January 2, 2005 Sermon

Tidal Waves
Matthew 2:1-18

I had planned to preach today on a different topic. Then the earth shook. An earthquake so powerful it briefly disturbed our planet’s rotation struck. Two continental plates snapped against each other deep beneath the Indian Ocean . An incredible amount of energy was unleashed, radiating outward in every direction from the focal point of the quake.

At first nothing unusual appeared to be happening. But a series of immensely powerful waves were racing through the salt water. Regular waves disturb the surface and only a few feet beneath it. These waves churned the ocean from the bottom up, surging through every square millimeter of water. From above, they looked like rather small, but ferociously fast waves chasing each other over vast distances.

Until they neared land. As the waves approached the coastlines and the sea grew shallower, all that energy they carried down deep had to go some place. Where it went was up: up into mighty crests of suddenly, impossibly tall waves that raced forward ten, twenty times faster than normal. Once they finally attacked the beaches these tidal waves did not stop. They carried billions of cubic tons of water inland, snapping trees like toothpicks and carrying off trucks and buildings.

People in these waves’ paths did not stand a chance. As of this writing the death toll in Indonesia , Thailand , Sri Lanka , India and Somalia (3,000 miles away from the earthquake that started it all) has exceeded 130,000. It will grow worse. Tens of thousands are still officially listed as missing. The grisly diseases that follow in the wake of such disasters have not yet begun their terrible work.

Arab and European newspapers blame the U.S.A. According to an article published in Thursday’s Allgemeine Zeitung, a German paper, global warming caused the earthquake that caused the tidal waves. It added that America caused global warming with its insane devotion to the automobile and giant homes. A Beirut , Lebanon paper’s website published the claim that America ’s rich, spoiled tourists necessitated the jobs on the beaches of south Asia . Millions of people will have died, this article asserts, because they moved to the sea to cater to us.

But what of the outpouring of aid that America and the rest of the developed world has already given to the victims of this tragedy? CNN carried a live cell phone call last Wednesday from an American woman in Phuket , Thailand . Her family had gone there as, sure enough, tourists. But as soon as the waves struck her doctor husband jogged to the local hospital to volunteer his help. She and her children bought supplies at the local retail mall. Then they walked to the devastated areas and handed out drinking water, antibiotics, tuna fish in cans, toilet paper, flashlights to the victims. Then they went back to do it again. And again. And again.

The American Red Cross has expended 35 million dollars in response to the disaster. The European Union has pledged over 200 million. Private American citizens have already donated over five million through websites, like Amazon.com, that offer one-click service through credit cards. But the response can never measure up to the need.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune blames President Bush. In an editorial published Friday, the editor ranted, “The Bush administration’s response to this crisis has been inept beyond belief.” Later the piece states, “By its niggling contributions and Bush’s silence, the United States has strongly suggested to the world that it doesn’t care all that much.” Other major media sources have produced similar angry analysis. Earlier Friday morning, before the Star-Tribune’s editorial hit the streets, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that U.S. taxpayers would send over $350,000,000 worth of aid.

Since the Presidential election some who supported Mr. Kerry have not stopped fighting. I spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s with my family. Two of my brothers have become staunch liberals. Their conversations all week long were laced with bitter references to American politics. After Mr. Clinton’s two elections it was much the same—the winners and losers traded places but many who voted against him could not stop complaining and making charges.

Somehow it all seems so pointless in the wake of the waves. Somehow I would think that as we watch the video footage of the terrible violence of them slamming into the shore, and the even more terrible footage of suffering people searching the wreckage on the beaches for some sign of lost loved ones—somehow I would think that we might see what matters far more clearly. Somehow I would like to imagine that those waves swept away our petty grievances, our grudges, our laundry list of things that we care about far too much.

In the short term, we need to care about helping the millions of our fellow human beings who face cholera and/or burying their loved ones and/or somehow trying to build a place to sleep in from the debris they find on the beach. You may want to know that we have Presbyterian brothers and sisters in all the nations hit by the tidal waves. We also have a long-established process, with people already in place, for handing out aid virtually anywhere in the world. One hundred percent of any offerings we give to this cause will find their way to the desperate victims.

In the longer term, we need to care about the big questions those waves cause us to ask. Why does God permit such massive suffering? (Some will ask, “How can there be a God in the face of such suffering?”) Why do the nations of the world not prepare better for disasters? Why did no warnings reach the millions living on the shores of the Indian Ocean ?

These are massive questions. No preacher can answer more than one of them at a time. And you must carefully consider any answer a preacher gives. When we try to understand such things we try to understand the mind of God. I will therefore pass on all but one big question we face in the wake of the waves: How should we respond when tragedy strikes?

The part of Jesus’ story we read this morning gives us a few clues. It is the story of the Magi, come from the east to worship the Christ. They have followed a star to Bethlehem . On their way they stop in to pay their respects to Herod, the local bigwig in Jerusalem . Herod learns from them, apparently for the first time, that he has a rival. They leave him to find Jesus, give him gifts, and generally do all the things we include in our live nativity scenes. We do not reenact what comes next: Herod ordering the murder of every child under two years of age in the Bethlehem area.

Here at the very start of Jesus’ time on earth, at the very beginning of God’s own work of salvation played out in human life, we find mass death. Why? Why does God do things this way? I do not know. All I do know is this: death and suffering are part of life. Life is not fair. God’s purposes are vast, vaster than the ocean, and eternal.

In the face of death and suffering we face a choice: shall we continue to believe in God’s purpose? The New Testament tells us that God wants to bring us back into a saving relationship with him through Jesus, the baby whose birth caused the death of so many. Can we accept that? Can we accept it no matter what happens, whether it be death on the beaches, or death in the World Trade Center , or the death of loved ones? Can we respond to such horror with undying faith in Jesus Christ?

Let us pray. Let us pray for our own faith in the purposes of God. And then let us go out from this place prepared to keep the faith by healing the terrible human needs we find both near and far.