Will They Be Remembered

Watching Anderson Cooper tonight describe the horrors at a cemetery in Port-au-Prince was really heart-rending. He spoke of those who brought bodies to the cemetery looking for places to bury or dispose of the bodies of the dead. In some cases, bodies were being shoved into any available space with no markers to indicate who they were burying. Cooper remarked that with the passage of time, there would be no way of knowing who was buried where.

I’ve visited some of the cemeteries where my ancestors are buried. I walked through the woods in upstate New York to touch the stones and markers of my father’s ancestors, stretching back almost 200 years. I’ve walked among the stones and markers of Christ Church cemetery in St. Michaels, MD to touch the stones of my mother’s people.

Not too long ago, I visited the perpetual care cemetery in Florida where my parents are buried. While their markers are only bronze plaques in the ground, the record of their lives is available to be seen by those who visit that site.

This tragedy reminds us that God’s eye is on the most forgotten among us. The Bible says that God sees even the sparrow that falls in flight. The people of Haiti have not been forgotten by God. Though the names of a whole generation may be obliterated by the crushing weight of ruble and dust, God knows who they are. We can only trust in the beneficent grace of God and leave our questions at the foot of the cross. It is only by looking at the cross that see the incomparable love of God who endured the tragedy of the death of his only begotten son.

The thousands who are lost in this incredible tragedy join the incalculable numbers of others lost in other tragedies who are known to God. Only God knows the communications that occur in the final fleeting seconds of life, when time stands still on the threshold of eternity. We can only believe that they are remembered by the One who breathed the breath of life into their beings and gave his only son for their redemption.

Grace and peace!

Dave Felter