The news this week has been dominated by the deaths of two young boys whose bodies were found in the boot of their father’s car.

The alarm had been raised by their mother when they did not return from a trip to Carlow where their father was taking them bowling. That was last Sunday and apart from a single distressed phone call from their father there was no more contact till his car was found crashed on Monday afternoon.

The crash appears to have been a failed suicide attempt.

Sanjeev is of Indian descent. He worked at repairing computers. He had married into a local farm family and his boys were Eoghan (10) and Ruairi (5). The boys were active in the life of the community. The apparent normality of the family makes the tragedy all the more difficult to deal with.

The love and compassion afforded by the community and church to the bereaved provide some comfort and solace but there are questions that will not go away. Perhaps sometime in the future Sanjeev will be able address the question why, but perhaps not.

When the balance of the mind is disturbed wrong things appear to be right to the extent that the actions taken appear, at that moment, to be the only thing to do. When the enormity of the consequences dawns suicide seems to offer the only way out.

Then there is God. Surely He could have intervened. Even atheists join the chorus “Why did He let it happen”! There seems to be a consensus that He could have prevented it.

God too has a Son who died in horrendous circumstances. And scripture tells us that God the Father had a hand in it, “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief;” Isaiah Chapter 53 verse 10a.

But this was not the action of a tormented mind but a sublime act of love for sinners, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans Chapter 5 verse 8.

This love of God for the unlovely, in fact for those utterly opposed to Him, is the only hope for a world gone mad and it is available in this day of grace to all repentant sinners. God’s mercy is as great as His grace and is freely offered to those who turn from their sins. The wonderful news is that there are none too far gone whether their names are Sanjeev or George.