Day 46: Refuge

Refuge (noun): a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble.

My heart is troubled today as I write about refuge. 

We are on the eve of Easter, awaiting the resurrection of our Savior.  Before the glorious day however, we sit in the darkness that began yesterday on Good Friday and will perpetuate until our Lord is risen… and we wait.

We seek refuge during this darkness.  When times are difficult, when life is rough, when hope is lost we seek refuge.  We seek an asylum where our fears are calmed and our worries released.  Even if this refuge cannot keep the pain completely away, we find rest in our refuge.  In refuge we find others who share in our burdens, we find reassurance of our safety, and we find arms holding us as we cry.

But what do we do when our refuge is broken?  What do we do when our universities, schools, community centers, churches, temples, mosques, and homes are no longer safe places?  Where do we go when our refuge, our sanctuary, is marred by violence, injustice, and hate?

Friends, I do not know.  I do not know where we run when our safe places are no longer safe.  When our refuge is stripped from our hands.  I can imagine a world where this is not true, but that imaginary peaceful world is not the world I live in today.

So we lament to God:

Psalm 74

1 O God, why do you cast us off forever?

Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

2 Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago,

which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.

Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.

3 Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;

the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.

4 Your foes have roared within your holy place;

they set up their emblems there.

5 At the upper entrance they hacked

the wooden trellis with axes.

6 And then, with hatchets and hammers,

they smashed all its carved work.

7 They set your sanctuary on fire;

they desecrated the dwelling place of your name,

bringing it to the ground.

8 They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;

they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

9 We do not see our emblems;

there is no longer any prophet,

and there is no one among us who knows how long.

10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?

Is the enemy to revile your name forever?

11 Why do you hold back your hand;

why do you keep your hand in your bosom?

12 Yet God my King is from of old,

working salvation in the earth.

13 You divided the sea by your might;

you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.

14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan;

you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.

15 You cut openings for springs and torrents;

you dried up ever-flowing streams.

16 Yours is the day, yours also the night;

you established the luminaries and the sun.

17 You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;

you made summer and winter.

18 Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,

and an impious people reviles your name.

19 Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild animals;

do not forget the life of your poor forever.

20 Have regard for your covenant,

for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence.

21 Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame;

let the poor and needy praise your name.

22 Rise up, O God, plead your cause;

remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.

23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes,

the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.