Rousing Her Radiance: Day 29

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.’