Bad days… they happen to everyone. You step outside, hear the door latch, then "Golly, darn it!" you remember that you left the keys on the ledge, just inside! And the day’s just started. You’re late to work, spilled your coffee, no one understands or supports any of your ideas/decisions, you trip over your own feet, a piece of paper with critical information is missing…

Finally, it comes out…(you can’t help yourself—everyone gets to this point…) even if we know it’s irrational and selfish, we say it anyway because it is exactly how we feel. We cry out: "WHY ME? God, why are you doing this to me?"

Awhile ago, I was on a church softball league. It was slow pitch softball, mind you, with the nice, easy high arched pitches. We were playing Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church. I was up to bat; here came the first pitch…(swish!). To get a strike in slow pitch softball is kind of like tripping a little on a level sidewalk. It happens.

Here’s the second pitch. It was a little off, but why not? …(swish!). To get a second strike in slow pitch softball is like tripping on a level sidewalk and falling on your face.

Third pitch …perfect. Sweet. Had to swing… To strike out in slow pitch softball is like tripping and falling flat on a level sidewalk, all because your pants have fallen down around your ankles! That’s what it’s like to strike out in slow pitch softball.

"Why me, God; why are you doing this to me (especially in front of all these people)?"

It takes an hour or so, a joke or two, a smile or a laugh, then these things have better perspective. We know. We know that God doesn’t go around hiding car keys, moving softballs or tripping us on level sidewalks. As my wife has assured me from time to time: it’s a good bet that God has bigger things on his mind.

I am sure that God is more concerned with starving mouths and war-torn fabrics, girls who feel they’ve no alternative, people who decide divorce is the only remaining choice. I’m sure that God is much more concerned when a family loses a child, or a teenager who had hopes, or when people are cruelly treated, places vandalized, the widow un-cared for, the alien left un-homed, and the hungry un-fed. These are the places and times where that question is more appropriate, "Why God? Why do you allow this?"

"Don’t you care that your people are dying? What purpose can this serve?" And the question can move from "God, why?" to "God, where are you?" in a breath and heartbeat.

But all of these questions are about separation from God. One is the apparent absence of God; the other is the absence of his love and compassion.

When dreams are dashed, when a life winks out, or when many lives end, leaving a gaping emptiness, we understand loneliness. In spite of crowds, and a God who has promised that he will always be there, we still understand loneliness. We know what it is to fear that God is not, or maybe worse than that, cares not.

Even if it is true that God is there every step of the way, even if he carries us through the most difficult times in our lives, leaving his footprints in the sand behind, that is not how we experience it… until we look back with hindsight.

This is like the whole experience of God’s people throughout scripture and time. Read those psalms and laments that cry out and ask God where he is, or why he’s doing this. These are not impious prayers and cries, they knew God was present and everywhere, they understood his grace, forgiveness and love, but still they needed to ask.

In spite of the greater reality, scripture describes what we feel. Sometimes it is just like God’s ferocious anger; sometimes it feels just like being abandoned, orphaned. Until, we stop, cry out loud, and then reach, finally, for the whole truth. The greater presence. The larger passion of God.

If we were to say that God’s anger burns strong against our sin, against death; that God battles sin and death, and even our loneliness and separation with a ferocity and a wildness; then we would be right.

I once heard a confirmation student say that God doesn’t really seem to care if we sin. Because he just forgives us anyway.

I would say that God cares a great deal about our sin and separation, about disease and death. He cares. You can’t look at the Child in Bethlehem or the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ and then try to say that God seems not to care if we sin or whether we die. He fights sin, fought death, and he fights death …to the death! Even his own. Even his own.

So, we turn to our gospel lesson: John the Baptist was sitting alone and unsure, now, of this Jesus and all his hopes. If this was the Man, the Messiah, why was he there in prison, still waiting? "Are you the one?" John asked. "Is this it, Jesus? Here I sit, alone, in prison. Where is this New Kingdom? Where is the revolution? Are you the one, or shall we wait for someone …stronger?"

"No," Jesus answered back, "Go and tell John what you see and hear: the blind receiving sight, the lame walking, lepers cleansed, the deaf hearing, and the dead will rise again."

All of these words and signs pointed to the ferocity of God. They point to the intentions and intensity of God, a prideful lioness over her cubs…who’d face down any devouring enemy. These signs around the words and works of Jesus showed how nothing could get in the way of God loving his people.

Last week, Pastor Steve spoke to us about the fear of God, the sense of awe and "Wow!" that can come over us when we are in his presence. This week, I want to add to that. I hope that each of you can take home a sense of God’s incredible passion, …a wildness in God that only God can keep under control.

There is a ferocity in God. He is fiercely opposed to death, against disease and war, sin and anything that comes between us. He is fiercely, passionately in love with his people. He loves with a wildness that—if we could understand even a portion of it—would knock us on our rears. When it comes to us, the lives of his cubs, God refuses to let anything or anyone else have the last word. He is the Omega, the true King of beasts, and of all creation!

Now, imagine taking all of that incredible passion and love, and cramming it into the heart of the Child of Bethlehem, into the heart of Jesus Christ, the healer, and the man on the cross. Don’t be deceived by the quietness of this man. In him was and is a love that roars out like a lion, insistent and persistent, like a lioness calling for her lost cubs. His arms stretched out to lepers and lame, to the sinful and dead. At the last, these arms stretched across wood, with a final victory roar.

His roar is like the ferocious roar that rolls across the Serengeti. This is the call of a God in love with his people: "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with a vengeance, …And He will come to save you!"