Walking Through Lisbon and Pondering Earthquakes

Damage from the 1755
Lisbon Earthquake

It was November 1st, All Saints day.  The churches of Lisbon were packed with both the regulars and the irregulars celebrating this special holiday.  At 9:40 AM, during church services, the first tremors were felt by parishioners.  These tremors announced a massive 8.5-9.0 earthquake that lasted 3-6 minutes collapsing 85% of the buildings.  Fissures up to 15 feet wide opened up across the city. Fires broke out as stoves, fireplaces, lanterns and ovens poured out sparks, fuel and embers into the debris.  The fires burned for 5 days.

That was just the beginning of the disaster.  Forty-minutes after the earthquake, a series of three giant tsunamis washed over the city and swept away thousands of survivors that had gathered in the open spaces along the docks to escape the rubble, fires and cloud of dust that had settled over the city.

Out of a population of approximately 200,000 in Lisbon, experts believe 40,000 perished. Philosophers, theologians, church leaders and the populace searched for meaning. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

The earthquake had struck on an important church holiday and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of a staunch and devout Roman Catholic city and country, which had been a major patron of the Church. Theologians focused and speculated on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of divine judgment.

Rebuilt churches in Lisbon
still show damage from the
earthquake. Note pillars.

One of the most confounding aspects of the Lisbon earthquake for the religious, was the fact that Lisbon's Alfama district, the seedy red-light district suffered only minor damage.  How could the notoriously vice-ridden section of Lisbon survive, while the churches had been destroyed?

It was hard for the people of Lisbon to not see God's wrath in the destruction.  The disaster struck on a special church holiday, during service.  Their churches were destroyed, their clergy and members dead or injured.

As Shawna and I walked among the ruins of churches in Lisbon a few weeks ago, I pondered the biblical story of Rahab, the prostitute, God saved from the earthquake that brought destruction to Jericho and enabled Israel to defeat them. I think also of Mary Magdalene and the Samaritan woman at the well. God seems to have had a special place in his heart for the victims of brutality, disease, poverty and misfortune.  Yet ultimately these ladies all died.  We all die.  While we live, we spend time on a seismically active planet that routinely shakes, rumbles, spews, cracks, splashes and shifts.  The bible tells us this is our destiny until God recreates a paradise, with presumably less disastrous shaking.

Perhaps God wasn't sending a passive aggressive demonstration of wrath to Lisbon, but was showing mercy to the downtrodden of the Alfama district.  Perhaps he saw an earthquake happening and held up the structures in Alfama district to show he cared for them.  Who knows, but when I read the red-letter words in the New Testament, that is the Jesus revealed to me.  Rather than seeing only God's wrath in disease, disasters and suffering, I see his comfort, hope, mercy and love in those that perished and were saved and protected.

I think God is very anxious to come again and save us.  He is preparing a place for us, a safe, pure and beautiful paradise. But he waits.  I imagine him pacing the golden streets in heaven nervously (a holy nervousness). Waiting, waiting for the final act, when the results of sin are fully demonstrated and time is ready.