Reversal in Paradise: Lessons From a Tsunami

At 4 AM (Hawaii time), I woke up to my cell phone blaring. I stumbled half asleep to the kitchen of our small hotel room, my biggest fear being that my annoying ringtone would wake up the kids. Emerging from the bedroom, I found my wife glued to our laptop computer screen. She’d been hunting for information online after being woken several minutes earlier by a text message that read, “Are you in danger? Tsunami???”

We were vacationing on the northwest side of Maui, and of all the things we expected to experience, this was not on our list.

The phone call was from my sister back in Minnesota, who was worried after hearing that the Hawaiian Islands were under a Tsunami warning (which means that a tsunami is imminent). The next call came in from my mom, who had only one question, “Are you safe?” Still disoriented and completely confused, I could only say, “You tell me.”

We spend the next hour mining for information, packing our bags, and taking inventory of our food supply. In a matter of seconds, we went from leisurely sleeping vacationers to a family in crisis, concerned only about safety. It was a moment of confusion. Should we try to beat the rush to the nearby gas station and grocery store? Should we drive up the mountain to get to higher ground? Should we run up and down the hallway to wake up our sleeping neighbors? How much should we try to hoard for ourselves, and, given that we already have several days of food, should we avoid buying more to save the supply for those who aren’t as prepared? And what will this be like for our kids, especially if we have to evacuate into some crowded shelter?

The evacuation plan for our area was to cram everyone into a nearby airport for the better part of the day, or longer if our homes and hotels were destroyed. Instead, we decided to head to a nearby hotel where some family was staying, because the evacuation plan there was to simply climb the stairwell to a higher story. As we packed up, we looked at our belongings in a whole new way. Fruit, peanuts, protein bars, bread, and bottled water had suddenly become priceless commodities. A lonely bottle of wine sitting on the counter was utterly worthless. The local phone book featured an emergency section, showing maps of the coastline with shaded areas that were unsafe in the event of a tsunami. As we planned out trip, we’d poured over many maps of the Hawaiian coastline, but never one of this kind. It was still pitch black outside, and the dark water was gently rumbling just a few feet below our hotel room balcony. Everything appeared normal, but everything was different.

Within minutes, the busy roads were buzzing with anxious vacationers who were desperate for gas and supplies. The nearby gas station had a long line of cars in front of it, with blaring horns proving that the drivers were growing impatient. Tires screeched in the distance. I heard shouting. I wondered if the next couple hours would bring complete chaos… or worse.

We relocated to our relatives’ hotel room a couple miles away, their room being ten or fifteen yards above sea level, and we spent the next few hours watching news coverage and listening to emergency updates over the hotel’s PA system. Early reports were promising but cautious, saying that the waves were likely to be moderate but unpredictable. For a time I found comfort in the fact that the hotel was still cleaning its outdoor pool, but soon they removed all outdoor furniture in order to prevent it from becoming tsunami debris.

The tsunami hit the islands about a half hour after it was predicted. It was barely noticeable except in narrow inlets, where a handful of modest surges and withdrawals of water rushed in and out like a river. In front of our hotel, as the waters took turns receding and advancing slowly, it dropped well below normal, exposing rocks and reefs that otherwise remained submerged even in low tides.

The Tsunami warning lifted at 1:45 PM. By 2:30 PM, the outdoor pool area was packed with people, who, just two hours earlier, didn’t know if the hotel would be overtaken by deadly waves.

It was a day of bizarre contradictions, where the value of so many things had been instantly flip-flopped. Luxury items were easily overlooked, while people scrambled to acquire bare necessities. A Hawaiian paradise became a place of vulnerability and peril. One of the best beaches in the world was vacant on a beautifully sunny day. The highly coveted lawn chairs along the pool had gone unclaimed and eventually removed to prevent debris. Tourists who normally strolled around without a care were tiptoeing gingerly, eyeing their watches to ensure that they were well above ground at the predicted time. And most tellingly, I and many others had moved our cars from the lower levels of the parking ramp to the highest, which in the 'real' world would be unthinkable, and dare I say “foolish.”

With these instant reversals in mind, I remembered Paul’s words to the Corinthians about Jesus. Paul had been accused of preaching a foolish gospel about a dying god, a notion holding little value in the eyes of many listeners. Many Greeks labeled the whole idea as foolish, a ridiculous proposal that was easily dismissed by sensible minds. But Paul saw it differently: For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (I Cor 1:18, NIV). For Paul, It’s entirely possible to have a value system that feels perfectly aligned with reality, but in truth is symptomatic of one's impending death. And likewise, it’s possible to embrace the Gospel in a way that subverts the imposing forces of sin and death, both in the world and in our lives. Paul understood the reversal of values. Things like tsunamis and crosses have a way of changing the way you see the world.

Most worldviews crumble under the weight of tragedy, but not the gospel that Paul preached. It was-and is-so big, so vast, and so powerful that it’s even able to acknowledge and account for great suffering and evil, making them subservient to the tides of God’s will for the world. In fact, Jesus tells us in Mark 13 to expect such things as earthquakes, famine, and war, so that we don’t go through life with a shallow and ignorant worldview that eventually buckles under the weight of calamity.

Ironically, Jesus says, embracing the gospel will bring His followers more problems in an already problematic world, including beatings, persecution, imprisonment, and even death. But His is nonetheless a gospel that must be preached to the nations (Mark 13:10).

As followers of a Crucified God, our job between now and the end of all things is fairly clear cut, according to Jesus. 1) Watch and 2) Preach. Be watchful, He says, so that we don’t become lulled into a false sense of security by the gentle waves and serene palm trees of life. Watch, stay awake, be faithful, and be ready for the Master’s return. And second, like Paul, we must also speak of Him, to a world who may very likely decide we are foolish. We must speak His message and take the heat for it… for our own sakes and for theirs.

At one point during the whole ordeal, I said to myself, “I don’t know if I like the way God made the world. I don’t know why He allows great calamities to kill without warning, why all of us die, or why so many innocent people face hardship and injustice.” As I moved our rental car to the top level of the parking ramp to avoid the potential tsunami, my spontaneous prayer of discontent went something like this: “God, I don’t like how this stuff can happen in the world.”

And from somewhere high above yet intimately within the world that He so carefully made and lovingly died for, I felt God push back: “Then what are you going to do about it?”

“Watch and preach,” Jesus says. “Watch and preach.”

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging (Psalm 46:1-3).