Charleston 2015

I am really left aghast in the wake of the June 17, 2015 mass shooting of the nine worshipers in the Emmanuel African Episcopal Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina. It is heinousness of such an unspeakable act of evil which leaves me speechless.

The names of those lives taken can never be forgotten:

Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd

Susie Jackson

Ethel Lee Lance

Dr. Depayne Middleton

Clementa Pinckney

Tywanza Sanders

Daniel Simmons

Sharonda Coleman-Singleton

Myra Thompson

Who could imagine the 21 year old lad, Dylan Storm Roof, could commit such a devilish atrocity, for what, but to start a race war. Just what would make one child of Adam and Eve’s soul so corrupt that he would destroy the lives of other children of Adam and Eve, with the intent that other descendants of Adam and Eve would be spurred on to kill off one another? Such an evil is unspeakable. Can anyone every answer the “why” question?

The Apostle John, without giving a simple “why” answer, informs us that “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8, ESV).

The world and the Devil work overtime to do the evil they do because that is what they do. They will even employ every form of temptation to lure saints to follow after their fleshy desires to join in their revelry. No Christian should ever be surprised at this. The real challenge is when saints fail to do what the Holy Spirit empowers them to do, which is to fulfill Jesus Christ’s commandment to love one another. It is when Christians forget their prime directive to love one another that things get complicated. The Devil never has a problem with sinning in Jesus Name. It is the Christian who must present in word and deed the genuine article.

The end of all evil and suffering is the cross. It is at that place sinful and fallen people can be redeemed, and a better world can emerge. Horatio Spafford found comfort within the personal tragedy of losing his daughters in having the eternal perspective. He understood that at the second appearance of Jesus Christ when all wrongs will be set to right. In his hymn It is Well, Spafford declares, “And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, | The clouds be rolled back as a scroll, | The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend, | ‘Even so,’ it is well with my soul.”

Having an eternal perspective is more than just waiting for something to happen in the distant future. Perish the thought! It is the certainty of Christ ultimate triumph over evil that the Christian lives in present, as if the future arrived ahead of schedule. Paul writes,

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (Col. 3:1-4, ESV).

Christians have been raised to a new life; they are then to live as imitators of Jesus Christ in the present world.

The world has indeed perpetuated hatred between one people group and another. If it is not Whites against Blacks, it just might be Japanese against a half-dozen other people groups. But, this is what one should expect from the world. The tragedy is that everyone is a son or daughter or Adam and Eve, and to set boundaries and battles against one another over race, gender (yes, there is such a thing), or class is ultimately killing off one’s own kin. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 Jn. 4:7-8, ESV).

Dylan has lost sight of his own dignity because he has been severed from a relationship with his Maker, and the significance of being created in the image of God, and the redemption of the divine image in Christ. It is because he has lost sight of his own dignity he failed to see the dignity of his own brothers and sisters who are also sons and daughters of Adam and Eve created in the image of God. Let us never forget our Maker in these dark days, lest we wander too far east of Eden that we lose our own sensibilities about our own dignity and the value of every human.

Peace

~ WGN