Now we know: it wasn't Sergio Ramos who was behind Mo Salah spraining his shoulder during the Champions League final, but a higher power altogether.
The Egyptian forward clashed with Ramos during the first half of Saturday's game against Real Madrid. According to Muslim preacher Mubarak al Bathali, it was because he broke his fast during Ramadan and God was punishing him.
Christians don't really have anything to say about the inner workings of Islam. An American professor at Wheaton College got into terrible trouble a couple of years ago for suggesting that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Whether that's true or not, we certainly believe very different things about God.
We don't do Ramadan, of course. But do Christians believe God punishes people for sinning? There is some biblical warrant, though not much – most of the judgment passages in the Old Testament are about God punishing Israel, rather than individuals. In the New Testament Jesus is asked in John 9 whether 'this man sinned or his parents, that he was born blind?' 'Neither' was his answer. On the other hand, there is the cautionary tale of Ananias and Sapphira, who attempted to deceive the apostles about how much they were giving to the church, perhaps the closest we come to outright punishment for sin.
The truth seems to be that the idea God punishes us for sin by making things go wrong in our lives seems to be more a pagan idea than a Christian one. God is not presented in Scripture as an angry and vengeful tyrant, waiting to catch us out and ready to smite us with thunderbolts. He is a loving Father, wanting to guide us in the way that's right and wholesome for us.
When something goes wrong for us, it might well be that we can learn from it and grow stronger because of it. In that sense, God is in it. But that's very different from saying that God has deliberately arranged the sprained shoulder or the broken leg as a punishment for sin. The Christian life is about grace, not about law and judgment. In the physics of grace, every action does not have an equal and opposite reaction. It wasn't God's fault Mo Salah got hurt; it's just one of those things. And when things go wrong for us, it's not that God has it in for us because we've don't something wrong. Of course we have – we're sinners. But we're forgiven sinners, and God is a God of love.
