Gunmen and innocents

I wrote this post after the Navy Yard news back in September, and for some reason never got the courage to publish it. I think of it now, with Gaza and Syria and so many hurting people.

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Confession: I am so weary of people killing people.

With the news full of bloodshed, it’s tempting to believe that the world is going to the devil, that you better save yourself any chance you get while you still can, that you gotta fight to protect yourself because people are just more evil than they used to be. There are whole video tutorials of advice on how to save yourself if you’re ever in a building with a gunman.

People are afraid.

Last Sunday I told my preschool class the story of Cain and Abel, and thought of how the world must have felt with the first human blood soaking into its breast.

We call it “innocent blood,” but who is innocent?

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Only once was a True Innocent killed, in a saga so horrific the world was never the same. When His blood ran down that cross and spilled into the ground, mingling with “all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias,” the great cracking and remaking of the world began. The earth ejected him, living and indestructible; suffering became the path to victory; and that from that day forward, His people became empowered to run into dangerous situations because they know that the world can only bear innocent blood so long.

“Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead…

For behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.” Isaiah 26:19, 21

The world is not going to the devil; it’s going to the Redeemer.