Haiti Earthquake -St Mark's Barnet Vale

Over the past few days we have watched with horror as estimates of the death toll in Haiti rose alarmingly, hour by hour. We have been confronted with heart rending stories of whole families being crushed by falling masonry, of children being pulled out of pile of rubble, terribly injured and having to cope with the knowledge that all other members of their family have been killed. Amazingly a few survivors are still being pulled out of collapsed buildings alive. Such suffering touches the deep primal fears that inhabit our dreams. It is the stuff of nightmares.

These events make us pause and reflect and remind us again about the nature of the world in which we live, in a service like this they make us reflect on the nature of God and also on the Christian calling to follow the way of the cross. So let me reflect on those three areas for a few minutes.

1. The nature of the world
Natural disasters make us stand back and reflect about the world we inhabit. History is peppered with similar devastating events, whether it was the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in AD 79 which overwhelmed Pompeii or the Black Death which wiped out a third of the population of medieval Europe in the 14th century or the tsunami that hit Lisbon on All Souls’ Day 1755 and killed 60 000 people. In the 1980s over 200 000 people were killed in floods in Bangladesh. On Boxing Day 2003 more than 40 000 people were killed in an earthquake in Bam in Iran. Then there was the tsunami which hit in 2006 with devastating results. Anyone who knows their history and keeps abreast of world news is only too well aware that this is what the world is really like. The scale of the devastation in Haiti shocks us, but the experience of suffering is one that many people and many families will go through at some point.

As a culture we are used to being in control and harnessing the forces of nature to our own use, so that we find the events in Haiti profoundly disturbing. They cut through the veneer of our sophistication and reveal our underlying fragility and fear. They uncover our vulnerability and mortality. They remind us that we are part of creation, not separate from it. If our faith is to be a realistic faith and if it is going to sustain us in times of difficulties, then we have to be able to look such tragedies in the face.

2. The nature of God
For some people natural disasters raise questions whether there can be a God, or if there is a God whether he is good. For them it is inconceivable that there could be a God who permits suffering. But the God of the New Testament is not simply a heavenly puppet master. Indeed the Christian faith has never suggested that if we believe in God we will be exempt from car accidents or cancer. Faith in God doesn’t promise that.

Philosophers point out that the freedom given to human beings which allows us to love, to share and to be generous, is the same freedom which dictators and despots use to maim torture and kill. If the choice of evil people to kill is taken away, then so is the freedom to give myself in love to my spouse and family. Furthermore, as scientists tell us, there is a randomness which is built into the fabric of creation and is a mainspring of the earth’s capacity to change itself and develop. This reality is something each generation has to come to terms with as we try to make sense of life. The question is ‘How do we learn to live with this randomness and specifically how do we come to terms with undeserved suffering resulting from it?’

The Christian gospel gives us at least two pointers:
a. Jesus shows how he enters into the pain and suffering of the world by giving himself totally and unreservedly to God when he hung on the cross. In his own person he reveals a God who does not stand idly by on the touchlines of the universe, shouting words of encouragement to the poor players on the pitch. This is a God who is on the pitch with us, who suffers with us and weeps today with those who are bereaved, just as Jesus himself wept with Mary and Martha at the death of their brother Lazarus. Jesus is the one who experienced this same desolation when he cried out on the cross ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’

So in answer to the question ‘Where is God in all this?’ the gospel tells us that God is the crucified one, the one who is in the midst of the pain, not separate from it. In response to a disaster like this as Christians we give time to meditate in silence upon the cross and the broken body of Jesus which is nailed to it.

b. But the Christian faith believes not only in a suffering God but also in resurrection. What the resurrection promises us is that there is no suffering which is outside the redeeming love of God. We may not yet be able to understand it or comprehend why God may allow it, but somehow in the eternal purposes of God it will be redeemed. We know something of this when, for example, we have to take a child to hospital for some treatment which will hurt. We hold the child in our arms and he cries out in pain and bewilderment at what the doctor does. He cannot understand how his mother can hold him still when it hurts. It is only later that he comes to understand it was for his good. The resurrection of Christ is God’s promise to us that his love and his purposes are greater than we can ever imagine and that nothing can finally thwart his love and his goodness. But in the meantime we have to wait and trust.

3. The Christian way of life
So what is our response? What does it mean for those of us who follow the way of Christ? God is to be found in the hands of those who are helping to bury the dead, who are bringing clean water to the living, who are administering medicine to the ill and who are offering counsel to those in darkness. God’s presence is seen in those working with Christian Aid, Tear Fund and World Vision along with a host of other agencies already working on the ground. In such practical acts of compassion we refuse to give into hopelessness and despair; we act in defiance and in faith against those who say that everything is ultimately meaningless; and by such care we imbue human life with value and dignity, because we believe we are made in the image of God.

In the words of St Teresa of Avila:
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours, no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
Christ's compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

This is why earlier this week I issued a call to prayer and to generous giving to all our churches in the Diocese of St Albans. I’ve been humbled by the response. I’ve already heard of churches and individuals who have donated significant sums of money to help the relief effort and I encourage you all to follow their example.

+Alan Smith

Bishop of St Albans

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