In May of this year as protests raged and violence erupted across our country, I woke up early and prayed for our country. Then I sent the following text to a friend who I hadn’t seen in a few months:
Hey brother. I’m watching the country burn and it breaks my heart. It has made me think about your rendition of Good, Good Father. Thankful we have a Good Father in these trying days. I appreciate you and I prayed for you today.
My heart was sad that morning. Sad for my black brothers and sisters who felt (and continue to feel) disenfranchised. Sad for our country that was straining against the seemingly fragile seams that hold it together. Sad for the church of America that appeared to be in a sort of holding pattern on the fringes, but not engaging. Sad for political leaders who were under attack for attempting to lead. Sad for leaders who wouldn’t lead. Just sad.
Since then, I haven’t been sad all the time. But, I have been sad repeatedly.
I’m still sad for many of the same things that I was sad for on May 31, but increasingly, my sadness builds for the church of Jesus Christ.
Many of those who claim to belong to Jesus have perfected the art of anger, but not sadness. There is anger at those who believe in systemic racism. There is anger at those who do not believe that racism in America is systemic. COVID believers are angry at COVID doubters. COVID doubters are equally as angry at COVID believers. Those who send their kids to school find a way to be angry at those who don’t. Teachers are angry at the government. Trump is angry at the left. Biden is angry at the right. And everyone is ticked off at the BIG-10 and the PAC-12 (OK, college football anger is probably justified).
1967 became known as the summer of love. I fear that 2020 will be remembered as the year of anger. And, when the church should be stepping into the gap to try to bring healing, we are throwing gas on the fire.
Consider the words of Jeremiah the prophet:
18 My joy is gone; grief is upon me;[d]
my heart is sick within me.
19 Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
from the length and breadth of the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King not in her?”
“Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
and with their foreign idols?”
20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.”
21 For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Jeremiah 8:18-22
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?
When we should be applying balm, we are lighting bombs and watching the world burn. Because anger is easier than brokenness. Anger is active and powerful. Brokenness is weak and vulnerable.
But broken, vulnerable, and humble is the way of the cross.
Psalm 51 teaches us that the sacrifices the Lord desires are “A broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.” But our spirits are strong and our hearts are hard. Let’s be honest, it isn’t the Lord to whom we are offering sacrifices, but our own pride. The way of the world is easier. Anger satisfies our fleshly desires. Anger is a oblation to the god I see in the mirror every morning and the gods of public outrage in our world today.
Anger is its own form of confirmation bias. If I am mad at you, then you have to be wrong and I get to be right. If I am broken and humble, then I have to live with the reality that I could actually be wrong. If I am humble and broken, I may have to repent. Repentance is not in vogue. In fact, the cancel culture invalidates even the potential for repentance–so why try?
We have become experts at pointing out the speck in our brother’s eye, but are incredibly inept at identifying the massive log in our own eye.
I heard Ravi Zacharias once say, “Until she learns to weep, the church has no right to shout.” We have shouted too long. We have to learn to weep. There must be tears for our country and our neighbors, and especially for our churches. Revival will not begin in the White House or in the streets of America.
If we would see revival, it must begin among the people of God.
Anger is easy. But brokenness is biblical. And as Christians, we get our marching orders from God’s word. Brokenness doesn’t generate clicks, likes, or views, but it may just bring about a movement of God if his people who are called by his name would humble themselves and pray.
Jeremiah was broken for his people. He was broken for their loss and their situation. But perhaps most of all, he was broken because they didn’t have to suffer. His questions in 8:22 are rhetorical. His original readers knew full well that there was a healing balm in Gilead and that there was a physician there who could help them. They knew the cure, but they had not sought it out.
The church of America knows the cure, yet she has not turned to the healing balm of Gilead. Instead, she has bathed in the world’s snake oil and has found herself sick and devoid of power. But, that isn’t the end of the story. There is a promise that is greater even than our sin. The church belongs to Jesus and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
May we remember the way of the cross. The way of suffering and shame. May we yet cry for our own sin and the sin of others. There is hope, but it is not in our anger and activism. There is hope only in the name of Jesus.
Our hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
