Witnesses

Thanks for joining us for today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading titled Witnesses was written by Tim Gustafson. In his poem, The Witnesses, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described a sunken slave ship. As he wrote of skeletons in chains, Longfellow mourned slavery's countless, nameless victims. The concluding stanza reads, These are the woes of slaves. They glare from the abyss.

They cry from the unknown graves. We are the witnesses. But who do these witnesses speak to? Isn't such silent testimony futile?

There is a witness who sees it all. When Cain murdered Abel in Genesis chapter 4, he pretended nothing had happened. Am I my brother's keeper?

He said dismissively to God. But God said, Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. Cain's name lives on as a warning. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother, John the disciple cautioned in 1 John 3.12. Abel's name lives on too, but in a dramatically different way. By faith, Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did, said the writer of Hebrews. By faith, Abel still speaks. So do the bones of those long-forgotten slaves. We do well to remember all such victims and to oppose oppression wherever we see it. God sees it all.

His justice will triumph. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Genesis chapter 4 verses 2 through 11. Later, she gave birth to his brother, Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.

And Abel also brought an offering, fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering, he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast. Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry?

Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door.

It desires to have you, but you must rule over it. Now Cain said to his brother Abel, Let's go out to the field. While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother Abel?

I do not know, he replied. Am I my brother's keeper? The Lord said, What have you done? Listen, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. Let's pray. Father, you're the God who sees it all. Help us to see oppression when it happens and give us courage to oppose it in your name. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.