A Scandalous Grace

So here’s a bit of good news for the Penn State victimizers: God never said you’ll go to hell for being a child molester - or even an administration or coaching staff that knew, and “should’ve done more.” But more on that in a minute. 

When Penn State coaching legend Joe Paterno addressed reporters early after the abuse went public, his impulse was to say one thing, at least, of especially great value: “Pray for the victims.” Indeed. Pray for them, for the sting of this victimization will not fade with the camera lights, but will linger. But have you and I asked ourselves what to pray for, specifically? Do we have any sense what the victims will really need in the days and years to come?

Childhood victims of sexual abuse grow up to tell us many things. Here, in the form of a prayer, are some things that they especially struggle to believe:

1.) God, (if You are even there) - it’s so hard to trust now sometimes – you, or anyone. I trusted once and got hurt. Do you love me? Where were you? I felt (and sometimes still feel) so abandoned…  

2.) God, are you good? How can it be? Is the song I learned in Sunday School, “Jesus loves me, this I know…” just a farce?

3.) Does real love even exist? Or is it a lie, and do people just want to use you up and throw you away?

4.) What is my body good for? Is it just certain parts of me that are worth anything? (I hate those parts - they invited pain). I will never let myself be touched again…by anyone.

5.) God, sometimes I also feel such guilt that my body “responded” to the stimulation. And afterwards, I felt so ashamed, I couldn’t speak. How could I possibly tell anyone what happened?

6.) So now you know what I do…I squash my pain again and again with over-eating, or alcohol abuse, or whatever else helps me to “check out” of life and stay numb to the pain. I’ve even thrown myself into elicit sex, and allowed myself to be used again - it’s all I must be good for, right? But I feel nothing, I am a hollow shell…

Our Prayer 

1.) Oh Father, your heart breaks for those who have been victimized by selfish lust. Our hearts break too. 

2.) We must believe You weren’t absent, or caught off-guard, but caught every tear that fell.     Help them to believe this too. Even now You store each tear in your bottle, for they are precious to you (Psalm 56:8) – yet we still sometimes struggle to know why You didn’t intervene to stop it… 

3.) Oh Jesus, you reveal to us the Father’s heart. And we remember that Your name is Immanuel (God with us), who came down to the mess -  to walk in our shoes, to feel our pain, to endure our rejection, and then to die our death. You know abandonment (for we have often abandoned You), you know firsthand the pain of rejection. You even know the shame of being stripped naked before wicked men: “And they stripped Him…” (Matthew 27:28)

And yet because your Father didn’t intervene to stop it, great good came to the world. So too, bring good to the world through this suffering, as you did with Joseph (Gen. 50:20), and ultimately, Jesus.

4.) Merciful God, please begin to show the broken-hearted (for words are not enough) that their bodies are a gift, incredibly good, and were never meant to be treated as an object for someone’s selfish pleasure…

5.) ... and that their body responded as it was designed – for this is how You made it. Surround them too with loving people who will begin to transform the abuser’s touch through the healing touch of real love – the love of Jesus, revealed through them. 

6.) Father, help them to trust your love, which is greater than our darkness; help us all to see it with our own eyes, growing in the world. We pray that our churches will be a safe place of refuge - help us not to be ignorant or silent. Keep us near the cross, where we see that love most. 

7.) Help each of these children to grieve the loss, and to run to You… In the name of Jesus, who has retained His scars even while He waits until the day when He will wipe every tear from our eyes, and put all things to right…

8.) Finally, God, we trust that you will bring about justice for the oppressed – a better justice than we ourselves can muster. We dare, by your grace, to pray for the victimizers also – may their end not be this: 

"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." (Matthew 18:6)

(And thank-you that you care so much for the victimized to include this verse in Your Word). May the victimizer too find mercy at the foot of the cross - and rise, forgiven, to make real restitution to their victims.

Now, to return to the beginning…

Grace is indeed scandalous to our senses, but oh so humbling. Why must it be so? Because we have all – each one - done the unimaginable: our sin has killed the precious and perfect Son of God. Which means that anything else must pale in comparison…and that is why no child molester will ever be separated from God on the basis of his crimes alone, but for this only: if He (or she) rejects the one rescue that God Himself has provided – Jesus and His cross. Any rejection of that great sacrifice is an attempt to establish one’s own “self salvation project”(see Rom. 10:3) – be it through sex, career, money, personal reform - or even religion. 

As the words of the old hymn put it:

“His blood has made the foulest clean,

His blood availed for me.” (O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing, Charles Wesley)

So it seems that even at Penn State, the field is quite level before the cross. The beauty of a scandalous grace is this: even tainted football fields and locker rooms can be transformed by the touch of Amazing grace.

So now, let us pray…