Not long ago I went and saw the popular movie, "Signs."  While the setting of the movie had to do with aliens and crop signs, it's main theme was a religious one.  It's message in a nutshell was "Everything happens for a reason."  At first it might seem good that Hollywood is trying to set forth a positive religious message.  (It certainly can't hurt the way pastors are viewed to see Mel Gibson in a collar!)  But the more I've pondered this movie, the more uncomfortable I've become.  Here's why.

 First of all, as much as I was entertained by this movie and love science fiction, I don't think that it's helpful to mix fantasies about aliens into the real world of spiritual struggle and one's relationship with the real God.  Belief in aliens is a false, evolutionary conviction contrary to the Scriptures and to the Gospel.  Yet this is not my main concern.

 My main concern has to do with a type of religion that looks to signs and to one's own experiences for assurances of God's presence and guidance in life.  This type of spirituality is more superstition than faith, and it causes people to turn their attention away from the solid rock of Christ's Word to the shifting sands of their own changing perceptions and corrupted reasoning.  We walk by faith in Christ's Word alone and not by sight or experience (II Corinthians 5:7).  Jesus said, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign" (Matthew 12:39).  The certainty of God's presence and guidance in our life comes through His Spirit-given words and sacraments and not through other signs.

 The story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 is a unmistakable reminder that appearances and experiences and signs can be deceiving.  In that account, the one who looked blessed was cursed, and the one who looked cursed was blessed.  The poor, hungry beggar Lazarus would have received no comfort from someone telling him, "Everything happens for a reason," as the alley dogs licked his open wounds.  Nor does it offer any comfort to the person who just lost a loved one or who was just diagnosed with some disease or who just lost their job.  It might be that later on we'll understand how God was at work in these things.  But real comfort is found only in the Gospel of the God who sent His Son to bear our every infirmity and sorrow and sin and rescue us by dying and rising again to give us abundant life forever.

 Too often people look for answers in their own self-concocted philosophies rather than seeking the wisdom of the Scriptures.  The Scriptures don't answer every single one of our questions, but in them the Holy Spirit draws us to trust in the mercy and the goodness of God.  Looking to Him who cried out for us on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" we are made able to walk by faith without necessarily having all of our "why" questions answered.

 "Everything happens for a reason" is, of course, true in a certain sense, but not in the sense that everything is necessarily going to work out for you in this life.  Rather, it is written, "All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).  It is your eternal good that God is working out, even through the evil things that you experience.  He is working in you repentance and faith in Christ.  He is not working simply for your worldly happiness in this life (though He does provide for all your needs) but for your eternal joy in the life to come.  In that confidence St. Paul writes, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18).
 
 These then are the signs God has given you to trust in: the sign of the cross etched on you in baptism as by water and the Word you were cleansed and made to be a holy child of God; the sign of the pastor preaching the Gospel to you and forgiving your sins in Jesus' name; the sign of the bread and wine in which Christ gives you His true body and blood to fill you with His life.  Cling to the Lord in these sacramental signs, for He is truly present in them to comfort you and guide you and bring you to life everlasting.

-Pastor Koch-