As you can tell, I wrote this last week. I wasn’t quite ready to publish it and thought I might polish it up and take some of the edge out of it, but that never happened. I wanted to put this out there for people to comment on. I hope I do not offend anyone with what I am saying.
The date: Friday, April 19, 2013
The inning: Top of the 6th
The score: 8-1 Phillies
The pitcher: Doc, a.k.a. “Dr. No-No”
Ordinarily this game would have me stoked, but with what’s happening in Boston, I am a mess. I am in utter despair. There’s a young man who is foolishly running from the authorities. Were he to turn himself in, at least there’s a chance that he will be redeemed. If he decides to go down in a blaze of glory like his brother, he will most likely be killed, and that most likely means an eternity in Hell.
And an eternity is a pretty long time, people.
It’s not that I didn’t mourn for the victims and their families. But I am praying that God’s Spirit can reach the heart of this troubled youth. And I am desperately praying for him and his soul.
I check the news again, having not looked in the last ten minutes, the curse of living in a 24/7 news world, and I read that the 19-year old has been apprehended. And I breathe a sigh of relief, and pray he doesn’t do anything stupid. I return to pray for those who lost loved ones in the Marathon.
I read people’s online reactions, and while I cannot blame people for reacting the way they did–let’s face it, this is a heart-wrenching thing–I found it all a bit appalling and shameful. Oh, not those who have never experienced God’s grace, but how can I, or anyone else, who has experienced God’s grace and forgiveness, not wish to see it extended to someone else, even someone who has done what this young man has done? Am I really any better than this young man?
The answer is NO! It is only God’s grace that has kept me from committing some act as heinous or worse.
Let me back up a bit here.
I am glad the authorities found him and apprehended him peacefully. I am thankful no other members of the Boston P.D. were hurt or killed while they took him into custody. I am relieved he is off the streets and “behind bars”. I fully believe that God has given the government the authority, and duty, to enact justice, but I am called to forgive.
As a Christian, I feel it is wrong for to call for his head. I’m sure many of the posters who were ready to metaphorically throw stones are parents of 19-year-olds themselves. But I’m not saying *their* 19-year-olds would ever DREAM of committing such acts of anarchy or terrorism. And yes, people were reacting out of the thought that the victims might have been their loved ones and were voicing their opinions extemporaneously. I will not blame them for their reactions. I was angry, too, when the story broke! I wanted to see someone pay. This young man committed the worst act mankind can do: he preemptively caused the deaths of innocent people!! It was “murder…refined, cold-blooded, deliberate murder”, to quote Arthur Conan Doyle. The fact that more people weren’t hurt or killed was a miracle and a mercy.
However, the eyes of the world are upon us this week. Shouldn’t our behavior be a bit more compassionate? Romans 12:19 pops into my head, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord”. Can we not try to take as a model the families of the Amish school children who were shot in 2006? On the day of that shooting the grandfather of one of the victims said to his younger relatives, “We must not think evil of this man.” Other members of that Amish community established a charitable fund for the family of the shooter. To give another example, when Jesus was suffering pain beyond my imagining on the cross, cried out to God, “Father, forgive them.”
We are fearful of those countries that hate us and would see us perish, through whatever means necessary. We wish and pray for a more peaceful world. Yes, we should pray for those countries whose governments are corrupt and do evil to their own countrymen and conspire to commit heinous acts on others across the globe because of some religious or political agenda.
But change, positive change, does not happen at the national level. It happens individually. We are to take love, LOVE! Not hate, and pass it on, and not just when it’s convenient and feels good. Now here’s my crazy idea: If every one of us were to start praying for him, and ask God’s Spirit to touch him, maybe some positive change will occur deep down in his tortured soul. And maybe that change will spread to others who share the violent goals he embraced.
Let me close with Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”