RIP: von Sydow

In the news - Max von Sydow, star of films from 'The Seventh Seal' to 'The Exorcist,' dead at 90

The first film I saw with Max von Sydow was the Ingmar Bergman movie The Seventh Seal when I was in college. It seems a really appropriate film for these times, as it was about the medieval scourge of the Black Death (the plague).

In the film, von Sydow plays a knight returning from the Crusades to his home in Denmark, only to find the plague having taken hold there. He comes upon Death and plays a continuing game of chess with him throughout the movie. The knight tries in many different ways to understand why the plague and its attendant suffering is being visited by God on the world, but he has no luck.

That movie asks the question that has bothered me my whole religious life - why does God let terrible things happen to us? I've not ever found a convincing answer to that question. As the fallout from COVID-19 gets worse in the US, it's a question that continues to dog me.