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On
Thursday at a prayer meeting in an historically black church significant
in the civil rights movement in Charleston South Carolina, Dylann Roof,
a 21 year old white man, went to a prayer meeting, took out a gun,
and shot and killed 9 members of that church.
We
can blame racism, bad parenting, chemical imbalance in the brain, a
culture of violence exacerbated by video games, 24 hour news coverage
which turns perpetrators into celebrities or drugs, both prescribed and
off the street.
But
the most relevant thing for us to know is that sin and evil permeate
every single one of us.
The Bible tells me that it is my anger, my hate, my denigrating
and blaming whatever group of “them’s” I don’t agree with, my
participation in a culture of violence in movies and TV and video games.
It is when I think that if we could only get rid of the bad
elements out there then life would be good.
If only we could get rid of drugs, video games, Vladimir Putin,
racists, radical Islam, Obama, republicans, liberals, fox news, the main
stream media, if we could just eliminate the “them’s” that ruin
everything the life would be good.
But
Jesus tells us to look no further than ourselves and see that the seeds
of the same evil in Dylan Roof exist also in us.
God wants us to see this not about others but first about
ourselves, to really understand the depth and horror of my own sin, and
then, once we acknowledge it to God, to be astounded and overwhelmed at
God’s Grace, God’s forgiveness of me, and his offer to transform me
and then to live in broken gratitude for his undeserved love and then do
the courageous things that he calls me to,
to love my enemies,
to not participate in our culture of violence, to realize there
is no governmental or police force fix, to recognize that how I think
and behave today in my world makes me either part of the problem or part
of the solution, to cross societal boundaries and love the
“them’s” and love even the Dylann Roofs and to do it all without
complaining and blaming, and in that way shine like a star in the
universe (Philippians 2:14-16)
Wherever
and whenever I have a chance to share Christ’s forgiveness and love
with someone, I must, because as far as I can see there is no hope for
this world outside of Jesus Christ,
And the church is the hope dispenser.
And
Jesus Christ shone brightly and brilliantly in this tragedy, because 8
of the 9 families who addressed Dylann Roof in court as he appeared
before them on camera, forgave him.
Each said to his face in their own words, God forgives you and I
forgive you. Against
all desire for justice and revenge that must have been felt by them they
reenacted the central event in all of human history, the crucifixion and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
They bore their cross, forgave their enemy, and thereby not only
quelled flames of anger and revenge but they also opened the door for an
entire nation to see the different kind of power that exists in cross of
Jesus Christ, the power that leads to a new kind of life, that hints at
the new Creation that will be established when Jesus returns, “on
earth as in heaven”.
For
more:
follow on Twitter @jefflampl
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Monday, June 22, 2015
A Reflection on the Shooting in Charleston
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