No doubt you’ve all seen about the massive bridge collapse in Minneapolis (check your favorite news site for details). John Piper and Albert Mohler have both weighed in on the tragedy, with some very poignant pastoral perspectives.
First, Piper, in Putting My Daughter to Bed Two Hours After the Bridge Collapsed, observes:
The meaning of the collapse of this bridge is that John Piper is a sinner and should repent or forfeit his life forever. That means I should turn from the silly preoccupations of my life and focus my mind’s attention and my heart’s affection on God and embrace Jesus Christ as my only hope for the forgiveness of my sins and for the hope of eternal life. That is God’s message in the collapse of this bridge. That is his most merciful message: there is still time to turn from sin and unbelief and destruction for those of us who live. If we could see the eternal calamity from which he is offering escape we would hear this as the most precious message in the world.
Then, Mohler, in “Lest You Be Consumed” — The Tragedy in Minneapolis:
We drive across bridges, enter tall skyscrapers, board commercial aircraft, and perform any number of daily tasks as if there was no danger involved in the equation. We have come to trust architects and engineers to do their jobs and we place a great deal of confidence in inspectors, standards, and testing. Those driving across that bridge on Wednesday evening had every reason to give the bridge itself little thought . . . until it fell.
He quotes Jonathan Edwards’ most famous sermon:
The unseen, unthought-of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the sharpest sight cannot discern them.
Mohler continues:
The ways and means of persons suddenly passing out of this world are indeed “innumerable and inconceivable,” and the tragedy in Minneapolis is yet another reminder of this sobering truth.
Be in prayer for those lost, those missing, and those still surviving, that they may know the comfort and love of God.