What
does it take to reduce someone to tears?
On
Friday in Bristol Judge James Dingemans broke into tears after sentencing the
couple who killed schoolgirl Becky Watts to a combined total of 50 years in
jail. Father of three James paid public tribute to the family of Becky for the
dignified way in which they conducted themselves throughout proceedings. "Hearing
the evidence during the trial has been difficult for anyone, but it is plain
that it has been an immense burden for the family." It was for him as well
in a merciful humanity allied to leading judicial process.
What
does it take to reduce someone to tears?
Thousands
of relatives of the 120 killed, together with those maimed or traumatised in
Paris by terrorists, lead weeping across the world today, tears of mourning and
desolation.
Jesus
wept is the shortest sentence in the Bible. Would that those who afflicted
Parisians in the name of God could see how the living and true God sees their
actions! Their God is no God but a demon of compulsion. They dishonour , grieve
and, I dare to add, bring tears to the God and Father of Jesus whom we worship
this morning.
What
does it take to reduce someone to tears?
In
the last week ministering closely to people in great pain has brought me into
tears as I’ve seen husband and wife dealing with a relentless trial.
Sometimes
of late I've been brought to tears with parents struggling with the drug scene
snaring their children, or the relentless work load of parents that’s damaging a family.
I
see God as the ultimate parent and no
way as the absent Father many might think he is in the light of, say,
yesterday’s carnage done in the name of religion.
Yes, physics accepts in a way it
never did so clearly that the universe had a beginning 14 thousand million
years ago in the Big Bang so God is a possibility. As Einstein said, ‘The most
incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.’ Does
matter really come before mind or is it in fact the other way round so we’re given
minds not only to explore the world but to understand the Mind that put us here?
Yes, if we think about it, you
and I are evidence for God. There’s something about us and our ability to
shelve our own interests for others as many are doing through the French
tragedy that points beyond the animal
kingdom. When we show love we’re showing something beyond this world, what has
been called the image of God in us.
But, how can a loving God exist
who allows carnage such as we saw on Friday night. I can’t answer. I can quote
theologian Tim Keller ‘If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be
mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, …you have….a
God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to
continue that you can’t know... you can’t have it both ways’. That’s an
intellectual approach suited to one of the writers best at putting Richard
Dawkins in his place, but it’s no answer to those seeing loved ones enjoying a
concert shredded to death.
I
see God like Judge Dingemans as just and merciful. He is the ultimate parent
keeping boundaries, grieving
transgressions, treating us far better than we are, at the cost of tears, and holding
our long term benefit always before him. He’s no absent Father but came to us
in the person of his Son to suffer and die for us. As the writer of Hebrews
expresses it in our first reading Christ
offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.
God
knows first-hand what human life’s like. There’s nothing we have to suffer he
hasn’t entered through Jesus.
I can’t answer the problem of human suffering
but I can point to the Answerer who
expects no agony of us he’s not prepared to go through himself and make it a way
to glory. In C.S.Lewis’s words, ‘Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and
turn…agony into a glory’.
The
first reading spoke of Christ’s love offering on the Cross and went on to
invite us ‘to provoke one another to love and good deeds’.
The
greatest distortion of Christianity in our age is that it’s a scolding,
harassing creed that targets those who fall short. It’s actually the very
opposite of that false perception. We hold to a Saviour who wants the best for
us and gives us that best by loving it into us and not forcing it in. ‘Love is
patient;’ says St Paul. ‘Love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or
arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way’.‘God
is patient; God is kind; God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. God
does not insist on his own way’.
Our
love for God expressed in the commitments implied in baptism comes out of his
love for us, his readiness to treat us not as the sinners we are but as the
beloved daughters and sons of God we are called to be.
May
God’s love be poured afresh into our hearts through this eucharist for a world that is needy as ever for love that will cover its sins.
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