I plead ignorance, thankfully, as to the history of evil
among mankind. The story of the first man and woman deciding to disobey God
(Genesis 3) is good enough for me to speak of when evil came into our midst.
Since then we are left with the simple statement occurring at the end of the
book of Judges (Judges 21:25) to explain why things have turned out the way
they have. Choosing what is right and wrong has been in the hands of the
individual from the beginning.
All the blogs, all the news articles and commentaries, and
all the psychological profiles created in the last few days will not remove the
grief, the agony, the emptiness, the anger, and the desire for revenge felt by
the families of Newtown, Connecticut. All of our analyzing and hypothesizing
will not bring one single innocent life back to the loving arms of its family.
This terrible tragedy becomes another statistic in the history of evil’s destructive
power.
Most of us remember all too well the Virginia Tech Massacre.
I had never heard of the Bath School Disaster in the Bath Township of Michigan
before now. Yet it remains the worst act of school violence in American history
when 38 school children and four adults were killed by a man filled with rage
against his community. Evil knows no bounds.
In the early American West, laws were established to stop
horse and cattle rustling. The penalty was often death by hanging. Yet people
continued to steal horses and cattle. Today 33 states have the death penalty (deathpenaltyinfo.org).
Nine out of the top ten cities recording the highest rate of violent crimes in
our country exist in those states (Forbes Magazine). The threat of violence
rarely prevents violence.
Passing more laws may create a climate in which a more
violent and authoritarian response to crime is permitted by the citizenry, but
more laws rarely reduce evil in a society. In our Judea-Christian history
beginning with the start of human relationships, God’s forbiddance to touch the
Tree of Knowledge did not keep the first man and woman from choosing to follow
their own desires. The Ten Commandments and accompanying clarifications
(Exodus-Deuteronomy) did not stop the Israelites from following another system
of morality.
As I grew up in rural Kentucky, our school recited the
pledge to the American flag, read the Bible, and had a prayer each day. That
did not eliminate the need for our principal to sit on the front steps of the
school each Halloween with a shotgun in his hand to prevent local “citizens”
from coming by and breaking out the windows with rocks and guns. The façade of
school morality does not stop school violence.
The Old Testament reveals a progression of God’s efforts to
bring his wayward people into an understanding of his nature and will. The Ten
Commandments are recorded on tablets of stone (Exodus 20, 32, 34). In Jeremiah
31 the prophet tells the people the law would no longer be external, but
it would be written on their hearts as the original commandments were carved in
stone. The prophet Ezekiel says God will remove the stony heart and replace it
with a heart of flesh made alive by his Spirit (Ezekiel 36).
This thought is reemphasized in the New Testament in the
Person of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel-God with us, as he tells his disciples just
before his death (John 14) he would not leave them alone. In the Person of
the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, he would live within them. He would guide them
as they sought to fulfill the greatest law of all, the law of love.
Laws, an armed citizenry, prayer and Bible reading in
schools will not stop evil. Evil is sin. We are all guilty of sin (Romans 3:23).
The only answer is the power of Jesus Christ within us (Romans 6:23) and our
willingness to forgive those who sin against us. Perhaps the final answer to
evil in our world is contained in one of those last statements of Christ from
the cross, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” Luke
23:34
