Psalm 130:5-8; March 22, 2026; Fifth Sunday in Lent
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In the month of March, I often ask “why?”
I mean, why do we get 70-degree weather followed by 30-degree days?
Why do all the new releases on streaming channels stink, filled with rom-coms made perfect for my wife yet nothing for me?
And why do the deserving kids of Seton Hall, my alma mater, get so frequently locked out of March Madness? No, maybe they didn’t beat UConn or St. John’s this year… but some college named High Point won a game, so anything could have been possible.
Oh well.
But, of course, and more seriously, why… why is there so much pain in this world? Why are bad people able to get ahead while good people struggle and suffer? And why can’t we go a decade, a year, a month, a day, without rumors of war, or war itself? Where trigger happy zealots sitting behind desks comfortably push buttons, wiping out schools, killing children, and murdering innocent civilians?
Why?
It’s perhaps the largest and heaviest question we will ever ask. The one that can keep us up at night, that begs of our partners, our leaders, our God, explanations.
“Hear my voice, let your ears be attentive to my supplications!” the psalmist demands. For from the depths of our souls, both he and we have all cried.
In the book Ezekiel, which we looked at in Bible Study this Wednesday, the people plead with God, saying: “Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost; and we are cut off completely.” – Ezekiel 37:11
And in the Gospel text, Jesus weeps when he’s confronted by news of his friend Lazarus’ death. — John 11
The shortest verse in all of scripture stands out not because it is so short, but because it says that even the Son of God wept those human, wet, and messy tears just like us. – John 11:35
Those tears that we all know so well, right? Especially when confronted with why the power of death is yet so strong even when we pray in the name of Jesus for healing, for a miracle.
Why?
One of my favorite singer/songwriters (not named or associated with Radiohead) is the one and only Tom Waits. And in one of his most powerful songs he recounts the story of a young 12-year-old girl named Georgia Leah Moses who was murdered and discarded off of a freeway on-ramp. He sings, “Why wasn’t God watching? Why wasn’t God listening? Why wasn’t God there for Georgia Leigh?” And man, that always hits so hard.
Why wasn’t God there for her or any of Epstein’s hundreds (or thousands) of victims? Why do the powerful keep getting away with it? And why does God just sit by as evil and sin run amok in our world, without correction, without intervention? Many of you have asked me this: why?
Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s okay to ask this question. To wrestle with why. God’s got on the biggest big-boy pants there is. God can handle it! After all, God created all things which means God put into the equation that question from the very beginning.
My friends, soon in this Lenten season, we will see Jesus in the garden throw himself face first on the ground praying, “Oh, let this cup bass before me.” – Matthew 26:39
And later from the cross, we will hear him cry: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which means
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – Matthew 27:46
So, if Jesus could ask why, then why can’t we? Especially when we are on our own crosses in life or lost somewhere down in the shadows of our own deep valleys.
It’s why, I think, Job’s story in the Old Testament lasts FORTY-TWO chapters and wasn’t resolved in like four. There is something there… in coming back over and over again to God… and asking the same question. Restating the same complaint. Why, oh why, o God? Why?
Far from destroying our faith, or diluting it, I believe that asking this question can strengthen it.
After all, relationships grow when they are still wanting and curious; when they are still exploratory, with the burning desire to examine each other, with the lasting hope to understand each other, and with the desperate prayer to reconcile with each other.
Conversely, relationships die when they just give up. When they roll over in complacency, shrugging their shoulders without any sort of fight or passion.
I mean, you know this, don’t you?
And, so, asking God “why?” without expecting an answer in return is a sign of emotional and spiritual strength, my friends. It is a sign of soulful resolve and a want for a relationship to remain alive.
You know last week I said that it’s okay not to know everything. And this week I’m saying it’s normal to not hear anything either.
It doesn’t mean that God is absent, or indifferent to our questions or our prayers, but that perhaps God is doing something different, and that it’s okay to not know why and to let the mystery be.
One of the greatest shows ever conceived for television was a show on HBO called “The Leftovers.” No, not like the food. But people who were left grieving, asking why, after a supernatural-rapture-like event passed them over and left them behind.
While the first season is admittedly up and down, the final two are plainly awesome, and they get to the heart of these questions “how?” and “why?”
You all would do well to watch it! But if not, that’s okay. I guess… Anyway, the main theme of the second season has lyrics that go like this:
“Some say they’re going to a place called Glory // And I ain’t saying it ain’t a fact // But I’ve heard that I’m on the road to Purgatory // And I don’t like the sound of that // I believe in love and I live my life accordingly // And I choose to let the mystery be.”
And man, I love that (even if you don’t)!
Just as I love it when Paul says, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully.” – 1 Corinthians 13:12
For “on that day” Revelation adds, “there will be no more mourning, no more crying or pain, for all the former [horrible] things will be wiped away.” – Revelation 21:4
But until that day, there will be mystery. There will be wonder. And there will also sometimes be pain and silence.
And, as hard as that may be, let us also remember the virtue of patience.
Strengthening our relationship with God in both maturity and substance, even more than those who watch for the morning.
For in the end there is hope, because there is always hope.
For as the Psalmist said in the beginning and reminds us here at the end: “with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with God, great power to redeem.”
Amen
