It is a poignant scene, drawn for us by Rembrandt. The prophet Elijah has fled his own people for his life, and a woman of another land has sacrificially shared what little food she had. And now as her son lies without breath, Elijah cries ‘Why did you do such a terrible thing to this widow, O God? She has been kind enough to take care of me, and now you kill her son.’ (I Kings 17:20)
Why do the good suffer? Why does tragedy afflict the innocent? Where is God?
These weeks of Lent we journey to Jerusalem, and we do so with integrity, with deep honesty. This is not an easy path, for we acknowledge cries of grief and lift up questions of life and death.
But through the cries and the questions, we shall hear that God is in the midst of it all, at work to bring good out of evil and life out of death, and we shall leave singing of what we have heard in Jesus Christ – ‘I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry … I, the Lord of snow and rain, I have borne my people’s pain …’
Thanks be to God. Join us!