In thinking of the people of Japan...

I thought that I would repost this blog. I wrote in the aftermath of the tragic earthquake in Haiti - and I think of home too which has been on alert since this has happened, waiting for word of whether the tsunami hits home or not. 

In the cold light of last night’s disaster and the loss of our fire department and in the wake of the Haiti earthquake and what we have been striving to do in the face of human suffering near and far, I thought that it might be good to respond to some questions that have been brought to me around the question of where is God in the middle of disaster? Where is God when we are hurting and suffering?  I want to acknowledge that I have been reading a fair bit of Bishop NT Wright’s work lately and so I thank him for his thoughts as I try to work through what I am hearing in making some sort of response.

First of all, we like to think that we live in an inherently good world. In fact there may be some who will point out that God call creation not only good but very good when he was finished. What we fail to recognize often is that this creation not only humanity but all of creation has been affected by the fall and the entrance of sin into creation. It is no small matter that the Saviour needs to enter into our humanity and work redemption through the frailty of human flesh so that God can freely offer salvation to anyone who wishes it. The restoration of righteousness (of the relationship between God and humanity) comes with a price. There was a need to deal with the falling short on the part of humanity because we chose to depend on ourselves rather than to trust God to provide. We chose ourselves over having a relationship with God. In the process, the good that was in humanity and that of the rest of creation was marred. The image was still present but spoiled. And so in order to restore that image and that relationship, grace had to be given, mercy had to be shown and salvation has to be offered.

A word does need to be said about how we fell and the role of evil in that fall. Evil’s greatest strength is not in the manufacturing of evil, but in the subversion of what is best. What this means is that evil can do evil but it is more likely that evil would rather tempt humanity so that they choose good over the best. The serpent’s conversation with the woman shows us that we might have already been leaning towards wondering what it might be like to be more like God, wanting to be on our own. Evil showed us that this is possible that we could achieve things on our own and that we could in some manner be self sufficing. In doing so we have put ourselves and our own wills ahead of what God desires for us. And at the same time we have lost many of the qualities within the sustaining relationship with God that we so desire – health, long life blessings. Through Christ, God has made the way back to him possible. It should also be said that evil is not the opposite of God – God is above both good and evil. There is nothing equal to or with God. Not evil and not the devil.      

Second of all we like to think the world is getting better and better. This is a recent idea called “process theology”. We seem to believe that evils are solvable like an equation or some kind of scientific experiment and therefore can be handled by technology, education and the development of the rest of the world into the westernized ideal of democracy and capitalism. Everyone else has to be like us and that way everyone will be better off. We continue to ignore evil until it smacks us in the face and then we are surprised by its appearance. The reality is that we don’t know how to deal with the presence of evil in our communities or in our own personal lives. We thought it had been taken care of. So  when disaster strikes, like the earthquake in Haiti, genocide in Yugoslavia or Germany, a tidal wave in South East Asia, a teenage girl is murdered by a peer or a community loses its fire station to a fire we struggle with how to react.  North American society has been rocked in the last 10 years by so many things that reminds of how life is outside of our comfy, insulated cocoon.  

Third of all, spiritually the war is won, but life beyond the cross is a “mop up” operation. Bishop Wright would point out that we in those moments tend to react and lash out because we are hurt. We hit back without considering what the consequences would be and we move to fight wars without considering whether they are just, accuse people of selling themselves to the devil without being prepared to wage spiritual warfare on their behalf. Jesus offered himself on the cross as an offering for sin, “once offered, a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” Evil has been totally defeated. But like in any conflict there is “mop up” to be done. Evil still has the ability to tempt and to thwart as it always has, but it can no longer win. Evil can still hurt and destroy but it cannot overcome love nor corrupt the truth. People ask where is God in the midst of all this? God is here with us. He is with the parent who sits in the dust of what is left of a shanty home and cries over the loss of children. God is with the solider in the fields of Southern Afghanistan who lies broken and dying after being attacked with an IED. God is with the firefighter who can only stand back and watch as the station house he has spent so much time in, working to build up, as it goes up in flames and smoke. God is with those who recall a young life that was too shortly lived.

We are promised that someday heaven and earth will be brought together and the sea between them will be no more. There will be nothing of the former life and that every tear will be wiped away. We will come to that which we are promised in God, someday. In the meantime, let us make sure that we concentrate on God and on announcing that Jesus is Lord to this world that needs a Saviour so much and live as the message of hope that this world is so desperate to hear.