Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
“There were some present at the very time who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And [Jesus] answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?’” (Luke 13:1-2).
Today’s Gospel lesson from Luke 13 appears like news ripped from the headlines.
A group of unnamed people approach Jesus with the question: “Jesus, did you hear? Pilate had all those pious Galileans killed? They came to offer godly sacrifices at the temple. Jesus, why did this happen?”
In other words: “Why did this bad thing happen to such good Galileans?”
The question they are asking or the answer they want from Jesus is “why.” Why did these terrible things happen? What did they do to deserve it?
First, a little background. If you recall, the histories of the northern and southern regions of Israel were such that it could be assumed that God was punishing the Galileans. Afterall, Galilee had a longer and more pronounced history of apostasy as most abandoned the one true God. So, could God have been punishing them? Did they have this coming to them? Did they deserve it?
It appears that these Galileans came to Jerusalem for the Passover Seder. They appeared to be pious Jews. So, did they truly deserve what was coming to them?
Now, the mixing of the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices at the temple was a heinous crime. Pilate violated all holiness codes by sending his troops into the courtyard of the temple to murder Galilean Jews while they were slaughtering their lambs for the Passover Seder. Pilate supervised this heinous act. And the mingling of the Galilean’s blood with the lambs’ blood would then constitute a mockery of the Jewish religion.
So, why did these terrible things happen to these good people who were just doing what God had commanded them to do? If God cannot protect His people in His temple, then where can God protect His people? To this, Jesus offers no comfort.
In fact, Jesus adds some other news ripped from the headlines: “What about those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them? Were they worse offenders than all the others in Jerusalem?”
So, not only do bad things happen to good people, but also to innocent people, who were just minding their own business, living their lives, while a tower falls on them. This is so unnecessary! Why did this have to happen?
We, too, have the same headlines with the same question: Why did this have to happen? Terrorists take over an airplane filled with innocent people. An earthquake destroys a city. A tornado flattens a town. A train derails and spills chemicals into a river, which threatens the lives of innocent people. Airplanes collide in midair. Wildfires destroy a city. A child is hit by a stray bullet and dies. An invisible virus spreads across the globe. A person is diagnosed with lung cancer who has never smoked a cigarette his entire life. Why? Why do innocent people suffer and die?
Couldn’t God prevent this? Why does God allow pain and suffering and death? This question has been asked in many ways and at many times. And we have attempted to answer this question. We have tried to make sense of the why.
For the people who approached Jesus, they appear to have interpreted the Galileans’ blood mingled with their sacrifices to mean that they deserved it. “They deserved it because they were not good Jews. They had it coming! Certainly, God rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior!”
We, too, try to interpret both natural and human disasters. Just think about earthquakes, wildfires and mudslides in California. For many Christians, they say, “They must have deserved it. They had it coming, because of their sin!” Even secular minded people play this game of why by saying that it’s man-made climate change that is causing hurricanes, tornadoes and droughts. We all – the religious and the secular – get excited about interpreting the events of our times.
All we can do is to come up with theories on why God allows bad things. As if we can fathom His mind. But you may notice, Jesus does not respond this way. Jesus doesn’t come up with theories. Instead, He puts the question back on them and on us.
He says, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). Jesus doesn’t linger on why these Galileans met such a violent fate. He does not address Pilate’s wickedness and cruelty. Instead, Jesus continues to address the crowd and uses this tragedy as an illustration for their need to repent.
Jesus says that these particular events – the slaughtering of the Galileans at the temple and those who died in the rubble of the tower in Siloam – are not signs of God’s judgment on individuals, but of His wrath against all of sinful mankind. No one is a worse sinner than another, but all have sinned. The Psalmist writes: “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Psalm 14:2-3).
We were all born into a creation that is broken, decaying, and falling apart. We were all born as creatures who are stained and corrupted and weakening day by day. We are all helpless. And we cannot get out of it. The problem for sinful humanity is that we owe a larger debt than we can ever repay. On our own, we cannot put things right. We will all suffer. And we will all die.
But it is here, in our helplessness, that God gives His response. It is in our weakness that God comes.
John the Baptist called on all his hearers to repent of their sins and receive his baptism of repentance (Luke 3:3). He called his hearers to bear fruits of repentance (Luke 3:8), and he said that every tree that does not bear good fruit is to be cut down and thrown into the fire (Luke 3:9). Does this sound familiar? This is exactly what Jesus is saying in the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree.
Jesus is no less urgent! He calls on all to repent lest we perish in sin as the Galileans and the 18 who were crushed by the tower in Siloam.
Repentance includes sorrow for sin and trust in the One who brings forgiveness and release. And for humanity to be rescued, it is necessary for Jesus, the Rejected Prophet, to perish in Jerusalem (Luke 13:33).
So, we must repent! In the face of death, which is the wages of sin, repentance is Jesus’ solution. And repentance isn’t just doing a little bit better than we used to. God doesn’t just want us to be a little better. He wants us perfect, just as He is perfect.
Our suffering is connected to sin ultimately in Adam, whose sin precipitated all human suffering. But a son of Adam – the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God, brings forgiveness and the promise of release from all who suffer the effects of sin. So, for us and for our salvation, Jesus will perish on behalf of all humankind, including for those Galileans whose blood was mingled with their sacrifices and those who were crushed by the tower in Siloam.
In the face of death, turn to Jesus, who alone is life. We only have hope in Him, for He alone has conquered sin and its power. By His own death, He conquered death for you and me.
So, let us repent as Jesus calls us to do saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
Again, for Jesus, any tragedy should not be seen as a sign of God’s judgment on specific people for specific sins, but as a sign of His judgment for all people. Jesus does not call us to speculation, but to contrition, repentance and faith. For He says: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish”(Luke 13:3, 5).
So, the Christian is never to think when analyzing the headlines, “they must have deserved it,” but rather, “I deserved the same,” yet also, we are to always thank God that Jesus perished on your behalf, and rose again three days later, so that you would not perish eternally! Amen!
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +
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