Back to Articles for wives and mothers
May 13, 2001
To Be A Mother
I apologize for announcing
one text and title for this message and putting all that off until next week and going in
a different direction. Everything in me in the last few days has been moving in another
direction. Almost all my thinking and all my emotional energy has been spent pondering and
holding fast to the great reality of Gods sovereign goodness in the bitter
providences of our lives.
Second, I have had to
think and pray a lot about the reality of $6.5 million instead of $9 million for our new
educational building. And I thank God for every dream and every sacrifice in your hearts.
Third, Wednesday
nights vote did not go the way I hoped it would, and I have been steadying my heart
with Gods sovereign goodness ever since.
Fourth, Christianity Today
arrived in my mailbox on Friday, and the cover story is about the debate over
openness of God. The introduction says, A few theologians are now
teaching that God doesnt know the future precisely because the future does not yet
exist. Thus, while God is very good at calculating the odds, he still takes risks
especially in dealing with his free creatures. It is a great sadness to many of us
that the leaders of our college and seminary do not see this unorthodox view of God as
serious enough to exclude from what will be promoted as evangelical by at least of one of
our faculty. And what makes the matter relevant this morning is that Christianity Today is
exactly right to say, These theological debates have enormous implications for piety
and pastoral care especially for how we respond to the tragedies that invade our
lives (Christianity Today, vol. 45, no. 7, May 21, 2001, pp. 39-40).
Finally, what put me over
the edge in planning for today was reading the cynical Washington Post article in the
StarTribune yesterday (Saturday, May 12, 2001, Faith & Values Section) about another
mother who was killed, with her baby, while sitting with her husband in a single-engine
Cessna 185 floatplane over the jungles of Peru about four weeks ago. The Peruvian Air
Force mistook the missionary plane for a drug plane and opened fire. Missionary Veronica
Bowers, age 35, was holding her seven-month-old daughter Charity in her lap behind MAF
pilot Kevin Donaldson. With them were Veronicas husband Jim and six-year-old son
Cory. The pilots legs were shot and he put the plane into an emergency dive and
amazingly landed it on a river where it sank just after they all got out. One bullet had
passed by Jims head and made a hole in the windshield. Another bullet passed through
Veronicas back and stopped inside her baby, killing them both.
So the question
is: How do you handle the setbacks, the disappointments, the abuses, the heartaches, the
calamities, the bitter providences of your life? And I ask it specifically to mothers,
because to be a mother is a call to suffer. When Jesus looked for an analogy of suffering
followed by joy, he said (in John 16:21), Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain,
because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers
the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.
To be a mother is
a call to suffer. Not just at the beginning of life, but also at the end. Simeon said to
Mary, Jesus mother, Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of
many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed
and a sword will pierce even your own soul" (Luke 2:34-35). Mothers suffer
when their children are born. Mothers suffer when children leave them and go to the
mission field. Mothers suffer when their children die. Mothers suffer when their children
are foolish. A wise son makes a father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his
mother (Proverbs 10:1). To be a mother is a call to suffer. Oh yes, its more.
But its not less.
So what do we do?
Do we go the way of openness theology to handle the disappointments and heartaches and
calamities of life, and say with one popular writer, When an individual inflicts
pain on another individual, [one should not] go looking for the purpose of God
in the event . . . Christians frequently speak of the purpose of God in the
midst of tragedy caused by someone else. . . . But this I regard to simply be a piously
confused way of thinking.[1]
In other words, God had no particular purpose for taking Roni and Charity Bowers and
leaving Jim and Cory. Were all the words of Elisabeth Elliot and Steve Saint and Jim
Bowers at Ronis memorial service a piously confused way of thinking, and
no true ground for comfort and strength?
Ill tell
you what they said in a moment. But first let me lay a Biblical foundation, because in the
end it is not the testimony of man that settles us, but the testimony of God in his Word,
through Jesus Christ.
In Psalm 105 we
have an inspired interpretation of an inspired Old Testament story, the story of Israel
going down to Egypt preceded by Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers. We
learn two crucial things from verses 16-17, And [God] called for a famine upon the
land; He broke the whole staff of bread. He sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold
as a slave. Notice two things: the governance of God over natural calamities, and
the governance of God over the sinful actions of men. It says God called for a
famine that is a natural calamity that came on the world. And it says, God
sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
That was sinful
of his brothers to do, and in that sinful act God had a purpose so much so that the
psalmist called their sinning Gods sending just like it says in Genesis 50:20
(Joseph to his brothers), As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it
for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.
When it says, God meant it, it says more than, God used it. This
is the exact opposite of what openness theology teaches. God does have good purposes (good
intentions, good meanings) in the hurts that others inflict on us. And we may and should
take great comfort in this sovereign goodness in the setbacks and disappoints and
heartaches calamities and bitter providences of our lives.
Then consider the
words of Jesus on why missionary candidates should not fear to go to the hard and
dangerous places, and why mothers should not fear to let their sons and daughters go
or even take them. In Matthew 10:28-31 Jesus says to his disciples to get them
ready for suffering:
Do not fear those
who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell. (29). Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet
not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. (30) But the very hairs of
your head are all numbered. (31) So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.
Notice three
things. First, Jesus knows that people will kill the bodies of his missionaries. This is
going to happen. But, he says, dont fear those who can only kill the body, and
cant kill the soul (verse 28). Second, he says that we dont need to fear this
hostility because no sparrow falls to the ground apart from God. And you, his disciples,
are more valuable than many sparrows. So how much less will you be shot out of the sky
apart from God! God governs the flight of a sparrow, and God governs the flight of arrows
and bullets. This is the basis of every Bible story about the victory of God. The
horse is made ready for battle but victory belongs to the Lord (Proverbs 21:31).
Because bird flight and arrow flight and bullet flight belong to the Lord. This is the
solid ground of our comfort in calamity: Gods sovereign goodness to all who trust
him.
Now listen to the
testimony of Roni Bowers husband at his wifes memorial service and
words of Steve Saint and Elisabeth Elliot. These testimonies dont increase the
authority of the Bible. But they do show the power of the Bible to sustain in a way
radically different from the way openness theology tries to comfort.
Two weeks ago
(April 27) Jim Bowers stood in front of twelve hundred people in Calvary Church of
Fruitport, Michigan and said, Most of all I want to thank my God. Hes a
sovereign God. Im finding that out more now. . . . Could this really be Gods
plan for Roni and Charity; Gods plan for Cory and me and our family? Id like
to tell you why I believe so, why Im coming to believe so.
And then he gives
a long list of unlikely events in and after the shooting, and alludes to Gods
sending his Son to the cross. Here are some of the key sentences that only those who trust
in Gods sovereign care for his own will truly understand. He said, Roni and
Charity were instantly killed by the same bullet. (Would you say thats a stray
bullet?) And it didnt reach Kevin [the pilot] who was right in front of Charity; it
stayed in Charity. That was a sovereign bullet. . . .
He speaks of his
forgiveness to those who shot at the plane. How could I not, he says, when God
has forgiven me so? Then he adds, Those people who did that, simply were used
by God. Whether you want to believe it or not, I believe it. They were used by Him, by
God, to accomplish His purpose in this, maybe similar to the Roman soldiers whom God used
to put Christ on the cross.
Steve Saint was
at the memorial service. In 1956, when Steve was a boy, his father was speared to death by
the Auca Indians of Ecuador. Steve came to the microphone and looked down at Cory, the
six-year-old boy whose mother and sister had been killed.
Cory, my name is
Steve. You know what? A long time ago when I was just about your size, I was in a meeting
just like this. I was sitting down there and I really didnt know completely what was
going on. . . . But you know, now I understand it better. A lot of adults used a word then
that I didnt understand. They used a word thats called tragedy. . . But you
know, now Im kind of an old guy, and now when people come to me and they say,
Oh I remember when that tragedy happened so long ago. I know, Cory, that they
were wrong.
You see, my dad,
who was a pilot like the man you probably call Uncle Kevin, and four of his really good
friends had just been buried out in the jungles, and my mom told me that my dad was never
coming home again. My mom wasnt really sad. So, I asked her, Where did my
dad go? And she said, He went to live with Jesus. And you know,
thats where my mom and dad had told me that we all wanted to go and live. Well, I
thought, isnt that great that Daddy got to go sooner than the rest of us? And you
know what? Now when people say, That was a tragedy, I know they were wrong.
Then Steve Saint
looked up at these twelve hundred people and told them the difference between the
unbelieving world and the followers of Jesus. He said, For them, the pain is
fundamental and the joy is superficial because it wont last. For us, the pain is superficial and the joy is
fundamental.
Finally, I
mention what Elisabeth Elliot said to the family.
You wonder what
God is doing, and of course, we know that God never makes mistakes. He knows exactly what
He is doing, and suffering is never for nothing. .
. . He has given to you, Jim, the cup of
suffering, and you can share that with the Lord Jesus who said, The cup the Father
has given to me, I have received.
She ended with a poem by
Martha Snell Nicholson (a mendicant is a beggar):
I stood a mendicant of God
before His royal throne
And begged him for one
priceless gift, which I could call my own.
I took the gift
from out His hand, but as I would depart
I cried,
But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a
hurtful gift, which Thou hast given me.
He said, My child, I
give good gifts and gave My best to thee.
I took it home and though
at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
As long years passed I
learned at last to love it more and more.
I
learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
He
takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face.[2]
Thats where
we have been in Romans 7. It isnt law-keeping that justifies us before God. It
isnt first law-keeping that sanctifies us. It is the lifting of the veil so that we
see Jesus for who he is, dying in our place and rising again so that we receive him as the
treasure of our lives.
And if it takes a thorn to pin aside the veil
if it takes disappointment and loss and heartache and calamity and bitter
providences then, for Christs sake, and for the sake of our eternal joy
seeing and savoring him, let it come. Amen.
Copyright 2001 John Piper
1] Greg Boyd, Letters from a Skeptic (Colorado Springs: Chariot Victor Publishing, 1994), pp. 46-47
2] All the quotes from the memorial service are taken from the internet on 5-12-01, http://www.abwe.org/family/memorials/service_michigan.htm
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