I trust I was not the only one glued
to the TV this week watching and listening to the horrendous event that
took place on the campus of Virginia Tech. I was so drawn to it
that Diane even commented that I was obsessing about it.
At first I thought it was because I have a wife who works on a college
campus and a son who teaches on a college campus. No one can assure that
this could not happen on the campus where they work. But as the week
went by and the tragedy in Blacksburg, VA was on everyone’s mind that I
realized I wasn’t the only one trying to make sense out of a senseless
act of murder.
It was mass murder that transcended Blacksburg, Virginia and the
families of thirty-two students and staff at Virginia Tech who were
killed. It reached the four corners of the world. The victims ranged in
age from eighteen to seventy-six; they came from nine states, along with
Puerto Rico, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Romania. They were male and
female, African-American, Asian, Middle Eastern and Caucasian. “They
were all people who began a day little knowing it would suddenly end
their lives.”
One of the speakers at the memorial service held on campus said, “This
is not a time to seek easy answers or to assign blame. It is, rather, a
time to pray, mourn, and reflect. While this tragedy can perhaps be
partially explained by the easy accessibility of guns in our society, by
the saturation of violence in our popular culture, by the fact that the
visible signs of Cho Seung Hui's troubled life could have been taken
more seriously, by concerns about university security, or by any number
of other things, ultimately there is no simple explanation. And there
are generally no single causes for such horrible events."
A youth minister for Dare 2 Share ministries wrote, “The shocking
tragedy at Virginia Tech has got me reeling and revisiting some old
feelings. Eight years ago this week I was in a church with six youth
leaders promoting one of our Dare 2 Share conferences. This particular
conference was on spiritual warfare and evangelism. It was appropriately
titled, "When all hell breaks loose…." Then all hell did break loose.
The Columbine tragedy was unfolding twenty minutes down the road. Now
its broken loose again, this time at Virginia Tech.
Some people are asking, “Where was God?” My thoughts have focused on God
asking us, “Where is Godliness?” Others are asking WHY? I want to say
are you kidding? Do you honestly have to ask why? We have moved into an
increasingly secularized society. Movies and video games have gone from
graphic violence to unspeakable violence. Prayer and God have been
moved out of the public eye and marginalized as irrelevant. We continue
to reap what we have sown as a country.
There's a scene from the Oscar-nominated film of last year, Blood
Diamond that's provocative. The movie is set in 1999 Sierra Leone while
a civil war rages fueled by conflict diamonds which are sold to pay for
weapons. Leonardo DeCaprio plays Danny Archer, the anti-hero, a
mercenary with something of a conscience, who, along with good guys and
bad guys-is hunting for this huge pink diamond. The Revolutionary United
Front (RUF) meanwhile, is leveling entire villages, chopping of the
hands of some so they can't vote in elections, and snatching young boys
to become soldiers in the rebel army.
In a quiet moment of reflection while mayhem explodes around them, Danny
Archer chats with a journalist, Maddy Bowen, and reveals that his "Mum
was raped and shot and Dad was decapitated and hung from a hook in the
barn. Sometimes I wonder will God ever forgive us for what we've done to
each other? Then I look around and I realize. God left this place a long
time ago."
When events like the carnage at VT happen, it shatters our peace, it
intrudes upon our consciousness, it interrupts and irritates and saddens
and shocks, and we wonder if indeed God hasn't left this place a long
time ago.
I am telling you this morning God HAS NOT left this place. What has left
is godliness so WHY ARE WE SURPRISED? There are constant attempts to
remove God from our culture so what can you expect. If society goes
unchecked then this is only the beginning. But it doesn’t have to be
that way.
We HAVE THE POWER to change the world. The power is Jesus Christ. The
power is the Word of God. The power is the Holy Spirit. Our scripture
story this morning is proof of what can do.
He took a murder and a persecutor of those who followed Jesus. Saul was
out to trash the followers of Christ. Yet God used Him to transform
people to become followers of Christ.
Yet I don’t want to focus on Saul. I want to focus on someone who is
often overlooked in this story that would be Ananias. Ananias knew
who Saul was. Ananias knew why Saul had come to town. Ananias was
asked by God to go to Him. Can you blame him for resisting? Can you
blame him for being unenthusiastic about providing any assistance to
Saul?
“Lord, I have heard from many about this
man,
how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem,”
Ananias clearly would rather be
condemned than care for Saul.
But God tells Ananias his big plans for this persecutor of the church.
“Go, for he is an instrument,”
says Jesus to Ananias — an instrument
to bring Christ’s name
“before Gentiles and kings
and before the people of Israel”
(v. 15).
The good news of this story is that
nothing is wasted by God. Every strength, talent, insight and experience
we have — whether secular or sacred, rough or smooth, bad or good — can
be a building block for the Lord to use.
We have been called by God to love the world and all humankind. We have
been called by God to live with a shepherd like spirit. As we go forth,
may God’s calling and leading fill us with abundance and hope. Go forth!
Today’s Scripture is an invitation for each one of us to examine our
life. It is an invitation to take a step RIGHT NOW in preventing
such horrific killings like those that took place on the campus of
Virginia Tech.
God wastes nothing when he is looking for people to do his work in the
world. Let us remember how God used Ananias. Let us remember how
God used the slave trader John Newton. When he saw the depths of
human depravity firsthand, his insights led him to write “Amazing grace,
how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!”
Let us remember The Amish of Lancaster County who responded to a similar
excruciating experience of watching their children die of gunshots in a
one-room schoolhouse. They used this agonizing event to take a stand for
forgiveness and non violence. God can take all the raw materials of life
even the most painful and inexplicable events, the trash, and transform
them in ways that advance his will.
We find ourselves in mourning because of current events. As we sang this
morning, Lay it down, surrender it to God and let God transform it a
willingness, desire, a power to bring godliness back into our life, our
family, our church, our community, our campuses, our world.
If we are going to follow in the footsteps of Ananias and Saul, we have
to be willing to be reshaped by the hands of our Master Builder. This
means letting go of our former shapes and styles, and entering into a
new way of life. We are challenged to change from Pharisees to apostles,
from self-centered individuals to God-centered instruments of ministry.
Paul said,
“It is God who is at work in you,
enabling you both to will and to work for his good.”
(2:13).
With God, nothing is trashed.
Instead, it is transformed.
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Amen |
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