Biology class reflections on the illness of a young child, Anaika.
Update: After the time of writing this, Anaika has gone to be with the Lord. She is now in more comfort than we could ever imagine in our present abode, and is with her Savior who bought her and gave Himself for her.
The blog was sloppily written shortly before I went to bed and during biology class. In the future, I would like to edit it and add content.
Praecursor
Anaika is the name of a young girl who is currently hanging onto a thread for her life and is dealing with bodily failure.
Introduction
Theodicy matters. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't brush the hard or painful realities under the rug, one of the hardest of those being child suffering. What the Bible shows is the transcendence and supremacy of God in disability and suffering. The life of one of His children (Anaika has professed faith in Christ), along with its variable hardship and sufferings, can be embraced for the glory of God. Paul refers to much of these sufferings that he experienced as "slight momentary affliction"- while here on earth in our fallen state of mind Anaika's sufferings feel far from slight or momentary. Especially when a future lifetime may be lost, it is acutely painful. But this is when we are met with the hope that the Scriptures give.
John 9:1-5
As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must carry out the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.”
This verse's teaching is very self-evident. God works through means to bring about His ends, His ends are always good, even if the means He uses aren't. While ultimately the end of Anaika's sufferings may not be physical healing on earth, we can trust that this outcome is something the Creator Himself has willed.
This verse is also a comfort that, when confronted with suffering, we are not left to create our own meaning in it. We are not to despair because its purpose is unknown. Rather, we fix our eyes on the Light of the world in which our abiding in is of ultimate significance and comfort.
Here we see an explanation of suffering, a divine purpose and plan, that the works of God would be displayed in those who suffer. God knits us in our womb (Psalm 139:13). If God foreknows and decrees the conception of a child who He knows will be born blind, or have Anaika's illness, who is to challenge the plans He has established? We will see what happens when Moses tried to do this in just a little bit.
As for the last sentence of the citation, "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.", some might say "but Jesus is no longer in the world!". Thankfully but a few chapters later we see Jesus promising a comforting truth: the assurance of His Spirit's coming. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will now live in us- (Romans 8:11) and the παράκλητος or parakletos who has come to comfort the elect.
Colossians 1:19-20
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
This verse does not mean that all relationships between humans, their creator, and the rest of creation, are on friendly terms. The world is far from harmonious, and as we confess doctrinally, the human race is either in Adam or in Christ, and those in Adam, surely, are far from "reconciled" with the Father, right?
This verse, instead, means something quite different, and is applicable to Anaika's illness. The entire posture of the creation is and has been changed by the event of the crucifixion which was cosmic in scope (albeit not in an effectually salvific way)- the groans and longings of creation which Romans 8 talks about has reached its final consumption.
Romans 8:19-22
For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
This is a fascinating text. There are striking thematic and verbal parallels between it and Isaiah 24-27 which gives an apocalyptic vision of the earth as a mass graveyard for the dead, as well as the future resurrection of the dead. In chapter 24, a curse that consumes the earth is spoken of. A vivid metaphor is given of creation's groaning and its expectant waiting for the resurrection of the righteous. Isaiah says that earth mourns over its slain. Exegetically speaking it is precisely the resurrection of the dead that will be the deliverance of creation from its conscripted service as the graveyard of humanity. This is wholly comforting in a situation as the present with Anaika. Why?
Per Romans 8, the pains of childbirth can be seen as analogous to Anaika's corporeal incapacitation, pain, affliction, and discomfort. Just as the pains of childbirth are actual and intense, alongside the aforementioned infirmities, the ending of this pain is even more actual. The pain is not the conclusion; it is leading to a moment of birth in which joy comes. And even then, not just a moment, but a new life that has been brought into the world that is full of joy and potential. Likewise, we wait for the liberation of the children of God from their sufferings and groans trusting in this wonderful promise found in Scripture.
In the same way, in Colossians 1 we see that by virtue of the crucifixion Christ has reconciled all things to Himself and we will see an ultimate consummation in the new creation- where Anaika will no longer experience intense pain or tears, frailty and sickness.
The hope we see in Colossians 1 isn't just something to be experienced in the future eschaton; Because of God's gracious gift and Jesus's intentional and willing laying down of His life, we may know that while men may die, Christ surely lives. And in this we will find our true hope; not in our weak and failing bodies, but in the one who has promised to bring the famous statement of the apostle's creed to actuality.
"I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy universal church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen."
Furthermore, because of this, we can trust that the God who predestined the most "unfair" action of all of human history (Acts 2:23), namely the crucifixion of the only innocent person, Jesus of Nazareth, and brought a good so innumerable out of it that no man can fathom, can also bring good out of Anaika's sufferings. Just as God intended the evil event of Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery to bring an ultimate good out of it (Genesis 50:20), so too God does in our live.
A note on divine providence
These examples in Scripture are not merely closed events that happened in the past centuries of salvation history- rather they give the Christian today great hope knowing that the God of the crucifixion is also the God that cares for all parts of human affairs. The God that decrees all things (Isaiah 55:11) will bring good out of it all, and nothing is purposeless. God does not sit on the sidelines unable to heal, but rather, through His power, knows precisely when suffering and affliction will produce fruit in a believer's life that wouldn't have been otherwise.
God is the universal provider of all that is. It is therefore fitting that his providence should permit certain defects in particular things, lest the perfect good of the universe should be impaired. The universe would lack many good things, if all the evils were excluded. There would not be the life of a lion, if there were no slaying of animals. There would not be the endurance of martyrs, if there were no persecution by tyrants. Saint Augustine in the fourth century says: "God omnipotent would not allow any evil thing to exist in his works, were he not able by his omnipotence and goodness to bring good out of evil." (Enchirid. 2).
The dangerous of a wrong view of theodicy
For those that believe the only comfort for Anaika is to be received in the new creation, that is an unfortunate view. Some believe Anaika's sufferings are merely a result of "man's free will" solely, and God is trying to do all He can to stop evil. They assert that while God certainly is sovereign (an undoubted equivocation), Anaika's sufferings only fall under a "general providence". This is where Spurgeon's concept of the minuteness of God's providence is soothing. Just as God decrees the allows for history's largest events that have taken place to bring an ultimate good out of them, so too God cares for one small child and her illness. Exodus 4:11 is Yahweh's rhetorical reply to Moses when he insisted that he was not eloquent enough in speech to be used for his purposes. Who has made the human mouth? Or who makes anyone unable to speak or deaf, or able to see or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?" This verse is not sadistic and does not mean we worship a God who delights in the sufferings of His children. On the contrary, this verse means that because God is providential over even our infirmities, we can trust in His perfect decree to bring something wholly good out of it, whether in this life, or the one to come (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
For those that believe Anaika's precious life and sufferings are subject to chance and to evil outside of the care of God's divine providence, or aimless and arbitrary "unfairness" of the world, this leads to despair. But Christ leads to comfort. May the hope of Anaika and the Christians surrounding her point you to the cross where only then you may find true hope. The hope that Anaika has.
What is this hope? To paraphrase the Heidelberg Catechism's famous first question:
That she is not her own, but belongs with body and soul, both in life and in death, to her faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all of her sins with his precious blood, and has set her free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves her in such a way that without the will of her heavenly Father not a fair can fall from her head; indeed, all things must work together for her salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures her of eternal life.