I realized I was in the “valley of the shadow of death” as the Psalmist puts it. An earthquake and its consequences are harsh reminders to survivors, responders, and observers about the awful reality that physical life comes to an end, sometimes without warning. But there is hope even as we walk toward that inevitability.
A man came to receive help from my team. As he stepped into the shade, he could not withhold the tears. “I just need to tell someone what happened to me,” he said. He lost both parents, his wife, two children, and his home. A young woman was chatting hopefully with us until she received a call that the bodies of her aunt and niece were discovered in the rubble.
As painful as these stories are, one incident became iconic to me. It gripped me with grief and stirred my empathy. I stood facing a beach, near the epicenter of destruction. The mountains rose steeply behind me. I heard the alarming noise of heavy rubble falling. I turned to see a severely damaged, multi-story residential building high on the mountain. A lone figure, silhouetted against the late afternoon sun, stood atop the structure’s remains. He was digging desperately and pushing debris overboard. No one would take such a dangerous job for hire. He was searching for loved ones – four weeks after the earthquake.
We Christians live with a paradox. We prioritize the hope of life beyond the grave by God’s grace through faith in the One who forgives sin. But we don’t just preach that good news. We also engage the struggle in this life to alleviate suffering and promote human flourishing. But to do only that would make us no different than any well-meaning humanitarian group.
We care about both now and eternity because Jesus did. Jesus wept with Mary and Martha over the death of their brother Lazarus. Perhaps he grieved over the horrid existence of death itself. He wept over the temporal human condition, even as He promised eternity. “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies” (John 11:25).
C.S. Lewis spoke of the “unnaturalness” of death. “We know that we were not made for it,” he wrote. “We know how it crept into our destiny as an intruder; and we know Who has defeated it.” Surely that is how the Psalmist could offer courage in the face of evil, comfort in the presence of death, and the protection of the divine, guiding Presence. May the God of hope comfort you when you suffer your own earthquake.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Psa. 23:4).