The United Reformed Church in Jersey

From The Minister

 March 2010

My dear friends, 

During the weeks of this year, we have all looked with horror at the devastation in Haiti and the disaster in Madeira. We have complained about the cold wind and the rain in Jersey and Guernsey, but our complaints are trivial in comparison with all that we have seen in those two areas. Television reports come swiftly into our homes and we cannot avoid seeing the human cost at first hand.

 Not surprisingly, though we know in our hearts that there are such things as natural disasters, people still ask the question “why does this happen?” or more personally “where is God in all this?” It’s not an easy thing to answer, but what I do know is the love and care of God is very much in those situations where people in their thousands hold out their hands to bring aid where there is need. Relief agencies are at work; governments are sending skilled men and women to assist in health care and to begin the process of rebuilding where so much has been lost. Individuals all over the world are giving donations to small causes or major charities so that other human beings can receive the food and water and shelter that they need. Where is God in all this? It is God who touches hearts and minds to enable all this to happen, whether the givers or the recipients know it or not. It is our shared humanity which compels our compassion, and that is part of how we are created – our love is God’s love reaching out into the life of the world.

 Recently, someone asked me another question in relation to these disasters: “Is God trying to tell us something in all this?” His reasoning came from the flood which overwhelmed the world in Noah’s time when thousands of sinful people were killed and only Noah’s family escaped to start again. Is there some threat in these awful events, with God’s action speaking words of warning about the state of our world – with its secularism, its emphasis on materialism and its apparent breakdown of family life?

 I think not – such “revenge” lost its role two thousand years ago, when God sent his son to take on the sins of the world. That single act took away God’s punishment for human sin, by laying it for all time and all generations on Christ himself.

That loving act is what we should accept gratefully and share love widely. If that means doing what we can to play our part in the suffering we see around us, on a world-wide scale or on our own doorsteps, then let us embrace that opportunity. It is the way to respond to God’s love for us – a love which brings hope, for God is not an instrument of punishment or destruction. Where is God in all this? In you and me, and tens of thousands like us – may we accept that privilege and act on it generously.

 With every blessing

 Patrick