4 Lent - John 9:1-41

The beauty of this holy story is how believably human it is.

The first sentence identifies a problem.

The second sentence describes the conversation about who's to blame for it.

It doesn't always take so long to get there.

The man is blind from birth.

Adam and Eve are naked.

Coronavirus is sending the world into lockdown.

Who's to blame for this?

Was it this man or his parents?

Was it the man or the woman or the snake?

Was it a foreign country, the Democrats, the Republicans, or the cruise ship industry?

Things are not as we want or planned for, so who is to blame?

Maybe it's God.

I do not agree with anyone suggesting that the coronavirus is God's punishment for any

so-called sin they most oppose.

But Jesus does make the troubling remark that this man was born blind so that God's

works might be revealed in him, meaning a lifetime of struggle, from blindness to

begging to social isolation, just so that he could be an object lesson for God?

Like the cross, it doesn't seem fair in the least.

Which leads to the puzzle that vexes theological brains and, especially in times

like these, that troubles religious hearts: the quandary named theodicy.

The problem is that three assumed truths cannot all be true at once: God is all good, God

is all powerful, and evil happens.

Which of these three do you deny?

Otherwise it doesn't add up.

If God is all good and all powerful, why must people suffer this virus and its array of

devastating effects?

Is God punishing us, or not powerful enough to help?