Church

The earthquake and God

Theological reflections after the Haiti earthquake

(1) So many questions...

If we are thoughtful people, an event such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 2004 or the Haiti Earthquake of 2010 will raise all sorts of questions for us that we cannot easily – and should not – try and avoid. These questions may include some of the following:

• If God is a God of love, why didn’t He prevent this disaster from happening?
• Given the extent of the needs of the world, should I still spend my money on that foreign holiday / new car / that TV or computer equipment / those new clothes…?
• What (if anything) does an event like the Tsunami or Earthquake have to say to me?

(2) So many questioners…

Here are some extracts from articles which appeared in The Guardian newspaper in the days following the tsunami disaster:

“This week provides an unsought opportunity to consider the largest of all human implications of any major earthquake: its challenge to religion… It is hard to think of any event in modern times that requires a more serious explanation from the forces of religion than this week’s earthquake… What God sanctions an earthquake? What God protects against it? Why does the quake strike these places and these peoples and not others? What kind of order is it that decrees that a person who went to sleep by the edge of the ocean on Christmas night should wake up the next morning engulfed by the waves, struggling for life?” (Martin Kettle, 28.12.04)

“Richard Dawkins once pointed out that these things are just what one would expect of a universe of blind electrons and selfish genes: pitiless indifference.” (Brian Robinson, 29.12.04)

“If a small fraction of the tax breaks handed out to churches, mosques and synagogues had been diverted into an early warning system, tens of thousands of people, now dead, would have been moved to safety.” (Richard Dawkins, 30.12.04)

“Images of human flotsam and jetsam prompt nihilistic thoughts of meaninglessness. (If only there was a God to blame)… Prayers in all faiths fall on earthquake-wrecked ground.” (Polly Toynbee, 31.12.04)

(3) Some issues…

Of course, if there is no God, there is no problem: we just have to clean up the mess, provide as much aid as we can, and help those who are suffering as much as we choose to. But if there is no God, then, as Dawkins says, the universe is ultimately a place of “pitiless indifference” – where things happen, but ultimately we all die, and that is it, full stop. Any values or beliefs we have to guide us through life are simply there as a crutch to make sense of the world until we ourselves die too.

Some would say that there is a God, but that He is evil or at best indifferent. But, as Christians, we are people who claim to know God – not merely know about Him. And while God is by definition beyond our full comprehension, the God we claim to know is a God who reveals Himself through creation, through the written Word (Scripture) and through the incarnate Word (Jesus Christ) and whose nature at one point is summed up as: “God is love” (1 John 4v16). This is the God we claim to know ourselves.

Before we go any further, I hope it goes without saying that surely one of our first and foremost reactions in this situation must be to have compassion on those who have suffered in this appalling tragedy. I was watching the news shortly after the tsunami struck and one of the individuals featured was a 13-year-old boy who had lost his entire family. How could we not all weep with him at his dreadful loss and seek to give to the disaster relief appeal in response? Of course, we can do no other. There are issues to be talked about here, but let us never lose sight of the human tragedy and pain involved; this is no mere abstract discussion.

When we try and think through some of the questions raised at the start of this discussion, it’s also important to stress of course that we can never know the mind of God fully; if we did, we would be as all-knowing as God – and of course our mere human brains cannot begin to fathom the vast cosmic consciousness of almighty God in His glory.

Moreover, like the Old Testament character Job, who was never told the reasons for his appalling suffering, we may often have no clue as to what is happening, or why, when we face specific disasters of personal or international significance. And – unlike Job’s “comforters”, who rushed in with all sorts of plausible sounding “religious explanations” for him – there are plenty of times when it is, quite frankly, best for us to remain silent in the face of almighty God. That shouldn’t stop us seeking to understand what the Bible does say, in general terms, about human life and pain, nor should it stop us seeking to develop a thought-out Christian worldview, as we are seeking to do here, but it ought to prevent us going any further and rushing in with crass comments such as “they’ve suffered because they were being judged for such-and-such a sin” and so on…

So what we are seeking to do here is not come up with some slick, specific answer to the question, “Why did God let this happen?” Nor are we trying to answer questions such as, “What specific prophesy in the Book of Revelation does this fulfil?” Rather, what we are seeking to do here is to reiterate some aspects of the basic Christian worldview which will inform the way we see the world at times like this. What we can know in a situation like this is what God has revealed to us definitively in His Word. And it’s important, I think, that we do. Because to know what God has told us means we are equipped more fully to serve Him in this brief and transitory life – and to deal with some of the questions and pain that life throws at us, as it does for all of us, even if that sometimes means just remaining silent before the face of God Almighty.

(4) What God has told us

There are some things that should inform our worldview as Christians at such a time as this. Some of them are obvious, some less so, some perhaps even a little shocking if we have not thought about them for a while.

(a) What does the Bible say about suffering?

The Bible never suggests that, in this life, God will provide us with a comfortable or pain-free existence, or magic all our problems away. In fact, the Bible is full of human suffering, including natural disasters – from the flood of Genesis, to the high winds that collapsed a house on top of Job’s children, not to mention famine, disease and so on. That’s aside from the petty frustrations and annoyances that make up human life the rest of the time. “In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus said (John 16v33). And the first Christians were told: “We must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Even the miraculous events of the Bible tend to be concentrated in specific clusters related to the unfolding of salvation history: they are not routine. And for example when the early church leader Peter is miraculously released from prison (Acts 12) we read in the very same chapter that his colleague James was “put to death with the sword” (v2).

So if we live as Christians expecting a pain-free life, or anticipating that God will sort out all our personal problems this side of death, we need to be corrected by what the Bible actually says. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes described life as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” and in some ways I think that is an accurate, even Biblical, description of human existence at its most basic.

The early Christian writer Paul speaks of his own experience as including “troubles, hardships and distresses… beatings, imprisonments and riots; hard work, sleepless nights and hunger” (2 Corinthians 6v5) and reports how “three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea… I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked” (from 2 Corinthians 11v23-28).

When we look at the life of Christ himself we see suffering in all its human fullness: “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53v3).

Having said that, the Bible does not lead us to despair, because one day we are promised a “new heavens and a new earth” when Christ returns and creation will be renewed. That’s certainly hard for us to understand – just as any event we have not previously encountered, such as 9/11, would have been hard to envisage before it happened. But it gives us hope. Thus Paul writes: “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4v18).

Having warned us to expect trouble in this life, Jesus Himself immediately adds in hope too, as he tells us: “But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16v33). The world is full of pain – but suffering is not the last word; Christ and his death, resurrection and return cast things in a different light. If we have never thought through the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, then now may be a good time to start.

■ In Christ, God Himself has entered this suffering world, and, on the cross, experienced suffering in all its evil.
■ When we suffer, we know that, in Christ, we have a High Priest who is able to sympathise with our pain.

(b) In general terms, why does the Bible say there is suffering in the world?

One of the reasons we may be Christians is because of the very existence of the world itself. The fact that this planet exists, in all its beauty and complexity, causes us to ask fundamental questions about how such a thing could come about. As Psalm 19 puts it poetically: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Romans 1 puts it more prosaically: “Since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (v20).

In December 2004, a leading British academic, Anthony Flew, the emeritus professor of philosophy at Reading University, revealed he was abandoning his life-long atheism because he had now “decided that he cannot ignore the evidence for God the Creator” (Church Times, 17.12.04). His first action was to start re-writing his 1966 book 'God and Philosophy'.

Nonetheless, when we look at the world, we see not only the fact that it points us to God – but the fact that there is something wrong with it too. At a most basic level, the Bible tells us that there is suffering because the world, human beings and God are out of synch. Like cogs in a piece of equipment that should function together smoothly but are now out of alignment, there is something fundamentally wrong with the world. You don’t need a minister, or indeed anyone, to tell you this: when you look around the world, you see human relationships that are out of synch and breaking down, causing pain. And that’s true of humanity and God too; instinctively we have a sense of the “spiritual”, the numinous, of “something else” – call it what you will – but in and of ourselves we human beings do not know God. Intuitively, human beings feel there must be something there, but we don’t quite know what or how to connect. The link is somehow disconnected; the thread we feel should be there is broken.

The fact that human beings, the planet and God are out of synch is what the Bible calls “sin” – not (simply) individual acts of wrongdoing, but a fundamental misalignment originating in humanity’s rejection of God’s rule from the very earliest times.

Sometimes we can see how this misalignment causes pain: when one human being hits another, we don’t need to blame God for that – it’s quite obvious who is responsible. Sometimes, we cannot see any direct connection for ourselves, but nonetheless the Bible speaks of the whole of creation being in “bondage to decay” and says that “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8v21-22). God, humanity and the planet are out of synch – and that affects everything.

Even with a huge natural disaster such as the Tsunami, it is interesting to note that we can detect at least some traces of sin in what has happened, even if we might choose to express such ideas only very tentatively:

“As the clear-up from the Asian tsunami starts and the full damage is assessed, there is growing consensus among scientists, environmentalists and Asian fishing communities that the impact was considerably worsened by tourist, shrimp farm and other industrial developments which have destroyed or degraded mangrove forests and other natural sea defences.

Reports this week from India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Malaysia suggest the worst damage has been in places with no natural protection from the sea and that communities living behind intact mangrove forests in particular were largely spared.

According to Professor MS Swaminathan, India’s leading agricultural scientist who is chairing a government inquiry into coastal developments, the mangrove forests in the Pitchavaram and Muthupet regions of Tamil Nadu acted like a shield and bore the brunt of the tsunami.

‘But in other areas… where the forests have been cut down and there is sand mining and developments, the devastation has been more widespread. The dense mangrove forests stood like a wall to save coastal communities living behind them,’ says Prof Swaminathan…

While most Asian countries have strong environmental protection laws governing coastal developments and protecting coastal forests, these are widely ignored by the powerful tourist and aquaculture industries, which have rapidly encroached onto beaches and cleared the inter-tidal areas to provide better views, wider beaches or the brackish water environment in which shrimps and prawns thrive.” (The Guardian, 6.1.05)

When we look at Christ we see someone in whom God and man were one, and who displayed in his life a balance and ability to interact harmoniously with the natural world around Him (Mark 6v45-52 for example) which the rest of us, as fallen human beings, do not possess.

Nonetheless, having said all this, it is important to say again that there are plenty of specific instances of human pain and suffering where we cannot even begin to make specific conjectures, and where, indeed, it would be quite inappropriate to do so. At such times, it may be most appropriate to remain silent.

■ In Christ, God has not only suffered with us, but, on the cross, He has taken the root cause of that suffering – our sin – upon Himself.

(c) What does the Bible say about death?

This might seem a strange question to ask. But we live in a society that, by and large, is very insulated from death. Compared with just a few years ago, most people in Britain live longer, healthier lives than ever before. We are unfamiliar with death as a society, and can be uncertain how to react when we encounter it. Increasingly, there is an underlying assumption in British society that we have a “right” to a long and healthy life – and that medical staff “ought” to be able to sort us out when things go wrong.

This can affect the way we think as Christians. God “ought” to grant us a long and healthy life, we think. Yet this mindset generally is quite a recent development in Britain, and the Bible certainly gives us no encouragement to think we have a “right” to a long or necessarily healthy life. Jesus Himself was cut down at the age of 33, not to mention the children under the age of two who were massacred because of his birth (Matthew 2v16).

Unless Christ returns in our lifetimes, death will come to us all, just as it has to all those who preceded us – and for some it may come suddenly or prematurely. Being a Christian does not guarantee us a long and charmed existence, and nor is there anything in the Bible that promises us a pain-free, healthy life until we slip peacefully away at some advanced old age.

The writer to Ecclesiastes puts it graphically: “Remember Him – before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (11v6-7).

The Bible is less concerned about giving us any hint of the timing of our death than about warning us to be ready for it, because we are “destined to die once – and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9v27).

The Christian faith teaches that death is not the last word, and not the end – a message this suffering world desperately needs to hear. The resurrection of Christ casts everything in a different light: “If the dead are not raised, ‘let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’,” (1 Corinthians 15v32). “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all people. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (15v17-20).

As the writer of the letter to the Hebrews puts it: since humans have flesh and blood, Jesus shared our humanity “so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (2v14-15).

■ In Christ’s resurrection, God tells us that death is not the last word. And that changes our whole worldview.
■ It also challenges us about our own position with the God who we shall face after our death.

(d) What did Jesus say about victims of suffering?

There are two quite separate things to be said here. The first is what we might all expect, and it’s centred on the story of the Good Samaritan. Many of us know this, I guess, though you might want to refresh yourselves on it from Luke 10v25-37. We note with consternation and dismay, and perhaps if we are honest some guilt, the way the card-carrying religious people of the day, a Priest and a Levite, walk past the badly beaten man… And we note the simple command of Jesus to echo the Samaritan who had mercy on the man, and “go and do likewise”. We can do this as we contribute money, of course, to the Tsunami disaster appeal, although probably many of us face people closer to home every day that we instinctively tend to “walk past”: the person at church we find difficult; the individual on the school gates no one speaks to; the person at work who is awkward, odd, rude or obnoxious; the family member with whom we fell out several years ago; the person of a different background to ourselves living next door…

On another occasion, Jesus was asked about the victims of two disasters which happened in his time. On one occasion, the Roman ruler of the area, Pilate, caused huge offence by mixing human blood from devout Jews with the sacrifices being offered in the temple: it was about as offensive as you could get. Jesus does not give a huge theological answer when questioned about it, but turns it into a fairly shocking and blunt challenge: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13v3). Jesus effectively says, “God wasn’t punishing those people because they were worse than anyone else; the fact is that everyone deserves to face God’s judgement. What’s important now is not theorising about it all, but your own relationship with God – and unless you turn around from your own life of sin, you’re going to face spiritual death yourself.” We instinctively find this extremely uncomfortable and very challenging, but Jesus then goes on to reinforce the same point by taking another example of a recent disaster from his day: “Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (v4-5). Sort out your own relationship with God while you are still alive yourself, Jesus says: that’s the important thing. And his words weren’t just intended for his original hearers either. Perhaps Jesus has to express it in fairly direct terms to have a chance of getting us to listen.

■ Jesus was far less concerned about providing intellectual answers to evil events than about challenging his hearers to consider the attitude of their hearts – to other people, and, most importantly, to God.

(e) What did Jesus say about earthquakes?

In the wake of the Haiti earthquake, one blogger observed:
“It has stunned me how many news articles, blog posts and commentaries on the Internet have mentioned God in relation to the Haiti earthquake tragedy. God is either portrayed as the villain of the piece, or the hope in tragedy, or the one dishing out earthquakes as ‘divine judgment’ or some such thing. Atheists have come out to mock the Christians and their God and nutjob ‘Christians’ have come out to say wicked and stupid things about this tragedy, but either way, God features heavily in the thoughts of those reflecting on this tragedy, which has taken me by surprise. What is it about disasters (especially natural or ‘acts of God’) that suddenly thrusts God into the human mind, in a way that is like no other?”

It’s an interesting question. How quickly in time of natural disaster people leap to blame a God they don’t otherwise claim to believe in, and certainly don’t rush to give thanks to for all that is good about the world.

In an article on the website Guardian Online entitled “The Haiti quake must not be dismissed as an 'act of God'”, Brian Tucker, founder of GeoHazards International, a non-profit organisation working to reduce the risk of natural hazards in the world's most vulnerable communities, and a member of the board of directors of the Seismological Society of America, wrote:

“Today it is well known that poor design and construction practice results in buildings that are sure to collapse during earthquakes of this magnitude, killing and maiming those caught in them and leaving a trail of social disruption, sometimes for generations. Japan and the US state of California have improved their building codes and construction standards to reflect their seismic vulnerability, and the lethality of earthquakes in both places has been massively reduced during the last century. We know how to mitigate the devastating effects of earthquakes.

For someone like myself, who has devoted most of his professional life to reducing loss of life and suffering due to natural disasters, to see the images coming out of Haiti is like seeing the scene of an accident caused by a drunk driver you have tried repeatedly to stop drinking and driving. The suffering of innocents is terrible to witness. But almost as terrible is the fear that government authorities will not learn and take corrective actions to keep this from happening in the future, elsewhere.

After taking care of the victims in Haiti, we should approach the people who allowed hospitals and schools to be constructed in ways that would collapse during an earthquake and ask them to do better, starting now.

Wouldn't it have been a wonderful symbol if the UN building in Haiti had been properly built or retrofitted to resist earthquakes, and we could all observe it standing now? That could have taught many people the life lesson that we can plan for and mitigate against natural hazards.”

In general terms, when we think about the Haiti earthquake, we can surely conclude with the writer Craig Uffman:

“As we participate vicariously in the tormented tears of young girls, lost and alone in the Haitian darkness, as our hearts pour out tears for the thousands of sons and daughters and mothers and fathers who have died so suddenly and shockingly, and as we turn to our task of being the loving and living hands of Christ in response to this tragedy, let us never forget the urgent truth about God that it is our vocation to proclaim: God does not will our sickness or our death; God does not will that evil be done; God has conquered evil and death through the Cross. This is the meaning of the empty tomb. This is our Easter faith. As theologian David Bentley Hart in his book “The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?” says so well, "Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation. Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin, the emptiness and waste of death, the forces - whether calculating malevolence or imbecile chance - that shatter living souls; and so we are permitted to hate these things with perfect hatred.

Where, then, is God in the earthquake? Hart puts it well: "As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy.... for [ours] is a faith that set us free from optimism long ago and taught us hope instead....rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, [God] will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes - and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, 'Behold, I make all things new.'"

An article in The Times (23rd January) paints a vivid and at times challenging picture which speaks for itself of life after the quake:

"Lisia, Riviere and some of the girls take me to see the house they shared. It is half a mile away, in a hillside slum whose narrow alleys are strewn with rubble and flanked by breezeblock buildings teetering at alarming angles. No search-and-rescue teams have been here. People pick through mountains of girders and broken masonry, searching for bodies or possessions. Others sit in darkened rooms that somehow escaped the apocalypse. “Manger, manger”, they beg as we pass. “SOS we need help”, someone has chalked on a wall.

Lisia and Riviere open a wooden door to reveal an astounding sight. An avalanche of rubble from a collapsed apartment block that has swept down the hill and all but demolished their home, stopping just short of the front wall. A bed, broken television and mangled table protrude from tonnes of smashed concrete and twisted steel rods. A headless teddy bear lies on the floor. The two women managed to escape into a chapel next door with Riviere’s daughter and a cousin. Lisia’s two children were out of the house.

As we stand in the chapel the women start singing a creole hymn. Their voices rise, sad but sweet, amid the destruction. Lisia’s husband was buried in the rubble of another nearby building. His body has not been found but she prefers to dwell on the positive. “It’s a miracle,” she says. “We’re alive. We can’t count how many friends were killed but we lost only six members of our family....”

As the heat subsides, the camp comes alive. Barefooted kids play football with punctured balls. Boys fly kites fashioned from scraps of polythene. Big-breasted girls strip and wash, and later flirt with the young stags. Mothers play with babies. Some men bring timber from nearby ruins to strengthen their shelters, while others squander their precious gourdes in card schools. It’s the women who hold these families together. “We have to stay strong for the others,” says Lisia.

She and Riviere begin to open up. “God gives us the strength to go on living,” they say. “This is not a question we can answer,” they reply when asked why God made the earthquake. “God is the almighty and He does whatever He wants but we are happy because He protected us . . . God has a plan for us, and even if we suffer for a while God will send help. We don’t know what we’re waiting for — we’re just hoping.”

We give the women money. They return with plates of chicken, beans and rice which the family devour as if they have not eaten for a week — which is more or less the case.

As the sun sets we have to leave. The camp will soon be dark except for its tiny charcoal fires, and it is no place for foreigners at night. As we depart the family starts singing their creole hymns again, four generations in perfect harmony. Neighbours fall silent and listen. “Singing is the only thing we have. It’s our distraction,” says Riviere. “We have cried too much. Now we have to smile,” says Lisia.

The hymns are as beautiful as those they sang in the chapel this morning, only now they sound more celebratory than mournful. These people have survived. They will endure, as their ancestors have through two centuries of relentless suffering. Their homes have been crushed, but not their spirit.

When we turn now more specifically to Jesus Christ in this matter, we find him an uncomfortable and challenging travelling companion – as we might expect, perhaps, from someone who is not simply a healer or some kind of heavenly life-coach, but God incarnate among us.

So far as I am aware, Jesus’ only reference to earthquakes is in the following words:

“You will hear wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24v6-14)

Once again, Jesus does not give us the explanation we might wish for; he’s certainly not trying to give us a geography lesson in plate tectonics. What he does say is that earthquakes – as well as famines, wars and so on – will happen, and that they are inevitable features of the time between his first coming and his return. These events are a reminder that one day the world as we know it will come to an end, and that in the meantime we as Christians are to get on with preaching the gospel and making sure our own relationship with God does not go cold. Again, it is rather more challenging than we might, in our natural way, have wished for.

■ For Jesus, the preaching of the gospel and people’s response to it was the overriding point of human history.

(f) What did Jesus say about the power of God?

Of course, people sometimes say of natural disasters, “well, if God is good, why doesn’t He stop this sort of thing happening?”

In fairness, we do not know how often He does stop such things. But in any case, as Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, put it after the tsunami: “There is something odd about expecting that God will constantly step in if things are getting dangerous. How dangerous do they have to be? How many deaths would be acceptable?”

This doesn’t mean that God is impotent: on the contrary, He is all-powerful. Jesus had no doubt about the ultimate power of God. “With God, all things are possible,” he said on at least one occasion (Matthew 19v26).

He was also equally clear that no set of circumstances are outside the power of God; there is, as it were, no “hole in the universe” through which we can fall beyond the sovereignty of God. In Matthew 10, Jesus tells his followers: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (v29-30).

Yet how easily we misread those words of Jesus! He didn’t say them to provide us with a “blessed thought” that “all will be well” with those who follow Him. For one thing, sparrows do fall to the ground: Jesus wasn’t saying that bad things don’t or won’t happen – simply that they don’t happen in some black hole outside of God.

Even more importantly, his words were provided in the middle of a long discourse about the hardships that followers of Jesus will face – including warnings of betrayal, death (v21), hatred (v22) and persecution (v23). So Jesus’ words about sparrows are not words of cuddly reassurance – they are a challenge to keep hold of the overarching power of God even when He lets awful things happen to us – as, Jesus says here, He will.

■ God’s power is more supremely displayed in bringing good out of evil than simply squashing evil here and now or turning us all into robots. We see this in the cross: an event of terrible evil, but in which God was fulfilling purposes of good at the heart of the universe.
■ “God does not prevent suffering, but instead promises to redeem it. And it is this promise that we see fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ” (Alan Smith, Bishop of Shrewsbury, speaking after the tsunami.)

(g) What did Jesus say about the physical and the spiritual?

Jesus was very concerned about people’s physical needs. One of the first of Jesus’ acts recorded in Mark’s gospel is the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law (1v30). When he takes his disciples away for a break, but the crowds pursue them, “he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (6v34) – and He provides food for them to eat.

For Christians, “faith without works is dead” (James 2v26). “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (v17). The evidence for our faith is the way we treat our fellow Christians in need (Matthew 26v40). Therefore, “as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Galatians 6v10).

Nonetheless, Jesus was even more concerned about people’s spiritual needs, for unlike our physical needs, this is a matter that affects us eternally. And so, when a paralysed man is brought before Jesus, the first thing Jesus does is to say, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2v5). When the disciples seek out Jesus in Capernaum on the grounds that everyone is looking for Him – as He has just healed a whole load of people – Jesus does not stay to heal any more, but replies: “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so that I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (1v35-39). Even when he provides food for the crowd mentioned above, his immediate reaction after having “had compassion on them” is “so he began teaching them many things” (Mark 6v34).

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (10v28). That’s why one of his final commands to his disciples was to “make disciples of all nations” (28v19), because, as He had already said: “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5v24). Physical life is important – eternal life much, much more so.

■ In Christ, God demonstrated huge compassion for people’s physical needs, but was even more concerned about their eternal, spiritual needs.
■ As Christians, we will want to preach the gospel and lead lives which validate what we preach by the way we act towards others.

(5) What about me and my money in the light of this?

We find this difficult, don’t we. Just a week or two before the Tsunami struck, we paid the deposit on a holiday in a rather nice part of Scotland for the following summer. We were really looking forward to it. But what should I have said to the person who says, “Your money would be better off spent going to help with the relief work to this disaster – how can you spend it on yourself on a holiday when those who are suffering will struggle to rebuild their lives this year and are certainly unlikely to enjoy any holiday?” We could all ask ourselves the same question in lots of different sorts of ways.

The best summary of a Christian approach to money was that encapsulated by (I think) John Wesley, the famous Christian of several centuries ago whose actions led to the setting up of the Methodist church. His attitude to money was simply this: “Earn as much as you can; save as much as you can; give away as much as you can.”

In Old Testament times, before the coming of Christ, believers were enjoined to devote a tenth of their wealth exclusively to the work of God. In the New Testament – the lens through which we read the Old Testament – tithing is not explicitly commanded. Many Christians today still practise tithing as a sort of helpful benchmark, without being legalistic about it for everyone. And of course, if we have a non-Christian husband or wife, for example, giving 10% of our family income to church and other Christian works would, quite rightly, not even come on the agenda.

There is a lot in the Bible about our use of money which can guide us in our thinking. For example, in 2 Corinthians we see that:

• We should give what we decide to give – “not reluctantly or under compulsion” (2 Corinthians 9v7)
• What we sow is what we will reap (2 Corinthians 9v6). This is not a guarantee of some kind of financial dividend from God, but simply a statement that if we sow generously in the Kingdom of God, there will be a rich harvest in the Kingdom of God. The converse is also true.
• A gift is acceptable to what we have, not according to what we do not have (2 Corinthians 9v12). Ten pence in God’s eyes is as valuable as ten thousand pounds, if that is what we are really able to give, and our heart is right.
• Our giving must spring from an appreciation – a real appreciation – of what Christ has done for us (2 Corinthians 8v9)

Jesus had a lot to say about money – and was pretty blunt about it. “You cannot serve both God and money,” he said (Matthew 6v24).

He also said: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (v21) – not “Where your heart is, there your treasure will be”. In other words – give, and your heart will follow. Wait for your heart to “feel” like giving and you may be waiting the rest of your life!

One of the ways Christians can be distinctively different and live as salt and light in this consumerist, possession-orientated society is the way we use our money. Sometimes I have visited homes of Christian people who I know (or at least assume, from their line of work) have quite a good income, and have been impressed by the evident simplicity and frugality with which they live in consumer terms. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we end up deliberately not enjoying life, or somehow despising material things – as some Christians down the centuries have mistakenly fallen into the trap of doing – but it does mean we live, enjoy life and spend under the Lordship of Christ rather than simply what we feel like.

We’ve seen that Jesus had a real, urgent and vital compassion for people’s physical needs, and yet gave even greater priority to the urgency of their spiritual state. Our giving, too, should include that which aims to meet physical needs – and there are all sorts of ways we can do this – but our even greater priority should be meeting people’s spiritual needs through fulfilling the Great Commission (Matthew 28v18-20) just as Jesus did.

Quite how we work all this out as individuals, or as a married couple, is up to us. But I think God is far more concerned about the attitude of our hearts than the precise pounds and pence. Maybe we feel that if we had slightly more to start with, it would all be much simpler and less painful!… But maybe that’s part of the point!

■ As Christians, we “know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that we through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8v9)
■ As Christians, we are encouraged to follow the example of the Macedonian believers, of whom it was written: “Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity” (2 Corinthians 8v2).
■ What does “sacrificial giving” mean sacrificing for you?

(6) What (if anything) does a disaster such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami or the Haiti Earthquake say to me personally?

Events like this should make us stop and think before we hurtle headlong into the busy-ness of the next stretch of our lives.

All sorts of thoughts may cross our mind. We might reflect, for example, on the almost certain fact of man-made global warming, and the predicted consequences for future generations which, on paper at least, look catastrophic in climatic and meteorological terms.

We might reflect on the fact that large numbers of people are dying routinely throughout the world in very large numbers – for example due to AIDS, malaria and poverty. Because such things are ongoing, and do not constitute a single “event” taking place in any one 24-hour period, they are scarcely reported by many of the newspapers we read or news bulletins we see.

Most of all, though, we might want to reflect on the fragility of life – despite the illusion of permanence that living in this relatively quiet and highly prosperous part of the world gives us sometimes. We are reminded that death (unless Christ returns in our lifetime) will come to us all – perhaps suddenly, perhaps when we do not expect it.

What’s important in life? Our relationships with other human beings, to be sure: our families, our friends, and those in need. Even more important is our relationship with God – the God who in Christ has suffered with us; who on the cross has suffered for us, so that we might re-connect with Him and escape spiritual death, and an eternity without Him, if we are willing.

I liked the response of the Bishop of Norwich, Graham James, to the Tsunami disaster. Speaking at Sandringham, he said the event was “the starkest possible reminder” of the fragility of life. God did not give explanations, he said: “He simply gave us his Son”.

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For further meditation:

“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.

For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life…

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please Him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due to them for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others… If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.

And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God. God made him, who had no sin, to be sin for us – so that, in him, we might become the righteousness of God.”


(The early church leader Paul; extract from 2 Corinthians 5)

David Baker (Rector)
Email: davidbaker1966@yahoo.co.uk

This page last modified on: 01 February 2010