Daily Worship

We Found love in a hopeless place

Alec Shuttleworth October 30, 2016 0 0

John 11: 28-35

28 After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

35 Jesus wept.

The young couple were “in a relationship” of sorts. If you tracked their Facebook history, you would see it as a series of on gain off again attempts. She was 17, he was 18, both still living with a parent.

But they had a baby, just a few weeks old and quite unexpectedly the baby died.

As the Parish Minister this was the first time I met them. To discuss the funeral of their baby. 

What to say? How to communicate? Was there any way my service book language was going to get through at all. They wanted to sing “All things bright and beautiful” as a hymn. I expect it was the only one they knew.

And then they handed me a cd and asked, can we have this played as we leave the church. It was Rhianna’s song, We found love in a hopeless place but a slow acoustic version. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBmScKXT2AU

I didn’t know the song. I am so middle aged and out of touch that I hadn’t even heard of Rhianna. 

Yet here was a lyric, haunting but hopeful. “We found love in a hopeless place.”

We are always in danger of assuming we know what a song lyric is about. I really don’t know. But the Holy Spirit sang his way into our hearts.

 

Gracious God

sing

Into our brokenness

Into our pain

Into our bleak discordant despair

Sing a song

Sing the harmony of healing

The quiet ministry of a half remembered chorus

The lyrics

Bringing the word

Made flesh again for us

 

Amen