The Ripple Effect Of Good Friday

The ripple effect of Good Friday.

When a earthquake occurs there is a ripple effect.

For example an earthquake or something like it caused the crater lake to spill over on the 24th December 1953

Tangiwai Disaster, New Zealand

Collapse of a barrier to Ruapehu Crater lake generated a lahar which devastated the Whangaehu valley on December 24, 1953. 151 lives were lost when the Auckland-Wellington express train was derailed on the Tangiwai rail bridge.

For example

Christmas eve, 1953

New Zealand’s worst railway disaster occurred on Christmas Eve, 1953. The Wellington-Auckland night express plunged into the flooded Whangaehu River just west of Tangiwai, near Waiouru. Of the 285 people on board, 151 were killed. The tragedy left a nation in mourning and stunned the world.

How did it happen?

The accident was caused by a sudden release of thousands of tonnes of water from the crater lake of Mt Ruapehu. The water surged down the Whangaehu River in a massive wave. The swift and turbulent deluge, known as a lahar, carried huge quantities of sand, silt, boulders and debris. Sometime between 10.10 and 10.15 p.m. it struck the concrete pylons of the Tangiwai railway bridge, fatally weakening the structure.

Minutes later, Arthur Cyril Ellis, a young Taihape postal clerk, saw the light of the approaching locomotive Ka 949. In a desperate attempt to warn the driver he ran towards it waving a torch. Later investigations showed that the brakes had been applied, but not soon enough.

At approximately 10.21 p.m. the engine, tender and all five second-class carriages plunged off the southern end of the bridge. The leading first-class carriage, Car Z, teetered on the brink for a moment and was boarded by Ellis and a guard, William Inglis, before crashing into the torrent below. The two men, together with passenger John Holman and an unidentified man, saved all but one of this car’s 22 occupants by lifting them through the windows.

This was at the time the eighth worst train disaster of all time.

What started high up on the mountain as a natural phenomenon ended up in absolute disaster many miles away as the domino effect of the crater lake bursting destroyed 151 lives.

We can’tr possibly measure the effect that that natural disaster has had on many thousands of New Zealand lives and indeed the effect of that would go throughout the world.

There are many other effects worldwide of such a disaster.

Rail safety warning systems Insurance and so much else all are affected in the domino effect produced because a mountain crater lake simply bursts it’s bank.

Human events also have incredible ripple effects.

For example when you were born it created changed lives for many many people.

When a member of the royal family finds a new girlfriend or David Beckham shifts clubs the ripples go world wide.

When something good happens like when New Zealand won the America’s cup or something bad like the 9/11 tragedy the ripples go world wide and the impact happens at many different levels.

Everynow and then there are events of such Worldwide impact that they stand out as milestones in world history.

In New Zealand there are significant times in our history that have had long term effect on our nation – two of them are.

circa 1300 AD The start of the continuous Polynesian settlement. These people, and subsequent arrivals, were the ancestors of present-day Mâori.

1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman, Dutch explorer, discovers part of the western littoral of New Zealand and names his discovery "Staten Landt".

If you were able to obtain arial photos of New Zealand in the year 1200 AD you would see a totally different landscape to now.

Why because the various migration waves that have hit our shores have totally transformed the country.

Another world event that has had an enormous ripple effect like no other is the events that involve the day that we are celebrating this morning the day called Good Friday.

The events themselves belie the Spiritual and historical significance of this amazing day in history.

In the historical events that surround Good Friday we find an event of Cosmic importance.

By that I mean the ripples or domino effect from this event go out in such profound waves to literally change everything.

Firstly what is the screen saver or ground leval view of this event.

I know no better place to go than the commentary provided by peter Marshall in his amazing good Friday Sermon.

Let me read you an exerpt.

It was not easy to make one’s way through the crowd. But it was especially difficult for the procession that started out from the Governor’s Palace. At its head rode a Roman Centurion, disdainful and aloof, scorn for the child or cripple who might be in his way. Before him went two Legionnaires clearing the crowd aside as best they could with curses and careless blows. Behind followed two short columns between which staggered three condemned men, each carrying a heavy wooden cross on which he was to be executed. Try as the soldiers might to keep step, they moved at a snail’s pace. It was evident that they did not relish this routine task which came to them every now and then in this troublesome province. The sunlight glanced on their spears and helmets. There was a rhythmic clanking of steel as their shields touched their belt buckles and the scabbards of their swords. Left, right, left, right. "Get a move on, we don’t have all day!"