Natural disasters always pose a problem for the people of faith, producing even a faith crisis in some. The ultimate question is: Where is God in all of this?

Many Christian leaders try to defend God’s position in the face of natural evils by leaving only one position to Him: a position of judge. Concerning the earthquake in Haiti, one prominent evangelical televangelist stated that this earthquake is God judgment over the Haitian people because their ancestors had been messing with magic or demons or something of that sort.

But is it our job to defend God’s position of a judge? Isn’t God present in natural disasters in any other way?

To see God we need to look at Christ, for He is the revelation of God (John 1:18). And to see where God is in all of this, we need to look at Christ.

Christ is the Lord and the coming King. He came once to restore the people of God and to inaugurate the Kingdom of Heaven. But is coming back again to judge the living and the dead, to bring the Kingdom of Heaven in all of its fullness, and then His kingdom will have no end.

Our Christian hope is the coming Kingdom of God, when the Resurrection will take place and when God will make all things right on the Day of Judgment. This Kingdom was inaugurated by the first coming of Christ. And we live between the Two Comings, in inaugurated eschatology, waiting for it to be fully realized. Between the Two Comings the earthquake in Haiti took place, as all natural disasters do.

We do not know why the earthquake happened. Natural disasters happen while the Kingdom is not fully realized yet. We know that our hope is Resurrection, and our Lord Jesus told us that He is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). But where is He in all of this?

If the biblical scholars allow me to interpret a passage from the New Testament typologically, I think the context of Jesus Christ as the Resurrection and the Life give us a good insight. The Lord spoke those words when He was encountered by Martha, the sister of the deceased Lazarus. In her distress, Christ was pointing her towards hope. As the story unfolds and Jesus encounters another sister of Lazarus, Mary, and they all go to the tomb of the deceased friend of Jesus. Then the Evangelist reveals one very small, but important detail that is popularly known as the shortest verse of the Bible: Jesus wept (John 11:35).

That is where Jesus is in our distress. While giving us hope and pointing us in the direction of eschatological Coming of the Kingdom, he enters our despair and weeps with us.

Where is God in this Haitian earthquake? He is there alongside every victim weeping with them…

My desire is for all Christians to see God not as a mean Judge that sent this natural disaster, but as a Suffering Servant who came to give relief and hope to the victims.

If you cannot see Christ in the victims of the earthquake, you may be following a different Jesus. For the Jesus Christ of the Gospel is there: naked, homeless, and hungry… (Matt 25:31-46).

Let us not forget this and keep all the victims of the earthquake in our prayers. Let us see Christ in those victims and do something to help them. You can donate to some good organizations, like Catholic Relief Service or World Vision, and they will use the donation to bring relief to the victims. Even if you do not have extra money to donate, then save on something: there is someone longing for a few sips of water, and it is worth not buying coffee for a few days to quench their thirst.