Local Opinion: Let us pray, let us act

Dear Friends in Christ,

I wanted to give it some time before I wrote anything because I’m just so angry. So sad. So dejected at the news from Texas as yet another school shooting claims innocent lives.

How often have we watched this same scene play out? Again and again, we see the story. Too many guns. Too much rage. Too little compassion. It’s too much, isn’t it?

I tucked in the kids last night and it was hard to let go. It was hard to say good night. There are too many parents tonight who didn’t get to say good night. Or good morning. Or good night again. That cycle of love has been shattered by this seemingly unending cycle of violence.

I believe in Jesus Christ and the Good News because the world is too awful without it. I can’t believe this is all there is. I have to believe that as God set the stars in motion so too he set our hearts to beating.

And if he has set those hearts to beating then what must it cost him to hear them stop? What grief must it be for him to watch us, again and again, repeat this grim charade. A charade in which we talk of “enough is enough” or “never again” or “thoughts and prayers.”

The simple fact is that our culture is deeply, deeply broken. Something is off in us that we cannot fix on our own. The rates of violence are staggering. The inhumanity shown again and again is mind-numbing and heart-breaking.

If our thoughts and prayers seem useless then our politicians seem even less useful. Even as our prayers have risen they have failed, again and again, to rise to the occasion. We are the most powerful nation in human history and we can’t protect our own kids. We are the wealthiest nation ever known and we are content with this poverty of imagination, hope, and compassion.

Jesus reveals the limits of the power of empires. He shows us the utter bankruptcy of the principalities of this world by his resurrection.

Out of the despair his disciples knew in those dark hours after his death he brought them to a new vision of abundant life. They saw the risen one and they followed him to new life. It’s possible but they had to choose to see, hear, and know that his return was not just about him, it was about them too. He didn’t return for himself—he returned for them.

His return was their hope. His new life said something about God’s love for them and for the world they were called to love and serve. His resurrection was a charge to them to be shepherds, priests, prophets, and witnesses. They were called even to be martyrs for the sake of his Love for the world.

What is his resurrection to us today? It must be everything. It must call us to love not as those without hope but as those who know death cannot have the final victory. It must call us to know that politicians who would wash their hands of innocent blood may yet be called to account. It must call us to pray for peace, work for justice, and contend with the evils that destroy the lives of the innocent.

Weeping may spend the night. It must spend the night for any who are human, compassionate, and loving. But we must be ready to proclaim resurrection in the morning. We must be ready to proclaim that death will not have the last word. Evil cannot rest with its victory. For the victory has been won for us. The victory will rest with those who find the will to give voice to the hope deep within us all.

That hope did not die yesterday. That hope lives today. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. There is something deeply wrong in our culture right now. That is why Christ came and came back. He did not come because all was right with the world. He did not come to passively observe the sinsickness that besets us. He came that we might have life. That we might proclaim hope. That we might be a people of true and lasting peace.

That peace, which passes all understanding right now, may yet be our guide. It may be our polestar in these dark days. It may lead us to the Kingdom.

May God grant all the souls lost yesterday his lasting peace. May God grant all those who mourn today his abiding comfort. May God grant all those who yearn for hope the grace and power to be a people of unwavering courage in the days ahead.

The world is, perhaps, too awful today. But it needn’t be so. We’ve been given another way. Let us pray for the courage to follow the way, the truth, and the life set before us. Let us pray — and let us act.

Yours in Christ.