Hearing the Music

Hold It Before the Lord

 In the LORD I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
“Flee like a bird to your mountain,
for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
they have fitted their arrow to the string
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
if the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?”
Psalm 11:1–3

It is amazing how fast the news cycles turn and how quickly we move from one story to the next. As I was scrolling through my NY Times news feed Thursday morning I could not find a single article with continuing coverage of the shooting in Nashville (to be fair there were a couple of articles related to guns and additional Covenant school stories did appear later in the day). Earlier in the week, I had commented in the office to Grace that I was thinking about touching on the tragedy in the Friday Letter, but that it might be too late. So much has almost instantaneously been written and now it seems like many are ready to turn the page. Like rubberneckers passing an auto accident, we look, we stare, and we are soon carried on by the traffic of life.

I make these observations knowing that over and over again I have been guilty of the same tendency. So how do we steward a tragedy like this? How do we look and not look away? As David asks in Psalm 11, "if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?":

• Recoil. Grieve. Lament. Let the sting of this, the horror fill you. Don't look away too quickly. Write out the names of the lost, their families (don't forget the shooter). Take them to the Lord. Cry out to the Lord. He can handle your questions. He can handle your pain. We have Studied and practiced Lament. This is the time for it. 
• Remember. Our God does not look away from suffering. We are in the season of Lent.  Ahead of us is a cross, a Roman instrument of execution, Jesus did not eschew this cross but rather embraced it, resolutely, with love for his Father's plan and love for his people's wounds. Diane Langberg puts it well:
         “The Crucified is the One most traumatized. He has borne the World Trade Center. He has carried the Iraq war, the destruction in Syria, the Rwandan massacres, the AIDS crisis, the poverty of our inner cities, and the abused and trafficked children. He was wounded for the sins of those who perpetrated such horrors. He has carried the griefs and sorrows of the multitudes who have suffered the natural disasters of this world--the earthquakes, cyclones, and tsunamis. And he has borne our selfishness, our complacency, our love of success, and our pride. He has been in the darkness. He has known the loss of all things. He has been abandoned by his Father. He has been to hell. There is no part of any tragedy that he has not known or carried. He has done this so that none of us need face tragedy alone because he has been there before us and will go with us.
  
• Hope.  We live in a world that is caught between denial and despair; a world where cynicism and anger cover the more vulnerable emotions of sadness and loss. We live in a world that desperately needs hope. It is only the gospel, with a Savior who has not eschewed pain but embraced it and conquered it, that can truly offer hope to the world.  Christian, it is your great privilege to tell a story of healing and renewal. In Jesus' own words, "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 )
• Help. Friends, our community, our nation, our world is filled with these stories. This one has struck closer to us than others have, but literally throughout the world, throughout our country, day by day, tragedies such as this happen. (The shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville marks the 123rd mass shooting of 2023, or the 130th, depending on how you measure it.) How will we work for justice, for peace, for the common good?  For some it will be the cup of cold water that comes as we practice hospitality, open our homes and our lives to those who are hurting; to those who are on the edge. Others will seek for systemic change through legal processes, new laws, community advocacy, etc...  But can we really stand by in such a world with no thought to help?

This Sunday we continue on the road to Jerusalem. In Luke 18:35-43 we see Jesus encounter yet more brokenness in the world. He doesn't look away or rush by, as those accompanying him were pushing for. He stops. He engages. He asks, "What do you want me to do for you?"  Thank you Jesus for seeing our pain.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

An Outlet and an Inlet

It is incredibly sobering to realize how much can change in a week. I am thinking particularly of the passing of two mothers of the faith from our community since last Friday. Antoinette Bom and Sharon Denk both went to their eternal homes, passing from the arms of their earthly loved ones, into the arms of their Savior.

It is good to pause and reflect on death for a moment. I say this mindful that we are in the season of Lent when we remember the death of our Savior. Death is real. Death is a robber. Death is a reminder that sin has entered our world and that we need rescue. Sharing the grief with these families this week over the earthly loss of their loved ones is real; is raw.  Even for Christians, with full confidence that their loved ones are in heaven and that they will one day be reunited in glory, the pain of earthly tearing feels wrong, feels final.

But while we grieve, we do not grieve as those that have no hope. (I Thess. 4:13). For we know that the death of Christ has served to conquer the finality of this earthly death. We still face death, but death has lost its sting. There is a parting but it is not final. There is an end but it is not the end. In fact, death for the believer is not a wall, but rather a door into a new reality, a new way of being in this universe that God has created. In this sense death is a release, a victory even, over the infirmities of this life and all of their attendant sorrows. Death puts an end to our daily battle with temptation and sets the believer free into an eternity with no sin. At Antoinette's committal service we read from Thomas Brooks, an English Puritan, who puts it this way: The assured soul knows that death shall be the funeral of all (her) sins and sorrows, of all afflictions and temptations, of all desertions and oppositions. (She) knows that death shall be the resurrection of (her) joys; (she) knows that death is both an outlet and an inlet; an outlet to sin, and an inlet to the soul’s clear, full, and constant enjoyment of God; and this makes the assured soul to sing it sweetly out, ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ (1 Cor. 15:55–57) ‘I desire to be dissolved.’ (Phil. 1:23) ‘Make haste, my beloved.’ (Cant. 8:14) ‘Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.’ (Rev. 22:20)”

Amen! Come quickly Lord Jesus! As we wait, may we become ever more mindful about the people and tasks that fill our lives by pausing for moment to remember that earthly death is a reality for us all.

Photo by Blake Sherman on Unsplash

Glorious Ruin

Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed,
Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
And keeps the rags of lordship once he owned.

~ J.R.R. Tolkein, Mythopoeia

Dr. Francis Schaeffer has described the condition of human beings as “glorious ruins.” We are glorious because we were created by God for the noble purpose of being His image bearers; yet we are ruins because sin has marred the divine image we were designed to display, at times seemingly beyond recognition.

John Stott picks up the theme and speaks candidly, with raw honesty: I am a Jekyll and Hyde, a mixed-up kid, having both dignity, because I was created in God’s image and depravity, because I am fallen and rebellious. I am both noble and ignoble, beautiful and ugly, good and bad, upright and twisted, image of God and slave of the Devil . . . We must be fearless in affirming all that we are by creation and ruthless in disowning all that we are by the Fall.

Nowhere is the paradox of our humanity more on display than in our relationships with one another. On a macro level we bless one another, care for the poor, and work for the common good of our neighbor, but we also lie, cheat, steal, hate and plot others downfall. Closer to home we love and we fight. We desire the best but often disagree on how to achieve it. We are wounded and we wound. These difficulties arise in every sphere of life, in every stage of life, and often threaten to overwhelm us. The good news is that God's people can respond Biblically to these relational difficulties by thinking clearly about the root causes of our difficulties, learning the Gospel skills necessary to move forward in a healthy manner, and experiencing God’s love that empowers us to live leaning on the resources the Gospel provides.

This is the course we have charted for the next four weeks of adult institute. We have a great team* of folks sharing wisdom, prayer, and expertise hoping to help us find glory in the ruins along the way. 



*March Series Team:  Miriam Engler, Sara Ingram, Joelle McCormick, Jake Nienhuis, Jerry Stutzman, Andrew Vander Maas, Shinji Yasugi.