Sorrow and Hope: Psalm 44

At 4:53 local time on Tuesday, January 12, a magnitude seven earthquake struck Haiti. I know that you
know this... the news channels have been covering it more-or-less constantly. The number killed or
injured is mind-boggling, as is the damage to property and infrastructure. I wonʼt go into details or
statistics or quantities about this; in part because those continue to shift and change and in part because I
know that there is a point where really big numbers begin to bleed together.

So here is Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world: most Haitians
live on the equivalent of two dollars or less a day. In the capital of Port-au-Prince there is a slum called
Cité Soleil, where two to three hundred thousand people live in extreme poverty. It is one of the poorest,
most dangerous areas in the Western Hemisphere. It is one of the biggest slums in the Northern
Hemisphere. There is no law there. There are no sewers, no police, no stores, and no electricity. It is, by
and large, controlled by armed gangs who murder, rape, kidnap, and loot. Few of its residents live past
fifty. It has been described as a shanty town; it looks like a landfill. At 4:53 local time on Tuesday, January
12 a magnitude seven earthquake - an earthquake that carried roughly the same destructive force as
several nuclear bombs - hit that place.

You may wonder why Iʼm telling you this. You already knew it. If youʼve been watching the news very
much at all, you know that Haiti is incredibly poor - it was incredibly poor long before this earthquake
struck and it will be incredibly poor long after the news cameras leave and the philanthropic interest and
charitable dollars of the rest of the world have moved on to another disaster. If youʼve been watching the
news very much at all, youʼve seen the unbelievable damage wrought by the shifting of the earth. Why
would I stand in front of you today and tell you again?

Because the topic of my message today is supposed to be finding the positive in a negative situation.

Iʼm sure that there are situations in which we are faced with the negative and in which we can find the
positive. But, after thinking about this topic while watching the news, Iʼm just as convinced that,
sometimes, the silver lining is lightning and the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. After
thinking about this topic while seeing the destruction done to one of the poorest places in the world, I
have been working hard not to come to the conclusion that any God who would let this happen doesnʼt
deserve the title. After thinking about this while looking at the faces of those who had nothing and had
even that taken away, I have been drawing on the traditions of my faith to find a way to preach about
anything positive.

Haiti, though, is just a larger version of the sorrows millions of people face every day. Thatʼs not to
diminish the horrible suffering in that country, but to bring to the surface the subjective reality of the
suffering so many people experience every day: deaths and divorces, foreclosures and firings, the
thousands of little things that can fill us with sadness. These are real. And, as you may have guessed, I
am not an adherent of the cult of positivity. I do not believe that it is simply a matter of keeping a good
attitude or finding the good in the bad or of recognizing that we would not know joy without sorrow. We
live in a good world, but also in a fallen one, and we must face that fact honestly.

Fortunately, the Christian tradition offers us the tools to deal with that honestly - to look the reality of
inhuman suffering square in the face and say that we still have hope. Indeed, I would say that this hope -
this hope that we have even as we are brutally honest about the state of the world in which we live - lies
at the core of the Christian tradition. It is not all that is there, but it is there, and it is vitally important.

So, letʼs start with the honesty. Iʼve already spoken about the problems of the world, and yet I have not
even scratched the surface of the suffering that exists. There are the hungry who need fed and the thirsty
who need something to drink. There are the strangers who need welcomed and the naked who need
clothed. There are the sick who need care and the prisoners who need visited. These are not spiritual
states or abstractions, but the real lived conditions of real people, and it is only in recognizing that fact
that we become able to respond in love.
Sorrow and Hope: Psalm 44

There are those who would say that Christians look to an otherworldly place where there is no suffering
and are thus able to ignore these concrete facts in the here and now. The witness of the Bible and of
Christian history says otherwise. Abraham is not looking to another world when he asks God whether the
ruler of the universe will do right (Genesis 18:25). Job is not looking to another world when he asks, “Why
did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb” (Job 3:11). The psalmist is not looking to
another world when he says, “we sink down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground” (Psalm 44:25).
Christ on the cross is not looking to another world when he cries out, “eloi, eloi lama sabachthani” - “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”.

We have been, in our own ways, with Jesus in that ninth hour. We know that the hope of heaven does not
diminish the concrete reality of the here and now.

There are others who would say that the sorrows of this world are brought on as the result of sin or
wickedness or, as a certain televangelist who I will not name suggests, pacts with the devil. But we know
that the sun rises on the evil and the good, and that the rain falls on the just and the unjust (Matthew
5:43-48). We know that sometimes we must say to God, along with the psalmist: “All this has come upon
us, yet we have not forgotten you, or been false to your covenant. Our heart has not turned back, nor
have our steps departed from your way, yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals, and covered us
with deep darkness.” (Psalm 44:17-19). So, contrary to the opinion of that televangelist: suffering and
sorrow are not the result of satanic transactions or personal sin; they are an aspect of the world in which
we live, and they affect the righteous and the wicked alike.

But Christianity finds its most honest facing of this in one historical moment: the crucifixion not of a
criminal, but of a righteous king. The execution not of someone who came to destroy the world but of
someone who came to save it. The twisted murder not of the devil, but of the son of God, very God of
very God. Can you find a more honest assessment of the reality of inhumanity: when God who is love
shows up, we crucify him.

But it is in that moment that we also find our greatest hope and our greatest comfort. You see, we - and
by we, I mean people in general - have a habit of wishing for an idol of a god: a god who is, when you get
right down to it, just a really big version of us; a god who could, with a wave of a magic wand, fix
everything up just the way we would like it. Of course, given the injustices of human history, one can only
imagine that any god who would so cater to human whims about the state of the world would probably not
be doing a terrible amount of good.

What we get, though, is something very different: a God that so loved the world, that God chose to live in
it. A God that heard the cries of the people, and so showed up. A God who is not found in the halls of
power or on a throne of glory, but in the scarred flesh and broken bones of the cross. A God who comes,
and suffers, with the people. A God who does not take revenge for that suffering but says, even while
hanging from the cross, even without repentance from those who crucify him, “Forgive them” (Luke
23:34).

This is the radical cry of Christianity, the one word that sums up the entire thing: Emmanuel, God with us.
Not God is on our side, or God favors us, or God agrees with us, but God is with us. In our dancing and
singing and laughing, God is with us. In our screaming and shouting and crying, God is with us. In the
heights of euphoria and the in the pit of despair, God is with us. On the cross and at the empty tomb, God
is with us.

And in this lies our hope: that there will, one day, be an empty tomb. That the God who is with us, who is
among us, who comes to us as the Holy Spirit, will lead us to that empty tomb, to that day and that place
when every tear will be wiped away, when mourning and crying and pain will be no more, when all things -
all things - will be made new (Revelation 21:4-5).
Sorrow and Hope: Psalm 44

As Christians we hope for a better future, and that hope is founded on Godʼs promise. As Christians we
work for a better future because love drives us to offer food and drink, welcome and clothing, care and
compassion to all of our brothers and sisters throughout the world, from the slum of Cité Soleil to the
section eight housing in Medina. As Christians we search for Christ among the poor and the outcast
because that is where he was found before: lain in a manger, eating among sinners and tax collectors,
crucified among thieves, risen and among the disciples, themselves not at the pinnacle of high society.

And so I conclude with this: the good life - the Christian life - is not about finding the positive in the
negative. It is important that we be honest about the world. That, of course, means recognizing the
positive: thereʼs no need to always be wearing sack cloth and ashes. There are times to laugh and times
to dance. However, it is also important to recognize the negative, and not to pretend it is otherwise. The
suffering we see in the world is not there to build character, nor is it there simply to give us something to
compare the good to, nor is it some sort of illusion. It is real and it is terrible. The good life is not found in
deluding ourselves about that.

Rather, it is in this: wherever there is suffering, God also suffers. Wherever there is sorrow, God comforts.
Wherever there are tears, God provides a shoulder. Wherever there is fear, God provides a hand to hold.
Wherever there is hunger, God provides food. Wherever there is thirst, God provides drink. Wherever
someone feels alone, God provides abundant hospitality. Wherever someone is sick, God provides
compassion. Wherever someone is naked, God provides clothing. Wherever there is a captive, God
provides company. God proclaims good news to the poor, freedom to the prisoners, sight to the blind,
and release to the oppressed.

God does all of these things and more through us. And when we find our place in harmony with Godʼs
plan, and when we seek to work as the body of Christ, then we will find - all of us will find - the joy of the
empty tomb. And that is good news, indeed.