Charlie, Iryna & Calling Evil, Evil
To the Saints at Redeemer Church and beyond,
It’s been a difficult 24 hours for the country that we live in. Yesterday afternoon, the news rang out regarding the assassination of a popular political figure, Charlie Kirk. He was speaking at a college campus when an unknown assailant decided to do the unthinkable and unjustly take the life of another image bearer. The headlines and our phones immediately blew up with the news leaving many with feelings of grief, confusion, and rage. Charlie’s death resulted in a wife losing her husband and two young children losing their father. It’s an unthinkable, horrible, and sinful tragedy. Around the same time yesterday, we received news of another school shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado in which multiple children were injured and the assailant was found dead due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Again, tragic, sinful and evil. At the end of last month, a woman named Iryna Zarutska was brutally stabbed and murdered on a transit bus. She was only 23 years old. All of these events twilight the anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history. The day in which 2,996 people lost their lives due to the demonic and evil acts of a terrorist organization. Those of us that were alive for 9/11 remember where we were, and we always will. Today is a somber day for many reasons.
If you’re at all like me, the stark reminder of the reality we live in as Christians can often be heavy. The world is evil and plagued with sin. We see the effects of this more clearly day by day. We live in a day and age where truth is relative, God’s Word is not the authority, and just as it was at the end of Judges 21 “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” It leaves us sitting in this reality and asking ourselves the question, how should we respond to evil? When tragedies like yesterday come to our doorstep, how are we to think about them and how are we to live?
What can we do against such reckless hate?
Calling Evil, Evil
Isaiah 5:20 says “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”
I have long maintained that where the world creates confusion, the Gospel brings clarity. Understanding the Gospel means that we can understand the world in which we live. It is not this culture that defines or changes the truth of the Gospel. Rather, it is the Gospel that speaks into our culture and gives us the tools needed to combat, interact, and live within the culture that we do. Because of this, we must understand what the Gospel says about evil. Put simply, evil is just that, evil. Revolutionary I know. The evil in this world is an affront to God’s holiness. It stands at the gates of Heaven and mocks the Almighty, claiming superiority and autonomy. It parades itself like a diseased performer, corrupting all it touches and creating nothing but destruction. Evil came into this world when Adam chose personal gratification and pride over obeying the word of his Creator. This decision plunged the world into sin and darkness, and we see the clear effects of that decision to this day. Understand this, if we do not call evil evil, we have no basis on which to call anything good.
Because of this reality, when we see evil occur in our society (just as we did yesterday) we as God’s people must call it out for what it is. It is nothing less than an affront to God and a stench in the nostrils of His Holy Person. It is evil. Plain and simple. In reality, us Christians are truly the only ones that have the ability to put days like yesterday into context and understand them for what they are. We understand why evil will happens. We understand the effects it has on the soul. We can trace the origins of sin, tragedy by tragedy, back to its source. When days like yesterday happen, those of us that understand the Gospel must be careful not to get caught up in the rhetoric and solutions society will put forward. We know what the solution to evil is. We know what it is this world needs. We know how sin and death are overcome. We know the Gospel…
Weep With Those That Weep
The Gospel not only gives us a context with which to understand evil and sin, it also gives us the ability to respond correctly when evil and sin occur in our world. We have seen (and will continue to see) many responses to the events of this week. These responses have ranged from grief and sadness, to anger and outrage, and even sinful glee and mockery. In the same vein, I’m sure we can all remember the conversations and response we all had 24 years ago when the news of the terrorist attack hit the airwaves. Our culture is never short of responses to evil. What it is short on are responses that are rooted in the truth of the Gospel. That is where we Christians must be different.
Evil should grieve us. It should grieve us because of the love that we have for the Lord and the love that we have for those that bear His image. It should grieve us because we understand the brokenness and pain it causes. When we see the effects of sin in our world, it should indeed cause in our hearts a great weight and sorrow. Remember, sin and death is a curse. It is the result of something going horribly wrong. It’s the result of pride and selfishness being placed above living in accordance with who God is and what He has said. Because of this, evil will always result in pain. It will always result in sorrow. It will always result in people experiencing the brokenness of living in a world without Christ. Evil should grieve us and should cause us to weep with those who weep.
We see this modeled for us perfectly in our Savior in John 11. Jesus understood that He was going to raise His friend Lazarus. He was not worried about the outcome of the situation. Yet we still see Jesus weep with Mary and Martha. Why? Because Jesus understood and experienced the effects of the curse that He came to break. He understood the weight that evil brings into this world. He understood the pain and brokenness it creates in the lives of those that bear His image. He felt the sting of the serpent's head He came to crush. It is good and right that we grieve when evil occurs. Evil is a grievous thing, and it is appropriate that when we experience it, we weep as Jesus wept.
We Do Not Weep Without Hope
As we have seen, the Gospel brings clarity in a culture of confusion. It gives us the ability to understand evil in its context. We know where it comes from. We know it’s not going away. We understand that it is good and right to feel the weight of evil when we are confronted with it. We should respond as Jesus did and come alongside those affected, weeping and grieving with them. However, what the Gospel also does is provide for us a context and hope in the midst of that grief. This is the ultimate difference between those with Christ and those without. Those without Christ do not have hope in their grief. It is a grief that leads nowhere. A grief that ends in more grief. A bottomless chasm with no end and no redemption. This is not the reality of those that have been changed by the Gospel.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 says “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”
The resurrection of our Savior is the crown jewel of the Gospel. This is what confirms our faith and makes our hope a reality. It is what we cling to when there is nothing else. It’s what we confess as the centerpiece of our faith, the culmination of our hope and the security of our salvation. Because Jesus lives, we know that evil does not have the final say. It cannot. Our Savior has dismantled the jaws of sin and death and has placed them in their proper place. This is what gives our grief its proper context. This is why we can weep with hope and not despair. The resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us the ability to grieve the evil that’s in this world with a proper understanding. We understand that, although the evil is real and the effects are heartbreaking, it does not mean that Jesus is absent or that we are left alone. We understand that because Jesus lives, we can face tomorrow. Because He lives, there’s no need to fear. We know He holds our present and our future and this life is worth the living because of the hope that is rooted in His resurrection. Do not grieve the evil in this world as those that do not have hope. Grieve with the understanding that because Jesus lives, there will be a day when all things are set right…
"Break their Teeth...Oh Lord."
I have found in times like these, the imprecatory Psalms provide some biblical ways for us to process evil and plead with the Lord for justice to be done. Passages like Psalm 58:6-7 are common ones,
“O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD! Let them vanish like water that runs away; when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.”
These words are good and right to pray when faced with great evil. They confess that evil must indeed be punished, and that God alone is the One that has the authority to punish that evil. Indeed, we that tarry in this world have a great desire to see the teeth of evil broken and shattered. This desire is not wrong. It actually comes from a correct understanding of the Gospel.
The Gospel provides the hope of a great and glorious day when evil is finally crushed beneath the foot of our King. We understand that although evil is prevalent in the world we live, it has an expiration date. We understand that even in the midst of great pain, there will come a day, great and glorious, when our Lord Jesus Christ returns and sets all things right. He will put an end to the rulers and authorities of this world and crush them beneath His feet. He will render all sin and evil asunder and on that day His wrath will not be quenched. Evil will be punished and sin will be eradicated. This world will see and understand the reality of their position before the Almighty. Justice will rain down from the Law Maker Himself and there will be nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. All will be subject and every knee will bow to King Jesus. Make no mistake, Jesus will make things right. Evil has an expiration date.
Conclusion
My friends, when we see headline after headline describing unthinkable evil, the Gospel gives us the ability to place the pieces in their proper order. In the barrage of articles, blogs, podcasts, and hot-takes, do not lose sight of the Gospel in the midst of it all. Do not allow the confusion and cloudiness of this culture to overcome your mind and your heart. Do not forget the truths that the Gospel preaches to us: evil is evil, evil causes grief, Jesus died and rose that sin and death may be broken, and He is coming again to make all things right. Do not lose this. Do not allow yourself to become distracted with the solutions this world seeks to peddle. We know what this world needs and it’s the same thing that we need every single day. It needs to be changed by the good news of the Gospel. It needs Jesus to do a work in its heart. Let this be how you think and speak of the tragic events we face in our lives. I am continuously encouraged by the first question in the Heidelberg Catechism when it asks “what is your only comfort in life and in death?” It answers,
“That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.”
How beautiful is that? That is a hope that has deep roots. That is a foundation that is strong enough to hold the weight of grief. That is a good that overcomes evil. That is what our minds should rest on when faced with the evil in this world. My prayer is that you will continuously look to Christ as your only hope in this life. That you would know and understand how much He cares for you. That you would not grieve these dark days as those without hope. Rather, as you traverse this life on your way to your eternal home, know that there will come a great day in which we see the culmination of Revelation 21:5,
“And He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”