Come Wave of Justice, Come Wave of Mercy

O LORD, the God who saves me,
day and night I cry out before you.

May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.

For my soul is full of trouble
and my life draws near the grave.
You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily upon me;
you have overwhelmed me

with all your waves.

Psalm 88

Unjust. That has been the cry of my heart since I can remember, but I recognized it more today. As I read my friends’ Facebook statuses the anger welled up in me again, and I mouthed once more athe sob-choking, fisting-raising prayer of the psalmist, “God this is not right. We trusted you to protect us; where are you?”

With rage threatening to paralyze my faith for the thousandth time, I turned to the gospels. I had this desperate need for a catharsis. I needed to remember I really do believe Jesus is alive and that this belief should speak in the way I live. I wanted to read between the lines that God was going to be quick and merciful in His intervention this time. I longed for a key to comprehending why He was again allowing evil to happen to people who trust Him for protection.

And this is what I ended up reading in Matthew 5:

1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

3"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

4"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

5"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

6"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.

7"You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.

8"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

9"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.

10"You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.

This is not the good news I was looking for:

To me it seems that the beatitudes are pretty poetry for walls, but hard prescriptions for life. Their promises are beautiful and poetic until you recall your friend who is emotionally at the end of her rope, and

your friends are who literally faced with
the possibility of losing that which they cherish.

These words are comforting until you remember you are not the person you dreamed of becoming, and you wonder if you could ever accept the broken way you are. These words are salve until you remember there are thousands of children throughout the world whose physical bodies are racked with the pains of malnutrition. And you can almost forget the part tacked on in the end about persecution until persecution knocks at the door of your community and starts taking out people who you care deeply about.

In the desperate times, the lonely times,the times where we let the persecution of Christ become a concrete reality in our minds ---- we realize that what Christ is beckoning us into in the beatitudes is an identification with Him as a measure of His persecution becomes a reality in our lives.

And He seems to imply He will have the ultimate last word—for our healing,

For every soul that accepts Him the healing word is already breaking in--- a testimony that He has already begun to make everything new. But today the healing is incomplete and the restoration isn’t being parceled out equally.

My heart’s response to incompleteness:

I could hardly stand reading the beatitudes,

but when I was done I read it over again…

I was shaking and sick of faith. I felt worse after reading the Bible than I did to start with. I had imagined Jesus sitting beside me and asked Him to wave a wand and fix everything. I pleaded with Him to hold my hand and promise that the evil was vanquished forever… My heart was demanding “Lord you must do this—I don’t want someday promises, give me complete restoration today…Only this certainty will comfort me,” and Jesus, instead of giving into my demands, talked about a blessing that comes only by remaining soft to God in the face of the world’s injustice.

I threw my tantrum. Got angry. Got distant. Yelled a little. Cried awhile. and when I got the angst out of my system Jesus was still sat beside me, whispering to my heart, “Injustice has not slipped my sight."

He showed me I was angry at the power evil has been allowed to have over the world, and the disparity of healing we experience in this life

He began to define again “gospel” for me,

“Sarah” He spoke with tenderness that disarmed my rage, “This side of history the gospel is not a promise:

• that children won’t be abused,
• that the disabled won’t be marginalized,
• that the sick won’t suffer and die,
• that the world won’t be plagued by famine, war, and loneliness,

but that I have not abandoned history and I have not abandoned you. The climax in the painful narrative of humanity’s redemption was the cross and the conclusion to the story is already in motion.”

“Will you accept me on my terms,” I sensed the Spirit of Christ alternately challenging and soothing me, “ Do not be afraid, I have new and happier stories for my children…”

My heart see-sawed here between obstinate control and obedient trust. I felt like a little girl. So small. So defensless. So afraid. Then Peter’s profession rose up in my throat and shot out in a gaspy-breath, “Where would I go; you alone have the words of life?”

All once I was no longer sitting beside Jesus, but begging at his feet,

Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I need you. I won’t survive without you. I’ll do anything only keep holding me---- don’t leave me alone in my sin. Don’t abandon me in a world who hates me for trying to follow you.

and in my desperate brokenness; He lifted and held me—close and tight--- until I fell asleep.

In the morning:

I remembered that this experience of disillusionment is shared. The psalmists often voice a desperate searching for God in the pain of their world. We all feel abandoned, but we are not. I remembered hearing a haunting song by u2 which asked if the “ If the rain came now--- would it wash us all away on a wave of Sorrow?” and interpreted the beatitudes:

Blessed are the meek who scratch in the dirt
For they shall inherit what's left of the earth
Blessed are the kings who've left their thrones
They are buried in this valley of dry bones

Blessed all of you with an empty heart
For you got nothing from which you cannot part
Blessed is the ego
It's all we got this hour

Blessed is the voice that speaks truth to power
Blessed is the sex worker who sold her body tonight
She used what she got
To save her children's life

Blessed are the deaf who cannot hear her scream
Blessed are the stupid who can dream
Blessed are the tin canned cardboard slums
Blessed is the spirit that overcomes

and I prayed that I would see the Spirit overcome the persecution which has come against my friends very soon.

Come Spirit,

Come Wave of Justice,

Come Wave of Mercy, so that in disillusionment our hearts may stay soft to You Lord.