Tuesday, Dec 1: Plea for Justice for Jerusalem

Psalm 79

From The Message Translation

1-4 God! Barbarians have broken into your

home, violated your holy temple,
left Jerusalem a pile of rubble!

They’ve served up the corpses of your

Servants as carrion food for birds of prey,

Threw the bones of your holy people
    out to the wild animals to gnaw on.
They dumped out their blood like buckets of

    water.
All around Jerusalem, their bodies  were left      to rot, unburied.
We’re nothing but a joke to our neighbors,

   graffiti scrawled on the city walls.

5-7 How long do we have to put up

     with this, God?

Do you have it in for us for good?
Will your smoldering rage never cool down?

If you’re going to be angry, be angry

    with the pagans who care nothing

     about you, or your rival kingdoms who       

     ignore  you.

They’re the ones who ruined Jacob,

who wrecked and looted the place where he

    lived.

8-10 Don’t blame us for the sins of our parents.

Hurry up and help us; we’re at the end of our

    rope.

You’re famous for helping; God, give us a

break. Your reputation is on the line.

Pull us out of this mess, forgive us our

sins - do what you’re famous for doing!

Don’t let the heathen get by with their sneers:

“Where’s your God? Is he out to lunch?”

Go public and show the godless world
    that they can’t kill your servants and get by

    with it.

11-13 Give groaning prisoners a hearing;

pardon those on death row from their doom—  you can do it!

Give our jeering neighbors what they’ve

got coming to them; let their God-taunts boomerang and knock them flat.

Then we, your people, the ones you love

and care for, will thank you over and over and over.

We’ll tell everyone we meet how wonderful you are, how praiseworthy you are!

Written by Jeff Groene

Jeff is the Pastor of Samuel UCC and a huge fan of the Green Bay Packers.

There can be a lot of pressure during this time of the year to put on a happy face, even if we may not feel especially happy. For some, Thanksgiving, Advent, and the Christmas season are reminders of loss or hurt. Our grief of the death of a loved one can be reopened as we remember past holidays. The reality of lives not resembling the greeting cards we exchange confront us. The imperfect world we live in is still imperfect as we sing another verse of “Joy to the World.” Well, if you ever needed permission to grieve, to be angry, to lament about what is going on in our lives – just pick up your Bible and turn to Psalm 79.

The Psalmist remembers the capture of Israel by the Babylonians in 587 BCE, the destruction of the Temple, and the deportation of many of the people from their land. In sometimes gruesome and graphic ways, the Psalmist cries out to God saying, Look at this mess! “How long do we have to put up with this God?” (Vs 5, The Message Translation)
 

The Psalmist is sad, angry, frustrated, and doesn’t feel the need to hold any of it back from God. “Hurry up and help us; we’re at the end of our rope. You’re famous for helping; God, give us a break.” (Vs. 8-9)

It’s okay to be frustrated, to be angry, to be sad. We all need someone we can share our honest feelings with. And, if you choose to share them with God, this scripture reminds us that God can handle it. We can be honest with God about how we feel because we believe that God cares. Even as the Psalmist laments, there is a foundation of trust – trust that God is with us, knows our pain, and has compassion for us. “We your people, the ones you love and care for, thank you over and over and over and over.” (Vs. 12)

Feel how you feel this holiday season - and know that God is with you.