Dear Rose Park,
I’d imagine many of you have been watching the news lately. If you’re anything like me, this typically happens in the morning while drinking a cup of coffee and munching on a piece of toast. Like clockwork, the Waterstone children are awake at 6:30am almost every day. Winnie has her morning bottle and Simon will snack on cheerios as the news cycles on our television. A few days ago, Simon saw someone getting hurt on the news while a fire was burning in the background and the sounds of sirens filled the air. He looked at me with curiosity in his eyes and said, “what’s happening Daddy?” I stood there and simply said, “I don’t know.”
It’s hard to wrap your head around what is happening. A virus sweeping across the world has claimed nearly four-hundred-thousand lives. Horrific acts of injustice, inequality, and racism are being showcased on a global stage. Neighbors and communities are being pitted against each other. Commercials are being broadcast in order to point a blaming finger at certain peoples and nations. All the while people are living in fear: fear of a second-wave of corona-virus cases, fear of re-opening their doors, or even fear of being treated unjustly because of their skin-color. Simon asked me, “what’s happening Daddy?” and I can honestly say, “I don’t know.”
It’s in moments like these that I find myself desiring to run to our Heavenly Father and ask the same question. God, what in the world is happening? How can we treat each other like this? How can we grasp the Gospel of Jesus in one hand and somehow hold onto racism and bigotry in the other? How can we allow our criminal justice system to only benefit a select few? How can we be so short-sighted to not see the privilege in our own lives and the tremendous hurt in the lives of our brothers and sisters? To borrow the words of Jesus, “how can you say to your brother or sister ‘let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a log in your own eye?” I just don’t know.
But in the midst of all of this, I do know a few things. I know that God weeps with us (Psalm 56:8). I know that creation is groaning to be renewed (Romans 8:22). I know God calls us to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). I know people of color have been treated unfairly throughout the history of our nation, and so just as God weeps with them, I weep with them. My heart breaks for our brothers and sisters who live in fear for their lives and the lives of their children. And so, I pray that the Church might be a safe place for weeping, mourning, sharing, dreaming, and hoping. May the Spirit of God continue to work in and through us so as to keep hope in Christ alive; hope that the darkness will never overcome the light; hope that one day these words might ring true for all God’s children:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”
Revelation 21: 1-4
Grace & Peace,
Pastor Mark