“When Human Stuff Collapses, Christ Still Stands”

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the news about the bridge in Baltimore’s harbor that collapsed in the middle of Monday night. A Singaporean tanker ship lost power, leaving it on a collision course that it simply could not correct. The bridge will take months (possibly years) to rebuild, making commuting and shipping a much bigger hassle than before. The wreckage is currently still laying across the harbor, completely blocking millions of tons of freight that typically go through the port every day. City, state, and national leaders at many different levels are scrambling to fix the enormous infrastructure problems that this one incident has surprised us with. And then, more personal and tragic than any of it, there were lives lost in the incident itself, and many bodies of the dead still haven’t been recovered from the floor of the harbor. The scene is a mess, and the scale of such a singular incident boggles the mind.

As I’ve thought about the story, it’s reminded me of times in the Bible when humans were surprised to find that the things we’ve built are subject to failure and collapse. The failure at the city and tower of Babel must surely have left many people wondering, “How could this happen?! How could we lose something so grand and important so quickly?” The Israelites who lived either in the Northern and Southern Kingdom’s capitol cities when they were each sacked must have wondered the same: “How could this happen? We didn’t even realize we had so much, but now we see just how much we’ve lost!” The people whose loved ones died with the tower of Siloam fell on them and killed them (see Luke 13:4) must have been wondering, “How could such tragic destruction and loss happen so fast and hit so close to home?”

It all just reminds us that even while humanity may accomplish great things, we are still small, frail, and finite. We are often at the mercy of forces and events greater than ourselves. And so while we learn to live with the good things that we have, we remind ourselves continually not to depend on them, but rather to depend on God. So that if humanity’s defenses or towers or communication systems or political entities or economies or bridges collapse… our hope is still “built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”

“The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2)

- Dan Lankford, minister

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