Losing and Gaining

The past few days, these eyes have seen much loss. Not my own personal loss: the loss of others. The loss of a 70-year-old man out of whose house I shoveled mud and now-useless possessions into the street as he showed me the Bugs Bunny drawings on the walls of his granddaughter’s room and told me about how he had lived his whole life in this destroyed home. The loss of a mother, whose now-ruined desire to have a stylish, well-presented home is evidenced the mud-splattered pile of home décor magazines found in a ruined dresser, chaotically turned over in a mud-filled bedroom of a once-beautiful house. The loss of property, personal possessions (in some cases, absolutely everything), security, comfort, privacy, peace of mind.

Now, I’ve lost a few things the past few days as well. I almost lost consciousness when I was standing in line to receive a Hepatitis injection at the Red Cross station near the disaster (David said my face was yellow). I chickened out yesterday, but bravely received two injections today, as my comrades kept me distracted, talking, and most importantly, seated.

I also lost my tennis shoe and my pride today after stupidly making my way through a lake of calf-deep mud. Having one’s sock-clad foot ooze into thick, soupy mud is an odd feeling – you feel utterly sick at the thought of it, but it’s almost enjoyable in a primordial, boyish kind of way. But, I found my shoe again (after much pulling and tugging and nearly falling into the soup), and was rescued from my predicament by a rubber-boot-clad Mexican who knew enough English to give my mud lake adventure some colorful names as he carried me back to shallower mud.

We’ve also lost some creature comforts. Running water, for one. I returned to the apartment today covered in brown gunk, ready for a hot shower, but due to a lack of city water (flooded and contaminated water system), there was no option but to wipe myself off the best I could and hope for some kind of water soon. So, we had the joy of bucket showers today. But apart from our very minimal “losses”, we are not suffering at all: only a few inconveniences.

The pastor had some wisdom in his words yesterday when he mentioned how the greatest loss to be seen in this natural disaster is not the loss of property, security, or convenience. The greatest loss is the closed hearts of the people to the Gospel of Christ. God has given them a great opportunity to lose their connections to this world by removing all their built-up kingdoms of wealth and material possessions in one night (sounds very much like Jesus’ parable of the rich fool, does it not?). And the response? “Well, let’s just get along the best we can, clean it up and start again, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.”

This is the greatest loss. It is the greatest loss because the greatest gain lies before them in the person of Jesus. Paul, who had all the makings of a successful, respected Jew told the Philippians:

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I might gain Christ and be found in him.

Rubbish. Contaminated muck. Mud mixed with sewage and corpses from the cemetery. That’s what Paul considered the best his flesh had to offer, compared to the riches of knowing Christ, which is the greatest gain. Gain. Gain!