Everyone has their own understanding of what the Christian religion is. Some people have a realistic grasp and others use religion as a shield against bad things happening to them. The story of the Bible is much more realistic, but upsetting to many people who are ‘born Christians.’
God bursts into human history. God has chosen to live with us. It is like family life: there a times of joy and commitments, there are arguments and there are seasons of a cold winter’s blast. The good and the bad are all part of each and every family.
We have the same experiences with the history of God’s activity with his people.
Our foundation story is with Moses and the Hebrew slaves. God hears the cries of the Hebrews who are oppressed and exploited by Pharaoh and his government. Moses is sent to free a suffering people. The poles are opposite here. One person, Moses, confronts all the powers that can destroy Moses and the Hebrew slaves. This Pharaoh can be very destructive. This is not a polite tea party. This is a struggle unto death.
The ten plagues that God sends down on the Egyptians and the final drowning of the Egyptian army are all very violent acts. But the power of God to deliver the slaves triumphans over the political power of the Pharaoh. But at the end of the page, this is a violent story.
Several centuries later the Jewish people ( mostly their educated and economically productive people) are hauled off in slavery to Babylon. There in their seventy years of oppression the prophets rebirth their religion. The Jewish people are suffering because they have fallen away from God’s directives. They have forgotten the poor, their sisters and brothers.
During these seventy years there are many laments and songs of suffering. In all their tears they cry out for deliverance from their slavery. They cry out for salvation.
I want to parallel the struggles and the sufferings of the Hebrew peoples throughout the centuries to what is happening today in our world.
We are confronted with great evil by the invasion of the Ukraine by V. Putin. Hospitals, schools and countless dwellings are being bombed and destroyed. Over three million people (mostly women and children) have fled for safety to neighboring countries. We lament: is there no stop to such evil?
We cry out in our prayer for the cessation to this bombing, and destruction. We are feeling in our bones the suffering of the Ukraine people who are being attacked, wounded and killed. The prayer of lament and struggles from the Old Testament is fresh in our souls. These are not the struggles of people on dusty historical pages. This is our story. We suffer with the Ukrainian people. We cry out for deliverance.
Our prayer is based on deep trust. God strengthened the people of old. He will strengthen us. In our struggles with the Ukrainian people we will not be abandoned by God. But our trust is tested by the horrific violence.
This season is our Good Friday. We long for the day of resurrection in our world.
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