June 5, 2021 -- Matthew 28:31-32 & Luke 12:4-6 -- When tears run out

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Matthew 25:31-32 ESV

“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.

Luke 12:4-6 ESV

It has taken me more than a few days to write about the gruesome discovery of 215 bodies of children, found in an unmarked grave. The buried children were connected to what used to be the Kamloops Residential School. How many more graves are there across our land? How many more stories have not been told? It is almost too overwhelming. May God give grace and strength to those who continue to document the stories so that these children will not be forgotten and our land will repent.

This story has galvanized so many people and raised so many questions. How can justice ever be done? The answer is found in Christ alone. He was punished for the sins of the world. Those who believe on Him have had their sins punished fully, infinitely, to the measure of the evil weighed out against them all this has been poured on Jesus. He then rose to new life by the glory of the Father. Grace wins. It comes at a tremendous cost.

When Jesus returns, and all His holy angels with Him, there will be a judgment upon all the the living and all those who had died. At this great resurrection, punishment will be brought against all evil doers. Christ has the authority not only to judge the wicked, but to cast those who were perpetrators of evil into the torment and agony of hell. Therefore Jesus is to be feared. Therefore, people are to examine their hearts and minds, their words and their actions and bow before Him. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the day of reconciliation. Now is the day of truth telling.

Note as well the tenderness of our God. In our lives and our busy times we do not pay attention to the little sparrows all around us. We cannot tell if there is one missing. But the LORD knows the full number of His precious little sparrows. The pointed teaching is that He knows and cares for the people, the teens, the aged, and the infants—for all people, for Psalm 8 teaches us mankind is the crown of His creation. While our grief is yet fresh, know this, those graves which are unmarked to us, are known to the tender heart of our Father in heaven as is every single person not yet accounted for. He knows them all.

Today’s prayer is taken from the book of Lamentations. It is the grief saturated cries of Jeremiah before the LORD when the city of Jerusalem was sacked, her inhabitants slaughtered and carried to exile.

My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns;

my bile is poured out to the ground

because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,

because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city.

Their hearts cried out to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion,

let tears stream down like a torrent day and night!

Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!

Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!

My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.

But this I call to mind, and therefore have hope.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.

“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him”

The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

Lamentations 2:11, 18, 3:19-25

https://youtu.be/UUEy8nZvpdM