It’s almost beyond our ability to comprehend — 150,000 lives lost due to the powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami that rocked the Indian Ocean and its coastal communities one week ago today.

To put the enormity of the tragedy in perspective, we recall how heartsick and devastated we were in this country when about 3,000 people were killed by terrorists on September 11, 2001. We’re talking about 50 times the number of deaths. Fifty times.

Or, to view it another way, imagine the entire population of Santa Rosa, our larger neighbor to the north, being killed in a day.

As I said, it’s difficult to comprehend.

The question that’s being asked over and over again by people throughout the world is, “Could such a disaster happen here?” For us, the answer is most certainly “yes.” We live in earthquake country — in fact, one of the most active faultlines in California runs just east of our meetinghouse. We could, at any moment, be struck by a devastating temblor and all of its attendant destruction. We pray that such never happens here. But it definitely could.

We have no way of knowing how many people lost their lives in the great flood of Noah’s time. There’s no system of accurately calculating what the world’s population was then, but most scholars estimate that from Adam to Noah humankind could easily have grown well into the millions, even billions. But while we don’t know how many died, we know with certainty how many lived: “eight souls were saved through water” (1 Peter 3:20; Genesis 7:7, 13).

When the flood waters came, they came suddenly. It wasn’t as though people had no warning at all; for 120 years, Noah had been preaching to alert them to the impending danger (Genesis 6:3; 2 Peter 2:5). But on that dreadful day when the skies poured forth rain and the springs beneath the earth ruptured and erupted, life was proceeding as it always had until that time: “They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away” (Matthew 24:38-39).

Jesus tells us there is a time of everlasting destruction ahead that will arrive just as unexpectedly: “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be...Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left” (Matthew 24:37, 40-41).

One moral of the story of Noah is that we ought always to be prepared for the day of disaster. Noah was ready because he heeded God’s warnings and followed His instructions to the letter: “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Hebrews 11:7).

Unlike Noah, we can’t always be prepared for physical disasters. But we can most certainly be ready for the end of this physical life, if we recognize that it may come at any time. Think of those thousands in South Asia who died in the tragic floods last week. The day before, they were eating and drinking. They worked at whatever occupations provided their living. Doubtless there were some who married, and others who gave their sons and daughters to spouses in marriage. Then the earth beneath the ocean shook, and their lives were washed away.