14 December 2012
I was still a Salvation Army officer. It was the middle of the Christmas season, one of the busiest and most stressful times for me as an officer. Christmas meant less and less to me as we begged for money to keep our corps (community center and church) open through the donations of the public.
I was sitting down for lunch at a local restaurant with my then wife and another colleague from work when the notifications on my phone started going off.
Another school shooting. Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Twenty children slaughtered.
Six school personnel murdered.
The perpetrator's mother killed.
I was in shock. Terrible shock. School shootings had become routine in the United States, almost to the point of numbness. But this? This was beyond horror.
The children who were murdered were the ages of my oldest two sons: 6 and 5 years old. When they got off the school bus, I hugged them tight. I didn't want to let them go.
I was not prepared for the reaction from my work colleagues in ministry. On social media I was publicly lamenting how little our society cared for its children, but cared more about firearms and guns. Some clergy in my denomination wrote me privately and told me that they had the total opposite view and that due to the shootings, they were joining the NRA. That made absolutely no sense to me. With all the violence with firearms that were going around, why would anyone wish to join a group whose sole purpose was to make certain that people had access to those firearms? It's like throwing gasoline onto a flame. That concept was ridiculous.
Fast Forward 9 Years
Just recently, on the 30th of November, a 15 year old boy allegedly killed 4 of his fellow classmates and injured others through a school shooting in Michigan.
My oldest son is 15.
What have we as a society learned?
Nothing.
We still show the same lack of concern for the lives of others. Our democratic society has made an evil decision: the right to "bear arms" outweighs the lives of our children.
Democracy can be a beautiful thing, but it can also be a very evil thing, too. Democracy only works when those who vote and participate in the government are just. It seems that in our case, those who vote are motivated more by fear and selfishness than by justice and love. The majority has ruled and their ruling is an abomination.
Why do the wicked prevail?
This is the question that perplexes the writer of Isaiah (Second or Third). He writes in Isaiah 63:15:64-3 (CEB):
Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and glorious perch. Where are your energy and your might, your concern and your pity? Don't hold back! You are surely our father, even though Abraham doesn't know us, and Israel doesn't recognize us. You, LORD, are our father; your reputation since long ago is that of our redeemer. Why do you lead us astray, LORD, from your ways? Why do you harden our heart so we don't fear you? Return for the sake of your servants the tribes that are your heritage! Why did the wicked bring down your holy place? Why did our enemies trample your sanctuary? For too long we have been like those you don't rule, like those not known by your name.
If only you would tear open the heavens and come down! Mountains would quake before you like fire igniting brushwood or making water boil. If you would make your name known to your enemies, the nations would treble in your presence. When you accomplished wonders beyond all our expectations; when you came down, mountains quaked before you.
The writer had a simple question: God, where are you? Why aren't you coming down and making everything right? The wicked are prevailing. We are forgetting your ways.
"If only you would tear open the heavens and come down!" What a powerful imagery! The writer is pleading with God to make a grand entrance and right all that has been done wrong.
This verse is the basis of an old German Advent Hymn: "O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf."
Our Lutheran friends have translated this hymn into English:
Where are you, God?
This is the question that we so often ask. It is a good question to ask, even when there are no satisfactory answers. I used to think that asking why was the wrong question. I don't think that anymore.
Will I get a satisfactory answer? Maybe, but more often than not, the answer is no. I look at the suffering in this world. I see children being butchered in schools. I see people being treated inhumanely because of their skin color, their accent, their political beliefs, their sexual orientation. I see people willing to believe in lies and conspiracy theories rather than the truth. I see humanity poisoning and polluting this world, believing falsely that it's not as bad as the scientists say it is.
I am frustrated with it all. I yell at God, asking God why.
And God is silent. God does not answer. God does not rend the heavens wide.
Is it my fault?
Some things I have no control over. The evil that happens in this world is sometimes so overwhelming. What do we do in such situations? Do I blame God? No. God is not responsible for our inhumanity. We are.
So what do we do? God did show us the way. God did in essence "tear open the heavens and came down." We celebrate that in Advent. We celebrate God becoming human in the person of Jesus, the Christ. The life and mission of Jesus is worthy to emulate. A life of serving the needy, the lost, the ones that society has rejected. A life that celebrates humanity and creation and doesn't seek to destroy it through weapons, greed, or selfishness.
One of my favorite quotes comes from The Lord of the Rings. In it, one of the main characters, Frodo, wishes that the evil circumstances he was in had never happened. His mentor, the wizard Gandalf, replied: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
That is my wish and hope. I may not be able to rend the heavens wide and wave a magic wand, making peace on this Earth, but I can make peace with what God has given me in the time I have on this Earth.
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