Rousing Her Radiance: Day 29
Author: Andrew Comiskey
November 08, 2023
Contending
for Compassion
‘Ain’t
there one **** song that can make me break down and cry?’– David Bowie
Only
Jesus’ love song over His estranged child makes me cry. Now, eloquent lamentation
over lost human lovers fails to move me. Not much anyway. And I was weaned on seminal
best bards like Dylan and Joni.
X
marks the spot for all His children: our ache for an altar where we can
surrender all. Though idol gods beckon like Vegas glittering on sand, only Jesus
sings. His melody matches His lyric, the Word of love, which reaches the least
lovely, most-in-need depths of heart. Only the Divine love song invites us down
to our end, to tears.
We attach
to people and drugs and overwork. Listen. Only His love song woos us off the plateau
and into the valley. Water music seeks and finds the lowest place.
Jesus
woos us with song like He did Hosea, who lamented his adulterous wife in the
desert but received another proposal: ‘you shall no longer call Me Master, but Husband’
(Hosea 2:16-17). Jesus sang over the Samaritan woman whose many husbands revealed
a longing for the Spring that never fails (John 4).
Isn’t
His offer of ‘living water’ music that reaches our ache? Compassionate Jesus engages
us at profound human levels; His song uncovers the lovers who robbed us and the
heart that still yearns for Him. I met with a friend recently who turned away
from Jesus due to the idolatry of adultery. Her tears said what words could
not: ‘I miss Him.’
Divine
compassion breaks the spell of our compromises and complacent dull religion. It
is up to us, members of Christ, to convey this compassion to God’s estranged kids.
Let’s start with our own children. Might we believe afresh that the River of
Life released at Calvary and now flowing from Heaven to earth remains music of
the spheres for our beloved ones? Their fight and flight––creating thin mental
and emotional defenses against Him—can’t stop the music. They’ve just imposed a
temporary hearing loss.
As I
worship the Lord in simple songs, I sing them as prayers over those who don’t
hear so good anymore. And I ask Him for the privilege of answering my own
prayer by loving them back and daring to use the name of the ONE who loves them
much better than I can.
May
we as the Church courageously address a range of adulterers with the wooing
compassion of Jesus. May His song of love reduce them to tears and a new
beginning.
‘You
never stopped singing over us, Jesus. Thank You. We would have danced into
oblivion had we not been given the grace to hear, to receive You as You are,
radiant in compassion, faithful when we falter. In that gap You reveal Your love
as all we need, the only altar worthy of our worship. In gratitude, unite us as
one Church in wooing back the fallen with songs of love.’
‘Father,
we thank You for Jesus who established the Church on a Rock against which hell
will not prevail (Matt 16:18). We pray for every Christian leader to build on
Her firm foundation of sexual clarity and integrity. Father, unmask the
deceiver and divider of Christians and unite us in one Spirit. As weak members
of Christ, we ask for truth to guide our pursuit of sexual wholeness, for grace
to sustain it, and for spiritual power to transform us. May we reflect the
chaste radiance of Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18) as we “shine like stars in the universe,
holding out the word of life” (Phil. 2:15-16) to a lost and hurting world.’
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