As I sit in an airport watching on television the unfolding horrific story of the shooting at the school in Connecticut, I overheard an airport worker say to someone else: all those children, all those families–and now, at Christmas time.
Immediately what came to my mind was one of the most troubling Scripture verses associated with Bethlehem. That awful, horrible, unspeakable crime of a megalomanic named Herod who had all the boy babies in Bethlehem murdered just so that he could eliminate the one whom people were calling a newborn king.
How can a man do that? How can a man try to assassinate the Messiah?
In the face of Herod’s atrocity, Matthew quotes the prophet Jeremiah about another time of devestation related to children: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” (Matthew 2:18). Does your heart ache when you read that?
As a pastor I have officiated at the funerals of children, and it always brings out that deep deep grieving in us that says: this is so wrong. So wrong. We must take the sin and corruption of our world seriously. We need salvation, without delay.
We must weep and mourn with the families and the community in Connecticut affected by this. And at some time we need to talk about how these things happen.
(A sobering fact: of the 12 worst shootings in U.S. history, 6 of them have happened in the last five years.)
Mel Lawrenz is Minister at Large for Elmbrook Church and leads The Brook Network https://thebrooknetwork.org
Forgive me for this, but… I was having a hard time listening to the President get choked up over these kids not having a future and his concern over all that they will never experience. Has he ever thought about this same fact for the children he endorsed losing their future via partial-birth abortions? Is that loss of a viable life somehow less tragic?
The loss of futures is just as real. The loss of potential is just as real. The loss of life is just as real. The difference is, that instead of a gun, the abortion doctors crush the skull of a living and viable baby as it exists the womb and it’s brains are sucked out. How in the mind of any rational human is this not as tragic and inhumane?
I really can’t buy the sobbing over the loss of life from someone who endorses the senses, baseless, and needless loss of life in young innocent children.
Yes, this shooting is horrific. A tragedy of unimaginable proportions. But it is not the only tragedy that happened today, it is only the one we are allowing ourselves to think about.
By demeaning life through acts such as partial birth abortions, we set the stage for devaluing the lives of others. Our president is a leader in advocating such acts.
If we are to discuss how this type of tragedy happens, we must consider the fact that we have been dismissing children as disposable for almost 40 years now. I do not see how we can expect children growing up with this backdrop to have a different view than what they see in the world around them.
Add to this the general move away from God and all things related to Him, and we are doomed to see this kind of tragedy in growing frequency and growing proportions.