What about the Galileans whose blood Pilate
mixed with their sacrifices? Luke 13:1
While driving
to work this morning my wife called me, “Troy, did you hear about the shooting
in the Church in South Carolina? Almost insensitively to the shock of murder especially in the
south, I responded “There is always a shooting in the south” It wasn’t as if I
thought the north was any safer, it’s just that redundancy of hearing bad news
across the airways had driven me into a sort of current event seclusion.
I had stop
reading the news, stop watching the news, and even when news came on my
favorite gospel music station I would turn away from the news. I had resolved
within myself that the only good new I would hear in this lifetime was the good
news of Jesus Christ.
“No” my wife
continued, “I heard there were like 9 people that were killed d even the pastor”
At that moment the very reason I stop watching news, resurfaced. My body began
to quiver uncontrollable as if I was about to throw up. “Let me call you back” I said to my wife as I
pulled into the parking lot of the Wawa at Rhawn and the Roosevelt Blvd. Still dazed after a while I heard my son say
“Dad are we gonna’ just sit in the car or are we going in the store?”
Let’s not get
this wrong we are not talking about some divine punishment for hidden sin, we
are talking men and women of God whose blood was spilled in God’s house. I don’t
know these people, though they are with me brothers and sisters in Christ. I do
know they did not deserve to die; they did not deserve to be gunned down for no
other reason than their ethnicity, or religion, or color of their skin, or even
political positions. Or whatever answer someone can resolve as justifying their
murders
So when we
hear these things we mourn, we suffer, we become fearful, because the very
essence of who we are in Christ is always hated by the world. In fact the
Apostle Paul tells us that the very desire to do what is right will bring about
persecution 2 Timothy 3:12. Because the enemy (The God of this world) has no
desire to see the word of God spread throughout, no desire to see the hungry
feed, the sick healed, he has no desire to see men walk upright in Christ. And he
will do all that he can, and send whomever he can to stop our efforts of living
a godly life. The proud, the arrogant, abusive, disobedient, ungrateful,
slanders, swollen with deceit, treacherous people are all tools that the enemy
will send to destroy you and your walk with Christ. 2 Timothy 3:2-4 And we can be sure of it,
because those are the very same people that the enemy sent for Christ, not
knowing that in Christ’s death victory is ours!
As Christians we have to realize that the enemy will attack! Sometimes covertly, sometimes overtly, sometimes passively, sometimes violently But he will attack and seek to destroy us Jesus said "If they
persecuted me, they will also
persecute you!" John 15:20
In light of
these tragic events my thoughts wondered to Luke 13:1 that upon hearing the
reports of the murder of the Galilean in the temple, Jesus never flinched. He
did not try to answer why this had happen, or where God was when Pilate was
killing Galileans. In the light of all
the sorrow Jesus tells a story of an unproductive fig tree and warns us to
repent.
It’s easy in
light of hate to want to reward violence with more hate and violence, But Jesus
is telling us to stay focused, repent, love your neighbor, and love your
enemy, preach the gospel, feed the hungry, and heal the sick because these are the weapons of our
warfare.