A small group of us gathered for worship yesterday evening to honor the dead and wounded at Virginia Tech. I made some brief remarks, based on Micah 4: 1-5 and John 20: 24-29:
The body of Jesus was full of holes when they laid it in the tomb. Little details like that take on spiritual and theological significance in times like these. The uniquely painful grief of a parent for a child stolen from them by an act of violence is not a grief that is unknown to our Heavenly Father. It is a grief that our God has grieved. In times like these, when we look to the heavens seeking answers to questions, seeking comfort in our loss, reassurance to replace our fear, or even with angry accusations, we find a God who has shed the tears we've shed.
We long for a world like that of which the prophet Micah dared to dream: a world of peace and tranquility, where homes designed by Virginia Tech architects and built by Virginia Tech engineers are untroubled by fear or sadness. A world where endless varieties of fig trees and grape vines designed in Virginia Tech greenhouses and labs grow and bear fruit, and children run among them without a care in the world. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a pledge from God to us that none of the prophet's words will fall to the ground. God not only knows how to comfort us, but has the power to make it right. And God is making it right. In this interim between resurrection and second coming the Evil One works hard, for he knows his time is short. But the victory belongs to the Lamb who was slain.
The God who knows our griefs and has pledged to renew the world not only comforts us in these scripture readings. God also calls us to action. What sort of action? Already the debates are beginning--too soon, I believe, for we don't yet have all the facts--debates over gun control, campus security, access to mental health services. All these issues will have to be reviewed and changes in policies made, if necessary.
But I attended a worship service last month, in which Dr. Aymer of Hood Seminary preached on this prophecy from Micah. He shrewdly observed that the well-known image of swords beaten into plowshares is preceded by a less remembered but equally compelling image of the nations making pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to worship the Lord and learn God's ways. In Micah's vision, a world of universal peace is a world of universal worship.
So let us recommit ourselves to the seemingly ordinary practices of singing praises to God, asking God and our neighbors to forgive us, and offering up our hardened hearts to the Holy Spirit, who slowly but surely renders them warm, malleable, and teachable. Let us teach our children to do the same. And let us invite others to join us on this pilgrim journey to the new Jerusalem, the one not made with human hands. For on the axis of that journey human history turns.
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