under the overpass.
“Love is patient and kind.”
-1 Corinthians 13:4
We were leaving the city one afternoon, stuck on the interstate on-ramp and slowly crawling forward. There was a woman holding a sign and asking for help on the side of the road, so I handed my five year old son a baggie of snacks and supplies to pass over to her through his window. She smiled at him, graciously accepted the gift, and simply said, “Blessings to you”. There was a whole cluster of people just beyond her that had set up camp under the bridge overpass seeking shelter for the night. It was already pretty chilly, and the sun hadn’t even gone down yet.
We drove ahead towards home, and casually he said to me, “Well those people were all sinning a whole lot and that’s why they live under that bridge now.” I had to pause for a second to take in the gravity of what his little boy brain had just put together, and was immediately so saddened because some people actually believe this to be true. Let me also pause and say that we have never spoken this way to our children. We talk about Jesus, our kind and compassionate Savior, who loves bravely no matter how messy a person may be. We talk about how we are called to forgive each other in big ways even when it’s hard because God has forgiven us in the biggest way, and He wants us to be like him. And we share with them about how even in the midst of a sinful world full of sinful people he is making all things new, and how God will eventually restore every broken thing and make it whole again, even us. This is the beauty and the kindness of the gospel of grace.
I’ve heard it said that we all have a little bit of prosperity gospel that lives in us, even if we know it’s not true. And what I mean by that is we will always harbor a small belief that God gives good things to good people, and bad things to bad people. That thought will quietly whisper to us in our moments of doubt that when things are bad, we must have gone astray somewhere, that maybe we can somehow get things back on track and he’ll love us again and make all of the mess go away. Or if we look upon another’s suffering, we might even find ourselves projecting that same belief on them and adding weight to their already heavy burden. We see this exact situation in Scripture when the disciples are hanging out with Jesus making their rounds. The encounter as it’s written in John 9:1-4 says:
“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.’”
Jesus then proceeded to make mud with his spit, rub it all over this man’s blind eyes, and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. And you know what? He did it. And for the first time in his entire life, he could actually see the world around him. I’m sure he endured years of hardship, suffering, and even shame because of his blindness. It was all he ever knew. But in this moment and for the rest of his life people would remember and talk about what Jesus did that day with that handful of mud. God himself stooped down and cared, and he did for this man what he could never do for himself. He healed him, gave him a new life and a fresh start, and let him know that even while he was unable to see he was still seen and loved by God. His suffering mattered, and was given to him for a purpose - that the works of God might be displayed in him.
I gently explained to my boy that no, in fact those people did not live under the bridge because they were sinning so much. We also sin so much, and by the grace of God we just happen to live in a house. God gives good and bad things to all people, and as believers we have to trust that whatever he has handed us, it is for our good and for his glory, no matter how terrible it may feel. We might not be able to zoom out far enough to see the thread that connects the suffering to the goodness, but we have to trust that it’s there because He himself is only good. God is at work here still bravely loving messy people, forgiving over and over again, and making things new, even under this interstate overpass - but it’s usually happening in the most surprising and unexpected ways that catch us off guard. Isn’t that just like him?
The King of the World who was scandalously born to a young virgin surrounded by hay and animals in a stable, the only place that there was room for him. He had carpenter hands and built with wood, ate with offbeat friends, flipped a table to fight for what was holy and protect the have-not’s, and lavishly loved some incredibly messy and controversial people. He died a shameful death and carried all of our unholiness to the cross and dealt with it completely on our behalf so we too could know the Father he treasured above all else. And he didn’t die like we do because of the curse, he rose again and conquered even that. Talk about a plot twist.
He can’t be held down, he can’t be outdone, and he can’t stop fighting for his beloved. Our God is full of surprises and if we haven’t figured it out by now, he doesn’t do things the way we do things. When you are living in Kingdom come and Jesus has his way, the world as we know it flips upside down. Or maybe it was upside down all along and he’s finally making it right side up.
