Violence

I remember, as a young man, the day I decided to change the time I woke up for work. My alarm was set on a music station, but it was at the top of the hour, when the news was on. Each day I woke to things like, "there was a murder in South Memphis" or "a bomb ripped though an Israeli shopping mall." My heart would race as I heard some horror or other. I decided to wake five minutes earlier to some tunes. Easier on the digestion!

Today I actually got to do the daily readings before breakfast. It began with II Samuel. Absalom, the renegade son of David with the long, flowing locks, rode his donkey under a tree in battle and got tangled up in the branches. David's general, Joab, proceeded to thrust three darts into the dangling man's heart, then Joab's ten armor bearers dispatched Absalom with swords. The geopolitical violence with which we deal daily is no different from this family squabble (writ large because it is royal). Many men died in these battles, brutal combat. No less sad for being ancient.

In Acts I read that forty Jews made a vow to kill Paul. In an effort to 'sanctify' the vow further they promised not to eat or drink until he died. Paul's nephew brings news of the plot to Paul, who informs his Roman captors. The plot is thwarted as Paul, under a large armed guard, is swpet off to another place. Today disagreement about religous matters continues to fester around the world, frequently errupting in the same murderous impulses. I also wondered how many of those forty men kept to their vows and starved to death. I wonder what the judgement process looks like for those who murder in God's name .

Lastly, Mark 11-12, had a story about Jesus. The Jewish leaders ask for an accounting from Him. What is your authority? Jesus' response is to ask them what was John the Baptist's authority. Like many political leaders, they spend more time calculating the impact of their words than they do looking for th truth. They fear the popular opinion, so they cannot deny John the Baptist is from God. They also know that if they acknowledge that fact, Jesus will ask why they did not listen to John. The story ends with the leaders wanting to arrest Jesus.

As I prayed over each text my heart grew heavy. Violence in each reading. In the Bible it is not a rare occurence. Perhaps, in a fallen world, we are to expect violence. Still, as my baby boy and wife slept in the next room, there is a part of me that wishes it were not so. I think God wishes it were not so. I think God desires that humans live in accord with Him and with one another. Jesus tells us to love. Love seems to be a feeble remedy for violence. While it is true that those who live by the sword, die by the sword, it is no less true that those without a sword perish in larger quantities and more quickly. Those with swords frequently prey on the unarmed.

God's response to violence (and ALL SIN) is the cross. The cross is a tool of violence, a wicked, torture devised to crush and subdue people under Roman occupation. Jesus, God's Son, died on  the cross. God's non-violence was a choice (recall Jesus said He could have called down an army of angels to defend Him). Jesus' decision to submit was a choice (a blood and sweat, pray all night and weep choice). I ponder my own choice. How to respond to so much violence? Paul and Jesus, unlike David, are not soldiers. They do not fight back. David, the soldier, mourns and weeps over the death of his son. Even in victory, the soldier does not escape the horror of death.

I think we do well to pray to God for an end to the violence. I also think it is good to not be naive. We can sing songs for peace, but in a violent world, action must occur. We are called, by Jesus, to be willing to embrace the cross. It takes remarkable faith to trust that being crushed, for God's sake, will unite us to Christ. It takes great faith to believe that dying with Christ will lead to victory. I hope we have the faith to be God's faithful victims of violence rather than the perpetrators. I pray for the wisdom to discern, too.