Coming to Grips with Newtown Deadly Shooting

Coming to Grips with Newtown Deadly Shooting. December 14, 2012 is a day very few would forget. The senseless violent murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, 26 victims, 20 of them children, how do we come to grips with that?

We must certainly never forget the names all those in Newtown we lost—Charlotte Bacon; Daniel Barden; Rachel Davino; Olivia Engel; Josephine Gay; Dylan Hockley; Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung; Madeleine F. Hsu; Catherine V. Hubbard; Chase Kowalski; Nancy Lanza; Jesse Lewis; Ana Marquez-Greene; James Mattioli; Grace McDonnell; Anne Marie Murphy; Emilie Parker; Jack Pinto; Noah Pozner; Caroline Previdi; Jessica Rekos; Avielle Richman; Lauren Rousseau; Mary Sherlach; Victoria Soto; Benjamin Wheeler; Allison N. Wyatt. May our memories of them never fade!

When I got news of the initial reports of the incident, I was speechless. One might invent words to describe great injustices and tragedies, like “genocide,” but they never really come close to the intenseness of the experience. I do not think I could ever find the words to describe the ominous nature of the massacre. I am certain that some were glued to MSM sources for something—perhaps a timely word spoken—that would in some way provide the clue that could answer all the questions. But, I can bet questions still remain.

The current shooting in Newtown is really one of numerous deadly shootings in 2012 that happen in America. April 2 a gunman killed seven and wounded three at a Christian college in Oakland. July 20 a gunman killed 12 and wounded 58 in Aurora, Colorado at a movie theater premiering Dark Knight Rises. August 5 a gunman kills 6 at a Sunday service at Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. August 24 a shooting ends with 2 killed 8 wounded outside the Empire State Building in New York City. September 27 a disgruntled ex-employee kills 5 at a business in Minneapolis. And October 21 a gunman kills 3 at a spa in Milwaukee. The word “culture of violence” is befitting. (There may very well be equally or even more heinous acts of violence elsewhere, but these are, at least for me, closest to home.)

Perhaps some might try to exploit the names of the victims to lobby lawmakers to make a bill that could be turned into a law. Will that solve the problem?

Still there are more questions…

How do we make sense of all the carnage?

Is the tragedy in Newtown an illusion? Is the suffering the result of a person’s desire? Does simply extinguishing desire really help us make sense of a deadly shooting?

Is this all a working out of each person’s karmic debt, something they had done in a past life that they must work out in this life?

How about leaving the “God-thing” aside? Is the shooter really just acting on predetermined biological impulses set in motion a combination of genetics and social factors that had developed over millions of years of blind evolutionary processes?

Matthew 2 speaks of a massacre of male children in Bethlehem. The maniacal King Herod upon hearing the news of the Messiah’s birth sought to smother out the newborn King of Kings. The biblical writer captures the intensity of the moment in appealing typologically to great sadness brought about on account of the Babylonian exile. Foreseeing the exile of apostate Israel and Judah, Jeremiah prophesied “A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children (Jer. 31:15). As many wept going into exile, the words of the Old Testament prophecy came to full realization in the death innocent children at the hands of Herod.

God is with us in the Child named Immanuel, the very Child who lived in the midst of a deadly slaughter of innocent children. The very Child who fled from His homeland to escape death, and even upon returning to the country of His birth, He still lived in obscurity in a relatively unknown town called Nazareth. God dwelt among us, and He understands the struggles of the human condition. He does not answer the “why” question, but He does so much better. The Child came with a mission to give His own life upon the cross to save sinful people from their sin. Christ moreover will return again someday, the dead will be raised, the righteous will be resurrected to eternal life, the unrighteous to eternal condemnation, and the very cosmos will be restore—the Paradise that was lost will be restored.

How do we make the world a safer place for children? Hammering the swords and spears into pruning hooks and plow shears ultimately coincides with the people coming to the House of the Lord to be taught by the Lord (Isa. 2:2-4). There is suffering in the world. Violence is being sown, and violence is being reaped. But things do not happen to be that way. Change can happen. The Child that was born provides a way for that change to take place. What Child is this?

— WGN