Learning while teaching in a Haitian church

Stunned. Humbled. Broken. Restored.
80 Haitians of all ages in a room that couldn't have been any more than 20 by 30 feet. One moment weeping, the next moment praying. One moment whispering (some shouting) "Hallelujah," the next moment wailing. I came, quite unsure how God could possibly use me as some kind of an instrument to minister to them. I left feeling much more "ministered to" -- by them and by God.
For those who have asked, what follows are the words I brought in English. By God's grace, the words Pastor Adam found to turn them into French and/or Creole seemed to penetrate hearts:


I was humbled and overwhelmed when Pastor Adam invited me to share with you this morning.
I thought and prayed for a long time before I had any peace about what I could possibly say to you.
I asked many friends for advice.
As I explained our church’s friendship with Pastor Adam and many of you, many of my friends said it made the things they were reading and seeing from Haiti impact them even more deeply.
Many, from all around the world, asked me to make sure to tell you that they care deeply about your country and your people and they are praying for you and will do whatever they can to try to help.
All of them said they cannot imagine what it is like for you to see, read and hear news from your home.
I agree with them completely. As much as I have grieved this week, I cannot imagine what is going on inside many of you.
That is one of the main reasons it was so hard to find any words to bring to you.
Finally, I turned to the Psalms in the Bible.
One of my favorite lines in the Bible was written by the Great King David while he was hiding, terrified, in a cave. He wrote, “I pour out my complaints before God, and tell him all my troubles.” (Psalm 142:2)
I pray that you would find the freedom to do that very same thing!

The Psalms often help me see that there is nothing better to do with my hardest questions than take them to God, even if I cry or yell them at Him!
I counted almost 100 times where the writers of the Psalms wrote about crying
or asked God how long pain would last
and asked God, “Why?!”
I remember the first time I really found freedom to do that.
We had received the news that a very special friend back in Canada had died of cancer at age 32.
That left her husband alone with a 6-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter.
I know two deaths can seem very small compared to what you are hearing from your home.
But for me, it was the first time I can remember honestly and angrily asking God, “Why?!”
By His grace, He began to answer that question for me.
A big part of the answer came in an unexpected place; the first book of the Bible; Genesis.
Chapter 3 has the story of the first man (Adam) and the first woman (Eve) and the first rule that was broken by human beings; the first sin.
Immediately, they tried hiding from God – which is impossible to do!
God went straight to Adam and asked: "Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" (Genesis 3:11)
After trying to hide from God, Adam tried to hide the truth from God;
He blamed Eve for what happened.
Adam went even further and blamed God for making Eve in the first place.
Then God said, “Cursed is the ground because of you…it will produce thorns and thistles for you…” (Gen 3:17-18)
The first four words in that statement have helped me as much as anything whenever I asked God, “Why?”
Cursed is the ground.
Cursed.
I don’t know what the word that is used in French or Creole there means to people today.
Back then it meant: desolate, stripped or completely changed from its original state or condition.
“Cursed is the ground.”
God was not casting a curse upon the earth…at least not in the way “curses” are often understood today.
He made a statement that said the ground had been changed from its original condition...and it was written in a way that said it would remain that way!
God said: Cursed is the ground because of you…
It meant: because of the sin that you committed.
The first sin on earth was committed by Adam and sin has continued to reproduce ever since.

Cursed is the ground. That literally meant “the whole earth.”
The whole earth was proclaimed cursed.
It remains that way today…the earth (Creation) is completely changed from its original state or condition.

God said, “Cursed is the ground…it will produce thorns and thistles!
“Thorns and thistles” were a word picture to explain that things will continue to come along to show that the earth has been changed from its original condition.
Today, “thorns and thistles” keep growing up.
When God came to earth in the form of a human being named Jesus, He said, “Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines.
These are the beginning of birth pains.” (Mark 13:7-8)

So we can add the word picture of “birth pains” on earth to the “thorns and thistles.”
Sometimes, in real life, that shows itself as the quiet, virtually unnoticed death of a young mother;
sometimes it shows itself as an earthquake that billions of people hear about around the world.
If you follow any of the “thorns and thistles” down to their roots, you will eventually find sin.
Even the cancer that took the life of our friend.
Please don’t hear me saying that it was because she had a sin problem.
The cancer came because the ground is cursed.
That has led to chemicals on our food,
and stuff you can see and even taste floating in our air,
and electronic devices that radiate things that even the top scientists and doctors in the world don’t understand,
and a dangerously fast pace of life that tries to keep up with terribly unbiblical standards.
Those are the sort of things that cause cancer.
Earthquakes are caused by cracks in the earth that weren’t there when God first formed it in His hands.
If you trace any of the thorns and thistles down to their roots, you will eventually find sin…and the ultimate end result always leads to death.
I realize there are many differences between us.
One thing we have in common is that we are between Eden and Heaven.
This world and everybody in it is dying.
No matter what the most brilliant men and women of the world are able to do and find in science and medicine, at best they are only able to postpone the inevitable.
Even if we remove anything “religious” from one statement in the Bible, there is no way to get around the truth of what it says: “Everyone has to die…” (Heb 9:27, Message)
Sometimes that happens when a disease begins to eat away at a healthy body;
sometimes it happens when the earth shakes and convulses;
sometimes death comes from what we call “natural causes” or “old age.”
One way or another, death does come.
Along the way, God has designed us to love…so sadness, grief and suffering walk close beside sickness and death.

But that is not the end of the story.
We’re shown that in the last book of the Bible.
It is something God showed a man named John…as he awaited his death in exile on an island.
God allowed John to see what will happen when this earth reaches the end of its time.
John was shown pictures of what Heaven is like and then tried to put it into words:
I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.
I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband.
I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women!
They’re his people, he’s their God.
He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.”
The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new.” (Rev 21:1-5, Message)

Around the same time, John wrote to and about the people who will be in Heaven and how they will get there.
1 John 2
12 I am writing to you who are God’s children because your sins have been forgiven through Jesus.
13 I am writing to you who are mature in the faith because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning.
I am writing to you who are young in the faith because you have won your battle with the evil one.
14 I have written to you who are God’s children because you know the Father.
I have written to you who are mature in the faith because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning.
I have written to you who are young in the faith because you are strong.
God’s word lives in your hearts, and you have won your battle with the evil one…
28 And now, dear children, remain in fellowship with Christ so that when he returns, you will be full of courage and not shrink back from him in shame…
1 John 3
1 See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!

I read something in a book by a man named John Eldredge that made me really angry at first.
I couldn’t believe that someone who claimed to be a Christian could write such a thing.
The more I thought about it, I began to realize he is right.
He explained that when you consider all the realities of all the birth pains, thorns and thistles on earth, for those who believe what John wrote about Jesus and God, the most merciful gift God has ever given, is death.
I told you that statement really bothered me at first: the most merciful gift God has ever given to the believer in Jesus Christ is death.
I think that is what another follower of Jesus meant almost two thousand years ago.
A man named Peter was writing to other people who believed in Jesus…but were going through some very difficult times.
Peter wrote: For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable…(1 Peter 1:23)


Perishable seed. That’s this physical body of mine. As long as I continue my journey on earth (on the “cursed ground”) I will scrape up against all kinds of thorns and thistles and will experience (or at least see the kinds of “birth pains” Jesus spoke of).
Peter said human bodies are born “perishable” – but by God’s grace, there is a way to exchange this body for one that will be even more amazing than what Adam and Eve had in Eden!

Paul wrote to followers of Jesus in Rome almost 2,000 years ago:
All creation anticipates the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay.
For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering.
We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us. (Romans 8:21-23)

Did you see five words in the middle of that? Released from pain and suffering.
That is both good news and bad news. The good news is, a day is coming when we will be released from pain and suffering.
The bad news is, it speaks of something in the future.

So where does it leave us here, today, face-to-face with such a horrific reminder that we are between Eden and Heaven?
I believe it leaves people doing one of two things:
reaching out to the only source of true hope
or trying to find that hope somewhere else.
Whether we realize it or not, we all put our hope in something;
a president or some other political leader,
a relief or aid agency,
a country,
a wooden or cloth doll or the demon that it represents,
even a Pastor.
Pastor Adam asked me to bring some words of hope this morning.
I can bring words but I don’t have any control over what you do with them.
All I can tell you this morning is, I am convinced my hope needs to be in the only One who can live out the promise, "Surely, I will be with you always." (Mt 28:20)
Jesus of Nazareth said that.
He was able to make – and keep that promise because His physical death released the Holy Spirit in a totally new way.
A way to carry us as we walk along this “cursed ground.”
That is what Jesus meant when He said:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you.
He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.
The world at large cannot receive him, because it isn't looking for him and doesn't recognize him.
But you do, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
No, I will not abandon you…(John 14:16-18)
Jesus speaks those words as One who has experienced the deepest pains of human life.
As I thought about many of the scenes that I saw from Haiti this week, one of the most powerful things Jesus ever said came to mind.
Actually, I should say it was something JESUS moaned, through blood, sweat and tears…as He wrestled with God and the growing awareness of His own coming physical death.
He said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Mk. 14:34).
Jesus knows. And He is here. He always will be.
He promises to stay with us on this cursed ground
and to welcome us into Heaven when time here is done!