It is a fair to assume that if Moses made it alive because of an amazing courageous effort of five remarkable women, many other Hebrew children didn’t make it. They succumbed to the brutality of Pharaoh who wanted , at all cost , to eradicate a perceived threat , fifth columns , that could have overthrown his regime .
Centuries later another king, Herod, King of the Jews, will order all the babies of Bethlehem killed. The infant Jesus survives because his parents took him away, to Egypt. But one has to assume a lot of babies did not. If God is acting, is God choosing some babies to save and others to discard or to punish?
Sometimes it sounds like that is what we believe: that God intercedes, rescues some and visits suffering and death on others as an expression of God’s will.
We need, however, to approach carefully and humbly the question of why a God who is good and actively involved in the world allows suffering. There is no simple answer. It is appropriate to say we don’t know the answer.
I believe God does surround us with gracious, healing, resurrecting love: Moses, floating down the river in his little basket, right into the waiting arms of a princess. But the other babies, too. You and me when we are healthy and alive, and when we are not.
Dr. Willy L Mafuta, Ph.D, Th.D
Senior Pastor,
Hopewell United Methodist Church, Hopewell, NJ 08525