My first response to hearing of the horrific shooting in El Paso was, where was the good guy with the gun who could have stopped this? This is the world bequeathed to us by a secular culture that has rejected God, that you can’t go shopping on a Saturday morning in America without worrying that you might be mowed down by an evil man (it is always men, isn’t it?) with a gun. Then I thought of the families devastated by the loss of their loved ones whose lives will be haunted by this event as long as they live. Imagine it happening to those you love and care about. It is infuriating. Then learning it was a 21 year-old, I thought what kind of parents could raise a child capable of such evil. Blaming parents does not make me popular with those who are convinced raising children in 21st century America is a crap shoot. So be it. But I won’t tarry on these things because life in a fallen world to put it bluntly, sucks! Or it can, as such events demonstrate.
What I will do is go to the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, the one we read about in the text of our gospels. This Jesus, not the one of popular imagination, had harsh words to say to those who look to this life as ultimate, and deny there is anything beyond it. Two texts came to mind as I brooded over the horror of yet another shooting. The full verse of the post title reads:
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Yes, there is something more important, according to Jesus, than this body and this life; what happens to these forever. Our secular culture says, no, Jesus has it wrong. There is nothing more important than this body and this life; there is no forever. Many non-Christians would probably be surprised that Christians didn’t make up the concept of hell; Jesus speaks about it more than any other figure in Scripture. More of them should take its possibility more seriously.
The second text that came to mind as I was brooding is found in Luke 13:
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
This sure isn’t the lovey dovey, non-judgmental Jesus of popular imagination. No, the actual Jesus of the text of the gospels can often be harsh, and is much more concerned with telling people the truth than hurting their feelings. The point is that if we are still alive when tragedy happens, the proper response is to consider our relationship as sinners to a holy God, and repent. According to Strong’s the word in Greek means:
3340 metanoéō (from 3326 /metá, “changed after being with” and 3539 /noiéō, “think”) – properly, “think differently after,” “after a change of mind“; to repent (literally, “think differently afterwards”).
The Hebrew (or the Aramaic Jesus spoke) also expresses the idea of to turn or return. What Jesus calls us to is nothing less than a turning away from self as the center of our existence, and rightly centering the definition of our existence on God himself in Christ—Big difference! Tragedies like these mass shootings give us the opportunity to reconsider that on which we are basing our lives. What if an evil man’s gun is pointed at us some day as we’re out shopping? Will we trust God in our death? Or is that it, into the ground we go to rot forever, hope extinguished? What we need to do now, while we’re still above ground and still have the chance, is to ask like those who heard Peter’s first sermon in Acts 2, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Take heed:
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
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