This past Sunday morning for me began as a glorious day. Though I am normally here at First Baptist this week I was asked to speak at the Cerro Gordo Baptist Church - an African American church in our city. The praise was marvelous, the music was moving, the fellowship was rich - the sermon was average at best - but still it was another step forward in racial reconciliation efforts in our city. I spent the day thanking God. Then that evening the ominous weather forecasts began.

With November 10, 2002 still fresh for me and January 1999 still vividly present in my memory I said to myself no - not again. I'm sure some of you were saying the same thing. At 11:00 p.m. the storm intensified - heavy rain, winds - huge hailstorms then the word that hail the size of baseballs or softballs was pelting the Union campus. As soon as there was a break I rushed to campus where I stayed from midnight until 2:00 a.m. The glorious beginning to last Sunday morning ended in sadness as we evaluated the damage once again to the Union campus - over 180 broken windows - over 130 cars badly damaged - flooding in the dorms - water in the buildings - and then we started to hear of the extensive tornado damage to the downtown area - the Post Office, Jackson Middle School, Mother Liberty Church, historic sites leveled - and the bad news continued to come to our community.

By Monday morning it seemed devastating 175 businesses halted, city landmarks leveled, dozens of people injured, 28,000 homes without power, and reports that maybe as many as 14 were dead.

How could this be? Why Jackson again? The why question dotted conversations in those early morning hours.

When I saw downtown and east Jackson for myself the next day I could hardly hold back the emotions - the historic Mother Liberty Church -the aesthetically beautiful St. Luke's sanctuary - and the thought of all the accompanying suffering - the pain-the challenge of rebuilding the city again.

Why indeed?

Some of you have heard me relate the encounter in one of my favorite Andy Griffith episodes where Barney is showing the Mayberry kids -Opie and friends-around the sheriff's office. On the bulletin board are the "Most wanted" pictures. One of the boys, intrigued by the pictures, asked Barney if these were real photographs of wanted people. "Yes! And they are vicious criminals," proclaims Barney. The boy responds - well why didn't they just keep them when they took these pictures?

Why an often asked question? Why? Why do we put suits in garment bags and garments in suitcases? Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of a bottle? Why is monosyllabic a 5 syllable word?

Why is the question that comes to our lips when life stopping, life changing events take place. That kind of event took place near midnight on May 4, 2003 in Jackson, Tennessee.

I heard a story about a person who was in the hospital being treated for a serious illness. People who would come to visit tried to anticipate the why question. They were all good, well-intentioned people.

The first visitor said to the patient - you are sick for a reason. There must be something displeasing in your life or something that God wants to teach you in this.

The second person was a cheerleader type bringing flowers and singing songs. This person would not let the patient ever bring up the subject of the illness.

The third visitor said that faith was the answer to the illness. If only the patient's faith were strong enough the problems would go away.

The fourth said - If you will just praise God for everything, thank Him - then you'll be able to get through all of this, which seems to conjure up the image of God squeezing us even tighter until we with one big gasp say "thank you."

The fifth visitor said - God has chosen you to bear this pain because He knew you could bear it and be a blessing to others-causing the patient to still wonder aloud "why me."

Perhaps there is just enough truth in each of these responses for them to seem legitimate - just like with Job's friends of long ago who came to Job in his ruins only to spout reasons to him about why all of this was happening. Job's friends it seemed were less interested in comforting Job than in discovering the reasons for his troubles.

Unfortunately I - and you too most likely - fall into the same trap as Job's friends. We can't stand not knowing why. We give advice, speculate, plead with God to explain it to us.

We ask Why - Sometimes these events - these crises of life can be opportunities to turn to God - for others they result in turning away from God - for some they are opportunities of growth and grace, still for others times that produce anger that seemingly lasts a lifetime.

What's the difference? The difference is not necessarily tied to how much we understand, but how we respond.

In 2 Cor 12 - the apostle Paul describes a crisis in his life - he calls it a thorn in the flesh. The word could be translated "thorn, spike, nail, stake." We don't know what it was, but 3 times Paul asked God to remove it. Whatever it was we know that it was so painful to Paul that he called it a "stake in his flesh" - for many of us here tonight the events of the past 72 hours are a stake, a spike, a thorn for us.

Paul seemed to be asking why? It's not wrong to ask why - as long as we don't get stuck there. Often, however, our answers like the hospital visitors seem hollow, shallow, narrow. I'm convinced that the only answers that will not sound that way are the ones from God Himself-and God doesn't usually give reasons-instead He offers Himself.

That's really what the story of Job is all about-it's not so much about Job's suffering as it is about the overwhelming presence of God.

At the end of the book of Job - after the wrong headed advice of Job's friends and Job's own questions - God finally speaks. It is actually the longest account from God anywhere in the Bible. Yet in this long speech God does not really answer any of Job's questions.

For 4 chapters as Frederick Buechner says, God does not explain so much as He explodes. And it wasn't answers to His questions, but revelation from God about Himself - who He was - who He is!

Job was humbled. His response was one of worship. The apostle Paul's struggles likewise reflect those of someone who had experienced one blow after another--shipwreck, beatings, imprisonments, stonings, hunger, abandonment.

I'm sure Paul like Job struggled - as do we -as have many through the years.

An 18th Century philosopher reflecting on these struggles said, "If God is able to take away the hurt and is not willing, He is a malevolent evil God. If God is able, but not willing, He is an impotent weak God. And if He is able and willing why then doesn't He do something about it?"

But the question for us tonight is not Why did God do this, or Why doesn't He do something about it? The question is how will we as individuals and as a community respond to this tragedy.

Many of us here tonight will try to be stoics. You know what that means. It's the philosophy that says "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." It says "brace yourself." Discipline and determination will get us through. It was this mindset that caused the captain of the Titanic to say as the ship went down, "Be British!"-and they all understood that meant to "be tough, to keep a stiff upper lip."

Certainly we are going to need discipline, determination, a sense of personal and community resolve to move through this crisis-but that's not enough. There's always a point for everyone where stoicism runs out.

I think Paul and Job had an inner toughness, but stoicism wasn't their response. Listen to what God said in 2 Cor 12:9, which rings out in times like this with an exclamation point! "My Grace, God said, is sufficient for you!"

Crisis coped with alone will likely cripple us ever more. Self-sufficient stoicism doesn't last. Instead we need to see tonight the sufficiency of God's grace for us. For God says "His power is made perfect" when we trust Him.

Many of us are struggling with God tonight because we misunderstand Him. We think God's primary desire is for us to be happy-when in fact God's primary desire for us is to be holy.

Somehow in the midst of our despair God's strength, comfort and glory hovers over us in times like these. When the thorn is in our side, God's grace seems to expand to give us hope in the midst of our struggles.

I had a professor who used to say that the thorn room is often the way to the throne room. There is something about the grace and comfort of God that we experience in suffering that we cannot know any other way.

Luther Bridges, a graduate of Asbury College, was a 26 year old Methodist preacher in 1910 when he faced a major crisis in his life. One night his house was destroyed by fire. That night his wife and three children died.

In the days of heartache and sorrow that followed, Luther Bridges remembered that the Psalmist in Psalm 42:8 promised that God would give Him songs in the night. Out of that crisis - Luther penned these words -

"There's within my heart a melody - Jesus whispers
sweet and low. Fear not I am with thee - Peace be still;
in all of life's ebb and flow. Though sometimes he leads through waters deep, trials fall across the way, though sometimes the path seems dark and steep---"

Sometimes in our darkest and steepest moments - God can break in and give us a song as a sign of grace, a song of hope as a word of peace.

Maybe we should spend more time asking why when life is going great. I think in times like these it's o.k. to ask why as long as we also spend a lifetime asking why when the blessings come in the good times.

For the answer to both - is that God wants to make His presence known to us. Tonight I believe God wants to make His presence known to us in this dark hour in our community. Indeed some of us may be tempted at this time to turn from God and not to Him - to be angry with Him rather than to see this as an opportunity for growth and grace.

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once offered this prayer:

O Lord Jesus Christ, many and various are the things to which a man may feel himself drawn, but one thing there is to which no person ever felt himself drawn in any way is suffering and humiliation. This we think we ought to shun as far as possible, and in any case that we must be compelled to it. But You O Saviour and Redeemer, you who were humbled yet without compulsion, and least of all compelled to that humiliation in the imitation of which we discover our highest honor-ah, that the picture of You in your humiliation might be so vivid to us that we might feel ourselves drawn to you in lowliness, unto You who from on High wilt draw all unto Yourself.

Some of us here tonight are ready to "dis" God altogether. The sad fact is that most modern men and women are so blinded by our own sense of control that we tend to come to services like this one thinking that prayer and seeking God's presence are weak and useless. The reality, however, as we have seen this week is that all of us are at the mercy of social, economic, cosmological, and meteorological forces. The discovery that human omnipotence is indeed an illusion is the necessary precondition for us to rediscover the power, love, faithfulness, comfort, grace, and presence of God-and the place of prayer in our lives. That was the experience of the Apostle Paul. Out of the stake, the thorn in his flesh He came to delight in God's grace afresh. That did not mean that he did not groan under the load of suffering (5:2-4) and long for his mortality to be swallowed up by life (5:4). But he recognized that God's grace would allow him to endure, not escape, for it is there that we, like Paul, will find God's comfort and grace more than sufficient in times of weakness and crisis.

Why? Why did these things happen to us? To our city? I don't
know. I'm all out of answers, except for this one: I do believe that somehow God can and will turn this moment into something good for us, for this city - as we cry together, work together, serve together, and yes pray and worship together. It just might be that for us here tonight the thorn room will indeed be the route to God's Throne Room. Let's pray together.

• Pray for our City Leaders
• Pray for those who have lost loved ones
• Pray for unity in our community
• Pray for those without shelter
• Pray for those in pain and despair
• Pray for those struggling without hope
• Pray for workers and volunteers across this city
• Pray for wisdom in the rebuilding process
• Let's pray for God's presence to be known in the City of Jackson through this crisis.
• Let's pray for God's grace, comfort, and strength for us all. For His grace is sufficient in our weakness.