|
A story is told about a town that was built just beyond the bend of a large river. One day, some of the children from the town were playing beside the river when they noticed three bodies floating in it. They ran for help and the townsfolk quickly pulled the bodies out of the water. One body was dead, so they buried it. One was alive, but quite ill, so they put that person into the hospital. The third turned out to be a healthy child, which they placed with a family who cared for it and took it to school. From that day on, every day, a number of bodies came floating down the river; and every day, the good people of the town would pull them out and look after them, taking the sick to hospitals, placing the children with families, and burying those who were dead.
This went on for years. Each day would bring its bodies. The town began to be shaped by this daily event. Careful schemes of transportation, medical care, and education were developed. Some people devoted their lives to this extraordinary ministry of compassion. The town acquired a deserved reputation for its generosity and became a model for caring action that was studied and copied in many places.
However, despite all of the genuine concern and daily outpouring of care, nobody thought to go up the river to determine the cause of the problem. Nobody ventured beyond the bend in the river to find out why those bodies, daily, came floating down the river.
This is a story that highlights the distinction between compassion and justice. Compassion rises at the point of need to soothe the hurt and to meet the need. Justice goes up the river to see what caused the hurts and created the needs. Easter is about both compassion and justice. At Easter, God in Christ compassionately gives Himself to us and in so doing, makes things right between us and God. God is always a God of love and justice, never more so than at Easter. Every day God loves us and wants our relationship with Him and our relationships with other people to be good relationships.
On Good Friday, we see Jesus on the cross suffering for our sins and giving Himself for us. On Easter morn, we see an empty tomb that tells us that Christ and the life that He calls us to cannot be defeated by sin and death. He has loved us. Justice has been done. He has reconciled us to Himself.
While Jesus’ loving sacrifice on the cross calls us to love others and to show them compassion, the empty tomb compels us to go up the river and see what is going on around the bend. The empty tomb calls us to a new life and a new way of living that we did not know existed until Easter happened. The cross and the empty tomb call us to life that demonstrates compassion and seeks justice. The cross draws us to those in need just as the empty tomb compels us to go up the river to see what is causing the need.
I wonder how many of the needs that we seek to meet as a church and as Christ followers are rooted in the growing income gap that exists in our country. Not since the 1920s have the rich been so much richer than everyone else. The top one percent of Americans received almost 22 percent of the nation’s income — their largest share since 1929. The top 10 percent of Americans collected almost 49 percent of the nation’s income — their largest share since before the Great Depression. These figures are from 2005, the last year for which such data is available.
As Americans, we value our personal freedom and individual rights. No doubt our individualism has influenced our understanding of God, Christianity, and what it means to be a Christian. “God and me” takes precedence over “God and us” almost every time.
What we sometimes forget are the ethical implications of God’s creative activity. God did not create just one of us. God created all of us. Jesus did not die for just one of us. He died for all of us. The empty tomb invites not just one of us, but all of us to a new life beyond the shackles of sin and death.
God has created and reconciled us to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. We are connected to God — bound to Him intimately. Vine and branches — we have life because of God and God living within us. We are so connected to God that we can not give a cup of water to the neediest among us without giving it to God.
Joy and peace,
Ed
|
