Monday, December 17, 2012

Let Love Rule (A Memorial) 12/17/2012

"Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law." Rom 13:8

In the aftermath of the horrific shooting that victimized 26 teachers and students at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut on December 14, 2012, a six year old girl was quoted as asking, "The little children, are they with the angels?" 

This tragedy defies explanation.  As a community, a state, a nation and perhaps the world attempts to process what has happened, we are all left diminished and feeling less safe in the world.  Reporters and commentators will spend days and weeks discussing, rehashing and uncovering information in an attempt to reason out what has happened.  In the end, however, no answers will suffice and none will bring back a single victim.  In many ways we are all victims.  We are victims of evil.

Beloved nothing will be solved in this brief expression of hurt, anger, grief and outrage.  The least and the most that can be offered here is prayers for the affected families, hope that love will ultimately prevail in this world and an encouragement to have faith in God, who in His own time, will do away with all evil.  As mind numbing as this attack was, it is merely the latest example of man's inhumanity to man that began with Cain and Abel.  On the same date as the Sandy Hook murders, 22 children and an elderly woman were stabbed in an elementary school by a knife wielding man in China.  This mirrors a spate of such attacks that took place there in 2010.  This is not an American problem.  It is a human problem.  It is an evil problem.  The only thing that can and will overcome it is the precious and powerful love of God.

The little children, are they with the angels?  They are surely in the hands of a just God.

We grieve.  We pray.  We hope.

In faith,

Lee