Primer:
“But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon men. For that there would have to be infinite love as well.”
Walter Miller Jr., A Canticle For Leibowitz
… and [The Lord’s] heart was deeply troubled…
Genesis 6:6 (in part)
for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay… We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;
Romans 8:20-22 (in parts)
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Psalm 139:13
So then He told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead,”… When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled… Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
John 11:14, 33, 35-37
As of this posting we are under the pandemic. Covid-19 is ultimately an icon of creation post-Fall.
I had planned on posting the Law of Love today, concluding the Laments commentary, but felt compelled to put this out. It is still connected to Love.
A week or two after the death of Freddie Gray nearly five years ago, I shared something like this with my local church:
“I don’t know where Freddie Gray was in his pursuit of God when he died, but I know that the heart of God never stopped longing for this man.”
And as Freddie died, I believe God was there with him. I believe God felt sorrow.
When tragedy strikes, I believe scripture suggests there is a part of God that is also in pain and hurt. He does not turn away, but lives in the tension between what is and what will one day be when creation is fully redeemed.
And God is not alone here.
Romans 8 tells us that creation has become subjected to frustration. The Garden of Eden before the Fall shows humanity and creation in harmony. With the Fall, this harmony breaks. Genesis 3:18 says “[The ground] will produce thorns and thistles for you,”…
A few years ago I wrote Nature 82 about lead and lead poisoning. It’s a first person narrative from the perspective of lead. As the element clogs neural pathways leading to potential behavioral or learning disadvantage and other damages, in a way it laments. It is not intentionally trying to doom… it is following its fallen nature, frustrated.
I believe there is a similar frustration and aching from the viral agents bringing about this pandemic. I believe there is groaning.
And I believe God mourns.
Jesus wept when He saw the hurt and pain that comes from sickness and death. We see this explicitly in John 11, in events that took place shortly before Palm Sunday and Passover. (This is being published on April 5, 2020, Palm Sunday.) Even with a plan to resurrect Lazarus. Jesus wept with those who wept.
And what’s more, I believe scripture suggests that if the very Word of God brought matter into existence and all things are held together by Him (Colossians 1:17), then that same Word is also key in keeping it together. (The order of all matter is maintained by Him. Word is literally the ultimate bond.) And I believe that as that Word holds all things together, it also feels the pain of the Fall more acutely than we can imagine.
Sometimes when loss occurs, if we give an easy “God has a plan” but never mourn or consider the weight of pain others may be experiencing, we can potentially sell His heart and affection, and even His intention short.
Because I believe there is a part of God saying “I have given humanity authority, and I need them to have a plan.”
(Besides this, I also believe that those of us with faith anchored to God’s sovereignty miss the opportunity to extend grace to those who are not there (and hopefully just not there yet). I think that Romans 14 and 15, and Galatians 6 encourage us along these lines through a variety of topics. There is absolutely a time and context to sharpen other believers, to invite them into greater faith, but that time is not all of the time for everyone. I believe those times come best in relationship where trust and love have been established first and not after. Our church has had some really great times of fellowship filled with sympathy, empathy, heart cries, confidence, and faith.)
Can God bring miraculous healing? Absolutely. Does every ailment become miraculously healed? No. Not yet. People continue dying. I absolutely believe we should pray for miracles (and I look forward to the absolute bewilderment of experts if healing waves come). We should also contest in prayer and walk in purpose, driven by love.
“if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14 (emphasis mine)
We should pray for leaders and those in authority to have plans that properly steward God’s resources. We should pray that humility would wreck those in power, that they would weep and lament over loss, as we should, as God does… as we pray for miracles, and divine intervention and the redemption of all things.
In Laments IV I wrote about the enemy and his long, inevitable drag into The Pit and The Lake. He knows he’s on a timer, and that ultimately he loses. But he also knows how deeply our God loves (seems to get it better than we do sometimes), and every minor victory that the enemy has cuts deep. God weeps, for He knows the number of hairs on their heads.
This time is the same time as all time post-Fall pre-completed redemption. God wants to draw close to us, to lead us into being everything that we are meant to be in partnership with Him, stewarding relationship in love. God continues to want to show up in big miraculous ways and in small, personal acts of kindness and love in hardship (and there are amazing stories about this in the current pandemic). God wants to redeem all things through our active participation.
I pray this circumstance which is bringing pain and hardship around the world will bring good, and that we will be part of redeeming the time in prayer and community.
I also pray we remember, or become aware of how close God is to the pain of others.
About a year ago during our Lament and Justice series I shared something resembling the following (audio found in the YouTube clip at the top of this post), trying to draw us closer to the heart of God in lament as a community over injustice.
This was originally written related to Eric Garner, but I have adapted it for this context.
As we live in the tension and long for redemption, let us take time to mourn with those who mourn over loss and suffering. I believe that that number includes our God.
Love, kindness, gentleness… against such there is no law.
(Galatians 5:22&23, in part)
God Wept.
In Him we live and move and have our beings,
And all things are held together by Him.
So there is, scripture suggests I believe, an atomic… elasticity, and gravity to our very cells, that is Divine in nature. In the space and the time between healthy O2 oxygen saturation levels and low oxygen or no oxygen in the bloodstream, God is there. Intimately.
When the firmament broke and the flood came, I believe that God wept. Bitterly. From the deep. From a deep unbroken from Adam’s generation to Noah’s.
it’s been said that the opposite of love is not hate but apathy. so God can hate the sin but He can never stop caring about the sinner. there is a disservice then I believe, that is done to the Flood story at times. because it’s seen like God was mad, so He sent the flood, the people drowned, and He was glad. as if there was this space between where God was and where they were, and in that space between suddenly, God was not. as if His omnipresence was turned off. as if the God that could know the psalmist’s thoughts before he had them, was now blocking the channel.
but I believe that the same God that knit all of those one day drowning people together in their mother’s wombs before their births was just as close when they died as when they first lived. first breath, to last. and when lack of oxygen failed to supply vital organs with life God was there in the space and time between.
Weeping.
Because He had a purpose for them, a purpose for humanity that did not look like this… from the Garden. He had given humanity authority, trust. Never stopped loving them.
Lament.
He had dreams of them working together in the world. Subduing it.
But as oxygen failed to circulate through the body, failed to feed organs, and God was there in the space and time between and felt it all He knew that parts of the dream were dying.
Lament.
sometimes we do a disservice to the story.
sometimes we forget that before any of us was born God knit us together in our mothers’ womb. that the Word with God was God, the atomic elasticity, the cellular gravity sustaining life. that when the oxygen fails to move through the body and feed vital organs with life, and fatal cascading effects ensue, that God weeps. you see God made us with a purpose. giving us authority, power, resources. and when those things, meant to be used for life, are twisted and bring about pain and hurt and death, God weeps.
Unending love.
Lament.
Songs regarding the tesion:
Propaganda – Warm Words: wrestling with how to cope with tragedy and injustice.
Andy Mineo – Death Has Died: looking at tragedy and pain in the world as is, while longing for and declaring ultimate victory on That Day.
Trip Lee – Invade ft. J. Paul: longing, needing, desiring God’s kingdom to invade ultimately invites us into a personal call to bring about the Kingdom as we can in our spheres of influence today.
Tedashii – Below Paradise (album) – wrestling with the tension between sudden and unexpected loss of a child against God’s sovereignty brings the rawest of emotions and greatest tests of faith to the fore.
Levi the Poet – The Beginning. The Separation – the anticipation, glory and unveiling of Creation and humanity in the Garden, to the sorrow of sin and separation, to the longing of and for redemption.
Levi the Poet – Chapter Twelve: Shores, and The New World -the final chapter from the album Correspondence (A Fiction), not a Christian story but a story by a Christian longing to make beautiful art that speaks truth. And this does… things fall apart, plans are shipwrecked. Love remains… “It cannot fail. It cannot fail. It cannot fail… Definitely. Infinitely. Intimately. -Your King”
Video Credits and Info:
Audio recorded on Google Pixel 2 XL
Video created on Google Pixel 2 XL using PowerDirector for Android https://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector-video-editing-software/features_en_US.html
“Light On Stone Wall” visual belongs to Moonrise @ Videvo.net https://www.videvo.net/video/light-on-stone-wall/3137/
Featured image: “Red Blood Vessel Tube Flow” belongs to Vector8DIY @ Pixabay https://pixabay.com/photos/red-blood-cell-vessel-tube-flow-4256711/
Festival of Booths 