Chilean Mine Miracle 10/10

Florencio Avalos, Mario Sepulveda, Juan Illanes, Carlos Mamani, Jimmy Sanchez…

I did a lot of visiting on Wednesday- and every house I went to had the TV on, and everybody was watching a tiny hole in the ground. For once, I didn’t mind the TV being on- because for once when the whole world’s attention turned to one country it was not because of famine or violence or tsunami or flood, but because a miracle was unfolding before our eyes.

Or rather, two miracles- one the rescue, of course, the other the way in which the truth about creation was brought to the surface, that God is always present and involved, in everything, the basic Christian belief that there is no moment and no situation where God is not, which God can not redeem.

Just as every news cycle was turned to a Chilean mine and to Operation San Lorenzo, so every priest in the world today will be talking about the faith in God which the miners and their families, living for weeks at Camp Hope, demonstrated. It is one of those moments where religious faith in extreme situations comes right to the fore in the best possible light. Faith here is not an emotional crutch for those who are too weak to deal with life- it’s a relationship with God which endures in the darkest possible situation, which is a source of inspiration and strength for those on the surface and for those trapped 700 metres below. And more than that- psychologists are already saying that their faith will help the miners and their families to adjust and to carry on, their belief that, as one miner put it, there were 34 of them in the rescue shelter because God was with them.

To be honest, the story is a gift to any preacher because religious faith is at the heart of an impossibly happy ending. The 33 miners organised prayers in the shelter every day in the chapel they made. They asked for religious statues and prayer books to be sent down along with the food and medicine. When they came to the surface in that narrow pod all of the miners wore T-shirts with words from Psalm 95 on them: “Thank you, Lord” on the front, “To him be the glory and honour” on the back. Church bells rang all over Chile as the rescue continued, speaking of the prayers of people all over the globe. It is a story about human courage and human ingenuity and human endurance, of course- and woven through everything is the presence of God which the rescuers and the miners experienced and witnessed to.

God was involved in the whole amazing, labyrinthine saga because he always is. The moral is not that these people prayed and so they all survived. It is not that God looks after his own.

The moral, the lesson, is this.

That God is immensely and intimately and wonderfully caught up in creation and in humanity and in the minutiae of daily life always.

That God is able to calm the storm and soothe the heart and bring those who were as if dead in the earth back to life always.

That prayer changes hearts and changes reality, and brings forth water in the desert and life out of seeds long dead always.

And that, in Christ, people like us can change the world, always and daily.

People are selfless and God is present always, in the Chilean desert and when the ending is tragic. All of us have in us the capacity to be heroic and faithful and true and to face up to immense tragedy and challenge. Because God is with us. Because we know that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because we know that Jesus died for us and rose again in glory, emerging from the darkness of the grave, emerging from the depths of the earth. After Easter, nowhere that God is not. Nowhere we can be where God is not. Nowhere beyond the reach of his love. Even loneliness. Even grief. Even illness. Even doubt. Even death. Nowhere God is not. Nothing we face alone ever.    

Let us not talk lazily or shallowly about what happened. What matters is not that these people prayed and so they all survived. It is not that God looks after his own.

It is better and richer and more exciting than that.

Here is a story about human courage and human ingenuity and human endurance inspired by faith, fulfilled by faith, made possible by faith. Here is the truth of every situation, every moment. Here is God at work.

Because all of creation always is shot through with the presence of the glory of God- at moments like this, superbly, the thread sustaining everything is visible and golden and creation is revealed in its full glory, in harmony with God.

And what is true of a mine in the Chilean desert is true here as well, if only we have eyes to see and heart to respond. God’s glory is all around us and deep, deep within us, at our very core. In him all things are possible. In him we reach out to change and complete creation. In him we are sent out to serve. Which, ultimately, is what the Eucharist is all about- being fed with the example and courage and vision of Christ that we might go into the world and be Christ to others. To feast on Christ that we might be Christ to others.

Everything we’ve heard from Camp Hope and from that shelter deep in the bowels of the earth tells us that Christ has been borne to each other and shown to each other in these last weeks, from the way the miners rallied round to support and encourage each other, from the way six men volunteered to go into the mine to help the 33 to safety, from the way the families of the miners all stayed until the last one was unstrapped from the narrow pod. Christ was walking from camp fire to camp fire, from person to person, active in the world. As always. As ever. As here. As now.

So let us list names, not of the dead, but of those restored to life. And let us live confident of God’s presence and love, in this world and in the next. For God the Creator is with us always, and in Christ and through the Holy Spirit we have the power and the passion to remake the world.  

Ricardo Villaroel, Juan Carlos Aguilar, Rual Bustos, Pedro Cortez, Ariel Ticona Yanes, Luis Urzua

Amen.