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Through the valleyFriday, April 4, 2014
Psalm 34:19 The Lord is close to the broken-hearted. And if I am not, then I'm losing touch with something far more real than anything my squinty-eyed, squeeze-faced, Gollum-y, sticky-fingered ego can relate to. God is not losing touch with me, but I am losing touch with God. I begin to hear him Not. I officiated a wedding on Wednesday. The bride read half of 1 Corinthians 13 and her husband read the second half. They shared their vows and exchanged rings. They looked into each other's eyes. They kissed. The bride lives in Bloomington. Her husband lives at Danville Correctional Center. Their visit lasted a few hours after the wedding, and then she drove home. He walked back to his cellblock. No doubt the joy they felt was touched with sadness. A cord of three strands is not easily broken. But they had to skip the honeymoon. I expect you have a variety of thoughts about this wedding. The bi-polar nature of politicized news in America leaves us with too much judgment and too little empathy. Our opinions trump our feelings. Jesus spoke gently with the perhaps polygamous woman at the well. He protected the prostitute from self-righteous stones. He praised the woman when she anointed him with thousands of dollars worth of essential oils, in spite of her checkered past. The scribes and Pharisees were convinced Jesus had too little judgment and too much empathy. But the Lord is close to the broken-hearted. And besides, truth be told, our hearts are made to be broken. Here is how the German poet Goethe put it in his eighteenth century poem, The Holy Longing: So long as you have not experienced this: Lord, your heart breaks with ours. Free us from fear of brokenness and let us notice and appreciate the way we grow in the shadows and rest in the darkness, waiting for some sun to shine again. |
And in Hebrews 13 there is this: "Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. And look on those who are abused as if what happened to them had happened to you." The same insistence is expressed in Matthew 25 and Romans 12. It's all over the New Testament.