When We Cry Out To Him

The only piece of the Airbus A-310 aircraft that failed to burn was its tail, when Sibir Airlines flight 778 crashed at Irkutsk’s airport this morning. The aircraft overshot the runway, crashing into a wall and bursting into flames, as it collapsed between two storage warehouses. Like an instant memorial to the disaster, the only visible remainder of the aircraft is the blue tail bearing the airline’s logo.

Many of the passengers were children, heading for their holidays at Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake. Witnesses described seeing children, engulfed in flames, trying to escape from the wreckage. As of this writing, the death count has risen to 120.

The horror of this accident, as we imagine the last terrifying moments of this fateful flight, obscures the fact that millions of people fly everyday, in thousands of planes safely and without incident. But this tragedy and every other similar tragedy challenges anybody who's ever prayed - and that's probably most of us, since praying isn't limited to ‘signed-up’ believers.

What was God thinking as He heard the pleas of these and other terrified victims? And for those of us, who've ever felt that God has, from time to time, answered our own prayers, we're in the double bind of explaining why He came to our aid and not to theirs. Our doubts are fuelled by having a picture of God dwelling in some trouble-free paradise watching us sweating it out on this war-torn earth.

Jesus said ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to earth without the Father.’ It could invoke the vision of God himself falling from the skies to the earth to suffer alongside all His creatures. That’s a very different picture from the one of God as the detached problem-solver.

An experienced mother once told me that she reckoned she’d had her appendix out four times; Once for herself and once for each of her children. Such is the power of empathy, the power of compassionate imagination you can so identify with someone you love that you feel the pain yourself.

If God is able to identify so strongly with all His creatures, then in a sense He must never be without pain. Far from inhabiting a trouble-free paradise, He must be totally and always acquainted with our grief and sorrows. Which is the state in which we find Him when we turn to Him in prayer.

Christians and others long for that day when God will wipe every tear from our eyes, when death will be no more and mourning and crying and pain will be things of the past. If we, who suffer from time to time, long for this, how much more must God, who we believe carries the suffering of the whole world, ache for such a day.

.

Blessed are thy Saints, O God, who have travelled over the tempestuous sea of this mortal life. Watch over us who are still in our dangerous voyage. Frail is our vessel and the ocean is wide. Steer us Lord towards the shore of peace and safety. Grant peace to all who ask in Your name. Amen

When We're Needed Most

Bereavement Death ChildDeath

Anglicans Anglican Prayers