A DESCENDING SPIRAL

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate...Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” -Martin Luther King

So much grief and so much death. Whether you agreed with the man or not the death of Charlie Kirk was murder and it was evil. The troubling part is that there are some voices not only decrying this act but calling for retribution, they are already calling for a razing of the land under their political opponents feet. And under the banner of justice and outrage they are calling for us to rise. Whether it be literal or symbolic language, it doesn’t matter. Their voices whip up fear and they press on the nerves of knee jerk reactions and emotions.

All this feels overwhelming and there is a darkness that sits thick amongst us all. We look on the evil acts of men and cry out against them. But you, follower of the Good Shepherd, remember that there are darker things at work than the hands of men given to evil. Even if you should not pick up fist or weapon, your anger fomented and your heart turned to dissonance and division poisons your soul and the soul of those around you.

Do you believe this act was one motivated by evil, do you believe in the Christ that Kirk said he followed? Then it is up to you Christian to live by the very words of your God you say you serve. It is up to you to say no, not only to physical violence but the violence within our hearts that brings division. Political ideologues will tell you that others of differing beliefs are godless and are the enemy. And division causes us to speak ill of the other as death cults. What is it to you, you who have been planted in this place to not only proclaim His kingdom but to live mercifully and to be set apart from the violent hearted.

What is it to you?
It is everything, you who call Christ your Lord, it is up to you to act justly despite the blows, it is up to you to love mercy despite men calling empathy a weakness. It is up to you to walk humbly with your God and not out ahead of Him shaking your fists and laying curses on other image bearers of His.

You in your own self cannot do anything about the shootings and the murders and bloody actions. But remember this, you have a small corner of your world where you can have impact. You hold influence for good or evil upon those around you. It’s in the small acts that ripples ring out in the pond. Enough ripples sent then greater the change. Will we choose to huddle around our televisions and phone screens lamenting the horrors and being outraged? Will we listen to news networks lathering us up to even more outrage and name calling? Will you eat from the table of the Us versus Them mindset?

Or will we cast those fruitless things into the trash heap and on bended knee cry out to our God not for vengeance and reprisal but for mercy and compassion. Will we cry out not for the change in others but for our own hearts to be made right, to root out our own faults that brings about division and separation.

You O man, you O woman, you are the key.

For such a time as this you were born into this world, into your town, among the people that you live not to curse, not to rally behind political figures or against perceived foes but to rally for peaceable hearts and life.

You were called to be a blessing.

You hold it within you to be the change. And true change is met through the small acts. It is done through the breaking of bread with those you call your enemy. This is what Jesus taught on the sermon on the mount about, be the peacemakers.

We do not fight like the world with fist or gun. We do not curse others. We fight on our knees, and when we do, we don’t engage in the witchcraft of praying for destruction of an enemy or them being laid low, but we pray firstly that our own wayward hearts be changed and then we would have the grace to be the change.

Your enemies aren’t men and women of flesh and bone. Your enemies are dark principalities and wicked things that look to twist and kill, enemies that glory in rage, division and death.
Meditating on vitriol and anger online and re-playing the death of one of His image bearers only serves to continue cycles of destruction. You have been called to be a light on a hill for the good, not echoes of rage and offense.

Do not listen to those who benefit from your offense and those who say they know what’s best for you. Cry out to God for His mercy today.

We must fight on our knees. We fight by our mercy and stayed hand of violence. We fight by a heart beholden to Him and not to angry men. The time is not tomorrow, it is now. So lay aside all your dissonance and rage. You honor the loss of life by doing the good work of Christ’s change in the small corner of your world.

It is even more important and direr that you today reach out and be the change, be the healing balm that someone so desperately needs and the world so desperately cries out for.

You will either speak life or do the work of death.

Remember, you have been called and set apart, to be His voice in a fearful world tearing itself apart. You are to do good and walk humbly and love mercy, not for any party but for humanity and our very being.