Father,
Even a brief glance
at the world around us reveals the wonder of Your creative ability. We have
assigned fancy names for what we see: cumulus clouds, deciduous trees,
marsupials, fissure vents, fold mountains, block mountains, black holes,
corneas, tracheas and all the rest - but behind all of that is You. Behind all
of our labels is the wonder of what You have done in creating all of this. You
are the God who has taken nothing and molded it into something, and that
something is glorious. You have created something filled with beauty. What
other god is able to do that?
But so much of what
You have made has been made hideous. Instead of glorious beauty we see far too
much ugliness. And that is because of sin. Sin shows its presence. It has done
its hideous work. And so, now we also have tornadoes and hurricanes, diphtheria
and malaria, Alzheimer's and cancer, broken families and war. Now, we have
death.
Father, there are
those who try to ignore the ugliness that sin has brought about. They paint it
over with bright colors. They don't see it because they don't want to see it.
And they don't want to see it because they have no answer for it all. They cannot
explain what is so evil.
But then, there are
those who are consumed by the ugliness that sin brings. They see it everywhere.
And it is all that they see. They cannot see anything else. These so easily
fall into despair.
But neither of these
is how we are to respond to what we see. After all, Jesus has come. He has come
to begin the work of restoring the beauty and removing the ugliness. And He has
begun that work in us. We are not the terrible sinners that we once were. By
His Spirit, He has been changing us and making us beautiful.
But we do need to
grieve at so much of what we see around us. Sin really is ugly. It really is
destructive. This is not the way it's supposed to be. But this does not
overwhelm us. We are to grieve, but we do that in hope. We have a promise from
You. Jesus will return. You have promised that when He does, He will completely
restore everything to its pristine beauty and wonder and glory. We wait for that
with great longing.
To grieve yet in
hope will require of us what we do not have. So, Father, please grant to us the
grace that we need. Grant us the grace to grieve and yet to do that in hope. To
do this is to live according to reality, the reality of what now is and what will
certainly be. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.