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By Admin, January 25, 2010 6:53 am

Mike Milton, president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte North Carolina, offered the following advice from the book of Lamentations in response to the tragedy of Haiti (and other tragedies like 9/11 and Katrina).

1. Share Jesus’ Tears: Weep With Those Who Weep

2. Share Jesus’ Truth: Console Those Who Mourn With God’s Attributes

3. Seek Jesus’ Teaching For Your Own Life: Examine And Explore The Meaning For Our Lives

4. There is hope for all of us when we turn to Jesus Christ.

He ends this essay with the following words:

At Calvary the earth shook, the sky went black in daytime, and the sins of the world came down like millions of pounds of Haitian concrete buildings on Jesus Christ. And those defective concrete buildings are our sins—my sin, your sin, the sins of our fathers and our mothers. Those concrete buildings were built with a fault line running through them as deep as the wickedness in the human heart. The collapse of this gigantic building of sin was more horrendous than even that which the earthquake brought in Haiti. Christ was crushed under the weight of this sin on that hill outside of Jerusalem.

But from the twisted thorns of His crown, and the cold slab of his tomb, Jesus Christ rose again. And He is alive. And He comes in our tragedy, to rescue us from the ruin and the ruble of the sin of our lives and bring us to safety. Oh that we could cry out to those under the ruble of Haitian concrete and under the ruin of human sin in our own families:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art there…”

You see, all of us are burned in one way or another. All of us have experienced the devastation that sin brings into our lives, even if it is just living in a world where children die, and young women get breast cancer, and good and godly men and women are killed in accidents; or, where poor nations, already pounded by hurricanes and haunted by ungodly religions and hurt by unscrupulous dictators. All of us live in a nation where wickedness is becoming commonplace and the innocent are becoming the victims…yet, we learn in Jeremiah that we have a faithful God whose mercies are new every morning. Let it be that in this time of national catastrophe, we, once again turn in repentance and faith to faithful God of Jeremiah, our God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so, in this time of such massive lamentable loss, when questions mount in our minds like the sorrow in our hearts, where do we go? Where else? Where else could we turn but to a Savior of whom it was written:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…” (53.4a).

He walks among us today. He walks among the dying and the wounded of Haiti. He is not removed from that place. He is there. And He is with you if you will but look to Him at this very moment.

To read his full essay, click HERE.