What I am going to say today at church:
widi 3.2 russian crackTragic events create feelings and thoughts. Tragic natural events create unique feelings and thoughts, because there is no one obvious to blame. (Compare the tsunami with 9/11 or Oklahoma City.)
Tragic natural events raise "God" questions. A hundred years ago, it would be called an "act of God." Today, it is an occasion to doubt God's existence.
Many of our God questions are a reflection of faith questions: Is God there? Is he trustworthy? Is he good? How do I worship or pray to a God like this? Does the Bible offer any help? What should a Christian without any real answers do in this situation?
I think about Job. Tragic events destroyed his world. God's silence left Job with questions, feelings, thoughts and anger. God's silence left Job's friends to do all the talking. This situation is being repeated today!
When God speaks, he says a lot, but also says very little:
A. This is my creation. (You read this all over the Bible, esp in Psalms like 104)
B. Nothing happens w/out my knowledge and permission. Even Satan's work and natural evil happen within my sovereignty. That's not an explanation or a cheap comfort line. It's a fact, and God isn't really concerned about how we feel about it.
C. Job's friends were wrong (Job 42:7) with their "push button theology," i.e. God is pushing buttons in response to Job's sins. (Lightning bolts on cue.)
D. A better answer than Job's friends is Jesus' answer to the disciple's question about natural evil in John 9:1-5: "This happened that the works of God might be made manifest in him."
God's Works? In natural evil?
A little help from Martin Luther. Luther said God has a secret will that we cannot see or understand, and God has a revealed will- written in scripture- that we are to obey. This way of thinking is helpful. We should respond as Christians to both: contemplate the Lord. Do good to the suffering.
The Bible does tell us some things God MAY be doing in the midst of any event.
1) He may be letting creation run as he designed it. (The Bible is clear that earthquakes and waves, etc are part of creation. We can drown. Gravity, a very good thing, can kill us. This is not "evil," as much as it is creation being what God designed. So with the shifts of plates that create earthquakes and waves on beaches.)
2) He may be bringing judgement. But we don't know how this works in a natural event, so we need to be humble, if not silent about it. The judgement we warn about in the Gospel isn't a natural event, but the wrath of God.
(BTW- Remember to look at death as Christians should. Numbers do not really mean much. All death is the same. The grief or pain of one person matters. Jesus is clear that God's compassion is for the one. Death happens to us all, at some point. HOW we die is really secondary in scripture. The effects of these events on the living should be more of our concern.)_
3) God may be bring about an outpouring of mercy. (Some kinds of good only exist in the presence of pain and suffering.)
4) God may be sovereignly working among the nations for the cause of the Gospel. (Interesting that in Mark 13, earthquakes and the Gospel preached to all nations are in the same section.)
5) God may be shaking the foundations of our temporal human security, even on a plantetary scale.
6) We are certainly watching the MYSTERY of God's work in history. We can't trace it, we simply trust it.
What should we be doing?
I. Not playing God. (Matthew 7:1) Knowing God's character and activity does not put us in the place of speaking for God. Job's friends had much right, but their application of what they knew to Job was terrible.
II. Exalting and Worshiping God. The Bible constantly tells us that the God of creation is mightier than anything we see in the natural realm. Be in awe. Even in terror. Tremble, but worship. "If God is for you, no one can be against you." "Nothing can separate us from the love of God."
Rem: If we remove God, we can't call anything evil. To abandon God is to make all these events meaningless.
III. Do good. Hate death, disease, suffering. Show compassion to the hurting. Sacrifice and give. Show those in the 10/40 window that we have the love of Christ for them. (Would Muslims give to rebuild America after a terrorist nuclear attack?)
Love God...Love neighbor.
A few words about responsible and compassionate responses.
Give responsibly through a knowledgable ministry.
Give to those who minister in the name of Jesus.