We often talk about the challenge of responding to circumstances when “bad things happen to good people.” Big caveat, yes we know that no-one is good, all have sinned. What we mean is that horrific suffering has fallen upon those who love the Lord and are simply seeking to serve him. Or, we feel that their circumstance are disproportionate to any wrong that they have done.
But what about our response when wicked, evil people seem to get their just desserts? I’m thinking about this in response to the weekend news of Nicolas Maduro’s extraction from Venezuela for trial in New York. Quite a few responses have been to the effect that yes there are big questions about whether or not international Law was broken. However, Maduro was a nasty dictator, hated by his own people who had circumvented democracy to keep power and is allegedly heavily involved in “narco-terrorism”. We might not like the means but they are justified by the ends.
In my previous article I argued that the means don’t justify the ends and a lack of legitimacy to the arrest poses bigger risks. However it got me thinking about how we approach the question more generally. Do we tend to schadenfreude when we see those we have something against suffering and is that the right thing to feel.
The imprecatory Psalms do suggest that what happens to those who oppose God and his people matters. They give words and voice to our emotions. I think there is a place for us expressing to God those deep emotions, to tell him about our hurt and anger. In that context we can legitimately tell God what we would want to see happen.
Further, we see lots of examples if rejoicing and celebration through the Bible when the enemy is destroyed and God’s people delivered. We can rejoice at evil being overcome.
However, there are a few things that should cause us to pause before rejoicing at our enemies suffering.
- As has already been mentioned, noone is good. We all deserve God’s wrath.
- Our battle is with spiritual powers not flesh and blood.
- We live in a fallen world where all suffer so that we cannot assume suffering to be a direct consequence of specific sin.
- We are meant to interpret those Old Testament passages through Christ and the Gospel. It’s all about him and the defeat of his enemy.
- We are told to do good to those who hate and persecute us.
On that basis I would suggest that we are not permitted to rejoice at the affliction suffered by those who have seemed to be our enemies. We can and should rejoice at the deliverance of God’s people and the halting of evil deeds. We should acknowledge that God is just and ultimate justice will be done. We can be honest about our own emotional response with God and with other believers we trust and who know is well.
We should be ready for God, through faithful friends to challenge our emotional responses and even to identify where they become sinful. We should desire and pray for even our enemies to receive God’s mercy, to respond to the Gospel and be saved. We should grieve not rejoice at the reality of suffering even when experienced by those we consider bad because we recognize that suffering as a consequence of the Fall.
Faithroots 