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It hurt. It hurt seeing the pictures of the astronauts at
their nervous breakfast...both happy and anxious at the same
time. It hurt seeing the replays of the interviews that each of
the crew members had given to the media at various times, their
excitement masked by a smooth professionalism. All but Christa -
HER excitement was not masked by anything. It hurt to think that
such a vivacious and delightful all--American girl would never get
to teach those lessons she had planned from space.
But life goes on, hurt or no. As much as I would have liked
to, I could not simply plant myself in front of the television
for the rest of the day. There was work to be done. Still,
every chance I got, I would steal away for a few minutes to see
if there were any new information about what had occurred. Of
course, there was none. It had all happened too suddenly -- no
warning. All that we were hearing was the somber reflection of
people who had been close to the astronauts and the space
program.
I remember hearing Ohios Senator John Glenn, the first
American ever to orbit the earth, and who would do it again at
age 77 in 1998, saying, "I guess we always knew there would be a
day like this." But what had made this day so shocking was that
we had come to expect perfection. We had become accustomed to
triumph, and now we were confronted with tragedy.
Of course, thousands of homes across our land go from
triumph to tragedy daily. A father suffers a massive heart
attack; a mother succumbs to a fast-moving cancer; a little child
is crushed to death under the wheels of a car she never even saw.
From triumph to tragedy in a flash. Alfred Lord Tennyson said it
best in his poem, "In Memorium": "Never morning wore to evening,
But some heart did break."
Among the parables that Chinese teachers use is the story of
a woman who lost an only son. She was grief--stricken out of all
reason. Eventually, she went to a wise old philosopher who said
to her, "I will give you back your son if you will bring me some
mustard seed. However, the seed must come from a home where
there has never been any sorrow."
Eagerly she started her search, going from house to house.
In every case she learned that a loved one had been lost.
Finally, the truth dawned on her. "How selfish I have been," she
said. "Sorrow is common to all."
Hearts break every day - perhaps yours...and not just
because of sudden death -- a marriage that had held such hope and
promise falls apart; a home into which great love and care had
been invested burns to the ground, a total loss; a precious
possession that is prized for more than just its monetary value
is stolen by a sneak thief. The problem is that we do not expect
it to happen. We do not worry about those things. We just
assume that everything will be all right despite all the evidence
to the contrary. As a matter of fact, we consider it our DUE.
Even in the Declaration of Independence we find that "life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are described as
"unalienable rights," rights that can never be taken away. We
EXPECT triumph. But, far too often, we are confronted with
tragedy.
And then come those same questions that people raise, not
only in the face of a disaster like the Challenger or a horror
such as people are experiencing in India, but anytime calamity
strikes: Why? How could a good God allow such a thing? The
feeling comes that if God is REALLY God, if God is REALLY in
control, then God is not good. Or the other side of that coin -
if God is really GOOD, and all these things happen anyway, then
God is not God because there are things that are beyond divine
control. As Woody Allen has said, "God is an underachiever."
Those are not new issues. They are as old as human
existence. The book of Job is really one long compendium of the
questions people raise when confronted with catastrophe: Why? Why
me? Why him? Why them?
Jobs story, of course, is one with which we are all
familiar. Here was a successful and prosperous man, a man whose
life was one triumph after another, suddenly confronted with the
destruction of his property, the death of his children, and
finally the loss of his own health -- more suffering in a short
time than most of us ever endure in our entire lives. And he and
his friends raised those same questions.
Finally, after Job and his friends had talked enough, the
voice of God broke in. "Tell me, Job, where were you when I laid
the foundations of the earth? Who hung the stars in the sky and
how did he do it? Who tells the dawn to break and the night to
fall, and how does it happen? How does the wind work? How many
clouds are there?" One unanswerable question after another with
Job finally responding, "Gee, Lord, I guess there is a lot about
life I cannot answer." And the Lord says. "Right. There is a
lot you will NOT be able to answer."
The message of the book of Job is that there are indeed
things that we will never know -- at least in this life -- things
that are beyond our understanding. Our call is to not lose our
faith in the face of them, not to begin foolishly blaming God for
whatever is not to our satisfaction in this world. As Job said,
"Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him."(2)
It was that same kind of trust that sent Jesus to the cross.
The gospels make clear that Jesus had no desire to be tortured or
to die -- no sane person would. But he endured it...and the
tragedy of Good Friday turned into the triumph of Easter. How
could that have happened? I do not know. God does. And that is
all that matters.
The danger we face in dealing with disaster is the same one
that Job faced -- loss of faith. It is not an unusual problem.
Jesus himself talked about it 2,000 years ago. He described two
people; both normal, everyday folks; both of whom eventually were
confronted with those overwhelming problems that inevitably
confront us all at some time or another. For the one, the
problem became too much -- there was no loving God whose provision
could be counted on to see him through the shadowy valleys or
deep waters -- his life had no solid foundation. It was built on
"sand" and crumbled under the waves of misfortune.
But the other had rested his life on the firm foundation of
a faith in a living, loving Lord who could be trusted for
deliverance even in the face of the most awesome disaster. There
was no temptation to find fault with God, just a resolute
reliance on the continuing care and love of the one whom
scripture describes as the personification of love.
Yes, there will be some who might lose faith because of the
tragedies that occasionally (and too often) occur. But for those
of us who call ourselves Christian, that should not be a problem.
After all, it is Christians who sing:
On Christ the solid rock I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.(3)
1. http://www.cnn.com/
2. Job 13:15
3. Edward Mote, "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less"
4. http://reagan.webteamone.com/
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