Posts tagged ‘Gunman’
Terror Strikes New Zealand
Credit: RTE News
“The wages of sin is death,” the apostle Paul writes in Romans 6:23. These words were horrifyingly instantiated this past Friday when a terrorist gunman opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50. The crime was, in every way, monstrous. Minutes before he went on his rampage, he emailed top government officials a rambling and incoherent manifesto, outlining his ardent white nationalistic beliefs. He then strapped on a helmet camera so he could livestream his attack on social media. Finally, he shot many worshipers at these mosques, which included several children, at point blank range as they cowered in corners.
If anyone ever doubted the dastardly death that sin – including philosophical sin like white nationalism – can bring, now would be the time to become a true believer in the devastations of depravity.
Near the end of the book of Genesis, we read of a man named Jacob and his twelve sons, the favorite of whom is Joseph. Joseph’s brothers, Genesis 37:4 says, “hated him” because of his status as his father’s favorite son. Their hatred eventually spawned a plot among the brothers to kill their kinsman. And they would have, were it not for a last-second intercession by one of the brothers, Judah, who decided it would be more financially advantageous if, instead of killing Joseph, they sold him into slavery (Genesis 37:26-27).
Hatred is an acid that eats up the soul. This is why the Bible’s consistent and continuous call is to love – and not just to love those who are like us. The Bible’s consistent and continuous call is to love those who are very different from us and even hate us. As Jesus puts it:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you … If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (Matthew 5:44, 46-47)
White nationalism explicitly tramples on Jesus’ command. It not only fails to love its enemies, it actually creates enemies where there need be none and becomes an enemy to those who do not fit its arbitrarily contrived ethnic and philosophical strictures. It trades the foundational and universal sanctity of life for a hackneyed and exclusionary solidarity of race.
Blessedly, love did manage to rise up and break through when hatred was spraying a hail of bullets into two mosques in Christchurch. 48-year-old Abdul Aziz was at the second of the mosques. He was there with his four children to pray. When the terrorist began firing in the parking lot of the mosque, rather than running away, Mr. Aziz ran into the lot with the only thing he could find – a credit card machine. After firing off many rounds, the terrorist returned to his vehicle to grab a second weapon, and Mr. Aziz hurled the credit card machine at him. The terrorist then fired off another series of rounds at Mr. Aziz, who managed to protect himself by ducking between cars. When the terrorist returned to his vehicle yet again to grab yet another weapon, Mr. Aziz found one of the guns he had dropped and, after realizing it was empty, threw it at the windshield of the terrorist’s car. The windshield shattered. The terrorist was spooked. He sped off. And many lives were saved.
Mr. Aziz explained, in an interview with The New York Times, “I was prepared to give my life to save another life.” That’s love. And it stopped hate dead when hate was trying to speed death.
Christianity teaches that there was another man – a perfect man, who was also God – who was prepared to give His life to save other lives. His name was Jesus. And He not only was prepared to die. He did die. And He not only saved lives by His death. He bought for us eternal life with His death.
“The wages of sin is death,” the apostle Paul writes in Romans 6:23. But he continues: “But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In Jesus’ death, love killed hate. May this be our confidence and our conviction as we mourn the tragic losses in Christchurch.
The Parkland Innocents
It happened again, this time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Near the close of the school day last Wednesday, a gunman opened fire in the high school’s freshman hall, killing 17 and wounding another 14.
The scenes that unfolded in Parkland have become achingly familiar. There were law enforcement officials swarming the campus. There were kids filing out with their hands on their heads. There were paramedics, rushing to stabilize the wounded and, awfully, to confirm the dead.
Besides the horror of the shooting itself, there is the added tragedy that the sheer volume of these kinds of events has, in some ways, deadened their effect on our collective psyche. And yet, long after the SWAT teams and paramedics leave, long after the news crews move on to the next story, and long after the national attention fades, for the students and staff of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the pain and terror of this shooting will remain. Days like these may be forgotten by those who watch them on the news, but they will not be forgotten by those who live through them in real time.
Sadly, these types of tragedies have also become occasions for hot takes filled with political rancor, with those who offer their “thoughts and prayers” being labeled as disingenuous by some while those who argue for a debate on gun control being accused as opportunistic by others. Fights erupt on social media while comfort and aid to victims often get overlooked.
As Christians, we are called to “mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15). It is incumbent upon us, then, to care about and, if opportunities arise, to care for those who are affected. While many in our culture are fighting predictably, we should be thinking critically about what events like these say about and mean for our culture so that we can offer a hopeful voice on behalf of the innocents who have had their lives unjustly extinguished.
According to the liturgical tradition of the Church, this past Wednesday was both Ash Wednesday and the Feast Day of Saint Valentine. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, when the Church focuses on Christ’s death and resurrection for us and for our salvation. Saint Valentine was a third-century bishop in Rome who was beheaded for his faith, tradition has it, on February 14, 269.
The death of Saint Valentine reminds us that, all too often, innocents can unjustly lose their lives at the hands of evil perpetrators, as did the innocents in Parkland. The season of Lent promises us, however, that even when innocents are killed, their lives are not ultimately lost. For Lent points us to a moment when an innocent – The Innocent – was unjustly killed on a cross by evil perpetrators. But in this instance, the evil perpetrators didn’t win. The Innocent did when He conquered their cross. And this Innocent promises life by faith in Him to the many innocents who have lost their lives since – be that by beating, by beheading, by blade, or by bullet.
A gunman took the lives of 17 students this past Wednesday. But Jesus has plans to bring their lives back.
A rifleman, it turns out, is no match for a resurrection.
Pastor Zach's Blog 