God of Action

This has been a rough week for our nation. The devastation from the mass shooting that took place on Sunday night in Las Vegas is far reaching. Victims were not just local to Las Vegas, they were from different parts of the country and even the world. In their deepest moments of grief, people tend to ask a very poignant question: where is God in all of this?

We may not always be able to answer “why” something like this happens, but I can assure you that God is always present with us through our pain. We serve a God who so deeply desires to be relational with us that He broke into His creation in an act of love and mercy. God left the throne room of heaven to dwell among His beloved, to feel what we feel, and ultimately take up His cross on our behalf.

In his book And the Angels Were Silent, author and Pastor Max Lucado paints a beautiful picture of Jesus’ own humanity the night before His arrest and crucifixion. Jesus wrestled with the decision He had to make to be tortured, mocked, humiliated and crucified for the sake of humankind. Lucado writes:

“We do know he begged for an exit. We do know there was a time when, if he could have, he would have turned his back on the whole mess and gone away. 

But he couldn't. 

He couldn't because he saw you. Right there in the middle of a world that isn't fair. He saw you cast into a river of life you didn't request. He saw you betrayed by those you love. He saw you with a body that gets sick and a heart that grows weak. 

He saw you in your own garden of gnarled trees and sleeping friends. He saw you staring into the pit of your own failures and the mouth of your own grave. 

He saw you in your Garden of Gethsemane-and he didn't want you to be alone. 

He wanted you to know that he has been there too. He knows what it's like to be plotted against. He knows what it's like to be confused. fused. He knows what it's like to be torn between two desires. He knows what it's like to smell the stench of Satan. And, perhaps most of all, he knows what it's like to beg God to change his mind and to hear God say so gently, but firmly, ‘No.'

For that is what God says to Jesus. And Jesus accepts the answer. At some moment during that midnight hour an angel of mercy comes over the weary body of the man in the garden. As he stands, the anguish is gone from his eyes. His fist will clench no more. His heart will fight no more. 

The battle is won. You may have thought it was won on Golgotha. It wasn't. You may have thought the sign of victory is the empty tomb. It isn't. The final battle was won in Gethsemane. And the sign of conquest is Jesus at peace in the olive trees. 

For it was in the garden that he made his decision. He would rather go to hell for you than go to heaven without you.”

We can grieve with hope, knowing that The Holy Spirit never leaves us or forsakes us. We can grieve with hope because we know that Jesus is going to return to make all things new. We can grieve with hope because Jesus is proof that God gets involved in our mess and lifts us up. We can grieve with hope because we are in relationship with a God of action.

This weekend, we will sing Build Your Kingdom Here to pray that very poignant prayer over our nation. Next, we will sing Honor & Glorify to affirm that we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus to our community. We will end our time singing a new song called Praise You to remember that we desire God to get the glory for all that we say and do.