Maranatha

I normally try to keep my eyes focused on the humorous, upside of things; it’s one of the ways I keep my sanity. Besides, there are plenty of other places to which you can go that do a great job of chronicling and dissecting the bad and the ugly.

But the events of the past week are weighing heavy on all of us this morning, and yesterday’s news of the massacre which took place at the one-room Amish school house in Pennsylvania only adds to the crushing burden. There are simply no words. We can only hang our heads and weep at the insanity and horror of it all. Indeed, at our deep and utter falleness.

Secular progressives and utopians, hear this: there is no fix and no hope. There is only one solution–complete and utter renewal; a clean slate, a turning upside down and inside out, a casting off of the old and a putting on of the new.

May it begin with the gentle Amish reaching out to the murderer’s widow in forgiveness and hope. May it continue with each of us today as we have opportunity to choose peace over retaliation. May it end with the return of a Redeemer who will set matters straight and make all things new.

Maranatha. I say again, Maranatha.

4 Comments

  1. Laurie

    I know a woman whose 20-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver. That drunk driver was the girl’s boyfriend, who had also abused her. The mother visited him in prison. She is my hero.

    I have never talked to her about the specifics of her decision to make these visits, but I would guess that it did not come lightly. I would guess that it was made when she realized that the pain and anger and bitterness were eating her from the inside out. Sometimes (frequently) forgiveness is a decision you make only when you’ve exhausted all other options to stop the pain.

    This does not make her choice any less heroic.

    We as a society like to discard the tough, non-human-nature stuff in the Bible, like forgiveness, or that whole camel-needle thing. God, if you only knew my circumstances, you’d see that it doesn’t apply to me (although it really ought to apply to THOSE people over there.) We fail to see that that tough stuff is the only place for us to find that soul-deep healing for the emptiness in ourselves and our society.

    The Amish shooting was apparently the result of a twenty-year-old grudge. I’ll let that fact speaks for itself.

  2. Mike the Eyeguy

    In the white hot heat of the crucible, real faith is forged.

  3. Jason Bybee

    Laurie, thank you for sharing.
    Mike, maranatha is all I know to pray right now.

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