I made the mistake of clicking on Facebook last night as I was thinking about the possibility of repose, and saw this before I even had time to move my finger down the screen. And then of course I couldn’t sleep. Because, well, the enormity of the injustice and the magnitude of the slaughter is pretty overwhelming.
Then this morning I found this headline at the New York Times: Two Abortion Foes Behind Planned Parenthood Videos Are Indicted. And that made me want to throw up in my mouth. I love the passive voice more than almost anyone, but that wording beats me by a mile.
For those who aren’t always glued to the news, David Daleiden, the young man who exposed Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby parts, has been indicted. Here is a very good, calm, rational, deescalating explanation of where we are.
But as I lay awake in my comfortable, soft bed, uncomfortably covered in dogs, I discovered I don’t want to be deescalated. I don’t want to calm down. A jumbled number of verses from Isaiah washed over me in the darkness.
The first, obviously, is the helpless cry for God’s own judgment, his own verdict, his indictment of our peculiar evil. Isaiah, looking around over the wickedness of his people cries out to God, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil- to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!” Isaiah 64:1-2
And a couple chapters later, Isaiah describes the rebellious Israelite who sacrifices whatsoever he wills, who goes through some kind of religious motion, but who is bent on idolatry, on the worshiping of something abhorrent. “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck; he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig’s blood; he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol. These have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations;” Isaiah 66:3 His soul delights, he has a good time doing the ugliest thing. He knocks back a cool, crisp glass of Chardonnay and chatters on about his plans, but his hands are covered with the blood of what he has been killing. The killing didn’t absolve him of his sin, as an obedient temple sacrifice offered with a contrite spirit might have. No, he is offering up whatever he wants to some god that looks just like him, and he is having a good time doing it.
The heavy shuddering deafness that has covered over this culture is palpably terrifying to me. We are like a great valley of dead bones, walking around, clattering together, spilling blood, spiritually dead beyond rescue. Our god is the self, our sacrifice is the young woman and the child. We are very far gone. There is no health in us.
Idolatry is an ingenious twisting. We take the self, and project it up into the heavens. And then we look at God, and try to undermine and destroy something particular of who he is. Consider this incredible image of God–not Isaiah describing what we are like, but his description of God and what he is going to bring forth out of Zion.
“Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?” says the LORD; “shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?” says your God. “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.” For thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. – Isaiah 66:7-12
Isaiah, at this point in the text, has lifted his eyes to see a heavenly kingdom, a relief from the anxiety of sin, chaos, destruction, bloodshed. Isaiah is seeing a life giving Zion, but who is it that he is really seeing? Who is the land that is born in a day? Who is the Son that she brings forth, that God himself causes her to bring? It’s not a trick question, it’s not difficult to hear the answer, anyone one can say the name. God himself is going to give life. And this birth will be inevitable, there won’t be anything that anyone can do to stop it. Look at him. Lift up your eyes to see what kind of God he is. He is a God who produces life, who nourishes the helpless, who keeps alive, who consoles and satisfies. Jesus, letting his own blood flow, covering our sin and destroying our idolatry, is the Life Giver, the one who gives birth to the world. Though we kill, he will raise up the one we slaughtered. Though we destroy, he will bind up and heal. We can only keep crying out, like an infant in peril, for help, for the madness to stop.
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