Tsunami and God

[kmaherali]

The tsunami disaster in Asia has raised many existential questions such as: Where was God's mercy? What is the purpose of life? Was it God's wrath? etc. The following articles that appeared in today's Calgary Herald express some of these issues. They are interesting and worthy of reflection.

God has not left the room

A pastor tackles crisis of faith

John Van Sloten
For The Calgary Herald

Over the past week, many have questioned God's role in relation to the catastrophic Asian tsunami. Some have distanced themselves thinking, "If God really does exist, how could He allow something like this to happen?" while others have drawn close, desperately clinging to their faith: "Without God's help in times like these, we'd all be in trouble. Where else can we go?"

Both are understandable responses, but I wonder if there's a third way to see God through this terrible tragedy, a perspective that allows us to both recognize and maintain God's goodness even as we struggle with our desperate sense of vulnerability, confusion and loss.

Thinking back on the events of last week, it seems that one of the big reasons this calamity so shocked us is the fact that it's rare. Prime Minister Paul Martin described it as "nearly beyond measure or human comprehension." It's not very often one has reason to voice such a statement. That's because so-called acts of God, by their very nature, are rare occurrences and tsunamis are anomalies.

While this truth must never minimize the tremendous suffering of the afflicted, or take away from the mystery of why God would allow this to happen in the first place, it does present a balancing worldview in terms of discerning God's place in all of this if we're willing and able to step back and honestly consider it.

Think about it. Fully 99.9 per cent of the time, millions of people around the world safely reside in coastal communities alongside their oceanic neighbour. For the most part, God-given boundaries between land and sea are being honoured and maintained. This fact, while rarely articulated or acknowledged, is irrefutable, thank God.

The same truth can be applied to earthquakes, hurricanes, lightning and tornadoes. Most of the time, most of us, whether rich or poor, live in complete safety, unshaken, unburned, untouched by the ravages of nature. God's providential goodness is simply taken for granted.
Ironically, the cataclysmic events that most often lead many to question God, can, in their absence, provide some of the strongest evidence of God's caring and protecting presence. And sometimes, it takes a disaster to wake us up to this fact.

Perhaps this is a time where we need to remember that the natural world that we live in is incredibly hospitable toward human life. Despite our human limitations, the Earth maintains its orbit, the ozone layer continues to filter out most of the dangerous ultraviolet rays and gravity continues to hold all things together. Right now, the vast majority of us are safe, well-fed, warm and protected.

There are so many good things in this life that we take for granted. Maybe God's mysterious providential care is one of them. This tsunami has led many of us to pause and reflect on the meaning and richness of this gift of life. There is so much good in what we've been given. Perhaps we need to think further and consider its source.

God has not left the room. God deeply cares for the poor and suffering.
Right now, millions upon millions of His creatures, human beings who were made to reflect some of His nature, are offering visible evidence of these truths: through the powerful outpouring of their genuine compassion, by means of their selfless sacrifice and giving, in doing unto others as they would have others do unto them. And perhaps, most mysteriously, via the fact that they are alive and well enough to help.
John Van Sloten is a pastor at New Hope Christian Reformed Church.
© The Calgary Herald 2005

TSUNAMI DISASTER: Miracles amid the misery

Is the south Asian tsunami a sign of the End Times, or a natural occurrence?


Joe Woodard
Calgary Herald

Sunday, January 09, 2005

The tsunami killed more than 150,000 people on the shores of the Indian Ocean. At least a million more were left homeless and plague-threatened. For many Bible- believing Christians, the warning is unmistakable: "There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations, in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves," said Jesus Christ (Luke 21:25), describing the End Times, the destruction of the Earth and Christ's Second Coming.

Some of that biblical prophecy clearly relates to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D, 40 years later: "When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment" (21:20).

But the passage moves seamlessly back and forth from the historical destruction of Jerusalem to a description of the end of history: "There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven" (21:11).

And: "At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near" (21:27).
Pastor Ray Matheson of Calgary's First Alliance Church believes God doesn't cause natural disasters, but rather allows them and uses them as messages to a world that ignores Him.

"I think these cataclysmic events are God's warnings to us that our world is coming to a climactic finish and that people need to be aware of it and turn back toward God," he says.

Matheson quotes the Gospel of Matthew (24:37): "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left."

Matheson says the timing of the Second Coming remains wide open. "No one knows the day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father," reads the earlier passage (Matt 24:36). So Matheson can say only that the end is inevitably drawing nearer.

He adds that no one can know why God allowed this particular warning, but "the whole world needs the warning," he says.

"God is a god of love. He wants an intimate relationship with us; He wants us to spend eternity with Him," Matheson says.

"For the Christian, death is not the tragedy, because God wants us to live forever with Him. But horrific as this disaster was, it is tiny in comparison to the final destruction that's going to come upon this world. And we have to prepare for that.

"Those who've died serve as a warning to us all to prepare for eternity."

The tidal wave was not without its miracles, at least for those willing to see them.

As the Washington Post reported, 28 Sri Lankan orphans were saved by their guardian's prayer. Early Sunday, Tamil missionary Dayalan Sanders, 50, saw "a 30-foot (nine-metre) wall of water" approaching his Samaritan Children's Home in Navalady, a small fishing village on a peninsula, with the ocean on one side and a lagoon on the other. In seconds, he got the orphans into his little boat; and for the first time, the boat's motor started on the first try. The overloaded launch roared into the lagoon just as the wave swamped the orphanage's single-storey buildings.

"It was a thunderous roar, and black sea," Sanders later said. He watched in horror as the wave smashed his life's work -- his buildings, his pickup, an old van and his three-wheeled rickshaw.

Then Sanders recalled the words of the prophet Isaiah: "When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall raise up a standard against it." So he raised his hand to the flood and shouted: "I command you in the name of Jesus -- stop!"

The water then seemed to "stall momentarily." Sanders had just enough time to turn the boat to meet the wave head-on. Even then, they barely avoided being swamped, but all survived.

Northwest Victory Church pastor Dave Meyers believes the South Asian tsunami is just one of many signs of the imminent End Times.

"I believe, like the Bible says, that these things will increase as the end is near -- hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, strange weather patterns. Check any website; earthquakes are increasing," Meyers says.

"But there are all sorts of signs. Wars and tension -- I know there have always been wars, but today it seems intensified.

"The existence of Israel is a big one. The natural calamities. The state of the Church . . . seems a sign of the End Times."

Is he saying the Church should get ready for the Apocalypse?

"God is preparing His bride in the Church, and I don't think we're ready yet, but we're getting ready. And no one's ever really ready."

Is God responsible for all the calamities? Did He cause the tsunami in the Indian Ocean?

"He wasn't surprised; He's omniscient, so He knew all about it. But whether He did it -- I wouldn't say so. It's a result of the Fall (of Adam and Eve). The earth is straining under the weight of the sin and wickedness of men," Meyers said.

"God allows suffering all around us. We signed the release when we sinned in the Garden."

With the scripture: "No one knows the day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father," Meyers agrees. "You can't know the exact hour."

Still, he insisted, "You can know the season. When you see these things happening, you know we're getting closer."

Yet, Meyers admitted, "closer" could mean tomorrow, next week, or the next century.

"That's the paradox," he said.

"Christians in the first century thought it would happen in their lifetimes. We live our lives like it could be tomorrow, but we understand that it could be a thousand years from now."

At Vailankanni on India's east coast, reports the Catholic News Service, the tsunami left untouched the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health, a 16th-century shrine drawing 20 million Indian pilgrims yearly. The waves, which rose to 12 metres, crushed hotels and houses on the same elevation a hundred metres away. A bus at a higher elevation was swamped. Thousands of people were killed within a kilometre radius, including many who had just left the shrine, but 2,000 people at mass were "miraculously saved," said Thanjavur Diocese's Bishop Devadass Mariadoss, when the waves stopped at the shrine's gates.

Since then, barefoot church volunteers, faces covered by surgical masks or handkerchiefs, have been recovering hundreds of rotting bodies from the debris.

"It was a miracle the water did not enter the church," said Sebastian Kannappilly, a businessman from nearby Kerala state whose family was spared.

Christian writer Shafer Parker, pastor of Sturgeon Valley Baptist in St. Albert, insists the omnipotent, providential God is the source of all disasters as well as all blessings: "I am the Lord your God, who churns up the sea so that its waves roar -- Lord Almighty is his name," Parker quotes the Old Testament prophet Isaiah (51:14).

But Parker won't relate the tsunami to the "roaring of the sea and the waves" prophesied in Luke's gospel. "I don't connect them," he says.
"Jesus uses Old Testament images, apocalyptic imagery, that refers to the collapse of an era, the end of a dispensation. This 'collapsing universe' language expresses God's intention to reorder His relationship with His people. And that happened in 70 A.D., with the destruction of the Temple."

At the same time, Parker says, conservative Christians and Jews will understand Jesus' purpose in conjoining a warning of retribution with the promise of redemption.

"We are living in a fallen universe, a universe we caused to fall, so God is deliberately subjecting our universe to His anger," Parker said.

"Why? Not because He doesn't love us, but because we must never feel self-sufficient. Because we need to be reminded constantly that we're not our own gods.

"These disasters remind us we're still under the curse, still living out a fallen nature. And they also remind us that God is still in control."
After Noah's great flood, God said to him (Genesis 8:21): "Never again will I strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease," Parker quoted.

"So we understand these calamities don't vitiate God's plan. They aren't the end of the world. They don't mean life is meaningless.

"So we don't panic; we plan and provide. We do disaster relief, to lessen the suffering," he said.

The tsunami didn't kill only sex-trade tourists in Thailand, however. Very young, innocent children died, Parker admitted. But "Christians have always clung to hope that infants are saved in Christ as an act of divine mercy."

However horrible the effects of the tsunami, people must rememmber "everyone born into this world is going to die, often in very painful and frightening ways.

"The death rate in Calgary is 100 per cent and it wouldn't have been any less than 100 per cent in South Asia, even if they hadn't had a tsunami," Parker said.

"Like Paul said (Romans 8:22), the whole of creation is groaning in the pains of childbirth. And we're still groaning. But compared to an eternity with God, these things really are just birth pangs."

Americans Patrick Green and Becky Johnson, on holiday in Thailand, can thank a playground jungle gym, a thatched roof and prayer for saving their lives, said The Associated Press.

When the elevator door opened on the ground floor of their hotel Sunday morning, water rushed in. The couple swam out the hotel door, then perched on the jungle gym of a nearby playground. They pulled some others aboard, including a woman who clung to her baby and looked desperately for her five-year-old (whom she later found).

Then the last and biggest wave starting rolling in. As Johnson shouted prayers, a thatched roof floated up and lodged against the jungle gym, sheltering them all from the wave that loomed three metres over their heads.

The wave never touched them: "miraculously," Green said.
Nothing to convince a skeptic, of course -- where almost 150,000 die, freak accidents will save a few.

Some insist natural disasters are just that -- natural.

"I don't believe that God was having a bad day or that He'd decided to destroy anybody's life," said Hillhurst United minister John Pentland.
"I think the earth shifted, the water moved and disaster
happened. The planet's real and the planet moved, and it killed people. And I believe God's tears were the first tears to fall. I believe that God was the first to grieve."

Pentland thinks there is "no benefit" to be gained from connecting scriptural prophecies to current disasters because it is "immature" to think of God working in such a "stick-and-carrot" way.

The real story, Pentland says, is the way people can come together in response to disaster and express God's love in their response.

"I wouldn't put on my gown to worship a god who decided it was time to punish Vancouver, or who'd kill someone for their own good," he said.
"I believe God is the One who gives people the strength and courage in life and death and life again."

There is no "Flood" or "Earthquake" named among the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. The horsemen are War, Famine, Pestilence and Death.
"And I saw a white horse: And he that sat on him had a bow; a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. . . .
"And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another; and there was given unto him a great sword. . . .
"And I beheld . . . a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
"And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. . . .
"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them . . . to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth" (Rev 6:1-8).

The first horse's white colour may reflect the mounts ridden by victorious generals. The second horse's red may symbolize the violence of famine. The black horse may indicate the despair of plagues.

The pale fourth horse represents decay. The tsunami caused a lot of that -- and Christians weren't the only ones to see divine judgement in it.
Israel's Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar said: "God is angry" and "we must pray more and ask for mercy."

He warned: "The nations of the world are obliged to observe the seven Noahide laws, such as the prohibitions against murder and illicit relations . . . . The deaths are very painful."

Australian Federation of Islamic Councils director Amjad Mehboob told the Australian press: "It's a test -- (God) wants to see how we react to this. If we react with compassion, our hearts are filled and we do something about it, then that act in itself is something God is wanting to see in us."

[email protected]
© The Calgary Herald 2005

[kmaherali]

More on Tsunami can be referenced at:

http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_10000.html

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/158/story_15884_1.html

[kmaherali]

The following is an interesting story about a survivor of the Tsunami disaster that appeared in today's Calgary Herald.

Prayer, coconuts sustain castaway 15 days


CanWest News Services


Wednesday, January 12, 2005


Tsunami survivor Ari Afrizal says he drifted on the Indian Ocean for two weeks, living on coconuts that he pried open with his teeth while floating on pieces of wood, then a broken boat, and finally a fishing raft.

And all the time, he prayed.

His prayers were answered when a container ship, Al Yamamah, spotted him Sunday, hauled him aboard and brought him to Malaysia late Monday.

Ari, 21, was working on a construction site in the Indonesian province of Aceh on Dec. 26 when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the resulting tsunami swept him and his friends out to sea.

"The earthquake lasted about 15 minutes," Ari told reporters late Monday after Al Yamamah docked at Port Klang near the capital Kuala Lumpur. "Then the waves came, big, big waves that slammed down hard on us."

Ari, who appeared fit despite the ordeal, said he and his co-workers were swept out to sea and clung onto passing pieces of wood.

"I recall seeing four of my friends hanging onto wood but we drifted away from each other as the waves rolled us out further into the sea," Ari said.

See story, Page A3

© The Calgary Herald 2005

[shivaathervedi]

kmaherali



Joined: 27 Mar 2003
Posts: 15155

PostPosted: Sun Jan 09, 2005 6:59 am Post subject: Tsunami and God Reply with quote
The tsunami disaster in Asia has raised many existential questions such as: Where was God's mercy? What is the purpose of life? Was it God's wrath? etc. The following articles that appeared in today's Calgary Herald express some of these issues. They are interesting and worthy of reflection.

God has not left the room

A pastor tackles crisis of faith

John Van Sloten
For The Calgary Herald

Over the past week, many have questioned God's role in relation to the catastrophic Asian tsunami. Some have distanced themselves thinking, "If God really does exist, how could He allow something like this to happen?" while others have drawn close, desperately clinging to their faith: "Without God's help in times like these, we'd all be in trouble. Where else can we go?"

JUST THINKING:

GOD HAS NOT LEFT THE ROOM:

BUT He kicked others out of that room to face calamities.
OR there is some stronger force opposite to Al mighty who is creating Disasters, Tsunamis, Wild fires, Hurricanes, Eruption of volcanoes, Diseases, Killings name it. But Dear God keep watching trying not to stop it. Jesus Christ cried for help, He listened but ignored.

[kmaherali]

BUT He kicked others out of that room to face calamities.
OR there is some stronger force opposite to Al mighty who is creating Disasters, Tsunamis, Wild fires, Hurricanes, Eruption of volcanoes, Diseases, Killings name it. But Dear God keep watching trying not to stop it. Jesus Christ cried for help, He listened but ignored.

If indeed there was a power higher or stronger than God who only wants to destroy the creation, then, this creation would have been extinct long long ago.

In the grand scheme of things, these calamities are very rare and they tend to have a positive impact upon general ecology and human understanding of the purpose of life and creation.