Mountains Crumble Into the Sea

Many of us have been watching the events in Japan unfold with great sadness and have offered up prayers and financial assistance (if you haven't given already, World Vision and Samaritan's Purse are two worthy relief agencies) to those who have been hit by a situation which, as I type this, seems to be getting worse. On top of the 10,000-plus people who are confirmed dead in the wake of the earthquake and resulting tsunami, the escalation of nuclear meltdown and contamination fears haunts those in northern Japan who have thusfar survived.

Of course, some have either joked or remarked about the tragedy in offensive ways, the offenders ranging from WNBA players to B-list commedians to UCLA students. Sad, but not unsurprising given my doctrinal understanding of the fallen nature of humans and my experiential understanding of the vulnerability towards stupidity that plagues many of them.

It's difficult to make sense of these natural disasters, and many of the same questions that arose when the Southeast Asia tsunami and Haiti earthquakes hit are being asked. From a theological question, the question around "How can a loving God permit such suffering?" is often tossed around. There are a lot of good books that touch on this, with the best treatment of this (not natural disaster specific) coming from John Piper's "A Sweet and Bitter Providence". Here's an excerpt which I found extremely thought-provoking, which emphasizes God's active sovereignity and purposes in the midst of tragedy:

That horrific tragedy serves God's purposes is not seen as a good news by many. Flesh-and-blood calamities, luke the tsunami of December 2004, are so devestating in the human agony that they cause that many Christians cannot ascribe them to the plan of God. For example, David Hart wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

When confronted by the sheer savage immensity of worldly suffering--when we see the entire littoral rim of the Indian Ocean strewn with tens of thousands of corpses, a third of them children's--no Christian is licensed to utter odious banalities about God's inscrutable counsels or blasphemous suggestions that all this mysteriously serves God's good ends.

These are strong words. And I strongly disagree with them. It is the message of the book of Ruth, as we will see, that all things mysteriously serve God's good ends. Thousands of Christians who have walked through fire and have seen horrors embrace God's conrol of things as the comfort and hope of their lives. It is not comforting or hopeful in their pain to tell them to God is not in control. Giving Satan the decisive control or ascribing pain to change is not true or helpful. When the world is crashing in, we need assurance that God reigns over it all.

I'm sure that Piper's difficult words won't resonate with everyone. And many may find that the Hart's words are much more aligned with thier own personal convictions and philosophy. But what Piper's words do, in a brutally intellectually honest and consistent way, is connect the dots around the question of a God who is sovereign and the reality of suffering on both a societal and personal level.

At the end of the day, my personal response is to love and show mercy to those who have been tragically afflicted as God commands me to, and to be reminded of my place in this world. All of us have been given great responsibilities by our Creator, but we should never mistake our calling and status - whether based on education, vocation, social stature, wealth, or citizenry - to hide the reality that we are not in control here, and that life should be treated with thanksgiving and respect, never taken for granted given its frailty and the illusion of our own personal indestructibility.