing bad will ever happen to us because evil only happens when we have sinned, when we need to be punished, when we have a lesson to learn.  The problem with this nice, logical conclusion is that it doesn’t hold water.

         What kind of evil could a four-year old have done to deserve being raped night after night by the father she loves?  What kind of lesson would be worth the agonizing pain of a slow and certain death, and what good would the lesson do to the one who is dying?  Too often the punishment just doesn’t fit the crime.  What we learn just doesn’t seem worth the price we pay.

         So a fourth friend shows up with an entirely different approach.  Elihu says we shouldn’t even ask the question.  We have no right to cry out to God in agony and pain.  We shouldn’t say anything at all unless we are going to sing God’s praise, for God is good and we better never forget it.  God’s majesty is supreme and we should never doubt it.  Elihu says it is wrong to even ask why.

         That’s a popular response.  Praise God in the middle of everything.  Let a smile be my umbrella.  Live with possibility thinking. 

         But for many of us that kind of response won’t work.  Even if we did try it, it would only be a false pretense.  We’d simply be walking around with a painted grin that would mask the real anger and pain.

         It’s at this point in the story that God Himself shows up.  It seems the Almighty has had enough of these arguments, and so God tells all four of Job’s friends that they don’t know what they are talking about. 

         Evil DOES happen to those who do not deserve it, and we should cry out to the Lord when it touches us.  We should ask our why --- it is a necessary question.  But, God says, we need to also know that there are things in the universe that we will never understand – that we cannot understand.  That all of our intelligence, all of our logic, can not --- will not – solve the problem of why evil exists.

         The cry of why may be necessary, but eventually we must come to rest in the mystery.  We must find faith and place our trust in the reality of God even in the face of our unanswered --- and unanswerable – questions.  That is the ending of the book of Job.

         But there is another story of another encounter with evil that brings us the way to certain hope in the midst of that ending.  A loving man, a man without sin, the very Son of God, entered into battle with the power of darkness. 

Finally, one day He stood apparently defeated, battered and bruised, nailed on a cross to die deserted and alone, crying out His question of why to the One He worshipped and obeyed.  “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” 

The earth and heaven stood still that day as evil seemed to triumph over good, as darkness seemed to swallow all light.

Yet on the third day, the seemingly ultimate power of evil was finally defeated, the very back of death was broken, for what had seemed like defeat was turned into victory through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But for now, we live in in-between times while we wait for Christ’s return and the Kingdom of God on earth.  And in this time, we still encounter evil in our lives.  We still feel its cold grip on our hearts, but now we know that its touch cannot finally conquer our spirits, cannot ultimately triumph over our souls. 

For while we still may not know the answer to our questions of why, we do know that God will hear our cry and will bring us comfort and strength.  We know that while our battle may still rage, the final conquest has been won.  We know that in the face of the cross there is an empty tomb, and so we worship --- remembering that final triumph.

Remembering that our answer lies with God and not within ourselves, remembering that even when evil seems its strongest, goodness will prevail, remembering as John tells us, that “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it”, let us worship together, even in the face of the evil of this world, and remember God’s love and God’s victory as well as God’s presence with us at all times, good and bad, in laughter and tears.