When the Innocent Die

I had been working on my Sunday morning sermon when my daughter called and asked if I had heard about the school shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. I had not.  School shootings strike a somber tone for our family because in 2007 my niece Austin Cloyd was killed in the shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech University. Turning on my television and learning the details of this most recent murder of young innocents and their teachers brought me a deep sadness and an overwhelming sense of numbness. No words that I could use would adequately express my disgust and horror. I had lots of questions. Why? What happened? What can we do in our society to protect ourselves from this kind of violence? I had no answers. I shook my head and said little. I feared that anything I might say at the moment had risk of being filled with meaningless platitudes.

It is being suggested that it is time we have serious discussions about gun control and mental illness in our nation. I think that is a good idea. That discussion might help us come to some sensible conclusions that would lessen the frequency and magnitude of this kind of massacre. If we could lessen the damage of events like yesterday it would be wonderful. But I think we all understand that stricter gun laws and more help for the mentally ill, while they may help, will not eliminate such violent acts. Sick, disturbed, and wicked people will find a way to hurt other people. Humanity was created in the image of God but in our depravity we have fallen far short of that mark. We live in a broken, groaning, evil world. Sometimes this leads to deranged activities of the worse kind. I wish that were not so. I wish I knew how to fix this problem, but I don’t.

But what about God; can He fix it?  If He can, then why doesn’t He? Those are good questions that have been asked through the ages. When Jesus went to Bethany after the death of Lazarus, Mary said to Him “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Later the Jews asked “Couldn’t He who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?” Could not God have stepped in and stopped the horrible killing in Newtown, Connecticut? I believe he could have, but He did not. For whatever reason when God created humanity He granted us more liberty than any government ever dreamed of granting. He made humanity free moral creatures capable of choosing to do either good or to do evil.

 

There is so much I do not know and so much I cannot change. But there is one thing I do know and that is that God cares for us. God loves this world so much that He gave his son Jesus for it. In the person of Jesus we can see how much God cares. The scriptures tell us that Jesus went with Mary to visit the grave of Lazarus and when he got there “Jesus wept”. From the depths of His soul he cried over the loss of His friend and because of the grief of the family. I believe that Jesus is weeping today with the grieving families in Newtown, Connecticut. His soul anguishes with them. He loves them and wants to help them. I wish I had more understanding, but I find great comfort in the fact that God cares. I serve a caring God. I will preach tomorrow about a caring God. I pray to a God that cares. As Peter said “Cast your cares upon Him, because He cares about you”. (I Peter 5:7).