QT 25 Feb 16, Luke 13:1-5, There is no such thing as bad things happening to good people

Luke 13:1–5 (RSV) There were some present at that very time who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? 3 I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

NOTE: These are two very interesting scenarios, both were actual, and not fictional or theoretical. Both describe suffering of "innocents." In the first, evil is done by an "evil" person against the victims.  In the second, a random catastrophe, either caused by natural causes (tremors or earthquake) or poor but innocent engineering on the part of the builders, kills the victims. First, Jesus dismisses the idea of "good" as in the argument, "why do bad things happen to good people?" Jesus says that the individuals were no worse sinners than any other person. In other words, it has nothing to do with degrees of good and bad. But Jesus does not dismiss the idea of sin. He says that we too must repent or we will likewise perish. The thought does not seem to connect at first glance, but it does connect. First of all, we were never intended to die. The world is not as God created it in the garden. We do die because we rebelled in the garden. And all human kind is judged by the seminal heads (Adam and Eve) who represented us in the garden. So we all have a sin problem. And we all will face death, either early or late but we will all die, just like the Galileans in Jesus' examples. Our real problem is not physical death but spiritual death. And unless we repent, and turn to God we will all perish in the same way, without hope or a future. But if we repent, we can avoid one aspect of the two stories, the most terrifying aspect, spiritual death. Jesus offers eternal life to a world that rebelled against his offer in the garden. We may think it unfair to be judged by Adam and Eve, and actually we are not. We are judged by what we do with Jesus. Do we repent and believe, or do we continue in the rebellion to God that started in the garden? The choice is completely and independently ours.