New Years Sunday January 4, 2009
Christmas with the Messiah
Songs 23-26 Isaiah 53:3-6
Rachel’s email
Some of you may have heard that we are experiencing severe trials in our Haitian Village. A Mob of Dominicans went in Sunday night and ran families out of their homes, threatened their lives and destroyed small business. This was in reaction to the discovery of murdered Dominican in the sugar cane fields on the road to the village.
Many families have abandoned their homes in fear of the mob and have been scattered all over the place. Pastor Jonny (Dudu’s Father) house was broken into and all of his stuff was thrown outside and destroyed. Pastor Jonny is the man who is taking care of Rosairi and Jonathan while I am away. The whole family (including my kids) fled the village and all 11 of them are currently hiding out in my apartment in Montellano. There is a vendetta against him as he is a community leader, and this mob wants all the Haitians gone for good.
I am endlessly thankful to hear that the entire family, including my two, remain unharmed. The military went in to try and restore some normalcy, they arrested the ringleader of the mob, but ended up letting him go when a riot ensued. It is unsafe for Gringo’s or Haitians to travel to the village, and there are only a few families who remain in what was once a robust population of Haitians and Dominicans trying to work together and climb out of abject poverty.
Please pray for the Haitian community, as well as Jonny’s family, as well as my two kids at this time. Also I would covet your prayers as I try to decide how to respond.
I had thought of how hard it would be for Rachel to leave her two adopted children back in the D.R. while she returned to Canada. (The adopting process is not complete, so they cannot travel with her.) But I can’t imagine how she would feel knowing that they were in such grave danger.
We have friends in the village, and we don’t know how this attack has affected them. In particular, we have Charina who we support through Kids Alive. When I received the news, the only thing I could do is to pray and to place everything into God’s hands
I turned to this week’s scripture and saw it with new eyes:
Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Jesus “bearing” of our suffering – Jesus “gets” the suffering of the people of Ascension more than I ever could
He knows what it is like to run from attackers in the middle of the night, into the arms of foreigners for protection. – When Harod’s death squad came to kill him in the night, and they had to flee to Egypt
He knows what it is like to be ripped from his place of prayer by a mob that wants his life for a crime he did not commit.
Jesus knows what it is like to be Haitian living in the Dominican Republic.
When we realise that many of these people are Christian with the Holy Spirit living in them, we know that Jesus was there on Sunday, running with his people.
Jesus continues to bear our suffering. Jesus is not just sympathetic to suffering, or even empathetic – whenever his people suffer, he is there, suffering with them through his Holy Spirit.
When the risen Jesus confronts Saul who was persecuting Christians, he does say, “why do you persecute my people,” he says, “why do you persecute me?”
Jesus is there, experiencing our suffering with his people, bearing their sorrows, bearing their suffering.
But it doesn’t end there.
It is great to know that he is with you in your suffering, but Jesus goes further, in that he not only walks through suffering with us; he forgives us and cleans us up when we are the cause of other’s suffering!
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
I have to admit that in my response to the attack on Ascension, my heart went briefly to seeking judgement on the perpetrators, especially the leaders. There was (and is) a desire to show up on the leader’s doorstep and give him a taste of his own medicine. I get shocked by the violence in my heart, but it is there, and it is wrong.
I am quick to pass judgement on the racism and hate and violence.
I am quick to pass judgement on those who would abuse and exploit those I love.
But I don’t have to look to deep to find these things in my own heart.
Bruce Cockburn puts it well:
It could have been me put the thorns in your crown
Rooted as I am in a violent ground
How many times have I turned your promise down
Still you pour out your love
Pour out your love
I was a dweller by a dark stream
A crying heart hooked on a dark dream
In my convict soul I saw your love gleam
And you showed me what you’ve done
Jesus, thank-you joyous Son
- Dweller by a Dark Stream – Bruce Cockburn
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
Jesus’ final sufferings were not meaningless, or merely born out of one person’s hate for another.
Jesus’ death on the cross does give him empathy for those who suffer unjustly, but it is so much greater than that.
Explain sacrificial system – priest symbolically places the sins of the people on the head of the animal before he kills it.
Because Jesus was the greatest sacrifice ever made – a totally perfect human killed for our sake
- God himself hanging on the cross on our behalf
The sacrifice covers all the sin that has ever been committed.
Jesus death on the cross covers my violent heart.
But it goes further than that
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Jesus death on the cross brings us peace with God, and the opportunity to have peace within and peace without. Because Jesus’ death breaks the power of sin in my life, I can now choose the ways of peace rather than the ways of violence.
And…! He gives me his Holy Spirit to give me the power to choose the right! To fight against hate in my heart, and hate in others, to fight against exploitation in my heart and exploitation in the world…
Finally…
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Because of Jesus great sacrifice, because of his obedience to the point of death, he sits at God’s right hand and he Prays for me – he makes intercession for the transgressors
Which means he also prays for the mob who invaded Ascension Village
Which means he also prays for the leader of that mob
Which means he also prays for the murderer who started this mess
Which means he also prays for the people who are trying to exploit the ones we love down in the D.R.
Which means that we don’t just pray for ourselves the ones we love, but part of the peace that he has bought us is the power to pray blessing on those who persecute us and those we love.
Invite people to receive peace through Christ.
Sorry, please, thank you
