Tears and Fears

 

Today is the new "Black Friday." Adam Lanza made sure of that today when he murdered 27 people, many of whom were children in a Connecticut elementary school before turning the gun on himself this morning. When things like this happen, we all pause and ask, "Why?" We turn our faces away from our laptops and TV's and iPads just long enough to look up towards heaven and wait for God to answer. We shed a few tears, hug our children tighter and then maybe quizzically ask in a rhetorical fashion, "How?" How is something like this tragedy even possible?

 

 In our effort to find answers we turn outward and look for an external source, causes to the problem. There we find the weapons. Now we have our answer. The guns killed those children and adults. We need tougher laws. Now I'm not arguing that something needs to be changed in this country in regards to gun control. Setting that issue aside for a moment, however, I want to press deeper, because I think the questions "Why?" and "How?" deserve more than just a superficial answer.

 

 The problem with Adam Lanza is our problem, too. His mental and emotional capacity aside, Adam suffers from a far worse condition – his corrupted and sinful nature. Satan found in him the spirit of Judas, a desire to betray all that is good and holy, and exploited it. Why did Adam Lanza snap? How is it possible for him to have conceived of such a violent and hideous plan to snuff out so many lives – Adam was sick, and so are we. Sick with a violent nature towards God. Our hearts are dark and selfish, and in need of some light.

 

God sent light into the world. So when we ask God, “Why and how in regards to this tragedy, God points us to the answer he has already provided in his Son Jesus. John wrote of Jesus in John 1:4-5 (NKJV), “⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Why did we not understand his coming? Because we loved our sin. It's hard to admit, but we all LOVE our darkness more than we love the light of Jesus. It's easier to keep the light out than let our hideous deeds be exposed against the brilliant purity and radiance of the living God! John wrote later in 3:19-20, “¹⁹ And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”

 

At the end of the day we all turn away from God and run and hide like Adam and Eve trying to “fix” or “cover” our problems hoping God won’t notice. Our pride keeps us from surrendering fully to him. We don’t want to be faced with the depravity of our own souls apart from God’s intervention. But if we are to be cleansed fully, we must recklessly and unashamedly pour out in confession and admit that the condition of our soul is dark and nothing but darkness apart from God. We need to not just confess individual sins, but come to the realization that as Isaiah said in 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

 

Our pride and self-reliance keep us imprisoned by the fetters of our sinful nature. Not many talk about the sin nature anymore. We all want to deal with the outward symptoms, but no one wants to go through spiritual chemo and radiation to eradicate the source of the cancer in our soul. However, only Jesus can heal us! This is the real story of Christmas; the real reason for the Incarnation - why it was necessary for God to become man and die to be risen again. He died not just to forgive us of the individual times we sin; He died to make us new. Completely new! To restore the Imago Dei – the image of God pressed into humanity from the beginning before the Fall. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Jesus didn’t come to make us better. NO! Jesus is not our way to a better life. He is the way to NEW life!

 

 When we refuse to admit how dark we really are on the inside, we are only fooling ourselves. We need to stop telling people, “You’re OK, God loves you anyway.” Yes, He loves us the way we are, but He loves us far more than to leave us in that sorry condition. Every day I am reminded that everything inside me, every inclination of my heart wars against God. My flesh pulls me towards destruction, and desires to partner with Satan in wreaking havoc on humanity. However, we must all take seriously the reality of why such an act such as the one that happened in Connecticut today is possible. The image of God in all of us has been corrupted by sin, so as a result our free will has been marred.

 

To complicate matters, there is one who lives to incite a riot of epic proportions in the souls of humanity. He lives to bring death to everyone and everything. Peter reminds us and warns us in 1 Peter 5:8, “⁸ Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” All Satan needs is a willing vessel to cooperate with him and carry out his plan of destruction. Today he found one in Adam Lanza. All the more reason we must as Proverbs 4:23 (NLT) tells us, “ Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Without the Holy Spirit living in our hearts, our lives are like houses with unlocked doors, ready to fall prey to the whims and desires of the devil.

May the horror of what happened today turn us to God and push us to our knees in repentance. Let the events of “Black Friday” make tomorrow a truly “Sober Saturday.”