GOD HURTS, GODHATES, GOD HEALS
Isaiah 53, Mathew 18: 1-7, 10
The message from God's word in this meditation is divided into 3 easy to remember parts: God hurts, God hates, and God heals. God hurts, God hates, and God heals.
The passage from Isaiah deals with suffering. And I don't need to convince anyone here that there is suffering in the world. Maybe some naively optimistic souls exist who think that we live in the best of all possible worlds, but these people live in denial. In the real world you and I inhabit there is pain, and sorrow, and suffering, and there is plenty of it. I'm afraid to open my news paper some mornings for fear of reading that once again the lives of so many thousands of people have been snuffed out by natural disasters or by the cruel hands of fellow human beings. And my fear is, that with so many people suffering, and dying, I may become hardened to the pain, unmoved by the awfulness of it all and lose my ability to weep for those who hurt. At times it may happen to us, that a close friend dies, in an accident, or of cancer, or it may be that our own bodies are wracked with disease. When that happens the reality of suffering comes so close that we can no longer deny it.
This meditation is aimed at abuse awareness. For all kinds of reasons I cannot now enumerate people who were abused as children often live lives of silent suffering, until they get help. They are in perpetual, emotional pain. They hurt all the time.
It comes as no surprise to us, that the bible acknowledges, the abundance of suffering in the world. We all know by experience, that people hurt.
But what is surprising, congregation, is that the bible also tells us, that God hurts. The God of the bible has feelings, he laughs, and he cries. The God of the bible hurts, he suffers, he is called long suffering. God is well acquainted with overwhelming grief, with excruciating pain, and with heart rending sorrow.
Do you realize that Christianity, is the only religion in which God hurts? In the implacable Buddha of Buddhism, there is not a hint of suffering. And the exalted Allah of the Muslims, remains in his heaven, in splendid isolation, and does what he wills, like fate. Only the God of the Christians comes down to earth, becomes a human being, takes on a body that subjects him to pain, and sorrow, and suffering. The Creator becomes a creature. The Boss of the universe empties himself, to become one of us, in the person of Jesus Christ. That's amazing!! Jesus Christ is God-come-down-to-us. He lived among us, and suffered with us. Jesus Christ knew suffering from experience. He did not read about it in a book. He did not learn about it from watching you and I suffer. No, when it comes to hurting he's been there, done that. To enumerate:
He was born in a pig sty, placed in a feeding trough. Talk about a come down from the heavenly mansions! He was made a refugee soon after his birth. He spent his early childhood in exile in Egypt, on the run for his life. And he grew up in abject poverty, and on the wrong side of the track: " Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
An itinerant preacher at 30, he ceaselessly traveled the country from one end to the other. He was one of the homeless people. " The foxes have holes, the birds have nests," he cried. "But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay down his head." He knew hunger and thirst in the desert. He was subjected to the temptations of the devil.
He was opposed, despised, ostracized, marginalized, threatened with death by the leaders of his own religion, hated by those who taught him to love God as a child. In his own home town he was nearly stoned to death for telling his people the truth. As he came to his own with the message of hope and salvation they rejected him. They hid their faces from him, says Isaiah. And as they turned away from him he cried for them. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how many times, how many times have I wanted to gather you like a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not!!"
Jesus Christ was punished for doing good. Though he had done no violence, and though there was no deceit in his mouth, he was oppressed and afflicted, led like a lamb to the slaughter. "Crucify him!" the crowd yelled. "Crucify him!!" The highest court in the land unjustly condemned him to death. He experienced mental anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane and excruciating pain as they nailed him to the cross.
He hung between heaven and earth. The earth did not want him and his father in heaven rejected him. That was the worst, to be rejected by his Dad. And he cried: "My God, my God, Why??!!. Why??!! echoing the cry throughout the ages, of all those who feel themselves abandoned, forsaken by God.
Through his incarnation, and his life and his death, Jesus knew suffering by experience. And whatever you and I suffer, and however deeply we hurt, we can be assured: Jesus knows our pain. He was a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief.
In the Christian religion God hurts. That was part one. But he also hates. That's part two.
There are four things, the gospels tell us, that made Jesus angry:
First. The lack of faith in him by his disciples. " O ye, of little faith!"
Second. The hardheartedness and hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees, leaders of the people.
Third. The way his father's house was used as an outdoor shopping mall, instead of the house of prayer, it was meant to be.
And fourth. When the little ones are offended, when they are hurt, abused. That makes Jesus see red. God hates it when big people hurt little people.
Who are these little people, and how do we offend them?
Well, of course, in the Matthew passage they are children. But in the original Greek in which the NT was written they are called paideon: that is, they are people who need to be nurtured, people who need to be cared for, people who depend on other people for their survival. Secondly, they are described as people who pisteuo, have faith. That is to say, they are people who are naively trusting, perhaps too trusting, people who spontaneously place their little hand in the big hand of another person. They are also people who trust God unconditionally, as only little ones can.
These little ones do not have a lot of power or status in society or in the church. They are not leaders in government or in business. In the church they are not elders or deacons, just pew dwellers. They don't defend themselves very well. They are vulnerable and easily hurt, like children.
In this world these little ones are often offended against, and sometimes in the church as well. What does that mean? Well, if we are to stick close to the text, offense as used in this passage is a metaphor for a situation in which a little one runs, or skips by you, and you stick out your foot, and you trip her, and she falls flat on her face, chafes her hands, and her knees and she cries. Literally the word used for offense in this passage means to scandalize a little one.
What is offense? How do we offend the little ones? Offense is power tripping, one-up-man-ship, belittling, betrayal of trust. In the church of Jesus Christ, in the CRC, in this congregation, little ones of all ages are offended against when they are put down rather than built up by big people, when they are ignored, by passed, excluded rather than included, they are offended against when they open up to someone about their pain and they are judged rather than listened to, criticized rather than comforted, they are offended against when they ask for help and they are told to smarten up and look out for themselves. They are offended against when they are abused verbally, physically, emotionally, sexually, spiritually by the very people from whom they expected love and protection and caring, and direction.
Offending the little ones makes Jesus rise up in holy indignation. He is livid with anger at these offenders. "Don't you dare to look down on these little ones", he shouts, (vs. 10) "For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven". And he talks about drowning the offenders with millstones around their necks. When it comes to offense against his little ones, Jesus loses it. He becomes incensed! He hates the offense!
I have two things to say in response to this passage.
First, if you are one of the little ones who have been hurt, abused, I want you to know that God is on your side. It may feel at times that God is on the side of those who have hurt you, but that is not true. He is on the side of those who suffer and he will not let you suffer for nothing. I know that from the bible and I know that from experience.
Second, to all those who want to tone down the rhetoric in this passage about drowning and millstones and even cutting off your hand, etc., to you I say, "Don't!". Let this passage about Jesus' anger stand. If we want to honour the suffering of Jesus we will have to respect the anger of Jesus. It was because he took the side of the little ones that he was treated so shamefully. That was why he was hurt. That was why he suffered. If he had closed his eyes to the injustice these little ones endured, if he had been more diplomatic, if he had talked like a politician, if he had hobnobbed with the powerful elite he would have been crowned king long ago. But no, instead he sided with the marginalized, with the outcasts of society, with the little ones. If we tell Jesus to tone down his anger, we, in effect say to him: " Quit whining!. You brought this upon yourself. You should have played the game better. You should have sided with winners, instead of losers. You made your bed, now lie in it." We say of Jesus, "He trusted in God, let Him deliver him!"
God, hurts. God hates. But God also heals. Part three.
For this part we have to return to Isaiah 53. Why did Jesus suffer? Why do we suffer? We don't always know why we suffer. Questions about why we suffer are born out of despair and they don't always have an answer.
But at least Isaiah gives us an answer why God in Jesus suffered. There is a reason why God deliberately decided to become a victim of abuse, why he voluntarily chose to be hurt. Jesus, Isaiah tells us, was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. He bore the sin of many. He took our infirmities upon himself, he carried our sorrows, his punishment brought us peace, by his wounds we are healed. I know why Jesus suffered and died. He did it for me, and for you, and for you.
It was not until several years ago that I discovered what it means to have someone die for me. It was during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Canadians liberating Holland held in the Butterdome of the U of A, when I was asked to thank the veterans present there for liberating us. And well I should be thanking these Canadian soldiers, for they saved my life. If they had waited 6 month longer to liberate us, my family and I would have died of starvation. So I was truly thankful. But I also realized then that thousands of Canadians died to set us free. They died that I might live. It made me realize that I owe them, and the nation of Canada my life!
So it is with Jesus. He died for me. I owe him my life.
Why did Jesus have to suffer and die? Perhaps you have asked that question. Couldn't God just have forgiven our sins and let it go at that? Well, have you ever read books about the Holocaust? If you have, then you will know that the Nazis committed unspeakable atrocities against their fellow human beings in concentration camps. They did things that Holocaust survivors find very hard to forgive. What they suffered was just too awful.
Maybe someone has done something to you that was so terrible that it compels you to say: " I can't forgive him, that I can't forgive her." And your life is filled with anger and filled with hatred. Maybe you have done something so terrible to someone that you are compelled to say: " For this I can never be forgiven." And your life is filled with guilt and remorse.
You know what happens, of course, when people abuse people. It starts a never-ending cycle of violence, of revenge. "He did that to me and now I have to get him back." Cain kills Abel and Lamech, the son of Cain, several generations later boasts about killing a fellow human being in revenge for wounding him. It goes from bad to worse. Once people start abusing people, says the bible, they end up doing evil, only, continually: In the Middle East, in Northern Ireland, in Rwanda, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Canada? in Inglewood CRC?
And God in heaven watches all of this going on and he cries, congregation, he cries!! And the only one laughing his head off is the devil. That is why Jesus lived and died among us. He suffered and died to break the cycle of violence. "I will pay for the atrocities people committed against Harry Van Belle, and I will pay for the atrocities Harry Van Belle committed against his neighbours," Jesus said, " So that he can forgive others, so that he can forgive himself, however difficult that may be. So that the cycle of revenge and violence may be broken.
I guess you have to be God, to be able to do that, die for the abuse that other people commit. I sure could not do it. Could you?
God hurts, he hates, but he also heals.
He goes beyond atoning for our transgressions. He goes beyond forgiving us our sins. He also promises to put an end to the violence that we now suffer, to the violence which we now commit. He promises us the restoration of our world. He holds out a vista of the future to us, a vista that all of us can live by. He also shows us glimpses of what that future might look like, already today, in our lives.
I want end with that promise. Here is what he says (Rev. 21): "I am making everything new and I will wipe every tear from their eyes."I am imagining Jesus going around with one of those big red, Dutch handkerchiefs, you know, the one with the white dots on it, and he says to us:" Don't cry. It's all over now. Don't cry! There will be no more death or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
Here is how he describes the new order in Isaiah 11:
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
This is what gets to me. You see this? In the new heaven and the new earth, in the Kingdom of God, the little ones, the vulnerable ones, the marginalized will lead. Unless we become like one of these little ones we cannot even enter this new order of things.
The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox.
The infant will play near the hole of a cobra, and the young child put her hand into the viper's nest.
The world will be made safe for the little ones.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
That is God's promise and with God a promise is true, for he is a God of his Word. You and I had better believe him. Amen.