On November 1, 1755, the citizens of Lisbon, Portugal were crowded into churches. They were celebrating All Saints Day.
At 9:40 am the world as they knew it came to an end.
Somewhere offshore there was a sudden lurch at the intersection of two massive tectonic plates. What followed was one of the most intense earthquakes in recorded history, estimated at 9.0 on the Richter Scale.
For seven terrifying minutes, the city shook.
Fissures as wide as 15 feet opened up in the central squares. By comparison, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, estimated at 7.8 on the Richter Scale, lasted only half a minute.
Before the citizens of Lisbon could even make sense of what was happening, the first aftershock – almost as strong as the initial quake – rocked the city. Another aftershock came two hours later. But the real horror happened along the shoreline.
The waters of the Atlantic Ocean receded dramatically from the city’s harbor, then returned as a tsunami – a 50-foot-high wall of water. Within the space of an hour, some 60,000 people had died. Virtually every building of the nation’s historic capital had been reduced to rubble. Fires burned unchecked for days.
For all the suffering experienced by those in Lisbon, the most lasting damage happened in the minds and hearts of Europe’s intellectuals.
After this disaster, how could any thinking person seriously believe that the world was ruled by a powerful and benevolent God? Weren’t the citizens of Lisbon the very picture of innocent, faithful people – doing the right thing at the right place at the right time – on All Saints Day, no less? Why would God allow such a catastrophe?
The French philosopher Voltaire gave up all hope that God could ever be let off the hook. The notion then fashionable in European drawing rooms – that “everything is for the best” because “this is the best of all possible worlds” – was widely abandoned.
There was a similar reaction after the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of December 2004.
Slate magazine published an article by Heather MacDonald titled Send a Message to God: He Has Gone Too Far This Time. MacDonald wrote, “Where is God’s incentive to behave? He gets credit for the good things and no blame for the bad.”
Before, however, we dismiss God’s goodness (or the idea of God altogether), let’s pause and take note of something:
The Bible is tougher on God than the world’s most famous skeptics.
David Hume, Bertrand Russell, Friedrich Nietzsche and (in our own time) Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris have all slammed God for failing to care for the people he claims to cherish. But none of them have advanced complaints more emotional and sharp-edged than the Bible’s own role models:
“Truly you are a God who hides himself” (Isaiah 45:15).
“Though I cry, ‘Violence!’ I get no response. Though I call for help, there is no justice” (Job 19:7)
“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, presumably echoing Solomon)
“If the Lord is for us, why has all this happened?” (Gideon in Judges 6:13)
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Jesus in Mark 15:34)
You have to admit that the Bible isn’t afraid to tackle its own toughest problem straight on.
And how does God typically respond to these cries of the heart on the pages of Scripture?
With silence.
Then there’s the fascinating finale to the book of Job. Job, it would seem, has every right to find out why he has had to endure so much suffering. But God provides no explanations.
Instead, God goes on and on about the complexities and wonders of the natural world. In the words of Frederick Buechner, “God doesn’t explain. He explodes. He asks Job who he thinks he is anyway. He says that to try to explain the kind of things Job wants explained would be like trying to explain Einstein to a littleneck clam… God doesn’t reveal his design. He reveals himself.”
Author Philip Yancey remembers attending the funeral of a child in Chicago. The pastor shocked the mourners by suddenly looking down at the coffin and interrupting his own eulogy. “Damn you, death!” He then gathered himself and reminded his listeners that God would indeed one day damn death.
Until then, even with death all around us, we can experience the two gifts we need more than any other.
Those would be the assurance of God’s own presence, no matter what happens to us today.
And the promise that this shaky, shaken world will one day, by God’s own grace and power, be made whole.
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