Don't look too closely:  it's a disaster, a picture of suffering, helplessness, and pain. Part of a series of paintings by the American artist Donald Sutherland which he called, aptly enough, "Disaster Paintings," this painting represents the artist's view of how we respond to catastrophes in the experiences of our fellow human beings.

     As the Modern Museum of Art's description of this series notes, "the Disaster Paintings eternalize the real-life modern events we are faced with daily in contemporary society yet quickly forget when the next catastrophe occurs."
     Quite.  Sure, life isn't all about disasters and pain, but most of us live as if it were. In every possible way, we try to arrange our affairs to avoid tragedy.  We crave security; we cringe at the loss of control.  And when we see our fellow humans in pain, we weep. We weep over the suffering, we weep over the events that led to it.  Yet so prolific is the flow of "disasters" today that we rarely have time to ponder each in full.
     We frequently forget that we live in a broken world.  It's a glorious and wondrous world, yes, but it's a flawed system which, try as we might, we will never fully set right. Sadly, disaster is inevitable.
     Nowhere is this more true as we consider the week before us:  Holy Week.  Many consider it a disaster.  After all, Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the long awaited king, died.  And he died the cruelest of deaths:  crucifixion.  In every way, Jesus' death represents the nature of a world oriented towards disaster.
     Yet in every other way, Jesus' death presents a God who is bigger than disaster, a God who can redeem even the very horrific of disaster, even the very darkest of nights.  Jesus died, yes, the Messiah slain, but God lives.  And Jesus rose.  God is God over even death. 
     Though disaster fills this world, God's power fills it even more.