Superstorm Batters Mid-Atlantic and Northeast States

The news coverage of the storm Sandy has been so wide and so nonstop that we are not going to attempt to recount it here. However, we are including some summary statements about the storm. Bear in mind that these were written on Wednesday, while the storm was still occurring, though in weakened form, over the interior Northeast United States. New reports continue to pour in, and the figures we've been able to gather are likely to change.

The storm, born as Hurricane Sandy, has been dubbed the "perfect storm," because of its collision with a nor'easter and the jet stream, with its high-tide effects magnified by a full moon. This meshing of natural forces caused the storm to linger over the eastern part of the country and cause damage of historic proportions over 10 states and Washington, D.C., much of it from high winds, storm surge and flooding.

At least seven other states experienced some power loss, and every coastal state had flooding. New Jersey and New York have received the most damage, but the damage elsewhere is significant. President Obama has declared those two states major disaster areas.

The tempest has also been called "the storm of the century," a "superstorm" and "frankenstorm," the latter because of its monstrous size and because it occurred over Halloween.

As of Wednesday morning:

• 119 people have died from the storm, many killed by falling trees. Fifty of the deaths were in the U.S. The others occurred in the Caribbean, 52 of them in Haiti.
• Some 6.1 million people were without electricity -- down from a peak of over 8 million on Tuesday -- with most of those affected in the Northeast, though sporadic outages occurred as far away as Indiana and Georgia. In some regions of New Jersey and New York, power failures were near total.
• New York City experienced an unprecedented city-wide paralysis, with massive flooding, including of some 42 miles of the subway system and seven tunnels under the East River. At least 111 homes in coastal Queens burned down, and another 20 have fire damage.
• Heavy snowfall hit parts of Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Clayton, West Virginia, had 33 inches of snow.
• Early estimates suggest Sandy caused at least $10 billion in damages and possibly as much as $50 billion, when all the devastation and lost business is taken into account. The higher number would make it the second-costliest storm in U.S. history, behind only Hurricane Katrina, which caused $100 billion in damage.
• In Haiti, 38,000 people have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, according to the relief agency CARE, citing the Haitian National Emergency Center. CARE staff members report, in addition to the casualties, that nearly 3,000 homes were destroyed or damaged in Grande Anse province alone, and there are some 300 cases of cholera resulting from conditions left by Sandy.
• The New York Stock Exchange reopened after a two-day closure, the longest weather-related break for the exchange since 1888.

The affected areas are starting to clean up and reopen, but it will be several days, and in some cases, much longer, before all services are up and running again.

While the effects of the storm are likely to be felt for a long time, in the United States at least, most systems worked as intended: Weather reports were accurate, early warnings were given, governments at all levels took appropriate actions to protect lives, safety services went on high alert and did their jobs well, utility crews have worked overtime, service personnel from unaffected states have given assistance in affected states, and much of the repair will eventually be paid for by insurance or government grants.

That is not to say that people have not suffered some permanent and life-changing losses, and many are going to be stressed as restoration of services takes several days, and perhaps weeks in some cases, but we note that as of Wednesday morning, the most frequent message on Facebook was "We are OK."

More on this story can be found at these links:

Sandy: Five Latest Developments. The Weather Channel
State-by-State Guide to Hurricane Sandy. New York Times
Sandy Destruction: Live Updates on the Superstorm's Aftermath. TIME

The Big Questions

1. Why do you think preparedness is one of the recurring themes in the Bible?

2. In what sense is the Bible an "early warning system"? What sort of warning do you think the Bible provides? Have you ever personally felt you received a warming when reading Scripture or when someone else spoke from Scripture or during a sermon or Bible study?

3. How do you determine which spiritual warnings to take seriously? Which warnings have you ignored? Which warnings did you pay attention to? What were the consequences?

4. Are there some parts of our faith journey that we simply cannot prepare for? In what sense is living the life of faith consistently the essence of being prepared?

5. "Preparedness" is often taken to mean being ready for when the worst happens, but is that what it means in Christianity? Why or why not? Do you think Christ wants us to live in fear of the future? Are there times when a warning gives hope instead of fear?

Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

Genesis 41:47-49
"During the seven plenteous years the earth produced abundantly. [Joseph] gathered up all the food of the seven years when there was plenty in the land of Egypt, and stored up food in the cities; he stored up in every city the food from the fields around it. So Joseph stored up grain in such abundance … that he stopped measuring it …" (For context, read 41:1-49, 53-57.)

Genesis 41 is an "early warning" story, with God alerting Pharaoh in a dream that following seven years of plenty, there would come seven years of famine. The only problem was, Pharaoh wasn't able to interpret his dream, but he at least had enough sense to realize the dream was important and went looking for an interpreter.

The person he found was the Hebrew prisoner, Joseph. After Joseph correctly interpreted the dream, Pharaoh put him in charge of storing foodstuffs during the good years to be ready for the lean ones. And because Joseph did his job well, the people of Egypt and the surrounding lands had a source of food during the famine.

Questions: What lessons should you and your family take from the way Pharaoh and Joseph prepared for the eventuality of a natural disaster? What lessons should government officials take from the way Pharaoh and Joseph prepared for the eventuality of a natural disaster?

What do you suppose Pharaoh’s advisers thought about Joseph's proposal, especially because the Nile had been such a reliable source of water and therefore of life? How hard is it for you to hear warnings that require us to make a major change in our lives, such as putting resources aside for possible hard times to come? In our present political and sociological climate, are you willing to look 14 years into the future, such as Joseph proposed?

Ezekiel 33:2-4
"If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take one of their number as their sentinel; and if the sentinel sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people; then if any who hear the sound of the trumpet do not take warning, and the sword comes and takes them away, their blood shall be upon their own heads." (For context, read 33:1-9.)

Ezekiel 33:1-9 is about Ezekiel the prophet being the spiritual "sentinel" for the people of Judah in exile in Babylonia -- the group taken there in 598 B.C. before Jerusalem was overrun 11 years later. Even though his hearers were captives in a foreign land, they still believed their nation would not fall because God's house, the temple, was there, and because God was committed to having a descendant of David on Judah's throne. Because of the people's long-lived and ongoing sins, however, God had decided to withdraw his protection of the city. Thus, Ezekiel's job was to be "sentinel" and warn the exiles of the coming catastrophe so they would understand its meaning.

The point of the verses above is that as long as Ezekiel faithfully sounded the alarm, he was blameless regarding those who failed to heed the warning.

Questions: In terms of the superstorm, we note that as in most storms, there were some who disregarded the warnings and evacuation orders and chose to stay put, only to have to be rescued later. Have you ever done this? How do you feel about such behavior?

Ezekiel might seem to be saying that the word of the Lord states that if you do not listen to the warning, you deserve the fate you receive. How do you think people who refused to evacuate prior to a storm and then required rescue would view this? How do you suppose first responders feel?

When have you put yourself, as well as other people, at risk because of your own failure to obey God's commands?

Matthew 25:3-4
"When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps." (For context, read 25:1-13.)

Wedding ceremonies in the New Testament era involved separate processions by the bride and the groom, heading to the groom's parents' house. In this parable from Jesus, 10 bridesmaids are waiting to meet the groom's procession, escort him to his parents' houseand go in with him to the feast. The groom's procession does not arrive until midnight, and five of the bridesmaids realize they have run out of oil for their lamps. So they run to oil dealers to purchase oil, but while they are away, the groom's procession arrives, and the five bridesmaids who have brought extra oil meet it and escort it into the place of the wedding banquet. The other five show up too late, and the gatekeeper won't let them in.

This parable can be interpreted on two levels, the first being how Matthew's original readers likely heard it. Though Jesus, whose ministry took place about A.D. 30, is the subject of Matthew's gospel, Matthew didn't write his gospel until several decades later, probably sometime after A.D. 75. Most of the converts to Christianity in the first few years after Jesus' ascension expected his Second Coming to occur within their lifetimes. But by the time Matthew wrote, some of the early believers had died, and others were getting concerned because Jesus had not come back. So Matthew includes this parable from Jesus to help the Christians of his time understand the timetable of Jesus' return differently. If we were in Matthew's original audience, the message we would likely take from this parable is that while Jesus may not return as quickly as we had hoped, we still need to be prepared for when he does return.

But we live 2,000 years later, so long a time that not all Christians are dealing with the "any day now" expectation that the early Christians had. Yet we can still take seriously that question the first-century Christians considered: "What does being prepared for his return look like?" And that's really a question about how to live a Christian life. For us, preparedness is not keeping an emergency supply of prayers on hand or stockpiling good deeds in an underground vault. It's living the life of the kingdom, the quality of life described in the Sermon on the Mount, and doing it consistently.

Questions: Being prepared for Jesus' return is not a matter of running for one's crisis kit, as the five foolish bridesmaids ran to buy more oil. Some hearers of the parable have commented that the other five seem somewhat selfish, being unwilling to share their oil. But remember, it's a parable, and the oil represents faithful, active, obedient discipleship -- all things that cannot be borrowed from others. In what ways do you keep your "lamp" lit?

Keeping in mind that this is a parable, if you were one of the five bridesmaids with oil, would you have shared some with the other five? In emergencies, do you feel people who planned should feel obligated or blessed -- or should be forced -- to share their resources with those who did not prepare?

Luke 12:39-40
"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour." (For context, read 12:35-40.)

These words of Jesus are about preparedness, and they, along with the context verses, emphasize four things: 1) the certainty of Christ's return, 2) the uncertainty of its timing, 3) the present being an opportunity for faithful service and 4) the relationship between one's present and ongoing faithfulness and one's future outcome.

Questions: Think back to when you were a teenager. Did you ever hold a party at your house while your parents were away? What happened when they came home? How is your answer related to the Scripture passage above? Have you ever been a parent who returned to find a party going on? What was your response?

2 Peter 3:14-15
"Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation." (For context, read 3:8-15.)

The "these things" Peter is talking about waiting for are the events surrounding the return of the Lord. Peter's call in the verses above is about how Jesus' followers should live in the interim.

Questions: If you were in charge of the world's clock, would you speed it up, slow it down or leave it as it is? Why? What do you think Peter means when he says "regard the patience of our Lord as salvation"? (Hint: read the whole context.)

For Further Discussion

1. Comment on this, heard in a sermon: "Almost anybody can take one of Jesus' teachings from the Sermon on the Mount and do it for a little while. Being a peacemaker for a day isn't too hard, but being a peacemaker year after year is another thing altogether. Turning the other cheek once in a while is doable by many, but building a way of life on cheek-turning requires a much deeper commitment. Even praying for those who persecute you can be a hoot when you do it only occasionally, but praying for them and doing good toward them on an ongoing basis requires significant energy and spiritual preparedness."

2. Not all Christians believe that Jesus is going to return in a literal sense. Some view his coming into their hearts as his return, and others simply don't deal with the claim about his return at all. If you knew for sure that Jesus was not coming back in any literal way, would you change how you are living now? Why or why not?

3. Consider these verses from Proverbs and decide how each applies to today's theme: 6:6-8; 13:16; 15:22; 16:1, 9; 21:5; 24:3-4, 27; 27:12, 23.  

4. Authorities have pointed out that failure to respond to evacuation orders can not only put residents at risk, but also jeopardize emergency personnel who may face increased danger later to rescue those who did not obey the order. Does the reason people refuse to obey authorities matter (for example, some assumed the danger was overstated, others wanted to protect their property, others refused to leave because they were not allowed to take beloved pets with them to shelters)?

Responding to the News

With the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids in mind, this is a good time to remind ourselves that living our commitment to Christ faithfully day after day is the way we refill our spiritual lamp, keeping it burning brightly so as to be ready for whatever God has for us next.