Gospel Truth for a Great Tragedy

           Today our nation is reeling in the wake of a horrible and heart-wrenching tragedy. A man in Newtown, CT walked into a school and opened fire, killing 26 people, 20 of which were children. While all of the lives that were taken today were precious, it is the death of those children that particularly bothers us. Like most parents, I looked at my own children very differently when I picked them up from school this afternoon.

In Matthew chapter two, we find a story that no doubt carried the same sting we feel today, though we are removed from it by some 2,000 years. In Matthew 2:16, we read this chilling record:

“Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under…”

           How many babies and toddlers were slaughtered in Herod’s paranoid and evil massacre we are not told, but they were real children with real parents, and their death no doubt shook that region, just as the death of those little ones in Connecticut has our country today.

         And yet, the one baby that Herod was really trying to kill he could not. He had been told that a King of the Jews had been born, and Herod wanted to eliminate Him before He could fulfill that prophecy, even if Herod didn’t fully believe it. But that infant King escaped Herod’s sword.

           Ultimately, this King would die; not by the sins of an evil man like Herod, but for them, and for billions like him. He willingly laid down His life on a God-forsaken but God-appointed cross. But, He did not stay dead. His cold, nail and spear-pierced corpse came back to life three days later on a Sunday morning that changed everything forever. The tragedy of death was overcome by the Resurrection and the Life.

          In the wake of a tragedy like the one we have seen today let us not forget that our God is not disconnected from the violence, evil, horror, and pain of death. He entered into this violent world to live among us, died in the midst of its evil, and rose from the dead to ultimately rescue us from it forever. When He returns, and He will, the last enemy of death and the sin that initiated its curse will be removed forever. He will wipe away all tears and make all things new. For that reason, those who know Him and believe His gospel, a day like this only leads us to cry with a renewed groaning in our hearts, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

            

His,

Terry Trivette