It Would Have Been Enough

It would have been enough.

That line is cited over and over and over again in the Jewish tradition of singing "Dayenu," which is the English transliteration of the Hebrew word דַּיֵּנוּ.  The word essentially means "it would have been enough for us," or "it would have sufficed."  During the Seder meal, this song is sung traditionally after the telling of the exodus and just before the explanation of the Passover.  It includes 15 stanzas, and after each line, they speak the word "dayenu."  I first heard Beth Moore explain this content a little bit when she spoke this past January at the Passion Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, and by the time she got done speaking, I was nearly undone as the weight of what all of this meant began to take root in my heart.    

Five Stanzas of Leaving Slavery
1) If He had brought us out of Egypt.
2) If He had executed justice upon the Egyptians.
3) If He had executed justice upon their gods.
4) If He had slain their first-born.
5) If He had given to us their health and wealth.

Five Stanzas of Miracles
6) If He had split the sea for us.
7) If He had led us through on dry land.
8) If He had drowned our oppressors.
9) If He had provided for our needs in the wilderness for 40 years.
10) If He had fed us manna.

Five Stanzas of Being With God
11) If He had given us Shabbat.
12) If He had led us to Mount Sinai.
13) If He had given us the Torah.
14) If He had brought us into the Land of Israel.
15) If He built the Temple for us.

It would have been enough.  It would have been enough if God had done all of these things for us.  It would have been enough for us if He had simply stretched out his mighty hands time and again.  It would have been enough for us if he had pulled us out of the pits we find ourselves in so often. It would have been enough for us if he had kept performing miracle after miracle.  It would have been enough.  

But was it?  Was it really enough just to part the Red Sea?  Was it really enough just to provide the manna?  Was it really enough just to build the temple?  Was all of that really enough?

Because what good are the parted waters if I don't have the Living Water?  What good is the manna from the skies if I don't have the Bread of Life?  What good is the temple if He is not dwelling with me?

I love it when Beth Moore gets to rolling on this particular topic at the Passion Conference. She says, "Jesus knows it would not have been enough.  Oh no, it would not have been enough, had Jesus just been born to a virgin.  It would have been miraculous, but it would not have been enough.  Had Jesus come to speak the very words of God, it would have been the Word made flesh among us, but it would not have been enough.  Had Jesus caused the deaf to hear, the blind to see, the mute to speak, it would not have been enough.  Had he called forth demons from the tortured and oppressed and possessed, no indeed, it would not have been enough. Had he only raised the dead, it would not have been enough.  Had he been scorned, mocked, spit upon, and bruised and not bled one single drop, it would not have been enough.  And let me tell you something, nobody knew that that night [Passover night] better than Jesus, because that particular night was precisely on the calendar for the reason that it was not enough!"     

So, no, it would not have been enough.  And that's why on this day, on "Good" Friday, we look to a cross and we look to a crucified man and we acknowledge that everything from the exodus out of Egypt to the miracle of manna and everything else in between and since would not have been enough.  But God, in his infinite and unfathomable wisdom, grace and sovereignty sent his one and only Son who stretched out his arms and said, "I am enough."

A Home

I remember sitting in the hotel parking lot, staring out the windshield, knowing I would sleep in perfect peace that night, but some woman somewhere was living in utter fear of the night that was to come.  I knew I would go to sleep that night and be free of nightmares.  I knew I would go to sleep and be free of shame.  And I knew some woman somewhere would not have that luxury.

I was spending my Saturday a couple of weeks ago volunteering with an organization called S.O.A.P. - Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution - whose mission it is to distribute bars of soap to local hotels, which list a hotline number a victim can call should she find herself being trapped in human trafficking.  Theresa Flores, the founder of S.O.A.P. and a survivor of human trafficking herself, facilitated the training that morning, explaining to attendees the staggering statistics of human trafficking around the country.  (Yes, it really does happen here domestically.  This isn't some far off third-world problem.  Ohio happens to rank fifth in the nation for human trafficking, with Toledo ranking third.)

The outreach was targeting the Arnold Sports Festival, which was just this past weekend - and it's known to have high amounts of human trafficking.  Any major event where there is a large gathering of people, predominantly men, the numbers spike.  The Super Bowl.  Daytona 500.  The Memorial Tournament.  Republican National Convention.  Democratic National Convention.  Kentucky Derby.  Detroit Auto Show.

But Theresa also explained some of her own story and the stories of many other women she had encountered. And as I was sitting in that hotel parking lot, thinking over all I had learned and thinking of their stories, picturing their faces, J.R.R. Tolkien popped into my head.  Ah, the brilliance of Tolkien at just the right moment.  I thought particularly of the movie The Hobbit.  In the story, Bilbo Baggins is this quiet, unassuming hobbit who really just wants to be left alone to tend his garden, read his books and generally stay far away from adventure.  Through a series of events, he gets wrapped up in this journey with a host of dwarves and Gandalf, the wizard.  The dwarves have lost their land and vast amounts of treasures to the evil dragon, Smaug, and they are on a mission  to get it back.  The dwarves don't really trust Bilbo or really know what purpose he serves on the journey, and at one point their leader, Thorin Oakenshield, questions Bilbo and his motives, to which Bilbo responds:

"Look, I know you doubt me, I know you always have. And you're right... I often think of Bag End. I miss my books, and my armchair, and my garden. See, that's where I belong, that's home. That's why I came back... 'cause you don't have one, a home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can."

And as I sat there thinking, feeling a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation, the horror that 27 million people around the globe are caught up in human trafficking, I thought, "Who am I to do something?  My life has been relatively easy, relatively pain-free.  I don't know what it's like to be kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery.  I don't know what it's like to be blackmailed and brainwashed, thinking my family will be murdered if I ever speak out and try to fight my way out the situation I find myself in.  I don't know what it's like to have my body tortured and destroyed by those that thirst for control, power and lust."  I mean let's be frank here - I'm a young, white, privileged, well-educated, American woman, who in all honesty has had an easy road to walk.  I know that.  And that's just the lie the devil wants us to buy, the lie that because we can't relate or can't fully change the situation, then we just shouldn't bother at all, that we shouldn't get our hands dirty, that it's someone else's problem. Just be quiet...you don't have a voice in this matter.  What do you know?  He's so good at whispering the lies.  

What a load of baloney.       

Yeah, sometimes I want to be like Bilbo and just honestly and selfishly admit, "You know what?  You're right.  I don't always understand.  And I do think of home.  I like my safety and comfort and self-confidence and peace.  That's where I belong."

But I simply cannot leave it there.

Because there is also that moment when I want to say to these women caught up in trafficking, or to the children I have seen face-to-face so often in Kenya, to look them in the eye and say with a touch of fierceness in my voice, "But that's why I came back - because you don't have that. You don't have a sense of emotional safety, you don't have a sense of comfort, a sense of self-confidence, a sense of peace, a sense of dignity, a sense of home.  It was taken from you.  But I will help you take it back."

I will help you take it back.  I will help you take back your dignity.  I will help you take back your confidence.  I will help you take back everything that was ever stolen from you.  And I'm not just talking about tangible possessions here, I'm not just talking about homes and clothes and finances.  I'm talking about the very things that define us at our core, our very identities.  I'm not saying in a I-am-your-hero-here-to-save-the-day kind of way, but in a way where we enter into other people's lives with grace and humility, as their co-equal, not as their superior.  

As Christ-followers, the hallmark of our lives should be the mission to take back that which is lost or stolen.  It should be our mission to restore the years that the locust have eaten (Joel 2:25).  It should be our mission to give people back their dignity and self-worth - whether orphan, alien, widow, man, woman, child.  It should be our mission to reclaim ground that Satan has claimed for himself, for evil.  We should be rising up in righteous anger far more often than we currently are.  Things like this - injustices like human trafficking - need to rub us the wrong way far more often.  It needs to get under our skin.  It needs to compel us to action, not indifference.

The movie Machine Gun Preacher follows the life of Sam Childers, who took a very rocky road to building an orphanage in war-torn Sudan.  At one point he said, "I'm afraid that someday I'll close my eyes to all of this and make it someone else's problem."

Every day we rub shoulders with people who have had their homes stolen from them, so to speak.  It's your job to make these wrongs your problem.  It's your job to make it right.  It's your job to help them take it back.  Even if you have to slay a dragon or two to make it happen.