Japan

I received a new revelation of grace this week. It has left me silent and still to the core.

I saw the satellite photos of the cataclysmic damage caused by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami. I heard the news reporters talk about long lines at gas stations and barren grocery store shelves. I listened to scientists discuss the possibility of radiation contamination from Japan’s damaged nuclear reactors. I shook my head. I prayed for Japan.

But I didn’t cry . . . until I saw the father crying.

It was a short video clip of a father and mother . . . probably about my age . . . navigating precariously through piles and piles of rubble. The father was calling out . . . desperately . . . achingly . . . with his hands cupped around his mouth. Calling for his son, hoping to find life in the midst of total devastation. As he paused to lean against the side of a wall that was still standing, he began to sob.

That’s when I cried.

The agony and deep mourning of that father’s cry was heartrending. It was so raw. So real. So inconsolable.

I immediately thought of the scriptures in Genesis chapter 3. It is the description of God walking in the garden after His relationship with His beloved children had been devastated:

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"

I know I wasn’t there on that day in Genesis. I know I didn’t hear the Lord’s voice as He called out to his son. But as I pondered that short piece of scripture, I saw that Japanese man’s countenance in my heart. I don’t believe God’s question . . . “Where are you? . . . was a casual query. I believe it was a gut-wrenching cry of horrible, tragic loss. Like the sobbing cry of the searching Japanese father.

“Where . . . are . . . youuuuu??”

God knew where his children were. But the reality was too horrendous and too raw to even grasp. They were there . . . in their spiritually shaken garden home. Lost. Hidden. Buried beneath the horrendous rubble of sin and rejection that had quaked the earth to its core. Dead to Him, unless a miracle of resurrection could bring them back again. His heartrending cry, “Where are you?” was a cry of deep, fathomless mourning.

One of the most dangerous postures in American Christianity today is the trendy, light-hearted, slightly scholaresque rejection of mourning. Like macabre specters of otherworldly sprites, we dance and sing and shout the freedom of grace as if our own rescue . . . our own resurrection from the rubble of sin and death . . . was nothing more than a silly, bad dream. Deep mourning and gut-wrenching repentance are no longer welcome guests at our parties. It is a strange type of spiritual hedonism that pronounces victories, brags about prosperity, and thumbs its nose at any notion of suffering . . . as it dances upon the very rubble that others are still buried beneath.

The camp of the redeemed has much to celebrate. And much to be eternally grateful for. The right hand of the Lord has gloriously rescued us.

The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous;
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
The right hand of the Lord is exalted;
Psalm 118:15-16

But it is only a CAMP . . . not a princely community of opulent palaces.
And we are only sojourners . . . not reigning sovereigns that need petting and spoiling.
And we are living among the stricken ones . . . not sheltered behind gem-studded walls.
And it is God’s Hand that is valiant and exalted . . . not ours.

A campsite of rescued sojourners. Landscaped with the tents of those who have been rescued from unspeakable devastation. Living among stricken victims: even hammering our tent pegs right beside the ancient rubble of horrible human tragedy. Celebrating with those who celebrate. Mourning with those who mourn. Suffering with those who suffer. Known by the name of the One who saved us because we talk like Him and behave like Him and love like Him. Looking to a blessed hope of eternal reconciliation with the One who has rescued us.

THAT is my revelation of grace.

I am thinking that America should get back to basic Christianity. The kind that says:

“It is sin that devastates us. But God loves us and wants a relationship with us. He is the Great Rescuer. And those who are rescued become His disciples.”

Save the fancy theologies and elaborate church growth campaigns and mystic spiritual ecstasies and exclusive clubs of BFF’s for a time that is less desperate . . . less real. Right now, we just need faithful workers with shovels and compassion. We need people who know the job is too big, but who trust a God who is more than enough.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23