Wednesday, XV Week of Ordinary Time
(Exodus 3)
Most Americans are horrified by the war in Iraq. We increasingly think that it is high time the United States extract itself from the deadly situation. We are so sickened by the inter-tribal murdering that we put at the back of our minds the larger question: why is there such mammoth evil in the world? As terrible as the Iraqi situation is, there certainly have been and probably are still other wars wrecking more casualties. And war is only the bloodiest of evil. Why, as well, do poverty, disease, and natural calamity take such grand tolls of life?
Why, indeed? We believers put the question this way: Why does God permit so much evil? If God is good and all-powerful as we claim, why does He not halt the violence, end the disease, and stem the disaster? These are philosophical questions that resist answering in any definitive way. But we have multiple attestations in Scripture that God takes note of human precariousness and acts to relieve the conditions. In today’s reading from Exodus we hear of God coming to the rescue of Israel trapped in an intolerable situation.
God not only will deliver the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt; He will also form them into a people that know His mind and heart. Looking back on the history of Israel, we Christians will say that the Israelites’ unique relationship with God will not be enough to stem the tide of evil. A more powerful solution will be required. This will be God’s sending His son, the Christ, to save humanity. But the salvation will not be the end of suffering on this earth, at least. Evil is no simple weed to be readily uprooted. Still victory belongs to those who conform themselves to Christ. He will secure them on a new earth where war, disease, and disaster are void.
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