It’s been quite a year.
Sixty thousand dead in Gaza, and 20,000 of them were children. That’s 2% of the children who lives in Gaza City killed by guns and bombs in a single year.
And then there’s Ukraine. The number killed there is the last four years runs into the millions. Not to mention the accusations of war crimes and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people by mass genocide in Nigeria and the Sudan.
But those numbers don’t mean a lot after awhile, for the horror of violence gets strangely diluted by statistics. A million her, a 100,000 there. What does it mean?
Somehow it really comes home, though, when you hear of a person pulling the trigger of a hand gun at Whitney field two weeks ago, shooting a teenage kid. Then it really comes home.
“Violence,” Habbakuk cries out. “Violence!" and you, O Lord, why don’t you stop it!?
Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord.
There is evil in this world. We see it in headlines. We see it in other people. And sometimes, we see it in ourselves.
But why does God allow it?
A Simplanswer. He allow us because he loves us. :oves us enough to give us a choice. A choice to lie or to hate.
For real love requires freedom. No one can force me to love. Love is the choice to let go the way of my own self interests or to lay down my life, to sacrifice my life for the other.
Loving is always a choice. And so is violence.
The devil and his minions whisper incessantly into ears, just like they did for Eve and her husband. “God can’t save you. You’ll a sap if you think about other people. They’ll just take advantage of you. They’re a threat to you and to your happiness and even to your life. You need to take action! Protect yourself! Kill them before they can kill you!
It happens in the school yard in fifth grade, and in High School when the rival gets the girl, or at the office when she gets the job I should have gotten or at Thanksgiving, when that embodiment of selfishness needs to be cut off and made to suffer!
“Violence,” Habbakuk says, Violence on every side! Sounds like a great idea, the devil whispers into my heart…and yours…
And that’s the way it is. People can choose to love, or they can choose to hate. And God will not stop them. They can choose to go to heaven, or choose to go to hell.
And old and very wise friend of mine used to say that, when he was younger, he found it very hard to believe that anyone could be in hell. But since he grew older, he said, he now has a list!
There is evil in this world. And people will sin against you. Jesus told us as much. They will revile us and talk about us and say every vile thing against you.
That’s what Jesus meant when from the wood of the Cross when he prayed the first lines of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why ave you forsaken me!” For at that moment Jesus was taking upon himself all the violence and all the sufferings of every man or woman who ever lived. He takes them upon himself, like an innocent sheep led to the slaughter, and he invites us to join our sufferings to his.
So, when they treat you so badly, join your sufferings to his.
When they spread life about you behind your back, join your sufferings to his.
When they seek to kill your reputation or make everyone hate you, join your sufferings to his.
When that same relative does that same thing again at Thanksgiving, join your sufferings to his.
When even your spouse or your kids or your best friend turn against you, join your sufferings to his.
For he hangs there, nailed to a tree for love of you. Which is why that Cross is our only salvation.
So what we are we to do, in the face of Violence. The same thing he did. We are to join our sufferings to his, and just like Jesus, open our arms and pray, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
