When Jesus Gets Peed On

Tonight, we listened as a man told his story; of working for the Federal government in New Orleans and then his insideious exile to the North. While this man's testimony was moving, he shared a video with us of a woman's witness to the events in the convention center after the evacuation. I listened as this woman talked of women being raped in the bathrooms, of having to sleep on the floor soaked in urine because people stopped using the non-working restrooms; and then how eventually the people on the upper level started to urinate wherever they could, and literally urine rained on this woman. I must admit that after this woman's testimony, I didn't hear another word from our speaker. And quite honestly, while this man shared how laughter helped him to "go onward," the more jokes he told, and the louder everyone's laughter became, the less I wanted to laugh. The more the anger & bitterness rose up in me.

The crucified Christ came, and took hold of my heart, and took me where I did not want my mind to go.

All week, I've written blogs along the lines of "Behold I am making all things new." Yes that is true, but I (before this trip) like many others prefer an empty cross. We, like the disciples prefer to bail out and show up (or not) to the empty tomb on Easter. We do not like Good Friday, and we do not want to be around when the temple curtain is torn in two, and when it rains urine on people who have just been forced from their homes.

Emmanuel, "God with us." I know God is with us; in our good times and in our bad times, but what does that REALLY mean? What does it really mean that when women were being raped, and child molestors were roaming freely, and people were being peed on--Jesus was/is with them?
What does it mean that when it seems like no one loves us--when we even give up on ourselves, Jesus is standing in the utter silence saying, "Here I am child, have no fear."

Indeed, our hope is found in The God who uses death to overcome death. God has risen above the storms, turmoil, confusion and utter human failures of planning, government, and manipulation.

Through Jesus Christ, God coomes to be with us, but even more than that; Jesus comes to kneel down lower than our lowest. Jesus gets beneath the muck-saturated carpets, below the foundation of gutted homes. Jesus stoops beneath the ugliness of humanity while helpless people are raped and abused.

Jesus stoops beneath the puddles of urine in the convention center.

What if we were /are to stand with Jesus as it "rains pee" down on us?
The truth is, I know I can not do it. Simply hearing the woman's account through a VHS tape left me shaken, seeking refuge.
Indeed, I can not stand with the woman while it "rains," but by the power of the Holy Spirit, one day, maybe I could stand with this woman. But untili then, I cry out "Abba! Not my will, but your will be done!" Trusting that God will hold me up to be able to kneel beneath the filth, the ugliness and the puddles of urine in this world.

Here I stand, I can do no other!
Lord, help me to kneel beneath it all."
"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross, (Philippians 2:5-8)."

By the way, today we painited for Jesus,
Adam