REFLECTING ON A TRAGEDY


We find our New Year celebrations overshadowed by unimaginable
catastrophe in the Indian Ocean. The news gets worse practically by the
day. The earthquake and tsunamis seems to be the most lethal natural
disaster ever, surpassing the 830,000 people killed by earthquake in
China in 1556. Small wonder, then, the cry of one Indian woman, "Why
did you do this to us, God? What did we do to upset you?"." So the New
Year begins reeling from this catastrophe.
.
Many ships carrying supplies have converged on Indonesia and other
suffering countries. "The abundance of the sea" is being brought to the
victims. Cargo planes from many nations are landing with all manner of
supplies. Hospital ships are arriving. In fact, aid is arriving so fast
that it can't be handled fast enough. In an airport hangar in Medan,
280 miles south of Banda Aceh,(Indonesia) thousands of boxes of basics
such as drinking water, crackers and blankets had accumulated since
Monday and were going nowhere. "Hundreds of tons, it keeps coming in,"
said Rizal Nordin, governor of Northern Sumatra province in Indonesia.
This does not mean to imply that now all is suddenly well in the Indian
Ocean. The effects of this catastrophe will be felt for generations and
recovery will take more time than we now imagine. Unspeakable suffering
continues. Yet as incredible as may sound, there are reasons Christian
people can find comfort in their faith even in the face of such events.


However, tell that to the tens of thousands of people who lost their
homes and their loved ones. God did not protect them. Many have
perished. Among them many Christians. Very difficult questions that
cannot be answered with theological clich s. They are questions to be
raised and heard and to be pondered without jumping to a quick fix
answer. There is one question, however, that we have to ask
ourselves--we as Christians: what is our part in this? How can we help?
We Christians are, after all, God's hands and God's mouth in this
world. How can we help bring God's comfort to thousands of devastated
people, how can we help God carry them through?

At the town of Vailakanni, "famous for its church, the Shrine
Basilica," The waves struck after Sunday mass, with 1000 people on the
shore just behind the church to take a dip. ... They ran for it but the
slowest runners, the women and children, could not make it. At least
800 people died. The state administration did not kick into action, but
the church did. Unlike in other villages that we had visited, the
bodies did not lie unclaimed for days, but were quickly disposed off.
.... Photographs were put on a bulletin board so that relatives could
identify their kin. A counseling unit with 12 counselors was set up,
and as volunteers flocked in to help, they were assigned specific
tasks. All relief organizations that came here to help went to this one
central location, from where they were guided.

Today, modern science can give us some answers as to how earth and sea
quakes start, what effects they can have and how they can be sensed
before they fully develop. This knowledge already puts the why question
into perspective. We get a sense that we should not blame God for
natural disasters, illness, and death. The Christian understanding of
suffering denies from the outset that suffering, death and evil have
any ultimate meaning at all. ... This is a broken and wounded world,
cosmic time is the shadow of true time, and the universe languishes in
bondage to "powers" and "principalities" - spiritual
and terrestrial -
alien to God. In the Gospel of John, especially, the incarnate God
enters a world at once his own and yet hostile to him - "He was in the
world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not" - and
his appearance within "this cosmos" is both an act of judgment and a
rescue of the beauties of creation from the torments of fallen nature.
The Bible, too, acknowledges the existence of such disasters. The Bible
talks about earthquakes, deadly floods and pestilence. The biblical
writers note that these things happen, but they do not blame God for
them. On the contrary, the biblical writers often have a word of
comfort.

There is only one way to bring back some faith, some hope, and some
belief to those people who have lost it all. God wasn't there when the
tsunami struck; but God lives in us, and let's make sure that his love
is delivered now. The presence of God is the person and work of Jesus
Christ, by whom all things will be made new, who finally conquers even
death and by whom we will be resurrected. That final victory is not
yet. In the meantime we who are the body of Christ on earth now have
work to do. God is indeed present, in more ways than we know. But we
disciples of Jesus Christ have a special obligation to be the presence
of God for all who suffer. Let us arise and be the light for those who
suffer in darkness
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