I read somewhere that grief is a psychological process.  According to psychologists, the human mind makes sense of loss through a grieving process which involves four stages: shock, disbelief, anger and acceptance.

As the Japanese tragedy unfolds, we as spectators, vicariously undergo the same process though perhaps with a lesser intensity. On March 11 when the news first broke out that an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.9 hit Japan, we were in shock.  Our struggle was to comprehend what an 8.9 earthquake looked like, what it felt like.  Images of amateur video taken by ordinary people of their experience during the earthquake, uploaded and played on TV allowed us to feel the shock.

Almost immediately, though, the shock was accompanied by disbelief.  We could not believe how yachts can rest on top of a parking garage, how tugboats can lie in the middle of the street, how a whole house lies adrift in the Pacific Ocean.  The incongruity of the reality portrayed in the pictures and the reality of everyday experience collided and we struggled.  We couldn’t believe it, we refuse to believe it. This is the reason why we are glued to the TV, we are still trying to comprehend the entire picture.

However, the grieving process stalled for some of us at  disbelief.  We become frustrated because we cannot go on to the next stage of the process.  This is because the tragedy is not yet over.  I heard the Asia-Pacific coordinator of the International Federation of the Red Cross, Patrick Fuller, say while being interviewed on BBC, “everyone is on edge” because there is “nothing that we can do.”  He was referring to the intermittent aftershocks that were as scary as the earthquake itself because the debris they were clearing kept shifting, posing dangers to both the rescuers as well as the survivors being rescued.  The strong aftershocks often come with a wailing of sirens that signal a tsunami alert which meant they had to run to higher ground for safety, leaving the rescue task undone.

Yesterday, though, we made headway in the grieving process, when disbelief turned to anger. Here in the Philippines, a hoax text message alarmed some people and after the falsity of the message was pointed out, people felt angry. On TV, footages of towns and villages in Japan were shown where no food, no water, no gas, no phone and no rescuers have yet managed to get through.  People are angry.

Yesterday, as well, even as sea water was being dumped by helicopter onto the spent fuel rods to prevent them from bursting into flame, the international community was coming out with opinions as to the gravity of the situation.  There were veiled accusations that the Tokyo Electric Power Company which owned and managed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant had not been telling the whole truth.  Specifically, they were sugarcoating the intensity of the radiation levels and the extent of the damage.

There were footages of angry residents of Fukushima being interviewed : they were angry because they weren’t told that a nuclear meltdown was a possibility.  They felt that had they been told the possibility of a nuclear meltdown, they would not have voted favorably to have the nuclear power plant built in their city.

Those who had been evacuated from the 20 kilometer evacuation zone had to be re-evacuated 30-kilometers away, and again, they had to be re-evacuated up to 50 miles away.  They were extremely angry as well.  Why weren’t they told that they were in so much danger?  Why did the government wait?

The foreigners who were told by their government to flee Japan were all lined up in the airport, apparently also angry that they had not been told earlier so that they could have left Japan earlier.

Grief is giving way to anger and people are trying to find someone to blame.  This is part of the normal grieving process.  Inevitably, people will blame God for allowing the earthquake to happen.  People will blame the ineptitude of the government and the duplicity of the owners of the power plant.  People will blame the manufacturers of the nuclear reactor, General Electric. Blaming others will ease the burden of the guilt and it will give way to acceptance.

In Scriptural terms, these two stages of the grieving process is where hardness of heart develops.  When people do not understand why they are undergoing extreme suffering, when they cannot find a purpose to their suffering, when they cannot see any relief or end to their suffering, their hearts will become hardened and embittered. Acceptance of the loss and of the tragedy will set in.  The mind will accept the loss as a fact that cannot be denied, yes, but the acceptance will come at a price.  People will live nursing the hurt.  Instead of the loss being a scar that reminds them of a hurt suffered long ago, the loss will be an open wound that will not heal causing them more emotional suffering.

“Look diligently…lest any root of bitterness spring up…” this is the exhortation of Hebrews 12:15. Let us understand our suffering:  science tells us that earthquakes are inevitable results of the movement of the earth’s plates.  Earthquakes are not rare.  The Bible tells us that earthquakes will mark the second coming of Jesus Christ.  They will happen with increased frequency, increased magnitude and increased intensity.  There will be great suffering.  The whole world will suffer because of these earthquakes.  Scarcity of food, water, homelessness, a breakdown of societal bonds, anarchy, chaos, all these will result from cataclysmic events.  We can prepare somewhat, but we cannot prevent them.  We can minimize the damage, but we cannot insulate ourselves.

The days of suffering will be shortened.  It may be that our perception of the passage of time will be accelerated because the cataclysmic events will come frequently that we will only have time to come up for air before experiencing wave after wave of disasters of global proportions.

Why, though?  Why would God allow this to happen?  Doesn’t God know that when these things happen, more people will become jaded, more will become skeptical and cynical?  That is the point entirely.  God will engineer these disasters so that people will have the opportunity to choose: to believe in the grace of God or to reject God entirely.  The suffering just before the Rapture and after it, during the Tribulation will lead people to an active choice.

Please note Revelation 16:9-11:  “…men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God…and they repented not to give him the glory….And they blasphemed the God of heaven, because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.”  These events happen for a purpose.  Their purpose is for man to reckon on their relationship with God:  if they have a relationship with God, they will either deepen that relationship or abandon it as fiction.  Those who do not have a relationship with God will be joined by those who have abandoned their relationship with God.  They will find other “gods” to worship.  They will worship science, technology, escapist entertainment, so on until the Antichrist will be revealed and will force people by deceit and by threat of force to worship him.

Disasters happen so that we can make the crucial choice:  to believe God, to believe in God and to trust totally Jesus Christ, his son for our salvation; or, not to believe God, not to trust God, instead to trust ourselves or some other thing.

God will honor our choice.  Hell is not really punishment for our sins. Hell is the inevitable consequence of man’s choice not to obey God, not to believe God and not to trust God. It is the full and complete implication of our choice.

Jesus said: “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me…”