God's Love in a Hurting World

            Once again, we confront the plague of mayhem created by angry people with firearms in our culture.  Twice on Wednesday, innocent people were shot down by angry assassins who had their own agenda that we probably will never understand.  What I do understand is the wreckage that this kind of activity creates in this nation.  The faces of those bereaved people in San Bernardino and Georgia were heartbreaking.  The statements by the political leaders were hard to listen to and our hearts went out to all of the brave police who responded so well when all of this happened.

            The problem that we face is inactivity.  These episodes all continue along the same path; we mourn the dead, call for action, blame other people and then do nothing.  We have the highest concentration of gun slaughter in any nation in the world.  Even Switzerland, where everyone is armed because they are required to be members of the army, has a very small incidence of this kind of activity. 

            It certainly isn’t hard to point to the source of the problem.  We have no difficulty regulating automobiles and requiring licenses and issuing tickets to those who don’t behave well when they drive them, but when it comes to firearms, we regulate very reluctantly, if at all.  There is well documented opposition to any kind of regulation proposed to limit the purchase of guns by people who just shouldn’t have them.  The worry that is always put forth is that simple regulation is a “slippery slope” leading to confiscation of everyone’s weapons.  That seems to me to be both unlikely and impossible.  We need to get our opinions in order so that we can deal with the mess that this lack of regulation has created.

            I’m sorry that I need to talk about this again.  I would love to talk about this beautiful season of Advent when we look for our savior to come to tidy up the ungodly mess that we have made of this planet.  It is ironic that the 20 plus nations are meeting in Paris to discuss Climate change, another subject that seems so often to be out of our reach, even when all of science seems to agree that it is an apocalyptic problem. 

            If I have ever seen a time when we needed a savior, it is today; a Savior to save us from ourselves and our foolish ideas that we can manage this world’s resources and activities all on our own.  For too long, we have trusted that those who have power and wealth will also have the good sense to regulate themselves for the good of us all.  That is obviously not the case.

             In the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptist appears in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.  What I notice about this passage of scripture is the way that all of the leadership of the world is noted.  Tiberius was the Emperor; Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee, his brother Philip was also a ruler, of Ituraea and Trachonitis.  It also says that Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests.  Here are the elite, but the repentance that God is calling for is for everyone.  Nobody is excluded.  John quotes the Prophet Isaiah saying Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  He ends this with the words: all flesh shall see the salvation of God.  These words didn’t sit well with the elite.  They saw John as a threat to their authority.

            I have always pictured John as looking like a homeless man – dressed in a camel hair garment with wild hair, holding a staff and making great gestures as he talked.  I think he would have been a little bit scary and intimidating to the people who were watching him.  For most of the poor people who were watching him, I think he might have looked like a savior.  He made a wonderful person to introduce our Lord to this world.  The poor and the needy have a champion and he will bring hope to those who have nothing.  What could be better news?

            That God would present Jesus the Christ to the world in this way is a great testimony to God’s priorities in this world.  He was not a friend of the elite and those who have it all.  He was and continues to be a great friend to those who are oppressed, homeless, poor and afraid.  That is to whom the good news of the Gospel is directed.  God has no expectation that those who have power and wealth will always seek the best for all of the people.  That is why Jesus is sent by God to be one of us; to take on human flesh so to understand what it means to be a limited human being in this world.  That is why the understanding that Jesus is God’s only son is such a critical distinction.  God coming to earth and living like one of us; knowing hunger, thirst, grief, sorrow and finally death.  Along the way, he sees with human eyes what so many people have to go through in this world.  He heals, gives strength to the weak, and even raises up the dead.  It is clear that the priorities that Jesus brings to this world are not the same as those who are in charge of it, but are a firm indication of the heart of God.  That is why our worship is so critical to who we are and what we do.  We are the inheritors of the goodness that Jesus brought to this earth.  It is our job to continue to love, have compassion and do the work that he laid out for us.  Will we win in the long run?  Certainly.  But in the meantime, there will be difficult times like the ones that we are in.  It is our job to make sure that God’s love always shines forth, not our own private desires.  Let us keep our hearts and minds open to the possibility of solutions to the problems that we face.  God’s will is that they be solved.  God’s love abounds