“I can’t stop thinking about that news story I read today,” I say to my husband as we end another day in the darkness of our room. The slow rise and fall of his breath tells me he’s already on the edge of sleep and I’m still replaying every awful detail of the news of a young child tragically losing their life. The long winter nights only add to my anxieties. When the clock ticks slowly through silent nights, I feel the heaviness of a world that is not mine to fix but, Lord knows, I’ve tasted of its brokenness.
The world feels irrevocably fractured. With each new sunrise, I can feel it groaning beneath my feet. From news headlines to Facebook posts to a random Insta-story that pops into my feed without warning, I’m reminded that in this world we will have trouble.
Take heart, the Spirit whispers as I stare into the darkness of my room.
Wars and rumors of war.
Refugees without a home.
Mother and fathers against daughters and sons.
Empty bellies and abandoned children.
Politicians who desire power. Corruption behind closed doors.
Sin seeping into hearts and desires. Injustice seems to sit on the throne of the earth.
Missing people and trafficking under every dark corner of the world’s edges.
Mothers who die tragically in car accidents.
Fathers who never come home.
Children who suffer with disease.
Your child mistreated by peers or a teacher or coach.
Your kid as the target of school lunchroom rumors.
Watching your daughter’s heart break as she is ignored by the “popular” girls.
Sitting with your teenager when they feel the weight of rejection.
Death and despair, loss and ache, groaning and waiting.
Take heart.
I think of Mary, in Matthew 2:13, cradling her child as Joseph wakes her to flee to Egypt. The midnight panic. The quieting of a baby’s cries. All is not calm. All is chaos and Mary and Joseph find themselves bound for a foreign land, on the run from a man who wants to take their child’s life. The ancient headlines were nothing new—an evil dictator, a power-hungry throne, a death sentence for the innocent. I think of when I have held my own children in this world as it spins wildly with mad men. When I realize my love cannot save them, protect them, or keep them from what they’ll face. The nights I’ve spent at their bedsides, praying for healing, for hope, for answers. When I sat with my daughter in the wake of her birth father leaving us and she cried night after night asking God to bring her a new dad. When we’ve received bad news from the doctor without hope for a cure and we wonder if the world is forever bent toward death. I think of the moments I’ve stood face to face with a bereaved mother as she grieves the death of her child. When the insurmountable grief of such an injustice almost seems too heavy to stand up under.
Did the city of Herod wail with the loss of their sons? There is no doubt that mothers cried, “How long will the world scream with grief and sorrow?” And yet, the story begins to tell us even then—take heart. God has not turned his head. He is not sitting passively by. While parents in Bethlehem suffered under Herod’s wrath, a small family of three made their way to the land where, long ago, God had brought a deliverer out of Egypt for his people. He would do it again.
This child who was carried and cradled in the night of a thousand sorrows became the man who would bear the weight of the world. Jesus, facing every injustice, every sin of mankind, every betrayal, tragedy, and moment that sends us to our knees, said in John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Christ, who would stand against the injustice of the cross, the jeering of a crowd, the slander of his people, the denial of his followers, the mocking of the guards—he would overcome it all. What looked to be hopeless and the end of all that’s right became instead the road to justice. In what so often looks to be the end, God brings a deliverer. And not only a deliverer but a final judge. Where it seems evil prospers, that wickedness is swept under the rug, and where we wait to see the wrongdoer come to justice, even there the words of Christ remind us that he has overcome the world. He sits at the right hand of the Father. He is the final arbiter of justice and peace.
“He rules the world with truth and grace,” despite our every plea that he reign down judgment and just do something. Oh friend, he has. He has overcome it all. “Let earth receive her king.”
This Advent season, as we wake each day to a groaning world, whether that’s in the black and white type of a newspaper, a tweet that suggests inevitable doom, or the private grief we experience behind the closed doors of our own homes, we can remember the mother and father carrying the Son who would eventually carry us all. God will bring deliverance. God has not forgotten. In the middle of a silent night, he stirs the hearts of those who are his own.
And he says, “Take heart.”
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION/ APPLICATION:
What recent circumstance or event has caused you to long for justice? Have you ever been tempted to think that the injustices of this world will last forever?
How does the coming of Christ combat our question of whether or not God sees injustice? How does God giving Christ authority to judge give you rest in the places you feel a desire for justice?
How can you place your hope in God, who never forgets or sits passively by, today? What are specific ways you can you actively “take heart”?
Andrea Burke is the Director of Women's Ministry at her home church Grace Road Church. She is the co-host of the Good Enough Podcast and writes and teaches regularly for women. She's married to the quintessential Vermont man, Jedediah, and they are raising two kids in an old farmhouse on a couple of acres outside of Rochester, NY. You can also find more about her at andreagburke.com or on Twitter @theandreaburke.