Mar. 31: A Defiant Song

Following the movie theatre massacre that occurred in Aurora, Colorado, on July 20, 2012, Denver-based preacher Nadia Bolz Weber considered canceling her weekly Friday night “Beer and Hymns” gathering.  In the end, she held it anyway.

Weber wrote on her blog, “We sang our prayer to God, and in our singing I heard a defiant tone.  The sound of a people who simply will not believe that violence wins, a people who know that the sound of the risen Christ speaking each of our names drowns out all other voices…In baptism we are a people marked by the cross of Christ…but this violence and death has been overcome by the love of a God who, in the three days between Good Friday and Easter, reached into the very bowels of hell and said, ‘Even here I will not be without you.’”

“This is the God to whom we sing.  A God who didn’t say we would never be afraid, but that we would never be alone… To sing praise to God amidst violence is to simply put evil in its place.  It’s to draw a line and say, ‘Here and no further.’  For the devil surely hates the sound of Alleluia.”

Sing to the Lord for He has triumphed.  (Exodus 15:21)

Help me see You when my heart is breaking, Jesus.