This past Sunday I was wrestling with the destruction of the earthquake and tsunamis, and I offer it for others who may not only have difficulties with it, especially as it relates to faith in God. I know some don’t believe in God and this just looks like more evidence for them. I doubt I’ll convince them otherwise, and that’s not really my goal. I know some believe and are able to not worry to much about what such a tragedy means to their faith or understanding of God.

But many will. I hope I can speak a word to them, not so much an explanation, as I have none to offer, but a word of understanding and perhaps even hope.

Wisdom 02 Jan 2005 Rev. Timothy Luoma Gallipolis First Presbyterian Church [Note: the sermon was part of a service where we celebrated communion.]

I had this whole idea for today’s sermon worked out. This is the day that we traditionally celebrate Epiphany, the arrival of the wise men from the east.

I had several interesting tidbits to share with you, such as the fact that the Bible doesn’t call them Kings, although we traditionally sing “We Three Kings” on this Sunday. For that matter, the Bible doesn’t say that there were three of them. We probably assume there were three because they presented 3 gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I’ve got some trivia about those gifts as well.

Those seeds of a sermon were coming together around some of those thoughts.

But that was before an earthquake and tsunamis struck.

When I first heard about the tragedy right after last week’s worship service, the initial numbers were terrible: 11,000 dead. The number seemed to double every time I heard a report. Yesterday, estimates passed 150,000 dead and 5 million without homes. With so much destruction, the actual number may never be known.

150,000 is a number nearly too large to comprehend.

It is the total estimated population of Savannah, Georgia. It far exceeds the population of Gainesville, Florida where we used to live.

Ohio State University had the highest reported enrollment for 2004 with almost 51,000 students registered for 2004. The University of Minnesota and University of Texas (Austin) were right behind with over 50,000 each. Imagine all the students from those 3 universities wiped out in a single day. Or all the students at Penn State’s main campus and all the students from the University of Florida and all the students from the University of Michigan.

• Indonesia: At least 80,246 people were killed on Sumatra island, the government said. The health minister said Friday the country’s toll could rise to 100,000.

• Sri Lanka: Some 28,729 killed. About 1 million people were displaced.

• India: The government said 8,942 deaths have been confirmed but nearly 4,000 more were missing in India’s remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, just north of Sumatra.

• Thailand: The government said 4,812 people died, including 2,230 foreigners.

The earthquake registered as a 9.0, making it the 4th largest recorded since 1900, and by far the largest since 1964.

The largest struck Chile in 1960, killing over 2000, leaving 2 million homeless, and caused about $700 million in damage.

The second largest struck Prince William Sound in 1964, killing 125 and causing $311 million in property damage.

The third largest struck Alaska in 1957, causing over $5million in damage but no loss of life.

Another earthquake the same size struck in 1952, causing approximately $1.5 million in damage, but no lives lost.

By my rough addition, those previous earthquakes killed less than 3,000 people and caused less than $2 billion in damage.

Preliminary estimate of the damage caused by this tragedy is over $13 billion. Even adjusting for inflation, this is far worse than all other combined, and the death toll is staggering.

3,000 miles of coastland was devastated by the tsunami. That’s twice the distance from Boston to Miami; roughly the distance from Boston to Los Angeles.

What do you say in the face of such a disaster?

I don’t know.

I don’t know what to say.

I can’t fathom the destruction. I can’t take in the death toll.

I feel like I should have something wise to say, something that will make it easier to understand or easier to accept. I have no such words.

That’s the best I can do. I don’t understand it any more than you do. If this was something caused by a person or a group or a country, we could rail against the evils of humanity. But this wasn’t caused by any group. Nor do I think this was caused by God’s wrath against the people of these countries. Scientists might be able to explain what happened, how the ground shifted and caused the energy to be released, how that translated into several different tidal waves, but no one can explain why. You’d be a fool to try,

An awful lot of life is like that. We’d like to be able to explain it all, to understand it, to be able to give grand speeches and hear comforting messages, to uncover some answer that will help us figure it all out.

But we don’t get it, most of the time. Most of the time we’re left with no good words to say, no good explanations of why, no quick remedy for the pain and suffering we see around us. That’s the reality of the world as far as I can tell. If we try to force out some words, it’s probably mostly to help us try to deal with our own discomfort. We can end up saying things that don’t help, or even make people feel worse.

Sometimes it’s best to admit you just don’t know why, you don’t know what to say. Sometimes it’s best not to try and explain what we can’t explain, but just be there with it. Be with those who are suffering, with those who have lost loved ones or who fear they have.

When the wise men arrived on the scene, all the Bible tells us is that they presented gifts. It doesn’t record anything that they said. Maybe that’s on purpose. Maybe they didn’t have any words. All they could do was set down what they had at the foot of the stall where Jesus was and be there. Maybe sometimes there are some things that are just too wonderful to be tainted with words. Maybe some things are just too terrible to be softened with words.

I don’t remember anything that anyone said the day that Ethan was born. There were a lot of people talking, and I’m sure I was too. But there was a whole lot that just went beyond anything we could say.

A few of you know that we were supposed to have another baby before Ethan was born. He didn’t develop right in his legs and his spine. He never really had a chance. It wasn’t anything I did or Tracey did or anyone did. It’s just the way it happened. After about 20 weeks gestation, he was born but he never had a heartbeat, never took a breath. According to the science of life, he never really lived. We named him Gabriel. I don’t remember anything that was said the day Gabriel came into the world either. I know there were a lot of people talking, I don’t think either of us said much. There was a whole lot that just went beyond anything we could say.

Sometimes the best thing we can do is just put down what we have and kneel. Maybe that’s what made me realize part of how amazingly wonderful and fragile life is, how precious and how terrible it can be. It makes having Ethan in our lives that much more special. Maybe that’s part of what makes it so hard to imagine 150,000 sons and daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, lovers, friends could be lost so quickly.

Science might be able to explain part of the what, but it can’t explain the why. No one really can. You’d be a fool to try.

But here’s what I learned, what I’m learning, what I believe… I still believe in a God who is good, even though terrible things happen with no good reason why. I still believe in a God who loves us, even when there’s too much tragedy and death and sadness. I still believe in a God who’s strong, even though there are so many times when I wonder why God doesn’t stop something from happening. I believe in a God who loves us and cares for us, who lives with us, who lived like one of us. I believe in a God powerful enough and mysterious enough to know that He was somehow with each one of the 150,000 victims of the earthquake and tidal waves ever bit as much as I believe that He was with Gabriel every step along the way.

I may not know the answers for why God doesn’t prevent all these terrible things from happening, but I believe in a God who is not absent and away from it all, but a God who is right down in the thick of it with us. If we needed any more proof of that, we have this season of Christmas when He was born as a fragile little baby, and we have this celebration of communion. It’s a celebration not of everything going right and life being simple. It’s a remembrance of Jesus’ sometimes-painful and confusing life in the midst of our sometimes painful and confusing lives. It’s a remembrance of Jesus’ death in the midst of the sadness we feel during the holidays and other times for our loved ones who have died, for those who have died too young, too unexpectedly, too unfairly. It’s a remembrance of Jesus’ resurrection, when we remember that the terrible and the awful and the bad don’t win in the end. We might not be able to explain exactly the how, but we believe that when it comes down to the end, God wins, and He chooses all of us to be part of the victory celebration.

So we come to the table, without all the answers. We come and we just lay down what we have and sit and be quiet, in the midst of all the questions we can’t answer and all the questions we want to ask. Amid all the sadness and pain and death, we stop and take a piece of the bread of hope, and drink a bit from the cup of faith, and we’ll remember that we’re not alone, that God has given us each other, and God Himself is with us through it all.

AMEN.