Fr Matthew Reese

“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel; and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead?’”
—Luke 24:1-5

Dear Friends in Christ,

This has been a hard week for my family, in part because almost all my mother’s kin live in the Texas Hill Country.

Though, blessedly, none of them died in the floods, the signs of loss and devastation are all about. Family friends and acquaintances were swallowed in the raging waters. At least a hundred souls have perished. Homes and landmarks have disappeared. The river has jumped its banks.

For at least three, maybe four generations now, all those Texan cousins and aunts and uncles of mine have spent their summers at Camp Longhorn and the Diocesan Camp Capers. One on the Colorado, the other on the Guadalupe.

As we have all read about the 27 campers and counselors lost at Camp Mystic and wept, I know we have been struck by the chilling realization that it might have been even worse. The Guadalupe is lined with camps for miles and miles. This week, almost all of them just happened to be out of session.

How can we possibly grapple with this scale of devastation? How can we understand the seeming randomness of it, the cruelty, the loss of children?

There are some 1800 years of Christian theodicy. Endless ink has been spilled vindicating God’s goodness in the midst of suffering and evil, but it is scant comfort when we are in it. When we cry out in anguish, “how could a just God allow this?” we do not want the theologian to answer our question.

Indeed, what answer is there to give, really?

The great contemporary Orthodox writer, David Bentley Hart, tried to grapple with this in his book The Doors of the Sea, about another flood—the 2004 tsunami:

“Yes, certainly, there is nothing, not even suffering or death, that cannot be providentially turned toward God’s good ends. But the New Testament also teaches us that, in an other and ultimate sense, suffering and death—considered in themselves—have no true meaning or purpose at all; and this is in a very real sense the most liberating and joyous wisdom that the gospel imparts.”

There is, perhaps, no answer to our cries except the empty tomb. There is no answer except the knowledge that God is with us in our suffering, in our loss, in our questioning. There is no answer except the fact that in his rising again, Christ has conquered death itself.

Let us pray for the dead. Let us comfort the grieving. Let us cling to that hope.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew