By Michael Prabaharan
This sermon is rated R18. It contains strong violence, adult themes and disturbing content.
Making sense of the week that was
Our reading from Matthew reminds us of one aspect of the Christmas story that doesn’t get much airplay. The visit of the Magi in search of the new royal baby leads the paranoid Herod to massacre all children under two in the Bethlehem region.
(Worth noting that unlike the popular story where the wise men are trying to squeeze into the cattle shed with the shepherds, the wise men probably arrived when Jesus was an older baby and living in a house close by. When Herod discovers that the Magi have given him the slip, all children under two are killed, to make sure the alleged future king also doesn’t survive).
Unlike the killing of the babies of Bethlehem, Sept 11 or the war in Iraq, there has been no attributable human cause to the tragedy wrought by the Asian Tsunami and many will therefore see it purely as an accident of nature. And this is seen in the almost universally generous response of common people. No anger or blame just shock and concern.
An Act of God?
But for those who have seen the film, "The man who sued God" and for those of us who are Bible believing Christians – the role of God in all this will already have come to mind or will in due course. We may even have course to discuss it with someone who does not share our Christian belief.
We believe in God. We believe that he is Sovereign and all powerful. As in our second reading Proverbs 8:29 says "He assigned to the sea its limit so that the waters might not transgress his command". We also believe that he is an interventionist God. Unlike the Deist description of a God who like a clock maker has wound up the clock-planet and then lets it tick on independently, the biblical picture is of a hands-on God who intervenes in ways that we may perceive as good or ill.
(Deism is a shift of ultimate authority from special revelation in the Bible to the enlightenment of human rationality)
Was God Punishing?
As a result you may hear from some Christians that this Tsunami is an act of punishment, by God, on the people affected. It may anger you to hear this as you think of the indiscriminate death that took away many children, devout Christians, and many other ’good’ and innocent people.
But before we write off such a view, we need to remind ourselves that this is very much a biblical picture. Our Sunday school story of Noah’s Ark in real life would have been very similar in its effect to that of the Tsunami. Many children would have been drowned.
When God reveals his promise to Abraham he talks of the sin of the Canaanites and the time of his judgment that is to come. Part of his judgment on the Canaanite peoples was the conquest by the people of Israel, where many women, children and elderly were indiscriminately killed by the invading Israelis as part of God’s command.
All the prophets declare the Sovereignty of God over political powers and nations whether they acknowledge him in worship or not. He is still their Sovereign as he builds up and pulls down nations according to his judgment, using one against another and the results of such tragedies are vividly described (See for example Ezekiel 5:5-12). Such passages lead many to turn away from the biblical faith in revulsion (or at least make a mistaken distinction between the God of the OT and the God of the NT).
(You may also hear it said that we can’t accept or worship a God who allows such tragedies as this tsunami to occur randomly. We need to remind ourselves, as well as those who say such things, that if God is real then that is one thing that, try as we might, we can’t turn into a consumer item. Many people turn to different Gods as they think he or she or it should be and remake God in their own image. But if God is real then His is the perspective we have to align ourselves with. Not vice versa. Rather than design a God who meets our criteria of what is fair we need to refresh our thinking with what God proclaims as fair and worthy of aspiration).
We Christians also selectively tune out to these declarations of God’s judgment and sovereignty and focus only on the bits in the bible which fit into our world view and value systems.
The OT’s position is clear, God has a right to judge people and execute judgment and he does so as well. He does not let sin go unpunished.
However from the very beginning the bible makes clear that not every individual sin receives its reward immediately. In other words the type of thinking that every good thing we do gets a reward and every bad thing we do gets punished (I tripped so I must have thought a bad thought) is more ’karmaic’ than Biblical.
Mitigation and mercy are in operation from the days of Adam alongside consequence and punishment. So there is a portrayal of God being merciful to a point where sin reaches a limit and then God visits upon it his judgment e.g. Sodom and Gomorrah, Canaan, Israel etc. Often there is warning not to continue in sin, otherwise there would be a visitation of divine judgment.
It’s also worth noting that that the concept of individualized sin isn’t a biblical one either. From the very beginning we are painted a vivid picture that an individual’s sin affects those around him or her, their communities, their environment and future generations.
So within a more informed and biblical view of sin against God and judgment by God can we be as bold as to say this tsunami was a judgment of God on these nations and its people?
The lessons to be learned
A similar situation was presented to Jesus in Luke 13: 1-5 and his response is enlightening.
1. The victims were no worse
To clarify Jesus, while not commenting on the causality of the deaths mentioned, the inference is that even if those tragedies are an allowed act of consequence or punishment by God it doesn’t make any of those who survived any better than those who died.
The NT summary is that all of us are sinners and that death hangs over all of us. We may refuse to acknowledge this fact but it doesn’t alter it. Death is the ultimate evidence of sin in the world. The fact that some people die or suffer tragically doesn’t mean they were any worse, or we any better, than those who survive. In God’s scheme they were taken away at this point in time and in this manner.
2. Ask why was I spared?
The only right response for us is to ask why were we spared and how best should we respond to God with our lives in light of that mercy? What perspective should we live by? In three words, Repentance to faith. In other words this tragedy should be another reminder to us all that life is not to be taken for granted and not to be lived purely for our own pleasure and fulfillment. Rather we need to put our lives right with God and live to serve him primarily.
3. Correctly valuing life
In our normal thinking death is the ultimate evil and a premature death is tragedy. We live our life as such. Biblically speaking we are called to think differently: that life on earth is a short precursor to life with God and that we should value our eternal life more than the value we place on earthly life. Illustrated by Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31. Unfortunately even for us Christians in the realities of everyday decision making this seems to be too large a step of faith. Our lives tell the story that we place this life we live as a far higher priority than the preparation for the life to come.
It is truly refreshing to see many people take various kinds of initiatives and responses with their money, time and skills and respond to this tragedy. However it took this particular kind of tragedy to motivate us to do so. Everyday in unheard ways greater tragedies are at work which we choose not to see. The way we are responding to the tsunami tragedy is really the way we could/should be working all the time.
A word of caution - Who is setting the agenda?
Media is the church of secular nations. It is the means of fellowship. What we have in common to talk about. Of worship – what we dream about and what we would like to be like. And of concern and prayers - based on what the media choose to highlight – and they tend to be the great tragedies. However needless death and suffering is an everyday part of our life while we consume and indulge everyday.
It is one thing for a person who does not worship God to follow the agenda set by the 6 o clock news, but I think it would be a tragedy if Christians too were to follow such a lead. Our concerns and action should be proactive and long term and regardless of whatever the current fad in our society’s temporal mood.
In Conclusion
Was the tsunami an act of punishment by God? I can’t say. We also can’t submit to the social pressure that demands that we give up such thinking, because we believe it is the right of God to do as he chooses. And His sense of knowledge, righteousness and justice may not always be reflected in ours.
But even if this was an act of God it is not an indicator that the people who suffer are any worse than those of us who did not. It is, however, another opportunity for all of us to take stock of our life and to turn back to God in every area of our lives, for we don’t know when and how He will call our time.
The overwhelming public response has been mind blowing and a reminder of what we can achieve if we set our hearts to it. As Christians we need to be assessing such needs and living in a similar manner in a pre-emptive way and not purely in response to the latest mass tragedy to hit our screens. And I think it is worth affirming this congregation that we are a people who live this way. Yet we can always ask, can we do more, can we stretch our lives more in response to our faith?
For more sermons from this source go to home.vicnet.net.au/~sttheos/
