Bitterly She Weeps At Night – Vancouver Burns after Game 7 Stanley Cup Riot

How deserted lies the city,
once so full of people!
How like a widow is she,
who once was great among the nations!
She who was queen among the provinces
has now become a slave.

Bitterly she weeps at night,
tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers
there is no one to comfort her.
All her friends have betrayed her;
they have become her enemies.

Lamentation.  An appropriate response by most of us who live in Vancouver after watching the city burn last night.  Once the “Queen among the provinces” as the Book of Lamentation says, British Columbia today sports a black eye.  Last night, Laura and I parked the car in Stanley Park and took the kids (sporting their Canucks shirts) along the seawall and into the downtown.  The walk into downtown was a page out of the Garden of Eden.  Soaring, majestic, snow-covered North Shore Mountains, float planes gliding along the ocean like stones being skipped on a pond, and lush gardens surrounding elegant high-rise condos.  Turning up to Georgia Street the crowds were enormous.  We stood for a while and watched the game on the big screens, doing our best to cheer on the shell-shocked Canucks.  By the end of the second period it was clear the game was not going to end well for the Canucks and already there was a tension that suggested it would not turn out well for the city either.  We made our way out of the downtown and home to West Van in time for the last five minutes of the third period.  It was not long after that the city was burning with overturned cars and smashed storefront windows.   Sitting at home I was burning with disgust.  The City of Vancouver now is best described in the words of Lamentations,   “Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are on her cheeks.”

The questions of “how” and “why” are already being floated in the media but as Christians we don’t need to turn any further than Scripture for the answers.  We live in a broken world where Sin – brokenness, alienation still has power over people.  When you look at the crowds smashing windows, punching peacemakers, and wild with rage, this is raw, naked sin at work.  In polite, middle class, mainline church circles in North America we avoid the language of sin too often, and we ignore it at our own peril.  As disciples of the risen Christ we acknowledge that God’s power is stronger than sin, death and violence.  We are called to bless and mend God’s broken and beloved world – not to smash it in rage and stupidity.  As kind citizens went about cleaning up the city this morning we caught a glimpse of the reconciliation the gospel promises.  Once “great among the nations” Vancouver now sits in need of repentance…tears on her cheeks.

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