The Tsunami
Usually, just as the nation starts to flirt with God through Christmas carols and midnight services, the Boxing Day sales arrive to refocus the collective mind.
This year, however, TV adverts for half-price sofas sat uncomfortably besides footage of the tsunami flattening homes, while commercials for holidays on golden beaches seemed mortifyingly out of place.
The great wave stunned the world, and caused many to reflect more deeply than usual about the role of God and the place of faith within our world. Sceptics have claimed that the disaster disproves the idea of a benevolent deity; even saints have felt their faith shaken to its core. Was this really, as the insurers say, an 'act of God'?
The Bible doesn't supply a stockpile of answers for such a time as this. It doesn't even claim consistently that God directs Creation's every move - painting the ocean, at times, as a threatening, stormy place in which the Leviathan lurks; a watery chaos which, one day, will be tamed.
It does, however, acknowledge our sense of bewilderment - especially in the book of Ecclesiastes, whose writer inhabits a world in which the righteous suffer indiscriminately, in which people 'cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end' and in which there is no automatic theological response in the face of apparent despair and meaninglessness.
It often takes a global catastrophe or personal disaster to rock our individual faith, built, as it frequently is, upon the perilous foundations of personal success and happiness. And yet, in truth, our Christian belief should be tried and tested every time we stand alongside those for whom the world seems a faithless, meaningless place - the orphans, the widows, the poor, the homeless and the hopeless that we are called to serve.
As this traumatic Christmas now begins to fade from view, we should keep in mind the Incarnation, when God became flesh and blood and moved in with those for whom all hope has gone. Such an extravagant act of love holds fast for all times, whether good or bad. Whether one person suffers, or many, many thousands.
While our faith may feel stronger when all is well, thankfully we do not believe in a fair weather God. It's surely our challenge to demonstrate this, through our actions, throughout the coming year. Otherwise, we build our house on sand.
Brian Draper
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