A
Response to our spontaneous reactions to Natural Disasters.
Theme:
The
Mystery of Suffering (A Creation in Travail)
Bible
Base: Romans
8 18-30
The
Tsunami
On
Radio Shropshire last week there was a lot of anger being expressed — anger
towards the church with its massive wealth, and anger towards God for allowing
it to happen.
Regarding
anger against God, it is only natural, whenever we face suffering on this scale,
for people to give vent to their pain in this way.
Sydney Carter’s words, put into the mouth of the penitent thief on the
cross, speak profoundly to every human being who has known tragedy “It’s
God they ought to crucify instead of you and me,
I said to the carpenter a-hanging on the tree”
God,
as the maker of this universe, is the One with whom the buck comes to rest: and
a God who allows himself to be crucified is not afraid to take the rap; he
almost seems to invite our anger and pain, whether it arises from natural
disaster, as in this case, or from man’s wrong-doing, as with the 9/11
terrorist attacks on the USA.
I
say invites our anger to rest on him.
He invites our anger, both because he is prepared to take the sting
himself, to bear our griefs; and because he would far rather we make a
relationship with him, far rather that we look him in the eye, even it means
shouting at him and being angry with him rather than that we turn away in
bitterness and resentment. If
we look him in the eye, however uncomfortable we feel, then we are in the
process of working through and so of deepening our relationship with him:
for as we share with him our pain and anger, we find a God who receives
our anger, and still loves us: a God who is with us in our pain, and
does not turn away or push us away.
But
if we turn away in bitterness and resentment, muttering to ourselves and to our
friends, but not to him, then we break that relationship. and we are not
in a place to see how much he cares.
C.S.
Lewis talks in one of his books of the young lad, Digby, talking to Aslan about
his mother, who is seriously ill; as he talks he sees a huge tear fall down
Asian’s face, and realises that Aslan is even more concerned for his mother
than he is.
That
is why I can not accept Graham Kendrick’s words in his song, “How
deep the Father’s love” where he says, “The Father turns his face away.”
Jesus certainly felt forsaken, but there is no evidence that the Father
had averted his gaze. I do not believe that God ever looks away from pain
and hurt. Rather, he is the more
concerned, the more involved, when his children are in trouble,
especially when it was his own Son dying in agony on the cross.
Longer
Term Questions
But
there is another way in which a relationship can die... when deeper questions go
unanswered.
Sometimes
these questions are unspoken, sometimes they are not even recognised, but if
they are not brought to the surface, it they are not processed, then
slowly the love, the trust, the warmth we have toward another, slowly all dies,
and with it the relationship dies.
The
question that many have asked is ,“Why did God allow it to happen in
the first place?”
The
passage of scripture that comes to mind is the mysterious phrase of Paul in his
letter to the church at Rome; “We
know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now”
(Rom 8: 22)
When
Paul wrote that he certainly was not writing about plate tectonics something -
that was only recognised and confirmed in the 1960’s —
and yet he opens a window onto a world in travail, a creation that is still in
the process of coming to birth.
A
World in Travail
Scientific
endeavour by geologists over the last two hundred years has painted a picture of
a world that is alive — vast continents moving, albeit so slowly and
gradually, but moving inexorably now this way, now that, all moved by the slow
convection of the earths interior.
Sometimes
continents are split open — as Europe and America were millions of years ago:
and sometimes continents collide — pushing up great mountain chains such as
the Himalayas and the Alps. At
such collisions earthquakes and volcanoes are a natural response.
The
earthquake that caused the tsunami had its birth some hundreds of years ago as
the Indo-Australian plate got stuck as it plunges under the Asian plate.
The
effect of volcanoes and earthquakes is often disastrous, as we are now
witnessing: and yet, without plate tectonics we would be a dead world —
without coal, without oil and gas; without limestone or sandstone; without soil;
and without almost all of the minerals that are essential for everyday life —
aluminium, silver, gold, tin, lead, salt, to mention but a few.
The
picture that has emerged over the last two hundred years, as scientists have
explored the earth — and the life-forms that have inhabited it — is of a
world constantly in motion, constantly changing, constantly adapting.
This
is the world that God has chosen to make —
a creation that groans in labour pains.
Labour pains speak to us of suffering — and of new life;
and, so it seems, in our world, you can not have one without the other.
In
the sight of so much devastation and destruction, of so much death and
suffering, this is a hard thing to say — and no consolation to those who have
suffered.
But
this is the world that God has given us
Religious
people often resort to the simple equation “Bad things happen to bad people
and good things happen to good people”.
But true as that often is, it is not the whole picture.
A
world that is alive, that changes and grows, that sometimes groans in pain, is a
risky, dangerous world — but without the life, without change, it would
be a dead world, an inert, lifeless world.
How
do we respond to a world in labour pains?
So
how do we respond to a world that is in travail— and to the God who has given
it to us?
In
that same passage in his letter to the church at Rome,
Paul goes on to say that we too, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit,
“groan inwardly as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies —
for we were saved in hope.” And he prefaces this whole section with the words: “I
consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with
the glory that shall be revealed to us; for the creation waits with eager
longing for the revealing of the children of God.”
Paul looks for the day when, “creation
itself will be set free from its bondage to decay, and will obtain the freedom
of the glory of the children of God.”
Life
on the earth is ever changing, ever moving on, towards a future that God has
planned. This does not mean that we
wait passively for things to happen.
The
story of human endeavour is of people continually rising to new challenges and
finding new ways to protect ourselves against an environment that is now benign
and beneficial, and now seemingly bent on destroying these little
creatures that live on its surface.
From
the first shelters humans built to the Thames Barrier and the Tsunami warning
system in the Pacific, we seek to protect ourselves against the extreme vagaries
of the living earth which is our home.
Because
of our technology, there is a growing culture in the West that imagines that we
have a right to a pain-free, cost-free existence. There is no virtue in pain for its own sake: but we
delude ourselves if we imagine that life can be totally free of pain and
struggle.
But
we can not always avoid pain: sometimes
nature catches us by surprise and tragedy ensues.
Such
tragedy and suffering comes about not only because of human sin, but also
because we are part of a creation still coming into being, still being
created, still coming to birth.
Where
is
God in all this?
The
first creation story in Genesis speaks of God’s Spirit hovering over the
waters of chaos: and still he does that, seeking to bring order out of a
world that is alive and changing.
And
as that same Spirit moves within us, he continues to hover, to yearn, to work in
us and though us, to bring into being the world that the Father had in mind
before he even founded the world. That
same Spirit groans within us, praying to the Father with sighs too deep for
words.
God
asks us to embrace, with him, this world that he has made;
he asks us to struggle in love with a world that is still in the process
of coming into being.
God,
I sense, is like a midwife standing beside a mother in labour,
encouraging, sometimes alleviating, but not intervening to halt the actual
process that is taking place, despite the pain — because of what will emerge.
A mother might well ask, “Is all this pain necessary?”
And we might ask the same.
I
can not even begin to enter into the heart of God as he sees thousands of people
— each of them precious to him, their Creator — drowned and killed, and
whole communities washed away.
I
know from Jesus, his Son, that he grieves ; but I also know — in some
mysterious way that I can not fathom — that he, who did not spare his own Son
from suffering and death, has a greater purpose both for those who have died and
for those who have survived, and for us who look on and seek to help:
as Paul says “In
all things God works for good for those who love him.”
So
I leave you with some words for you to ponder:
“As my Son embraced humanity
and became one with it,
even to embracing
its sin and broken-ness
on the cross,
so he wants to embrace you
and to become one with you.
he
in you, and you in him.
There is absolutely nothing
that matters more
for you
and for the world
than to embrace
and to be embraced
by my Son, Jesus,
born of Mary.
Will you share with us
in the pain
and the glory
of
love ?”
N.C.