The Tide That Would Not Be Stopped

In December 2004, a man stood on Marina Beach in Chennai, India, and watched the Indian Ocean pull back hundreds of yards from the shore. For a few strange minutes, the exposed seabed lay open — fish flopping on wet sand, children running out to collect shells. Some onlookers laughed. It looked, briefly, as though the ocean had surrendered the coastline to them.

Then the tsunami came.

No seawall, no human engineering, no act of defiance could hold back what followed. The ocean reclaimed everything in minutes. Those who had recognized the warning signs and fled to higher ground survived. Those who stood their ground against the advancing water did not.

Psalm 2 paints a remarkably similar scene. The kings of the earth gather, rulers conspire, nations rage — all convinced they can throw off the authority of the Almighty and His Anointed One. From heaven's perspective, their rebellion is as absurd as a child building a sandcastle against a tsunami. The psalmist says God "laughs" — not with cruelty, but with the settled confidence of One whose purposes cannot be overturned.