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But to the wicked person, God says: \u201cWhat right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips? You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you. When you see a thief, you join with him; you throw in your lot with adulterers. You use your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit. You sit and testify against your brother and slander your own mother\u2019s son. When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. But I now arraign you and set my accusations before you. (Psalm 50:16-21)

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I mentioned on Wednesday in another devotion on Psalm 50 that this psalm always arrests me.\xa0 This section of the text is the reason why.\xa0 God says: \u201cWhen you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you.\u201d\xa0 Turns out though, God isn\u2019t exactly like us humans, he\u2019s God.

God does not often enact judgement in the here and now.\xa0 Much more often than God\u2019s judgement in fact, we are confronted with God\u2019s silence.\xa0 And actually, that can be a much harder thing to deal with.

God\u2019s silence makes us wonder if some painful events in our lives are his judgment or just the rough and tumble realities of a broken world where evil lurks.

God\u2019s silence makes us wonder if he\u2019s really there at all.\xa0 Confronted with this silent absence of God, some of us begin to collude with other Christians in sliding the scale of what\u2019s acceptable in our drinking or language or sexual activities, assuming that it\u2019s just white lies and harmless fun.\xa0 There doesn\u2019t seem to be any consequences, and whose it hurting anyway?\xa0 We\u2019re still good people, we try, and God knows it, and so he\u2019s probably fine with it.\xa0 As iron dulls iron, we begin to collectively lower God to our level, assuming from his silence that he is exactly like us.\xa0

But perhaps more deeply, God\u2019s silence makes us wonder if he really cares or is invested in our lives after all.\xa0 I think some of us begin to bend the rules for those reasons too.\xa0 Maybe if we make enough noise, break enough rules, inflict enough harm we\u2019ll finally get his attention.\xa0 If we\u2019re bad enough, maybe he\u2019ll turn his face toward us and finally say something.

More broadly, God\u2019s silence makes us wonder if he really cares about this world at all.\xa0 Because, as Pastor Michael alluded to yesterday, it sure does seem sometimes like evil has the upper hand.\xa0 We\u2019ve seen adultery that rips a family apart.\xa0 We\u2019ve seen lies and deceit undermine a reputation or the truth itself.\xa0 We see cruel and untamed language do real harm to people\u2019s lives and well-being online.\xa0 Far from seeing justice done, it seems only to get worse.\xa0 \xa0\xa0\xa0

God\u2019s silence leaves us with a lot of doubt about who he is and where he is. \xa0Is He really a good Father?\xa0 Is he really a God of justice?\xa0 Maybe he\u2019s just like us after all and is content to live with the status quo as if sins like deceit, adultery, violence, and more just aren\u2019t all that serious.\xa0 Maybe all these high-flying promises about a world remade and set right in just judgement are nothing more than a fairy tale story.\xa0

This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent\u2014the season which kicks off a new Christian year in anticipation of Christ\u2019s first coming as a little baby in Bethlehem.\xa0 The Sunday before it is known as Christ the King Sunday.\xa0 It prepares us for our other Advent anticipation: our anticipation of the second coming of Christ as King to Judge and to Rule.\xa0

As a Christian community we take up these acts of remembering and anticipating so that we do not give up and lose hope that the God in whom we trust will indeed be good to his word.\xa0 He sent his son as he promised.\xa0 And that son, ascended as King and seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, will come from there to judge the living and the dead.\xa0

You may not expect this, but I hope through this devotion that you see it: It is this promise of God\u2019s sure judgement in Christ that reminds us and confirms to us God\u2019s love.\xa0 It is a confirmation that God is indeed paying attention\u2014that he sees what is done and will set it right.\xa0 It is a sign that he is invested enough in our lives to intervene and sanctify us to the best of his intentions for us.\xa0 We expect that kind of thing from a parent, especially a heavenly one.\xa0 And in Advent, we anticipate together the day when he will see it done.\xa0

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