I am turning off Facebook for a while. I'm disgusted by the gun talk from all sides. I could care less If your faith is in a weapon in your purse or in the removal of all weapons. My faith is in the Prince of Peace and as we mourn as a country this week, and as I continue to find myself unable not to sob every time I pull up to the kids school, I want to focus instead this week on advent... I want to think on these beautiful children and the families that mourn them and Not our "right" to buy assault weapons and enough ammunition to take out an entire schools worth of babies. That discussion makes my stomach turn. So I'm turning off the tv and Facebook and spending this week preparing for advent. I'm finding the elf and tinsel and gingerbread surreal. But my children want to celebrate so I bake and glitter and shine and keep on telling them the promise. HE CAME. Our King came, and will come again. Christmas comes even if there are no packages bows or even 26 beautiful children. All over this world every single day children die from the effects of this sin filled world. From earthquakes, from infanticide, from abortion, from slavery, from starvation, from abandonment... And yet Christmas comes. And it is hard to celebrate. We mourn Jim every year. We remember that Christmas drive full of tears. We think of friends who have lost children, babies that will never see a lit up tree. This event has brought up painful memories for me of experiencing the after effects of a friends suicide my senior year of high school. I hate guns. I hate what they do. I hate that our culture has become entertained by violence and weapons. I am equally disturbed by the mile long lines to buy the latest war based desensitizing video game that trains our young men to kill without thought as I am by actual assault weapons themselves. We are not supposed to get political in mommy blog land but this is an extension of my home and guns are not welcome here. That is where i stand. But more than guns I hate the fall. I hate our collective sin. I hate that so many people have never heard the good news. Not the news Joel is teaching. Not that God wants you to be happy and have your best life ever but the real news. That WE are a broken and undeserving people with hearts of stone. The news that we are utterly depraved, but that Jesus has come and we are forgiven. That he reckoned our evil. That God sees every pain filled tear and promises the day will come when all tears will cease and guns will be gone and the lion will lay down with the lamb. No more children will die. No more. So I'm going to walk away from the discussion. The one where some seek a powerless solution and others defend a right that is only of this world. I can not help but think of when Jesus took his apostles out of the upper room to go pray enforce he started on the path to the cross. He knew his time was ending and that he would be taken into custody. He specifically told his followers to bring swords. In fact he told them to sell their cloaks and buy swords if they didn't have them and then when they say " we have two" he says "fine, that's enough.". Then the high priests goonies come to take him away and Jesus' men- they grab their swords and begin to defend their Christ. They defend the savior of the world by cutting off an ear with the sword HE said to bring and he suddenly turns and says " no more of this!" (Luke 22:55) and he heals the wounded man who would then lead our Jesus to the high priest who would hand him over to Pilate who would hand him over to the people who would hang him on a cross. "No more of this" he said and laid down his life. So I cling to that. Jesus is the only defense from the evil of this world that will ever bear any weight. And one day, every knee will bow. An finally there will be no more of this.
I highly recommend this podcast from Matt Chandler. He handles this topic very well and with wisdom. (just click on the sermon from December 16th, New Hearts New Lives)
I also recommend any of Ann Voskamps recent blog posts on suffering during the holidays. Where was God when this happened? I love her take on it.
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