He is good (1) to refugees

A few days ago in Trinity Jersey husband and wife were watching a film one evening. She began to cry. They couldn’t continue to watch it.

The film was “Sarah’s Key” with Kristin Scott Thomas. It features, in 1942, 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski who hides her younger brother from French police by locking him in a secret closet and telling him to stay there until she returns. She takes the key with her when she and her parents (all Jews) are transported to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, where they are held in inhuman conditions by the Paris Police and French Secret Service. The deportees are transferred to the French-run Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp. The adults are deported to Auschwitz, leaving Sarah alone in the camp. Too bad. Too bad to watch.

A few days earlier both Jersey folk had read Caroline Moorhead’s “Village of Secrets” - a non-fiction record of a wartime French village which helped 3,000 French Jews to safety. The book’s greatest hurt upon the Jews arose from officials – government people - in the Vichy France regime during WW2. It was officialdom who created the crying. Other people did the harm..

 

Today’s plight of the many, many Syrian (and other) refugees is not new. It’s merely a repeat. Merely? The fact of historic repetition doesn’t reduce the new pain. Take a look at the extract (in bold above) from a poem written at least 2,500 years ago. It’s from the national archives of Israel – of the Jews. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. 

Not only did the Jews experience this in WW2 but also around 1350 BC and at many more recent times in their history. Today it’s folk from other countries in the Middle East. Tomorrow it’s us. It will be other people who do the harm.

The ancient writer of this Psalm reports: Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. To the LORD? Not to the other people?

What then happened? He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Such is God’s provision for those who call upon him in their distress.

But it doesn’t always work out, does it? Often, maybe. Not always.

The Psalmist leaves that aside. This is not for those who wish to treat the LORD as a lucky charm, as a talisman, as a puppet. This is for people in great distress, wandering in desert wastelands..... With nowhere to turn. 

Those who do cry he does deliver. Even if they die, he does deliver those who call upon him. And take them to glory.

Why? Why – even when they die – in this world? Here’s the Psalmist’s reason for thankfulness. For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

It’s not only the fact that, when one has turned to him in great distress, he shows clearly his steadfast loved, his unchanging, covenant love. It’s the fact that this steadfast love towards all who call actually satisfies every longing – every longing. 

 

It’s also the fact that this steadfast love towards all who call actually fills – yes, fills to the brim – fills the caller with good things.

As sceptics we point to a possibility of non-fulfilment of these promises of the LORD to those who call. Because we don’t see He who is truly good.