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BY FRIDAY night, the estimated toll from the tsunami off the coast of Indonesia was over 125 000, and rising. By way of comparison, about 3 000 died in the WTC attacks on 11 Sep 02

It is difficult to imagine such an event. These are like the losses in an all–in war. Australia lost only 29 000 in World War I, which was a horrifying loss of life for such a small country. Even the Battle of the Somme, which accounted for the largest loss of Allied combatant’s lives ever, only saw 19 000 killed in the first day. We are talking of figures near to the 140 000 killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

It is impossible to grasp those kinds of death tolls. The only way we can do it is to personalise it, to hear the story of the honeymooning couple whose last message home was only an hour or so before they disappeared, or to hear of the boy with Down’s Syndrome who couldn’t swim, and was swept away in the raging torrent of water.

But then, when we hear these stories, we fail to understand that each of those weeping, brown–skinned women in places like Aceh and along the Indian coast is a participant in an exactly similar story, each has lost a son, a husband, a brother, a family.

I was sad to watch an interview with a man — I don’t know where he was from, or what his background was. He had lost his wife and children. His English was good, and his dignity was so evident. And, as he began explaining to the interviewer about his losses and about his loss of a sense of purpose in life, his voice caught and he could not hold back his tears. For a moment, his loss was our loss, too.

There have been letters in newspapers. Some ask the honest question, “Where was God?” It’s a question we all ask.

Some have sought to answer that question, with varying degrees of success.

Some — basically dishonest people — have crowed about how destruction fell mainly on non–Christians. Other dishonest people have crowed about how this disaster disproves the concept of God.

These people are dishonest, because they lack compassion. All they can think about is winning an intellectual argument. The truth is not in them.

I read that passage from Mark’s Gospel, because it speaks of disasters in the world.

It is an interesting passage, because it is pointed more at the signs of the coming destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, an event which occurred just under 40 years later. The early Christians knew this passage and escaped the destruction which fell on Jews at that time. It fuelled enmity between Jews and Christians, because many Jews felt abandoned by Christian Jews who fled rather than stay and suffer with their fellow Israelites.

However, the passage also talks about the end, and what signs to look for.

Jesus warned his disciples,

When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.

This has been the century of earthquakes, and some have been big. There has been a pick–up in earthquakes worldwide since World War II. With earthquakes has come famine and plagues. Natural disasters have a far wider impact than merely the initial loss of life.

We live in an age of earthquakes, of famine, and of plagues.

We live in apocalyptic days, in days like those of the approaching return of the Lord.

I don’t want you to neglect the reality of what has happened to our near neighbours. Sometimes we Christians look at such an event and we only see it in terms of its Biblical significance. The Bible becomes a way for us to neglect the real suffering, the real deaths, and think only of the statistics as clues to the coming of the Lord.

That will never do. These are our brothers and sisters, who are suffering, and we must respond.

I don‘t want you to disregard the enormity of this tragedy. It is outside all the realms of our experience. We can’t grasp it. But let’s never think, “Oh well, it was foreordained, so it doesn’t really count.”

You and I know that such thinking is demonically callous. We would not — I’m sure — fall into that trap.

But I do want us all to see these events in a context. The end is coming, and that fact challenges us to consider how we should live.

LIVING WITH VULNERABILITY

Events like last week’s earthquake and tsunami remind us of how vulnerable we all are. We think that terrorism is our biggest threat: it pales into insignificance beside natural disasters. Don’t forget that seismologists are saying that a large earthquake not far from Tasmania probably triggered this one, but the Tasmanian one didn’t involve the sea floor shifting like the Aceh one did, so there was no tsunami.

Don’t forget that seismologists say that an earthquake like this recent one could easily happen in the trench which separates Australia and New Zealand, even where that trench passes close to Sydney. They say that a similar tsunami would drown Darling Harbour and other low lying parts of the Sydney region, and cause damage even as far inland as Parramatta.

Don’t forget that we have had almost continual drought for about four years, and there is no relief in sight. Warragamba Dam is below 40% of its capacity. Famine is a real possibility.

Don’t forget our locust plagues. We have had enough rain for locusts to breed in millions, but not enough to drown them or to rot their eggs, not enough to give us crops to cover what the locust eats. The world is suffering locust plagues: Australia, Africa, the Middle East, the Europe–Asia borders.

Above all, we are vulnerable to the coming Judgment. There is nothing we can do to prevent it; but we can be prepared for it, we can escape its destruction.

It is coming. The signs are being fulfilled. Jerusalem is governed by Jews once again, cults and false Messiahs are appearing on all hands. The Bible often uses the metaphors and similes of natural disaster to build a picture of what the Day of the Lord will be like.

We are vulnerable, and we should know it.

We can’t stop these things; we can be spiritually prepared.

Jesus told his disciples,

Don’t let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid: trust God, trust me, too.

We can face the world’s troubles as fearful, defeated people, or we can face them as people of faith and hope.

Trust in Jesus equals trust in God. We may not be able to see God, but we know where Jesus would be in all the world’s troubles. And he will be there ever more as we bring him into the troublespots.

The solution to handling trouble is faith and, what comes from faith — hope.

MAKING A POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION: CARE

One of Jesus’ best–remembered parables is about the Good Samaritan who cared for a Jew who had been mugged on the dangerous Jericho Road.

Many people would say, “That Jew was a fool for being on that road alone. He deserved what he got.” But the Samaritan asked no questions. He could easily have said, “He was a fool for taking this dangerous road, and he is my enemy, because Jews have never treated us Samaritans fairly, so let him rot!”

Jesus once questioned his listeners about some disasters. He asked about the people killed when the tower they were building fell on them. Were these men more wicked than everyone else in Galilee? Of course not! But, as Jesus warned, there’s a lesson to us all that, if we don’t repent, we will all perish just as they did. He didn’t mean we’ll have a tower collapse on us, of course!

When disasters strike, our job is not to apportion blame. Our job is to give care, to be the neighbour of those around us. It’s God’s way. Which of us deserves his grace? Which of us is not a victim of our own foolishness?

Yet God sent his Son, not to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him.

If we see a need and provide care in that situation, then, as Jesus teaches, we minister to Jesus himself. That is our calling. As Jesus went about doing good, so must we.

MAKING A POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION: MISSION

In these situations of utter desperation, none of us would think that we should evangelise and neglect the material needs of those who have lost so much.

But we must always recognise that we are in mission.

So often we Evangelicals have contracted and condensed out idea of mission until it means little more than cross–cultural evangelism.

Mission means far more than evangelism. It means transformation. It means attacking the evil which exposes people to suffering. It means seeking liberty and healing and an end to oppression.

Have you thought about how many of those who have lost everything are subsistence fisherfolk?

They had no income other than what they could get for the few fish they could catch surplus to their daily needs. They had no resources, and were forced to settle where they found a spot.

When the tsunami struck, their shoreline huts didn’t stand a chance. Richer people lived further inland and were above the waves.

Mission knows that each of these people is a person for whom Christ died. Mission knows that thousands have gone to a Christless eternity through this tragic event. Mission knows that many never had the chance to hear.

But Mission also knows that becoming a Christian is far more than a matter of making a decision and knowing your sins are forgiven.

Becoming a Christian is about finding an accepting friend when no one else is there for you; it’s about knowing that you are saved, because Jesus can be trusted, and he gave his own life’s blood for you. Becoming a Christian is about a new community, a new values system, a whole new creation.

The more of that we can give to anyone, the better it will be for that person both now and through all eternity.

We must be in mission!

MAKING A POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION: COMMUNITY

Finally, we make a positive contribution through our own sense of community.

When I was a kid, I did an interesting experiment in physics.

What you do is, you boil hypo crystals — that’s a chemical used by photographers — in water until it is dissolved. You keep adding hypo until no more will dissolve.

Then you put the jar of hypo to one side to let it cool.

You have to do that very carefully, because the slightest jolt can spoil everything.

When it is cooled, you drop a single small crystal of hypo into the jar.

So quickly that you can barely see it, the hypo turns from a watery liquid into a translucent crystalline solid, like a lake freezing over when the wizard waves his wand.

It looks spectacular, but the principle is simple. It’s similar to toffee making. They hot hypo solution is so concentrated that, when it cools, it is ready to crystallise, but it needs something to trigger that crystallisation. Only one seed crystal is needed to cause the whole lot to solidify.

When we, God’s people, get our act together as communities of faith, then we act as seed crystals to spread community throughout our society.

The Bible says,

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity.

It also preserves Jesus’ teaching that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a small amount of yeast that leavens the entire batch of flour.

The history of the Christian Church has largely been the history of the power of Christian communities.

Peter and John confronted the Sanhedrin; but they had a praying community behind them. St. Francis tackled the apathy of the mediaeval Christian Church — backed up by a community of men who shared the vision.

The Quakers in their towns and villages attacked inequality; the Methodists picked up the same idea and attacked slavery; Wilberforce took up the Methodist thrust and defeated slavery in Parliament. George Fox, John Wesley and William Wilberforce may have been the men at the front, but they all had their communities: the Quakers’ Friends’ Meeting, as they called it, the Methodist Classes, the so–called Clapham Sect that stood behind Wilberforce.

The more we seek to be a true community, the more we seek to be as one in Christ, the more we will be able to bring about change for others.

At Beth–Shan Holiness Mission in 1971, when the leaders from our church were bound together in unity through Christ, that change impacted even on the young people who were avoiding all the Mission activities. What touched us leaders touched them, too — the power of the Holy Spirit fell on us and touched them; many were convicted of their sin, of the possibility of righteousness and of coming judgment. And many were saved that day.

Community is the basis for saving miracles!

CONCLUSION

We can’t prevent disasters. They will come, and they will come more frequently as we near the Day of Christ’s return. But we can be personally ready. We can be ready as communities. And we can be seeds of change in our world as we care for those in need and as we seek to bring justice and righteousness and peace and love into their societies.

When we do that, the Spirit of Christ our Lord will perform saving miracles in many lives and great glory will come to our God. AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)