You live in a world where vicious people, be they criminals who hide in darkness, or the oppressive powers of the state, strike out at random or whimsy to shed blood. You live in a world where storms sweep in from nowhere, permitting the sea to consume fathers and husbands, leaving nothing but the wreckage from overturned boats to wash up on shore. In your world God seems capricious in his judgment, his decisions almost impulsive and without reason. He seems to cause towers to fall down on the innocent as well as the guilty. This is the world of the first century, and without a doubt the world of the twenty first.
Earthquakes strike without warning, criminals kill, shadows appear on X-rays.
Life is a gift, and can be taken away at any time. Life is not our right. If we expect some divine protection from God, if we still cling to the teenage notions of immortality, we only fool ourselves. We are only passing through. On this third Sunday in Lent we meet Jesus as he calls us to examine our lives and reflect, not only what we ve done with our lives, but what we re doing with them.