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The First Sunday of Epiphany/The Baptism of Christ, 2005Isaiah 43:1-7, Acts 8:14-17, Luke 3:15-17,21-22“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”Isaiah 43:2About three years ago, a five-year-old Moroccan boy called Rayan Oram fell through through the narrow opening of a 104 feet deep well and became trapped. Rescue efforts continued for four days and the story became global news. Hundreds gathered at the well and thousands more followed the story online and through the news. When Rayan was eventually retrieved from the well on a Saturday evening, the crowds at first greeted his emergence with cheers, until it became known that what was being retrieved was not a living boy but the body of a child who had died scared and alone in the darkness.I remember hearing about that story at the time. It has become obvious to me that stories affect us differently as we grow older and have different experiences in life. And this one got to me, not least because I thought about my own children and imagined them in a similar situation. Words cannot express the awfulness of such a thing. And it is only natural, when confronted by such events, to turn our gaze upwards and to ask why it is that a loving and powerful God would allow such horrors to occur to a child.This is a short sermon, so a full and satisfactory answer cannot be given here if it ever could. But, in my view, certain things should be ruled out, such as that this child had committed a crime that merited his death, or that God willed the tragic and lonely death of this five-year-old boy to bring about some greater purpose in his plans or (even more horrendously) to bring himself a greater measure of personal glory. Many theologians have speculated along these lines and to my mind these answers are not only contrary to the revelation of God and of Jesus Christ in Scripture but there are abhorrent and should cause us moral outrage.Again, this is just a brief reply, but there are perhaps two things of any substance to be said about this. The first is that the world that we live in is tragically separated from God as a result of a cosmic catastrophe that is aften called “The Fall”. The world that we live in is not the world as God intends it but the world that suffers as a result of the rebellion of conscious angelic and human agency. God will bring about a restored creation through the power of Jesus Christ’s cross and resurrection, but that is not the world we live in now.The second point I want to raise is the main focus for this sermon. I remember thinking about Rayan Oram at the time of his death that the only way that any sense can be made of it is to believe in a merciful God who was present to Rayan at every moment, through every second of his suffering. And, at the moment of his death, to believe that God immediately brought Rayan into his presence to be comforted and to consoled, and to rejoice with him forever.In this, I am reminded of a moving passage in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. A holy man called Zosima is confronted by a mother stricken with grief over the death of her two-year-old son. She has lost the will to believe and even to live and cannot go on with the pain. She comes to the Elder Zosima seeking advice. Among other things, Zosima says to the grieving mother:"Your son is with the angels now, praising God. He is more alive than he was here with us. He has gone where there is no more suffering, no tears, only eternal joy and peace. He is happy there, and he prays for you. Do not grieve as if you have lost him forever; for he is with the Lord, and through your faith, you can feel his presence. Your love for him has not ended; it has merely changed into something eternal. Rejoice that he is now in the presence of God, where he will never know sorrow or pain again."The Continuing ProblemThe problem of pain, suffering, evil, and death is a constant theme of Scripture. This morning we have a reading from the Book of Isaiah, a book which is all a