Ripple Effects
One quiet morning in 1946, as residents of a small island village in Maui went about their normal activities, a man told his friends that the water had gone out of the harbor. No one believed him, though, because it was April 1st, and it seemed like a preposterous April Fool's joke. But sadly, it wasn't.
Hours earlier, while the inhabitants of Ke'anae slept, an underwater volcano over 2,000 miles away in Alaska's Aleutian Islands had triggered a tsunami. This event created a displacement of water that traveled overnight at 500 miles per hour toward the village while the unsuspecting residents slept.
When the 30-foot wall of water hit Maui the following morning, many children were inside the village's stone church, which also served as the schoolhouse. After the water receded, the church was the only building left standing, and most of the townspeople had died.
During the summer of 2022, I found myself standing next to the hardy little structure built of stone and lava rock, just off of Maui's famous "Road to Hana.” Watching the gentle waves break along the shore, I struggled to imagine the magnitude of of the tragedy. Of course, I had heard of tsunamis. I even had a friend who lived through the Thailand tsunami. But as I imagined the massive swell of water that overcame that little island church, the science of cause and effect had never felt more real.
As we continued our journey, I couldn't stop thinking about how an event on the other side of the ocean had such a powerful impact on a place so far away from it. But suddenly, it dawned on me that it isn't just waves of water that have this kind of power and reach. Our words and actions generate similar waves of energy. Because when we commit an act or give voice to thoughts, the force emanates away from us and toward others, each word or deed carrying the power of good or evil into the world.
Our ripple effects move through time and space, and since all of humanity swims in the same ocean, everything we do and say has the possibility of affecting others to some degree. The ripples of our influence can brighten someone's day or ruin it, help or hurt, mend or tear, bring hope or cause despair. We can bring waves of good into the world when we share the gospel of Christ, love others, work productively, seek truth, and obey God. Or we can sow destruction with our anger, selfishness, sloth, vices, and bad decisions.
Just as it's hard to fathom how far waves generated by an underwater volcano can travel, it is also hard to comprehend how far and wide the consequences of our words and actions can extend. For example, the effects of parenting choices can reverberate for generations. Words spoken to a spouse can determine the course of our families and lives. The impact of our work can be felt for years. The content of our speech can resonate for lifetimes.
Some waves we generate are like tsunamis, tearing things apart, overpowering good, and threatening loss. Drinking and driving is the first example that comes to mind. We've all heard stories or know people whose lives were lost or destroyed because someone drank too much and then got behind the wheel of a car. One of my aunts died when a drunk driver struck her vehicle as she drove home from her weekly bridge game.
Thankfully, we also have the power to produce a tsunami of good things in the world. For example, when a parent raises children to feel loved and secure and they grow up to become good contributors to society. Or when we give up our freedoms to serve others.
Not all the waves that we make are tsunamis, though. Instead, most of what we do and say has a more subtle impact, eroding relationships and hope OR re-shaping the world into something even more beautiful, like how the surf carves a stunning coastline.
Either way, it's impossible to live in the world without affecting or being affected by others.
But before we ascribe too much power to ourselves or take on more responsibility than we were created to handle, it's helpful to remember another principle of waves.
Whether from light, sound, water, or our behavior, waves continue moving through things until there is something strong enough in their path to stop them. In science, this principle is called destructive interference – when two waves collide and cancel each other out so that they equal zero or something even smaller than zero. Also, waves don't just ripple forward; they emanate in all directions, so the consequences of our words and actions don't just roll forward in time. Thankfully, they also move backward.
Through the greatest act of grace in history, our waves travel all the way back to Jerusalem, where Jesus's death on the cross became the ultimate destructive interference for all who believe in Him and accept this gift. Through His intervention, Jesus absorbed our sin's eternal consequences through His death and resurrection, canceling God's anger and receiving the just punishment for our deeds.
Although we can't always erase or stop the consequences as our words and actions pass through people in their path, we can be mindful before we produce them. And we can trust God to redeem the outcomes when we fail. And though our souls can't negate the painful separation from God caused by our sins, we can know that Jesus bridged the gap for us. Through the cross, we have hope, no matter how big or brutal the waves, because out of His great love for us, God made it possible for all the energy of our unholy, unjust, and unloving ripple effects to be bound up and canceled by His son.
In Ke'anae, it seemed fitting that, of all the structures in the village, a church would be the only thing still standing after a giant wave produced over 2,000 miles away washed over it. Standing next to that small structure decades later gave me eyes to see more fully how my actions could flow back 2,000 years to the cross. What an incredible gift of grace and reconciliation God gave the world through it. Because of the destructive interference of Jesus on the cross, not even a tsunami of our own making can separate us from the love of God in Christ.