The Newtown, Connecticut, killing of 20 children and 6 adults once again raises mind-numbing questions.
As is the case of any premature death, or tragic loss, there are no adequate answers for the grief and anger that follow. No attribution of mental illness, social pathology, cultural storming, demonizing, or finger-pointing can begin to fill the abandoned space of lost lives, and hope. The scope of human justice, as necessary as it is, will never right the wrongs of what happened not only in Newtown, but everywhere.
In what we call faith, and hope, we look to the skies for answers. As we do many of us find One who adds to the mystery. Jesus said he came into just such a world not come to judge anyone, nor to condemn, but rather to die, and to rescue (John 3:17-21; John 12:47).
He believed his own death and resurrection would provide a foundation that would ultimately resolve our need for justice and mercy. But we cannot explain how he will use the Judgeship entrusted to him by the Father, and all eternity, to right the wrongs of the ages.
In a world of desperate, mind numbing evil and loss, the good news proclaimed in Jesus name assures us that even the worst of sinners can find redemption, and that through the mercies of eternal life, there are answers for heart-broken victims. Those answers, however, cannot be understood now, but only anticipated by faith in a God who would suffer, under the weight of the sins of the world, for us.
None of us yet understand how in the court of heaven accountability will work, nor how mercy will be shown. All we have is what we see and hear in the one Person who has shown himself trustworthy.
If it were not for evidence of the kind of God who reveals himself in Jesus, life would only scream and then try to ignore or forget the injustice and unfairness in and around us. Yet in his presence, there is reason to hope in one who cried with mourning friends (John 11:35), while saying to a dying criminal who asked to be remembered, “Today, you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
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