a new year, a new heavens, a new earth

first work week of the new year. man, that's always a scary thought. :)

was reading Sunday and Monday coverage of the tsunami crisis and found myself at several points tearing up again, sometimes with anger and sometimes in sadness. The dominant feeling overall was a realisation of how assuring it was to know that there will be a day of great accounting for every single one of those lives that was lost.

In my early christian walk, i never truly understood why Judgment Day was so important. Stereotypically, I saw it as a bit of a gloomy, pessimistic downer compared to all the sunshiney, Care Bear aspects of Christianity. I wanted Christianity and God to be all about Love. I forgot to care about why He is also known as God of absolute Justice.

When I read about the disgusting deprived men who gang-raped a young tsunami victim, frankly I wanted to hit the bastards. I want to see them suffer for their Evil. It's the same feeling that wells in me when I look at pictures of tortured children, the "collateral damaged" in war, Holocaust victims and the starving poor.

Sometimes, I just want to scream that it is so BLOODY OUTRAGEOUS what Man thinks he can get away with.

But anger, even righteous anger from us human beings can only get us so far. Anger mobilises us to do something, to reach out and right whatever wrongs we can in our limited way. $2 billion raised over a few days by the international community and countless unseen volunteers straining away in SE Asia counts for a great deal to me. I cannot wait to emphasise to my students how this shows we can all do something to ease suffering and to make at least a small part of life bearable for one other human being.

But all our anger, all our effort, all out heart ache and donations cannot hope to stopper the sufferings of this world. It is no secret - we cannot cannot hope to save our selves and our world.

There is too much that to handle. And so we cry out to God in despair, wailing, weeping, beating our chest, wringing the ground itself for answers. These cliche references to great despair have become so real as we watch the survivors of the tsunamis express their grief. I read of an old woman who grasped lumps of dirt to her chest because it was all she could hope to hold of her dead loved ones. Villagers pound their chests because there is nobody to pound and smash to blame. The open mouths of wailing will not be shut, beamed into living rooms across the world, screaming about hopelessness.

From the depths of the BIble, in words that reach from the past and point towards a vast Eternity, He whispers His ancient answer through the prophet Isaiah:

"17 "Behold, I will create

new heavens and a new earth.

    The former things will not be remembered,

    nor will they come to mind.

    18 But be glad and rejoice forever

    in what I will create,

    for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight

    and its people a joy.

    19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem

    and take delight in my people;

    the sound of weeping and of crying

    will be heard in it no more.

   
    20 "Never again will there be in it

    an infant who lives but a few days,

    or an old man who does not live out his years;

    he who dies at a hundred

    will be thought a mere youth;

    he who fails to reach [a] a hundred

    will be considered accursed.

    21 They will build houses and dwell in them;

    they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

    22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them,

    or plant and others eat.

    For as the days of a tree,

    so will be the days of my people;

    my chosen ones will long enjoy

    the works of their hands.

    23 They will not toil in vain

    or bear children doomed to misfortune;

    for they will be a people blessed by the LORD ,

    they and their descendants with them.

    24 Before they call I will answer;

    while they are still speaking I will hear.

    25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together,

    and the lion will eat straw like the ox,

    but dust will be the serpent's food.

    They will neither harm nor destroy

    on all my holy mountain,"

    says the LORD . "


My God, My God, let it all be True.... let every Word be true.

One horrifying, glorious, awesome day, God will cause the earth itself to yawn out its dead. And the 140,000 who died in the tsunami tragedy will be among them, raised to new life and called before their Maker. And my God will know their every name, their every deed and their every thought and Judge each and every life personally, justly and honourably.

We who felt there were good people who died there who deserved more will have our every tear wiped away as God honours them.

We who felt there were evil ones who thrived on the suffering of the victims, raping, pillaging and extorting them....we will witness the righteous anger of God finally setting things right.

That is my sole hope in times like this.

And my fear that I be found wanting in His eyes on that sobering day, is the one thing that keeps me humble and far wiser than I ever was before I knew Him.