Godsmacked

God’s wrath is always tempered by God’s mercy.

Anyone who has lived through a disaster has asked the question: “Why? Why did it happen? Why did God let it happen?”

It’s a reasonable question to ask. What role does God play in the hurricane, wildfire, cancer diagnosis, layoff or divorce?

Today’s passage from Isaiah says God “sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers” (40:22). Maybe God lacks a telescope to see the grasshoppers suffering?

Isaiah allows no such easy answer. Earlier in the chapter, the prophet promises the exiled Jews returning from Babylon that God will feed them “like a shepherd,” gathering these lost lambs of Israel in a loving embrace (40:11).

The good-shepherd God who hugs those lost lambs tight surely knows their heartache, their fear, their desolation. Surely God knows when we, too, struggle with feelings of abandonment. Isn’t that so?

 

After the Superstorm

In the fall of 2012, the Rev. Carl Wilton was serving...