Sudden Sinkhole Swallows Sleeper

A week ago Thursday, the ground beneath the Seffner, Florida, bedroom where Jeff Bush, 37, was sleeping opened up and swallowed him. Despite a frantic rescue attempt by his brother, who was also in the house, he could not be reached. Authorities have since deemed the hole too unstable to attempt a recovery of his body, which is not visible in the chasm.
On Monday, following a brief ceremony, Bush's family placed a few mementos, notes and flowers in the bucket of a backhoe with an 80-foot arm, which then dropped them into the estimated 60-foot-deep hole. Workers then began filling the gaping hole with gravel. It is now considered the victim's grave.
The house in which Bush and other members of his family lived has been condemned and demolished due to the unstable ground beneath it. Two neighboring houses have also been vacated due to potential danger from sudden sinkholes.
Florida is one of several states prone to sinkholes due to limestone bedrock that can dissolve as acidic water leaches into the ground. Across the nation, thousands of sinkholes open each year, sometimes swallowing vehicles or buildings, though many of the holes develop over a few hours, giving people time to remove themselves from harm's way. There are only a few known incidents where people have died in sinkholes.
TWW team member and Florida resident James Berger comments that this sinkhole "taps into a primeval, archetypal fear of being swallowed by the earth. Think of every sci-fi story or phantasmagorical image or poster you've ever seen -- the earth opening up and swallowing you whole. We think earthquake. But what if there was no earthquake, but the earth swallowed you?"
Jeremy Berlin, writing for National Geographic, used similar imagery: "The sinkhole that swallowed a sleeping Seffner, Florida, man last Thursday night was like a monster from a nightmare. Suddenly and without warning, a mouth 20 feet (6 meters) wide opened beneath 37-year-old Jeff Bush and inhaled his entire bedroom."
More on this story can be found at these links:
Florida Sinkhole Now Considered Victim's Grave. Detroit Free Press
Florida Sinkhole Visible After Victim's Home Demolished. Los Angeles Times
Sinkhole Science: A Primer. National Geographic
The Big Questions
1. Thousands of other people across America also died on the same day as the sinkhole opened, but this particular death seems to have struck a chord with many people. Why do you think that is the case? What larger fears does the idea of being suddenly swallowed by the earth tap into?
2. Why do you suppose so much of folklore is filled with dragons, monsters, giant creatures from the depths of the sea or from below the surface of the earth? What is the origin of such ideas, and what are the related fears? Does any of this translate into biblical stories? If so, which one?
3. To what degree are biblical images of final judgment and going "down" to hell related to our concern about the earth giving way beneath our feet? How much are images from movies based on biblical events influential in the way we view events such as the sinkhole?
4. What determines who falls victim to acts of nature that seem random, capricious and final? How do we square events like these with the understanding that we have free will and that our actions ought to determine consequences? Why do these events seem so unfair?
5. What metaphorical "sinkholes" do you worry about in your life? When have you or when has someone you know experienced a totally random act that shocked or surprised you? Did others question whether you deserved this or not?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Genesis 1:1-4
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. (For context, read 1:1-5.)
Genesis 1:2 states that, prior to God's creative actions, the aretz (earth) was tohu (formless) and bohu (empty). The meaning of these latter two terms is disputed, ranging from considering them to be a reference to something outside of our created universe of space-time to being the names of mythological monsters existing in the indeterminate chaos prior to God's activities. In any event, it was something totally beyond our ken, and God created the world that we now experience.
Question: Respond to this: One testimony of the opening words of the Bible is that not even chaos, disruptive and "mindless" as it may be, can stop God.
Psalm 28:1
To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, do not refuse to hear me, for if you are silent to me, I shall be like those who go down to the Pit. (For context, read 28:1-9.)
Here, the psalmist calls God "my rock," which is a common image in the Old Testament for God (see, for example, Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 18:31; Isaiah 17:10, but there are many more). As used in these verses, "rock" seems to denote the eternal strength and unchangeableness of God (i.e., "Rock of Ages"). At the same time, the Rock that is God is a place of shelter from the wind and in the rock's shadow, from the heat (see Isaiah 32:2).
Yet it can also mean something like "a solid place on which to stand," indicating that trusting God means that the ground does not get yanked out from beneath one. As the psalmist says above, if God is silent, "I shall be like those who go down to the Pit [the place of the dead]," but his confidence is that God does hear him.
Jesus declares that those who hear and practice his words are like a man who builds his house on the firm foundation of a rock (Matthew 7:24-27). Jesus renames his disciple Simon to be "Peter" (petros, a piece of rock) in acknowledgment of his confession that Jesus is "the Christ the Son of the Living God," which he proclaims the "rock" (petra, mass of rock) upon which he will build his church.
Elsewhere in the New Testament, the apostle Paul applies the rock image to Jesus (1 Corinthians 10:4).
Questions: Read Jesus' remarks in Matthew 7:24-27 about the house built on sand versus the house built on rock. How does the Old Testament "rock" image for God add to your understanding of his comments? Shouldn't that "Rock" be there for everyone when they need it? Does the psalmist seem to square the image of God as the Rock with random acts of danger which have always been a part of people's lives?
Psalm 139:8
If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. (For context, read 139:1-12.)
Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (For context, read 8:28-39.)
Here are two biblical testimonies about God in the "depths." The psalm reminds us that even SHEOL -- the place of the dead -- cannot keep God out. And in Romans, the apostle Paul not only wrote that death can't separate us from God's love, but he also said that neither can "angels" or "demons" or "powers" -- a term by which he likely meant supernatural forces, agents of darkness and even "things that go bump in the night" (see also what Paul said in Colossians 2:15).
Questions: The Message paraphrases Romans 8:38-39 as follows: "I'm absolutely convinced that nothing -- nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable -- absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us." What is it about "unthinkable" things that is frightening? Why? How does Paul's testimony here help?
What does Paul say that could or should provide comfort in the face of random events? Where is/was God in sinkholes, tsunamis, volcanoes and earthquakes?
Isaiah 27:1
On that day the LORD with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea. (For context, read 27:1-13.)
The books of Job, Psalms and Isaiah all mention a creature named "Leviathan." While it's not certain what animal is being referred to, some Bible scholars believe it is the great white shark. Certainly the Leviathan in Job 41 could be the shark, for verse 14 comments, "There is terror all around its teeth." While sharks are God's creatures, we as human beings have gut-level fear reactions to some things, and for many of us, the whole idea of encountering a shark in the water is one of them.
Throughout history, terrors of nature, such as sharks and other predators, came to symbolize evil and chaos -- coming from "the deep" (places we know little about and thus that frighten us). And things that frighten us sometimes get exaggerated. Psalm 74:14 speaks of Leviathan as a dragon in the waters, a creature with several heads. And the Isaiah verse above refers to it as "a twisting serpent." Rather than trying to attach the name Leviathan to a specific creature, it's probably better to leave it unidentified and let us fill it in with something that terrifies us.
What that is will differ with each of us. For some, it may be a dark depression; for others, a crippling phobia. For still others, it could be the specter of a wasting illness, or the fear of loss of independence due to aging. Some worry about dreadfully bad choices their grown children have made, and the terrible consequences they must pay as a result. Many fear losing their job or becoming the victim of a crime. Some face the prospect of lost faith and others the fear of hell itself. Most of us can be rattled by the unexpected intrusions of chaos into our lives, where not only the orderliness we strive for but also the meaning we had clung to is suddenly taken away.
In the book of Job, God makes a point of demonstrating to Job that Leviathan and another unidentified beast, Behemoth (Job 40:15), are just toys as far as God is concerned. The biblical faith is anti-monster and, even more so, triumphant over monsters.
The world may not be safe, but in God we can be secure. To paraphrase the Christian essayist G.K. Chesterton, "it is not that we know that monsters exist, but that monsters can be beaten."
Question: Note that Isaiah declares above that God will "kill the dragon that is in the sea." How would you apply this verse to your life today?
Luke 13:4-5
Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them -- do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did. (For context, read 13:1-5.)
This rhetorical remark from Jesus helps us at least with the question of whether disaster victims are somehow more deserving of trouble than others. In the context of Luke 13, some people told Jesus about some Galileans who were slaughtered by order of the Roman prefect Pilate while they were in the process of offering sacrifices. Jesus responded with a rhetorical question: "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?" (v. 2). Then he added another example, asking about 18 people who were killed when a tower collapsed on them. Were they somehow worse offenders than others?
Clearly the answer Jesus wanted his hearers to come to was "No." His object here, however, was not to challenge the common belief in his day that trouble came to people who most deserved it, but rather to make the point that the coming judgment of God was inescapable and that all would face it. Still, his comments show that Jesus did not buy the notion that disaster -- or sinkholes -- sought out people who "deserved" the trouble. Jesus further showed his conviction that incidents of weather, geology or accident were not routinely used by God for reward or punishment when, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that God "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45).
Questions: Imagine that the house with the sudden sinkhole was directly across the street from your house. Would you take the fact that your neighbor had been swallowed and you had not as any kind of message to you from God? If so, what message might it be? Why?
Revelation 21:2
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, ... (For context, read 21:1-8.)
This is from John of Patmos' vision of the new world God will bring. Remembering that we are trying to apply earthbound spatial and directional concepts to a heavenly realm that is surely not bound by them, we note that this holy city comes "down" out of heaven.
Question: However much we may, in our adult minds, remind ourselves that heaven is not high in the sky and hell is not deep in the earth, many of us subconsciously still think of good things coming from "above" and bad things from "below." But what is this verse and its context really telling us?
For Further Discussion
1. Comment on Numbers 16:28-34:  And Moses said, "This is how you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works; it has not been of my own accord: If these people die a natural death, or if a natural fate comes on them, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up, with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the Lord."
    As soon as he finished speaking all these words, the ground under them was split apart. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households -- everyone who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they with all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol; the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. All Israel around them fled at their outcry, for they said, "The earth will swallow us too!"
2. In view of the sinkhole story, comment on Deuteronomy 33:27 (NIV): "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."
3. In 1741, the American clergyman Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon to his Connecticut congregation titled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," in which he emphasized that hell is a real place. (See the full sermon here.) He used vivid imagery to awaken his audience to the horrific reality that awaited them if they continued without Christ, but said that God has given human beings a chance to rectify their sins and be spared. One quote from the sermon: "We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by: thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down?" How does this kind of theology jibe with your reading of the Bible?
4. View this painting of The Last Judgment by the 16th century artist Pieter Bruegel. What do you think caused him to choose the visual imagery he employed for this work?
5. Rephrase what Jesus said about the tower of Siloam to imagine what he might have said outside the sinkhole to reporters and family members.
Responding to the News
This is a good time to remember that God does not call the faithful to live in fear, but in the confidence of being children of God. "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ ... " (Romans 8:14-17).
Closing Prayer
O Lord, be with the family of Jeff Bush that they may be comforted in this time of loss. In Jesus' name. Amen.