judging the Judge

I gotta admit: sometimes I wonder why the tsunami stopped where it did, instead of pushing across the Atlantic, storming the shores of Maryland, and claiming me.

I return to that inward cringe whenever I hear Christians claiming God had nothing to do with the tsunami deaths – claiming, as one preacher put it, “Geology has nothing to do with theology.” Who are these people fooling?

They’re reacting, of course, to other Christians who view the tsunami as God’s judgment against Muslims killing Christians, against child prostitution, against anti-Israeli sentiments, or against ________ (insert name of sin you most disdain). To be fair, Islamic leaders play the same game, attributing the tsunami’s destruction to God’s anger over Muslims killing Muslims, over shallow devotion to Islam, over failure to destroy the infidels occupying Israel, et cetera.

But the fact of the matter is that God’s invisible purposes are precisely that: invisible. We simply do not, and cannot, know them (I Corinthians 2). Jesus Himself warned against the concoction of specific reasons for tragedies: “… those eighteen who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no!” (Luke 13). It is far beyond the power of any human being to know God’s secret thoughts.

Yet we do know a few things:

1. God is sovereign over natural events. (Colossians 1)
2. We are sinners. (Romans 1-2)
3. Death is God’s judgment for sin. (Genesis 3)

These general truths are woven throughout the whole fabric of Scripture. According to God’s own words, then, all natural events occur within the locus of His control, and all deaths stem from His judgment of human sin. By both counts, and despite the attempts of some Christians to argue otherwise, the death-bearing tsunami did come from God. Period.

The remaining mystery is why the tsunami stopped at claiming only two hundred thousand lives, instead of engulfing the entire world. Why some and not others? All human beings are dead men walking, sentenced to a just death. The timing and method of our execution is entirely up to our Judge; we have no right that it should not be enacted at any point, and by any means. We can only wonder, when we hear of any disaster, why it did not occur to us – and we can thank God for being merciful to us.

We should also weep, as Jesus wept (John 11), for the dead. Simply because we deserve death from God doesn’t mean it’s a happy, or even neutral, affair. It’s greatly comforting to know Jesus wept over Lazarus’ death, as I trust He would weep over our own. Even though it doesn’t negate the justice of death, grief is a good and right response.

Times may come when our grief causes us to clutch at more specific reasons behind our losses – why this nation, this family, this child? – but we should forgive ourselves for such weakness. Irrational though it may be, it’s only natural, in the midst of our anguish, to guess at God’s invisible purposes. He designed our minds, after all, to seek order and understanding out of the world. Why wouldn’t they attempt to do so in the most painful circumstances?

Yet no measure of grief should drive Christians to the untenable assertion that God had nothing to do with the tsunami whatsoever. Tell that to a person who has lost loved ones: will it stop them from blaming God? Will it convince them to let the Gospel off the hook, to still consider Christianity a viable faith option once their grieving is finished and they resume their faith-shopping?

Tsunami victims, and the entire world, need to wrestle with God. We need to be angry with Him. Who would have told Jacob, in Genesis 32, to get some sleep, trusting his brother Esau to go easy on him the next day? Who would have told David, in II Samuel 12, not to blame God for the impending death of his newborn son? When the natural order of the universe can, without warning, wreak such widespread devastation, it makes zero sense for Christians to urge others to disregard the Creator of that universe. Such a disingenuous attempt only disqualifies Christians from having a legitimate voice in the world’s marketplace of ideas.

A better model is Elihu, who counseled Job after the loss of all his children and possessions in a single day of catastrophe. God rebuked three of Job’s friends for seeking out specific sins as the reason for his great tragedy. Elihu, however – whose words were later echoed by God, rather than repudiated – turned Job’s attention back to God’s greater goodness:

You have said in my hearing – I heard the very words – ‘I am pure and without sin; I am clean and free from guilt. Yet God has found fault with me; He considers me His enemy. He fastens my feet in shackles; He keeps close watch on all my paths.’ But I tell you, in this you are not right, for God is greater than man. (Job 33)

As Elihu recognized, God Himself is the measure of right and wrong. In times of heart-wrenching trouble we may suspect Him to be in the wrong – and then we must struggle and wrestle with Him until our own sense of rightness and wrongness are informed by, and conformed into, His. Often this brings a deeper appreciation of His goodness, our own sinfulness, and the staggering sacrifice He made for us on the cross.

But simply “letting God off the hook” for disasters like the tsunami does nothing to assist this process, and gets us no closer to understanding our Maker. The attempt instead assumes God’s reputation can’t bear the consequences of His own acts, in effect judging the Judge Himself – a prideful and perilous endeavor.

Much better to follow God’s own advice in Ecclesiastes 7: “When times are good, be happy, but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.”