Dear Friends,
1 How long, O God? Will you forget us forever? How long will you hide your face from us? 2 How long must we bear pain in our soul, and have sorrow in our heart all day long? How long shall our enemy be exalted over us? 3 Consider and answer us, O God, our God! Give light to our eyes, or we will sleep the sleep of death, 4 and our enemy will say, "I have prevailed"; our foes will rejoice because we are shaken.
Psalm 13, a short six-verse song of lament and questioning, has been on my mind lately. I edited it slightly to come from “us,” because its existential ache is one we all share. We live in uncertain times, full of fear, stress, and empathy for the ravages of pain in our neighbors all over the world. This isn’t new at all. Suffering and evil have been with us since the beginning of humanity, illustrated in the story of the fall of Adam and Eve. We are capable of untold cruelty. I’m writing this on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, this year marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. When I was young, I couldn’t understand how such horror could even happen, but life has taught me that it’s all too easy for soul-broken people to callous their hearts and abuse their own lives and those around them.
Why does God allow evil, and such deep pain? That’s what Psalm 13 cries out to know. First, let us acknowledge that humanity’s cruelty is our twisting of God’s loving gift of free will. Each of us has the ability to choose our actions and thoughts, and sadly, people who are broken gather unto themselves others who are broken, and often set about to break still others, either through ignorance or willful darkness.
If that were the only truth, we would be hopelessly in despair. But if we do not allow ourselves to be overcome by pain, the challenges we face actually help us to develop character, compassion, and a deep desire to make the world a better place. And thank God that through the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven for our own darkness, and given the Holy Spirit to use for the Divine Good. The Bible teaches over and over that evil may have its day, but the God of love has the final Word, as well as the first Word. In the beginning was the Word, John 1 tells us, and that Word was the life and light of all people, which shines in the darkness and cannot be covered.
I still struggle to grasp the inhumanity of the Holocaust, but let us keep our eyes on the light that endured through that awful time, the faith that could not be covered, and the brave souls who worked to eradicate the evil. It is, after all, an anniversary of liberation. The final two verses of Psalm 13 have the final word of our lament and questioning, for they carry us into faith.
5 But we trusted in your steadfast love; our hearts shall rejoice in your salvation. 6 We will sing to our God, because God has dealt bountifully with us.
Love and light,
Martin
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