A Response to the Murders in Uvalde, Texas

  

“There is a Way, and there is not the way. Jesus is the Way, and every other way is not the Way.”  Mike Wells

 

On April 19, 1995, I was studying at the church I pastored outside of Oklahoma City when my wife Toni called and told me to turn on the TV. Something terrible had happened. When I turned on the TV, I learned that the Alfred P. Murrah Building in downtown Oklahoma City had been bombed.

 

A few minutes later, I got a phone call from Lieutenant Bob Edwards of the Oklahoma City Police Department. Bob, the men’s leader in our church, informed me that Chaplain Jack Poe needed pastors to serve as volunteer chaplains in the aftermath of the bombing. Within three hours of the explosion that killed 168 people and injured 680 others, I found myself at Ground Zero. While many of the volunteer chaplains were assigned to the church where the family members were waiting, I was one of the ones assigned to bring whatever spiritual counsel and comfort I could to the rescue workers and first responders. I spent over 60 hours in the next two weeks serving those brave men and women who would come from around the country to rescue those trapped in the rubble and retrieve the bodies of those who died. My job was to listen and help to make sense of what happened to our city and nation. It was an overwhelming assignment  none of us could’ve been prepared for. 

A contingent of state legislators was touring Ground Zero on the second or third day. I caught up with them at the safety fence that created the inner perimeter around the Murrah Building. Among the group that day was the Congressman who represented our district, who also happened to be my friend. As the rest of the group moved on, my friend pulled me aside and said, “Bruce, I need some help here. This is all so overwhelming. I can’t get my head around how anyone could do this. It doesn’t make any sense.” I repeatedly heard that same question during my two weeks at Ground Zero.

 

I thought about those conversations in downtown OKC this week as I listened to news of the horrific murders of nineteen children and two teachers at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. One of the things that struck me as I listened to all the media’s reports and commentary is that the questions haven’t changed. “How could this happen, and what can we do about it?” Each time an event like this occurs, politicians, pundits, and ordinary people argue back and forth about the why and offer various iterations of ideas that will never provide hope for effective change. Why can’t we fix this? 

The answer is profoundly simple: Sin.

 

We live in a hopelessly broken world filled with broken people who, in their brokenness, break things and wound people.

 

Sin (Evil) is a real force that opposes God and all things good. We first see evil personified as the serpent in Genesis 3 who tempted Adam through Eve to reject God’s authority and goodness. The moment our first parents sinned by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they severed their relationship with God. They came under the rule of Sin, and its conjoined twin, Death. Evil began to reign as mankind began to believe the lie that we can figure things out and make things work without God. We can’t.

 

When Sin entered the world, Death followed. The very first son murdered his brother and everything went downhill from there. When has there ever been a time when there were not wars, genocides, holocausts, slavery, holy wars (the ultimate oxymoron), murders, rapes, sex trafficking, and worse? Sin is making life about us (not God), and life apart from God ALWAYS ends in death. Any solutions our leaders propose will produce, at best, temporary relief. The original lie was that if we just knew the right thing to do and the wrong thing not to do, we could make the world better. But the opposite is undeniably true. The world became broken, and nothing mankind has done has been able to fix it. Nothing!

 

We live in a hopelessly broken world filled with broken people who, in their brokenness, break things and wound people.

Yet, Hope invaded our hopelessness. 

Immediately after the original sin, God made a promise and an offer. God promised that He would send His Son to crush the power of sin, offering us a way to fix our brokenness and return to the original plan. The original plan was for us to live out of our relationship with God, taking all of our cues of right and wrong from Him, to live out of His wisdom and His power. The answer to our sin problem is simple: Jesus Christ.

 

“For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than mankind, and the weakness of God is stronger than mankind.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-25)

 

“For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2)

 

Jesus shed His blood to pay for the sins of the world and heal man’s brokenness. Jesus is the answer. As simplistic as that may sound, He is the only Way. Timothy McVey blew up the Murrah Building because of his broken relationship with God. The reason the 18-year-old killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School in South Texas was because of his broken relationship with God. The reason people cheat on their spouse, yell at their kids, lie to their parents, or riot in the streets is the same. We are all born broken—in need of forgiveness and redemption. We all need Jesus!

 

Please don’t misunderstand me. My heart breaks and my anger rises at the senseless loss of those precious children and their brave teachers. The emotional toll we endured in Oklahoma City cannot be understated, nor should it be minimized in Uvalde, Buffalo, Charleston, Parkland, or anywhere else these types of unconscionable acts took place. I believe that it is important to ask the questions people are asking, and it is crucial that we have constructive dialog about the surrounding issues.  However, unless we begin by seeking  Jesus, nothing will change. Only God, through the death of His Son, can change the heart of man and heal all our brokenness. We must choose to let Jesus lead our conversations, learn from His wisdom, and rely on His power. When we do, He transforms everything.

Jesus is the Way!