4 Minute Devotions: World AIDS Day - Past Mistakes

Today is World AIDS Day, a day of supporting those who suffer from HIV and a time to seek a cure. It’s also a day when the Christian Church needs to repent of our unpleasant and uncaring past.

Revelation 14:19 The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath.

In the early eighties, when we first diagnosed HIV/AIDS, a majority of evangelical church leaders preached that this was the result of God’s wrath being unleashed upon the homosexual community. Pastors gleefully berated the gay community and scornfully sentenced homosexuals to a slow, agonizing, and isolated death. Instead of recognizing the disease as an opportunity to show Christian compassion, churches delighted in demonizing, leperizing, and shunning a whole community of people who needed love, comfort, and acceptance.

The consequences of the mistakes that the church made way back then are still with us today. Because we allowed false prophets of hate to take over our pulpits, we lost all credibility. A whole generation has grown up since those hellish days, and now the church is faced with its own terminal condition, brought about by our reckless rhetoric and inhumane attacks on those who were defenseless, destitute and dying.

Perhaps we will never regain the trust of society because of our persecution of those whose lifestyles were different from ours. I guess it all depends upon whether we are willing to listen to our critics, or if we only want to hear what we say about ourselves.

Today is World AIDS Day and many people of different faiths, including Christians, are praying for the victims of this disease. If every Christian Church was to see this as a day of repentance for our past abuses, and act upon it by supporting those who suffer though AIDS around the world, then just maybe our planet would be able to see Jesus. At the moment, most people cannot see Christ because of the Christians that get in His way. For once, myself included, we need to step back and let the true Christ emerge – the Savior of the Dying, the Healer of the Nations, and the Loving Lord of all the Earth.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, forgive us for allowing our pride and prejudices, our self-righteousness and severe spirituality to hinder Your work amongst the lost and unloved, the diseased and dying. Help us to see every person as a child of God in need of hope, love, and care. Keep us from demonizing those whom we do not fully know or understand. In Your Holy Name, we pray for the complete healing of AIDS throughout the entire world. Amen.

Alleviating AIDS

For the Church to be effectively involved in AIDS ministries in our communities, Christians have to begin the journey of healing by showing contrition for past and present condemnations of those in the margins of society.

Ephesians 2:4,5 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.

Tonight, I will be preaching at a special service to commemorate World AIDS Day in our town. People from different churches across the city will gather together to share their sympathy for those victims and families of this terrible disease. There will be no judgment or criticism of lifestyle choices; instead Christians will come together to show remorse for past intolerances and seek forgiveness of those we once castigated.

Families and friends of deceased AIDS sufferers will be in attendance. Some AIDS patients will also be there, possibly giving testimonies about what they have endured. It will be a sacred time to remember that we are all human and frail, in need of support and love, looking for God’s favor and compassion. In God’s eyes, we are all the same, and by His grace, we can all be saved.

I hope and pray that after the service hearts and minds will be changed, prejudices will be diminished and self-righteousness will be vanquished. A lot of the sorrow and pain that has been experienced by the AIDS sufferers’ community has been borne out of the criticism, indignation, and condemnation of the Christian Church. No one set out to get AIDS and the God that I serve didn’t punish people with it. If anything, it was an opportunity to show compassion and embrace those on the margins of society. We failed miserably as a faith, so we have a lot of contrition, repentance, and healing to experience before we will be trusted by the diverse sector of our community.

So let’s use this time to examine our own prejudices, inhumanity, and intolerances that we all have. Let’s place them before the Lord and ask His forgiveness. Only then can we begin the hard work of healing the world.

Prayer: O Lord, we have transgressed in Your sight and created divisions in the world. Instead of showing compassion to those on the margins, we showed contempt. Instead of asking what would You do to help, we condemned others to hell. Forgive us for failing to be Christian. Help us now to heal and be healed. In Your Holy Name, we humbly pray. Amen.