Good Friday morning Church Requel!
This week’s pastoral newsletter will be a little different than my normal. Yes, we have many wonderful plans for this coming Sunday morning, including a special message from our youth pastor, Eddie Walker. Yes, we have lots of very special music planned by Brandi and her dedicated worship team. So take my word for it, without promotion or fanfare, Church Requel will go on as planned and you will be glad you came or tuned into the online stream.
However, this morning, I want to talk to you heart-to-heart as your pastor and friend. This has been a hard week. The news of yet another elementary school shooting and the hellish evil that led to the taking of so many young innocent lives is hard for all to bear.
If you are like me, you want to scream out to the universe, “What is wrong with you?!” Or if you are even more honest with yourself, perhaps your scream is really a prayer: “Where are You?”
Like you - and I’m still sure - like God, my heart breaks for the parents and families in Uvaldi, who lost their 21 beloveds Tuesday morning. No words or feelings or Bible quotations can ease their grief or our grief for them. No words or feelings or Bible quotations can soothe the anger and loss and longing for why. No amount of finger pointing or politics or Monday morning “what if’s” will bring back these dear children to live out their lives so unfairly snuffed out.
So what is a Christian supposed to do with this? When our every instinct is to scream and groan and cry out, “Why? Why? Why?” What do we do? What can we do?
First, I want you to know that it is ok to scream and groan and cry out! Personally I wouldn’t aim my screams and groans and crying to the empty universe, but to the Almighty God Himself. If the Psalms and Lamentations and Job have taught me anything, it’s that God welcomes our screams and groans and crying. He inhabits our misery. He welcomes our questioning. He stands for us when we cannot stand at all. He never shies away or leaves us when we are falling apart inside.
So scream and groan and cry out until you cannot continue. Rest and then repeat again - for as long as you must. Don’t hold back. Don’t hold it in. Don’t pretend that somehow this situation is ok and that God surely must have a plan for this. And PLEASE - don’t be quick with easy answers with yourself or others or declare that God will bring good out of this. Even if this is true, this is not the time for peachy preachy.
Second, I want you to know that it is ok to not love this place. While there is much good to be found, and I’m all in favor of focusing my attention toward the good and away from the evil, we cannot lose sight of the truth that we live in a world where it’s possible for a man to walk into an elementary classroom of innocents and empty out his automatic rifle. We can call it by any name you want, but in the end it all comes back to one name: Evil.
This place is not Heaven. Because so much of our time is spent where we love and are loved, where family and belonging and helping and encouraging are practiced - we can sometimes misplace ourselves. At best Heaven occasionally comes down to Earth. But this is not Heaven. Not yet. Not here. Not now.
This truth was cemented in my mind at 15 years of age when two gunmen captured my brother, my father and me. There’s something about a shot gun being pointed to one’s face with the gun cocked and then uncocked - over and over - that cements forever the truth that this place is not Heaven and never will be. This is a place where evil lives. Where evil hides. Where evil deceives. Where evil kills.
This is a place where evil must be killed. Not won over. Not defeated. Not held back. Evil - in all its treacherous forms - must be utterly wiped out. Forever.
As your pastor, today I remind you (and me): this is the plan. This is the story. Evil loses. Every tear will be wiped away. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. The old order of things - evil - will have passed away. There will be a new order and everything will be made new. There will be a heaven.
But not now.
So for now, I want you to know that it is ok to hate evil and to love the good. It is ok for you to want to be on the side of Good. And it is ok that every morning and every evening you pray that evil would be destroyed in your own life and that Right would reign. And it is ok for you to say, without hesitation, “Come back soon, Lord. Even yet today. Tarry not!”
In the meantime, let us do our best to live the good, to live the righteous, to love with all our hearts. When confronted with horrible pain - like now - let us weep for our losses. When given an opportunity to do the good, let us not hesitate. For opportunities for good in an evil place can blow by quickly.
I want to be your pastor - all the days of the week. Not just on Sundays. Even on the Tuesday mornings of this past week. I don’t claim answers myself. I believe we worship the One with the ultimate solutions. This week, with tear-filled eyes, beside you all, I point to Jesus. With bended knee, beside you all, I grieve with you. With all the passion I can muster, I hold on to our relocation papers and pray for our new home, where evil will be no more.
Your fellow journeyer, Pastor Mark
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