"A God Who Weeps"

There has been a great deal of turmoil and tragedy in our lives over the last two months. There is no one, from the smallest child to that oldest adult, who has escaped a personal involvement in the tragic events of September 11th, the military action in Afghanistan or the Anthrax threat which continues to unfold. The media is full of these events and we cannot escape them. There truly is no where to run to and no where to hide. It has inserted a whole new level of anxiety into all of our lives.

It is legitimate to question where God is in the midst of all this turmoil. But before we do we must ask ourselves just how these events have affected the rest of the world as well. America has long been an island of safety in the midst of a world torn apart by these kinds of chaotic and violent acts. For many years Europe, Asia, the Middle East Africa and South America have all been living with the fears we now are feeling. Though this anxiety is a new feeling for us it has been the normal state of affairs in the rest of the world. So the question is not merely where is God in all of this but where has God been?

To understand God's involvement we must firmly face the fact that we and every other human being on the face of this earth is free to act according to their own will. This freedom is a precious gift of God, a freedom that enables us to bless or curse, to harm or heal, to love or hate. In each moment we live every day of our lives and make these choices, choices to stand within God's will or outside of God's will. And the same freedom, which allowed the evil we have seen, allows the love and blessing which makes our lives worth living. Blessing and love must be a choice freely made or they are nothing at all. It is for love of us, and the desire to be loved by us in return, that God has allowed the chaos of personal freedom to be loosed upon our world. God's intention was and is to bless. It is not God but individual's exercise of free will throughout the ages that have created the anxiety filled world we live in.

That still doesn't address where God is in these events. The truth as it is revealed by scriptures and in the person of Jesus Christ is that God is in the midst of these events. In Jesus God took on human flesh so that we might understand personally who God is and how God moves among us. Look at how Jesus responded to the turmoil and fear he saw in Jerusalem.

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side."
(NRS Luke 19:41-43)

He is just as moved and upset by these kind of events as we are. Yet for the sake of the love between us, a love so deep and so important that even tragedies like the ones that we are currently witnessing are allowed for love's sake. If death were the end of all things I don't believe that even freedom is worth the tragedy. As Christians though we know by faith that death is only the prelude to Resurrection. St. Paul puts it this way;

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
(NRS Romans 14:8-9)

Our promise in times like this is the comforting presence of a God who can weep when we weep, and rejoice when we rejoice. God is even more present in these times of great trial than in ordinary times. We may feel alone and afraid but the truth as far as God is concerned is far different. Jesus himself tells us

"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.
(NRS John 14:18)

Many have died, and more will die. It is more difficult when the deaths are out of season but God is present none the less. Our task in this time is to hold up to the world around us the hope we have in Christ Jesus. He is the anchor of our souls and truly the way the life and the truth. God's love and tears, as Jesus shows us, bathe every individual with comfort and hope in these troubled times though many are not aware of it. Those of us who are aware of it need to share this word of comfort and hope with someone. And the only way we can do that is to share Jesus.

Pastor Jim Bliss
November, 2001

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