Genesis 6:11-13 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them."
Matthew 2:17-18 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."
Speaking to a person once who had lost a child, she described her initial grief not as a time where she felt alone, not as a time where she was searching for answers, but as a time where she couldn't breathe. She found it difficult to summon the faculties of mind and body to be able to draw breath. I'm not sure exactly why, but that woman's gasping is what comes to mind after the tragedy and the evil of the Newtown shootings. I have thought about those parents every day and I am saddened for them to the point of almost feeling sick for the magnitude of their grief and loss. We have to do something as a society.
The first thing we have to do is love one another. Love is the the only power stronger than death, and stronger than this culture of death we have created. Yes, that we have created. We need the healing of God from the strident, broken social relationships and discourse in our society. We have to learn again to disagree with respect and appreciation for human beings. We have become divided, we have made enemies of the other person and the other viewpoint, and at least for we who call ourselves Christian, we must love. This is supposed to be what we're good at.
Then we must ask everyone in a position of influence to turn their swords into plowshares and remove the walls of hostility. We need unifying leadership from our president to our elected officials to our business and religious leaders. Enough of the fear driven divisiveness. One of the most significant marks of the quality of leadership is the unity of the followers. If unity is gone, decimated as it currently is in our culture, we need to address a leadership crisis.
Next we must address violence in our culture at all levels and have every discussion about its sources. This is the place for civility to seek healing, not the same tired blame and anger. It's time to open every closet and every category as a society, and do some deep and probably painful soul searching. This is our illness, it's not just the other person's illness. This must include addressing violence in movies and television produced by Hollywood, it must address video games, it must address gun control, it must address domestic violence and it must address pornography. All matters should be on the table for a society as sick as ours. If one of those children in Newtown had been yours, you'd want discussions at every level - no stone unturned. Our society is sick in our core and we desperately need healing. Healing will start with love as our motive, and it will seek to uncover truth about our illnesses.
You and I both know emotions run high on many of these topics. I appreciate and understand that. Fear peddlers will scream that this category or that category cannot be touched, "It's not our fault!" Right now I'm not suggesting who's fault it is. Right now the blood is more poignant than the blame. I'm suggesting that every topic needs to be on the table and as a nation we would do well to confess that we are very sick. If your life is crumbling, your preferences become secondary to your survival. People are dying at the hands of the violence in our hearts, on our screens, and in our every day actions. Lovingly we need to seek reasonable changes.
Personally, I hate this violence. Particularly gratuitous violence pumped into the eyes and thus the hearts and souls of all of us. I hate it in movies and television and video games and in virtually every corner of our culture. I hate it in gun use, I hate it in the strident, divisive, fear based leadership that is all too prevalent. In the Bible's "start over" story of Genesis 6, God saw violence as the most conspicuous manifestation of evil. That gets my attention. I'm not asking God to do another "start over" like that one. I'm asking Him to change our hearts, to change our culture, to convert us from violence to peace, from divisiveness to unity, from anger to civility. I'm asking Him to heal us because our culture of death is killing us.
"Come to us God, this Christmas time. Come to us Prince of Peace. Come to us and heal our diseases. For we are sick and we need your help."
