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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Our Natural Enemy |
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Genesis
3:17-19 Luke
13:1-5 Seventeenth
Sunday after Trinity September
14, 2008 Like many people, I spent Friday night in a chair. I was not watching hurricane coverage, I was praying that our God would have mercy upon us and work some kind of miracle that would deliver us from the storm. Especially I prayed for the Gulf coast, asking God to spare it, to spare the people, to spare the property, to spare the land and the trees and the wildlife; asking God to still this storm as He once stilled the storm on Galilee. It didn’t happen. The hurricane hit our nation hard, and the destruction and cost of it will be terrible. I can’t imagine the way people will feel when they return to see the destruction. God have mercy upon them. I know the TV preachers will be lining up today to tell us the storm is God’s way of punishing us for our national sins. I cannot say God is not punishing us, but I can’t say that He is either. Likewise, I cannot deny that we deserve punishment. I cannot deny that a land so blessed should be filled with righteousness and thanksgiving, but is instead filled with every manner of evil. But so is every other land. All people are sinners. No one land deserves the wrath of God any more or any less than another. Jesus Himself alluded to this. In Luke 13:1-5 He spoke about two events that had people talking in His day. One was the execution of several Galileans by the Romans. The other was the collapse of a tower near the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem that killed several people. In both instances people were saying that the dead must have been terrible sinners and their deaths were God’s way of punishing them. But Jesus denied this. In both instances He made the point that the people were no more guilty of sin than any others. Those crucified by the Romans were not guilty of any crimes. If my understanding is correct, the Romans, rather than seeking out the real perpetrators of a crime, often simply crucified whoever happened to be handy. And those crushed by the tower were not guilty of any “great sins.” By human standards, they were innocent, and by God’s standards, they were no more and no less guilty than anyone else. This is particularly important in the fall of the tower. Apparently a tower just fell. It just collapsed. We don’t know why, but we can say this, the natural laws of physics prevailed, and the tower fell. Unfortunately it fell on people, and they died. The point Jesus makes in Luke is that God didn’t cause the tower to fall on them to punish them. That is very significant. I think we need to keep that in mind when we see natural disasters happening today, such as hurricanes. Hurricanes destroy the lives and property of the ungodly and the godly alike. They destroy churches as well as the more unseemly places. I wish that were not true, but we all know it is. I don’t claim to have all the answers about this, but Genesis 3 gives us some help. I don’t claim to have all the answers to the interpretation of Genesis either. I realize there are many questions about details that will remain unanswered while we live here below, such as, where did Cain’s wife come from?. I do know this, because it is a major point of Genesis 3, sin changed our relationship to nature as surely as it changed our relationship to God. In Eden nature had been our friend. There were no storms, no droughts, no sickness, no death. Our harmony with nature was as complete as was our harmony with God. As Matthew Henry wrote, “God
gave the earth to the children of men, designing it to be a comfortable
dwelling for them. But sin
has altered the property of it. It
is now cursed for man’s sin; that is, it is a dishonourable habitation
… it is a dry and barren habitation, its spontaneous productions are now
weeds and briers.”
“Fruitfulness was its blessing for man’s service, and now
barrenness was its curse, for man’s punishment”
(Matthew Henry’s Commentary, vol. I, p. 32). When the earth was cursed for man’s sake, God redesigned nature to work against us. Not entirely against us; it would still yield its produce, and it is capable of providing great bounty and beauty, thanks be to God. But it also became capable of producing drought and flood, feast and famine, well watered plains and barren deserts. The same natural laws that produce a picture perfect “white Christmas” can also create a killing blizzard. The same kinds of forces that produce a gentle April shower can also create a Hurricane Ike. It is worth noting that Jesus turned the question away from the disaster and to personal faith. To Him the question is not why these things happen, but, are we prepared to meet God? This is the heart of His meaning when He said, “except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Lk. 13:3, 5). He was not saying a building will fall on you. He was not saying a Roman will crucify you or a hurricane will get you. The “perishing” He spoke of was much worse then mere physical death. He was saying we will stand before God ourselves one day. On that day it will not matter how we got there. It won’t matter if we go by natural disaster or illness. It will only matter that we are ready because we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Let us pray. O Christ, Our God, have mercy upon us we pray. Turn away the storms. Still the winds, and calm the seas. But more than this, we ask You to turn us to You in faith and righteousness, that righteousness may exalt this nation, and that people may be ready when they stand before You. In Thy holy name we pray. Amen. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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