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REACHING OUT

St. AUGUSTINE'S CHURCH NEWSLETTER Spring 2005 No 57

WHERE WAS GOD?

I am always surprised, living as we do, in a largely secularized society, that when things go wrong, in the absence of anyone else to blame, people are only to ready to drag God into it and blame him This particularly seems to be the case when they try to come to terms with a natural disaster such as the one that recently occurred ground the edges of the Indian Ocean. Such a disaster provides an ideal opportunity for the media to promote its own godless creed, triumphantly proclaiming that a God who lets things like this happen is no God at all, indeed he doesn't exist!

I am sure that anyone viewing the consequences of the Tsunami as they unfolded, could fail to be unmoved by what they saw. At the same time however, I am convinced that the media can give us too much information, we see so much that somehow we become 'anesthetized' to what we see, but that's just a personal opinion. Of course when disasters happen, we ask questions, and amongst them we may well ask what God was doing when so much suffering was interrupting the lives of so many, was he just having a day off, where was he?

Yes we ask questions, but we also know that a natural phenomenon like Tsunami is part of the ongoing process of creation, the movement of the earth's surface causing a tidal wave. Human knowledge does not however equip us to answer the more fundamental question, 'How can we believe in a God who lets people suffer so much when disasters, natural or otherwise, occur?’ ‘If we believe in a God of love, how can he allow suffering of any kind in what is meant to be his creation?' The possibility of suffering just seems to be part of being human; certainly it makes us think about our relationship with God and the Universe.

If those who wish to blame everything on God are challenging the notion of an all loving, all powerful God constantly engaged in and altering the course of human events, they do not need a tsunami to prove their point; one little child dying with cancer proves how untrue that notion is. God is not a manipulative puppeteer, he has to let creation be; however neither is he indifferent to human suffering. 'Where was God?' I think that as we turn to Easter and the Cross, we can all too clearly see where he was. On the Cross God identifies totally with human suffering, your sufferings and mine. The Cross also shows us that suffering does not, and will never have, the last word. After the Cross comes the Resurrection. Easter tells us all we need to know about our human existence.

May God bless you this Eastertide.

Father Keith