Holy Groans
Joan's note: This just tore at my heart this morning when it appeared in my mailbox. Even though I don't minister in a foreign land like this, and even though the church I pastor is small, I still hear too many "holy groans" from people on the fringe of my pastoral ministry who need help, help beyond what I am able to give from the limited resources available to me, and my heart breaks every day because of that. My Bible reading this morning came from Matt 25 which SO ties in with this. I feel so helpless and burdened but then I realize God hears also MY holy groans of overwhelming needs of those in my pastoral care, and I'm so thankful for the Saviour who is ever interceding for me and all these others.
Holy Groans
As I write this, I am waiting for a bus on a busy corner in an extremely poor community in Central America, in which I lived for a year and have been visiting now for nine years. Most of the time, the tragedy of this place fades into the background of my thoughts, pushed there by familiarity, busyness, and the cheerfulness and resilience of the people who have welcomed me here. Nonetheless, it is evident that the joy many people here display is in clear defiance of the facts of their daily existence.
Sometimes, moments like this one come when I can no longer ignore these facts, and the sense of tragedy becomes overwhelming. I can see garbage strewn around me—plastic bags, empty bottles, crumpled wrappers, cigarettes—things discarded. Since it is located on the site of an old dump, garbage literally serves as the foundation of this mini-city, which is full of people discarded. I see a young girl walking towards school and I wonder if she shares the experience of so many other girls and young women here whose bodies are used, owned, or defaced. I see a boy whose swagger makes him look older and more confident than he probably is. As he joins the group of laughing older boys, I am aware of how likely his future is to be stolen by gangs and drugs. They are more lucrative ventures than most other job options that will be available to him—lucrative as long as he is alive, that is. Beside me is a woman selling tortillas and green mangoes. Like the innumerable other single moms in this community, she must choose between being with her children and feeding them. Even the dogs, whose ugly skeletal bodies manage to reproduce at obscene rates, join this dance of joy and threat, death and life that is ordinary living here.
From behind me, I hear an old man groan; he is struggling to stand up from where he is sitting against a wall. And it seems to me right now that I can hear in his groan the groaning of this whole place, and for that matter, the groaning of all creation that Paul spoke of in Romans as it waits for its redemption. The groaning of these hills, soaked with the blood of those murdered for a cell phone or a pair of shoes. The groaning of this river, polluted with chemicals and sewage. Holy groans. Like the groans of the people in Egyptian slavery that touched the ears and heart of God. Like the groans of the psalmist while his very bones wasted away. Like groans of the crucified One, bearing the weight of the whole world's pain. I want to groan too, because I don't have any words to speak. So I am thankful for the beautiful Spirit who joins the groaning, who takes my conflicted feelings of guilt and anger and love and intercedes for me with "groans that words could not express." Holy groans.
But now, I am struck by something else. I hear the voice of a little girl coming from around the corner, singing loudly and clearly a song I know well: "Oh love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it will forevermore endure, the saints' and angels' song!"
Love of God, rich and pure, measureless and strong. In the middle of so much suffering, this can easily sound like the mockery of an indifferent universe. I am certain of one thing: it must either be a cruel joke or the deepest possible truth. It is easy for philosophers and theologians to debate the question of suffering when they are removed from its stark reality. However, it is a costly thing for those who suffer to speak of the love of God in the midst of their pain. That is why their voice carries the ring and force of truth. When it comes to questions of love and suffering, the voice of the smallest, the poorest, and the most vulnerable carries an authority far beyond that of philosophical treatises or the debates of the 'experts.' I have read many good books on this topic, and I have even tried to write about it myself. But I have never read anything that speaks so profoundly to life's deepest groans than the song of this child in this place. This song does not dismiss or deny our groaning, but assures us that we do not groan in an empty void, but in the midst of a universe whose truest reality is Love.
Rachel Tulloch is a member of the speaking team with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Toronto, Canada.
Comments