One of the most profound moments of my life was my attendance at the birth of my second son, Andrew. I was with his mother throughout the eight hours that Andrew took to safely emerge from her womb.
There are some mysteries no man will ever be party to. One of these is the experience of giving birth. But I do remember the blood. And the painful powerful spasms.
Why am I reminiscing about childbirth? Because I am desperately trying to understand. I am desperately trying to understand why 25,000 had to die in the recent earthquake in Gujerat, India. 25,000 people is too large a number to grasp.
400 is more manageable. 400 secondary school students, ages 8 to 14, ” walking in a happy procession through the old narrow streets of Anjar… Suddenly the ground started to shake violently. Roughly 45 seconds later, the busy street was a smoky ruin.” None survived. (Newsweek, February 5, 2001, 12)
Even a world that feeds daily on tragic news was shaken by the earthquake that shook India on Jan 26.
Why did it happen?
Romans 8: 18-22:
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really is. Against its will everything on earth was subject to God’s curse. All creation anticipates the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (NLT)
Here is both cause and hope.
Why did it happen? Because the sin of humankind resulted in a curse that hurt not only humankind but also the whole of creation.
Why hope? Because the death of Christ has broken that curse. And a world free from curse, free from sin, free from death and decay, awaits. Waiting for Christ’s return. Waiting to be born.
In the meantime, the Gujerats of the world are reminders that the whole of creation is waiting, in a state of cosmic gestation.
And horrors like Gujerat also serve to give us hope when we remember that they are birth pangs of a new and perfect world.
But still.