Help for a Blighted World

Some pieces of literature have never left me since my first reading long years ago.  I remember Tess and her brother Abraham taking the beehives to market in Thomas Hardy's story, "Tess of the D'Urbevilles." The young boy started star gazing and as they talked Tess talked about the stars looking like apples, "Most of them splendid and sound--a few blighted."  Young Abraham asked, "Which do we live on--a splendid one, or a blighted one?  Tess's answer has always stuck with me.  "A blighted one," she said.  

Most people would agree with the words Thomas Hardy put into the mouth of Tess.  There are many things which point to the blighted nature of our world.  There is starvation fueled by crop failures, politics, and greed.  Wars are being fought not against combatants, but against innocent people running for safe places which do not exist.  The creation itself seems to be so stressed by exploitation that its resiliency can no longer be assumed.  Most of all, we have forgotten how to live with one another and to care for one another.   On and on goes this list which speaks of the blight upon our world.   

Where is our hope?  From whence cometh our help?  The question has been with us a long time. The Psalmist of long ago wrote, "I lift up my eyes to the hills--from where will my help come?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."  (Psalm 121:1-2)  While some will say such a word points to being naive and simplistic, it is the only one which makes any sense.  Politicians and the wars they impose on the earth cannot fix the blighted nature of our world.  Neither can the church so zealous for self preservation. Jesus came to cure the blight that has infected this Creation of ours which in the beginning was described as being very good.  (Genesis 1:31).  Jesus came to plant within broken systems and broken hearts a seed He spoke of as the Kingdom of God.  It is a Kingdom of a new order, one that exists in heaven and that we pray will spill over unto the earth.  Only this Kingdom has the power to heal brokenness and restore wholeness.