Quiet Comfort

I am old enough to remember the Cold War. In fact, I came of age at its height in the late 80’s. I recall one evening in high school with my best friend, as we were discussing the end of the world due to nuclear war. I will admit, as foolish as it seems now, that there nights that I genuinely considered not completing my homework for school “just in case” there was a nuclear war that night and it wouldn’t be needed. Looking back on my teenage years, I laugh at how naïve I was, but in the moment, many of really did think the world would end at any moment. Who needed homework if the world was about to end? There was something that convinced me to do my homework, and more importantly, to be comforted that the world would not end in nuclear war.

“Don’t you recite the Nicene Creed in your church?” I asked my friend this simple question as evidence why we shouldn’t be afraid of nuclear war. “Doesn’t it say that God will come again ‘to judge the living and the dead?’ How can the world end in nuclear war if God has already promised to come back to judge the LIVING and the dead?” This simple reminder that came from reciting the Nicene Creed each Sunday, was a quiet comfort for me during those years of nuclear panic.

Today, there seems to be a new panic, also related to human cause. Today’s teenagers are coming of age in a time when climate change has replaced global nuclear war as the cause of human extinction. Not nearly as rapid as waking up to thousands of missiles heading for your home from the Soviet Union, but no less frightening, to hear that life as we know it will end in the next generation as the sea levels rise and coastal communities sink into the ocean. And then there is today’s reading from Genesis.

And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning; of every beast I will require it and of man; of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly on the earth and multiply in it.” – Genesis 8.21-9.7

God has again made a promise that should bring comfort to today’s teenagers. “I will never again curse the ground because of man….neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.” This was God’s promise after the great flood that sent Noah and his family and all the animals into the protection of the Ark, a direct link to rising sea levels in my limited understanding.

This blog is NOT about whether the climate is changing. It IS about whether we, as Christians, should live in panic and fear that life is coming to an end. I am merely offering some comforting words for today’s younger generation that helped comfort my heart more than three decades ago. If God has promised life would not end, then let’s take comfort for today. At least we can stay focused, do our homework, and remember to go to Church more often. In Church, we are comforted by God’s promises, even if only to help us remain at peace. He is the King of Peace after all.

Of course, my generation had to deal with nuclear war, and still do. Today’s generation will need to deal with climate and all sorts of other struggles that the world will endure. But yesterday was the Elevation of the Cross, a reminder that life as a Christians is going to include struggle, and that struggle brings life.