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The Second Sunday after Epiphany – 17 January 2010
After every natural disaster, it is common to hear questions about God’s existence and God’s love. Surrounded by endless images and reports of Haiti’s tragic earthquake, these questions are difficult to answer. This tragedy has produced another question, a pricklier and offensive question, question asked by Haitians themselves, and “Was this disaster God’s divine retribution?” Consider Pooja Bhatia’s article written from Port-au-Prince, which appeared in the Wednesday edition of the New York Times, “If God exists, he’s really got it in for Haiti. Haitians think so, too. Zed, a housekeeper in my apartment complex said God was angry at sinners around the world, but especially in Haiti. Zed said the quake had fortified her faith, and that she understood it as divine retribution.” The article concluded with these words, “Why, then, turn to a God who seems to be absent at best and vindictive at worst? Haitians don’t have other options. … Perhaps a God who hides is better than nothing.”[1]
How do we respond to these questions of God’s existence in the face of tragedy? Our first response should be to admit the validity of these questions. These questions are not just natural responses to natural disasters, as if our cries from the soul could be explain by chemical reaction in our brains; they are real question asked from the deepest depths of the soul. They are just as real and profound as the opening of Psalm 22, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” If the inspired Psalmist can ask this question, if Jesus the divine Son of God can ask this question, then we should expect non-inspired, non-divine people to ask this same question. Is there any good news we can proclaim? Is there any hope in the gospel that will be salve on these wounds?
We must carefully consider this question because there are two common assertions Christian’s make that, though true, are often feeling like salt in a deep wound. [1] First, Christians often casually assert the exist of God as if the bare and blunt fact of God’s existence will heal our tragedy. God does exist and he is always present as he promised in Deuteronomy 31:8, “The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Jesus continued this same promise to his disciples and the church when he said, “Surely I am with always, to the very end of the age.” However, the blunt assertion of God’s existence will not heal our modern, contemporary wounds, it is like telling a poor man struggling to pay his taxes that the IRS really does exist. Second, Christians, at least some, are to bold to assert that natural disasters are God’s divine retribution. We know from Scripture that at various times and various places, God has used natural disasters as divine retribution. For instance, in Numbers chapter 16 the earth opened up and swallowed those who rebelled against Moses or the story of Jonah when Jonah’s disobedience led to a divinely sent storm. Can natural disasters be divine retribution? Yes, they can. However, (and this is a huge “however”) the words of Scripture are divinely inspired and ours are not. That means we do not know and wisdom suggests that when we do not know we remain silent. Furthermore, some Israelites brought this question to Jesus. He responded, “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. 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.” (Luke 13:1-5) Therefore, even though there are times when some natural disasters may be God’s retribution, we do not know, we are not privy that information. Thus, if we are to take Jesus’ response as our model for action, we are not ask, “Is this divine retribution?” Instead, we are to ask, “Have I repented?” It is important; nay it is imperative, that these little assertions do not become our automatic response to tragedy. Even though they are trustworthy and true, they sound like pious platitudes preached at a pitch inaudibly high.
Is there good news that Christians can proclaim, good news that is specifically and directly linked to the Gospel. Yes, there is and we can find bits and piece of this good news in the opening of the Gospel of Mark. Commentators have noticed that the beginning of Mark’s gospel is similar to the famous Priene inscription about Octavian. That inscription said, “Because providence has ordered our life in a divine way…and since the Emperor through his epiphany has exceeded the hopes of former good news (gospel), surpassing not only the benefactors who came before him, but also leaving no hope that anyone in the future will surpass him, and since the birthday of the god [Octavian] was for the world the beginning of his good news.[2] There are two important things to notice about this inscription: First, it claims that the Emperor Octavian is a god and second, that his birth is good news for the world. If Mark had this inscription in mind, which he seems to have had, then the good news Mark is proclaiming is that Jesus is God and his existence brings good news for the world.
The Gospel is good news because all of God’s promises made to Israel in the Old Testament to never leave His people nor forsake them are fulfilled in Jesus through whom God is present at all times, in all places and in all circumstances. Furthermore, God’s abiding presence through Jesus is not a pious platitude, because in Jesus God has reconciled the world to himself as Paul said in Colossians 1, “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Jesus] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:19, 20) The world is trembling and groaning under the affects of sin. God did not make a world with deadly earthquakes; it was our sin that made creation deadly. However, God did not absent himself from the world, he sent his only begotten son who became a man and took this sin, took this trembling and groaning upon himself. God’s answer to our tragedy is the cross of Jesus, when he took all our sin, all our tragedy upon himself. God’s abiding presence is not a platitude; it is the ugly cross reminding us that through Jesus God did something: he began his cosmic repair by reconciling all things to himself. Therefore, the Gospel is good news because God is always present in all circumstances through Jesus the crucified and risen Lord.
If Jesus is God that means he is the world’s true Lord. As someone has said, “The gospel is the announcement that Jesus is Lord – Lord of the world, Lord of the cosmos, Lord of the earth, of the ozone layer, [I might add Lord of the tectonic plates] of whales and waterfalls, of trees and tortoises. …This means, of course,…that there is no area of existence or life, including no areas of human life, that does not come up for critique in the light of the sovereignty of the crucified and risen Jesus; no area that is exempt from the summons to allegiance.”[3] The Gospel is good news because the world does have a good, trustworthy, and faithful king, a king who has promised to wipe every tear from our eyes, rub salve on all our bitter wounds, and to heal this planet that trembles and groans under our feet. Furthermore, Jesus is not a king or Lord immune to suffering. Indeed of His claim to the heavenly throne was that he suffered, that he died and that he triumphed over death and suffering through the resurrection. (Romans 1:1-6) The Gospel proclaims the peace of a crucified Lord, a Lord who has passed through our sufferings, a Lord who can empathize with our pains. Our present sufferings, the world’s present trembles and groans exist because we are still waiting Jesus’ rule to spread over the entire cosmos. Jesus is the world’s true Lord, but the world does not recognize its true ruler. While we wait for Jesus’ kingdom to spread like a renewing fire over the face of the earth, while we wait for his second coming when this will be accomplished and we will see our king face to face, there will be pain, there will be suffering. The proclamation of the Gospel is not just the empty rhetoric of a king the world does not recognize and who we cannot presently see because Jesus has left the church, which is his presently visible body. The Lordship of Jesus, the peace and healing of his rule is now experienced in the church, his body and the relief Jesus offers now in the present is often found in the arms of his body, the church.[4]
There will come a time when the rule of Jesus will extend from sea to sea. There will come a time when every knee will bow and every tongue confess the Lordship of Jesus. When that time comes, paradise will be regained, the heavens will no longer deluge the earth in floods, storms, and hurricanes and the earth will no longer tremble and break. When that time comes, we will be able to see our King and Lord face to face. While we wait for that glorious time there will be pain, there will be suffering and honestly, we should expect it for if our Lord and king suffered death upon the cross we should expect to take up our crosses like him. Our best response is to pray that by God’s grace the church will be the visible manifestation of Jesus’ Kingdom; that we will be the arms, feet, hands and heart of Jesus; that we will be a light in a fallen world and show that there is a better world yet to come, this is not all there is! Finally, our best response is also to pray for the hastening of Jesus’ Kingdom when all our hopes will be visibly seen when our faith will be transformed into sight. Therefore, come Lord Jesus, come.
[1] Pooja Bhatia, “Haiti’s Angry God”, The New York Times, 13 January 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/opinion/14bhatia.html?th&emc=th
[2] Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark, pg 69.
[3] N.T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, pg 153,154.
[4] There is, however, one application of Jesus’ Lordship that can be a bit controversial, when Mark proclaimed that Jesus is Lord, the true Lord of the world that meant Octavian or we may generalize “Caesar” is not. If Jesus is the world true Lord and King then all others who claim to be the worlds Lords and Kings are imposters, who have no real power or authority. Indeed this was the very charge that crucified Jesus as John recorded in his Gospel, “Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, ‘If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.’ When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat…’Shall I crucify you king?’ Pilate asked. ‘We have no king but Caesar,’ the chief Priest answered. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.” (John 19:8-16) The charged leveled against Jesus, a charge he did not deny, was that he claim to be the King, a Lord greater than Caesar. In addition, this same charge was leveled against Paul in Thessalonica. (Acts 17:1-9) An angry mob dragged Christians to the City Council saying, “They have defied Caesars’ decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” If Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not and if Jesus is Lord, we need to turn to him in the midst of tragedy and disaster because he is the only one mighty enough to do something about it. After all we do not sing, “Our hope is found in nothing less then when our friends are in Congress” we sing “Our hope is built on nothing less then Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”
