A Deliverer

 August 17, 2021

Judges 18:28–“There was no deliverer.” These are four of the most heartrending words in the Bible. The people of this town were living quiet, peaceful lives when armed thugs from God’s chosen people descended upon them, murdering them all before confiscating their homes and possessions. It is a tale played out countless times throughout history; the aggressive and powerful preying upon the helpless. 

With sickening regularity, the shell of our secure and peaceful lives is shattered by events half a world away, and I wonder as did the psalmist, “How can I sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” This world we inhabit is not really our home, and is filled with injustice, unspeakable evil, and incomprehensible suffering. If the events in Afghanistan were the only example of this, we would consider ourselves fortunate, but it is a scene played out repeatedly upon the world stage. North Korean concentration camps, Chinese forced labor of the Uighurs, the Soviet gulags, the Jewish Holocaust…the list could go on forever, and these are just in our lifetime. Human brutality seems built into our DNA, as Scripture confirms when it asserts that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” —Jeremiah 17:9, and ““The wickedness of man [is] great in the earth, and…every intent of the thoughts of his heart [is] only evil continually.” —Genesis 6:5 

I have often felt almost guilty for the blessings I have known in this life. Years ago, Kris Kristofferson put into verse my experience and feelings when he wrote, “Why me, Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the blessings I’ve known? What could I ever do that was worth loving you, or the kindness you’ve shown?”

I cannot change what is happening in Afghanistan. I can feel shame for the way this country has abandoned the people there, but I cannot fix the situation. I can, and do, pray. I can send money for humanitarian aid, but the evil unfolding there is likely to continue. What I cannot afford to do is allow that (and other) evils to overwhelm me. If my focus is only upon the evil everyone else can easily see, I will become no more than a mirror of society, a critic and complainer like everyone else. 

This world is not our final home. We were made for more than this, and it is towards eternity and towards the God who brought eternity to us in the person of Jesus Christ, that I must turn my face. Jesus is the hope of the world, the only hope we have, and although at times that hope seems a slender thread, it is strong enough to bear the weight of our burdens. So with the morning sun, I turn my face to the Light of the world in the sure and certain hope of his resurrection and of our ultimate salvation. There is, in fact a Deliverer! His name is Jesus