Tsunami and Repentance
January 5, 2005 - Fresh Words Edition
By John Piper

 

Psalm 46:8-10  8Come, behold the works of the LORD, how He has brought desolations on the earth. 9He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; He burns the chariots with fire. 10"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"

 

From pulpits to news programs, from the New York Times to the Wall Street
Journal, the message of the tsunami was missed. It is a double grief when
lives are lost and lessons are not learned. Every deadly calamity is a
merciful call from God for the living to repent. "Weep with those who weep,"
the Bible says. Yes, but let us also weep for our own rebellion against the
living God. Lesson one: weep for the dead. Lesson two: weep for yourselves.

 

Every deadly calamity is a merciful call from God for the living to repent.
That was Jesus' stunning statement to those who brought him news of
calamity. The tower of Siloam had fallen, and 18 people were crushed. What
about this, Jesus? they asked. He answered, "Do you think that they were
worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you;
but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:4-5).

 

The point of every deadly calamity is this: Repent. Let our hearts be broken
that God means so little to us. Grieve that he is a whipping boy to be
blamed for pain, but not praised for pleasure. Lament that he makes
headlines only when man mocks his power, but no headlines for ten thousand
days of wrath withheld. Let us rend our hearts that we love life more than
we love Jesus Christ. Let us cast ourselves on the mercy of our Maker. He
offers it through the death and resurrection of his Son.

 

This is the point of all pleasure and all pain. Pleasure says: "God is like
this, only better; don't make an idol out of me. I only point." Pain says:
"What sin deserves is like this, only worse; don't take offense at me. I am
a merciful warning."

 

But the topless sunbathers amid the tsunami aftermath in Phuket, Thailand
did not get the message. Neither did the man who barely escaped the mighty
wave with the help of a jungle gym and palm-leaf roof. He concluded, "I am
left with an immense respect for the power of nature." He missed it. The
point is: reverence for the Creator, not respect for creation.

 

Writing in the New York Times, David Brooks rightly scorns the celebration
of nature's might: "When Thoreau [celebrates] savage wildness of nature, he
sounds, this week, like a boy who has seen a war movie and thinks he has
experienced the glory of combat."  But Brooks sees no message in the
calamity: "This is a moment to feel deeply bad, for the dead and for those
of us who have no explanation."

 

David Hart, writing in the Wall Street Journal, goes beyond Brooks and
pronounces: "No Christian is licensed to utter odious banalities about God's
inscrutable counsels or blasphemous suggestions that all this mysteriously
serves God's good ends."

 

These responses are foreseen in Scripture: "I killed your young men with the
sword . . . yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord" (Amos 4:10).
"They cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not
repent and give him glory" (Revelation 16:9).

 

Contrary to Hart's pronouncement, the Christian Scriptures do indeed license
us to speak of God's "inscrutable counsels" and how he works in all things
for mysterious good ends. To call this banal and blasphemous is like a bird
calling the wind under its wing wicked.

 

Jesus said that the minutest event in nature is under the control of God.
"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?And not one of them will fall to the
ground apart from your Father" (Matthew 10:29). He said this to give hope to
those who would be killed for his name.

 

He himself stood on the sea and stopped the waves with a single word (Mark
4:39). Even if Nature or Satan unleashed the deadly tidal wave, one word
from Jesus would have stopped it. He did not speak it. This means there is
design in this suffering. And all his designs are wise and just and good.

 

One of his designs is my repentance. Therefore I will not put God on trial.
That is my place. And only because of Christ will the waves that one day
carry me away bring me safely to his side. Come. Repentance is a good place
to be.