Boston: Run, Ruin, & Redemption



Psalm 2:1

Why do the nations rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

I wanted to wait a couple of days before writing about the bombing in Boston. Until the echoes of the blast sunk in. A modern day Massacre. On Patriot's Day no less. Our domestic tranquility seems to more like roaring oceans these days. Isolated events of tragedy are not so isolated any more. Happening with a frequency that threatens to numb our hearts and fuse our tear ducts. How long, Lord? How long? Let us weep for the world and not just our torn corner of it.

Life has tragic hues. We humans are given a world and universe of immense beauty and grandeur, and are running headlong into disaster. A ruination. The nations rage. God doesn't have to strike the earth or cause it to open us on as a devouring chasm to punish us. We are doing it to ourselves. Self-induced. It would seem a lot like God to show us where our hearts take us. Maybe we will learn no other way. I don't know. Makes me think of when Jesus told the weeping women on His way into Jerusalem and death, "Weep not for me but for yourselves and your children." (Luke 23:28). The Roman sword hung over Jerusalem and the time of destruction was impending. I fear we are in a similar position historically.

Our inward dispositions become outward realities. We have real choices and real consequences. The human family is a community and the sin of one and all effect each other. That is just the way the world is. It is clear that God can intervene and over-ride human choices. Why He does not is in the counsel of the Almighty.

I get weary when politicians and law enforcement talk about bringing the guilty to justice. There is no justice in the killing and injuring of over a hundred of people unless being at the wrong place and wrong time is a crime. Justice indicates some sense of proportional reciprocity. Such posturing reveals a deficient worldview because it is all about this world.

What I don't weary of is thinking how Jesus put Himself in the middle of human suffering on a Cross, planted like a stake in the heart of evil, and infusing His light for darkness. People raise their fists at God and cry out "Where is God?" He, on the Cross, taking the nails in nakedness, that's where.   

We have here the blessed Jesus, the Lamb of God, led as a lamb to the slaughter, to the sacrifice. Though many reproached and reviled him, yet some pitied him. But the death of Christ was his victory and triumph over his enemies: it was our deliverance, the purchase of eternal life for us. Therefore weep not for him, but let us weep for our own sins, and the sins of our children, which caused his death; and weep for fear of the miseries we shall bring upon ourselves, if we slight his love, and reject his grace. If God delivered him up to such sufferings as these, because he was made a sacrifice for sin, what will he do with sinners themselves, who make themselves a dry tree, a corrupt and wicked generation, and good for nothing! The bitter sufferings of our Lord Jesus should make us stand in awe of the justice of God. The best saints, compared with Christ, are dry trees; if he suffer, why may not they expect to suffer? And what then shall the damnation of sinners be! Even the sufferings of Christ preach terror to obstinate transgressors. Matthew Henry


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