“Where Is Our Consolation”

Matthew 2:18

Unless you’ve been in a coma, you’re aware of the horrific events that took place at Virginia Tech last Monday. Tuesday morning, still reeling from all of that, I caught myself wondering to myself about how a certain mass murderer was enjoying his first full day in hell. Within the context of raw human emotion such thoughts were normal, maybe even appropriate. Many of the psalmists would have thought so! Within the context of a classic, albeit, simplistic Christian theology and a bare bones style of Biblical interpretation they were at least somewhat technically correct.

My heart cried out for justice, but it was a justice overly influenced by a desire for vengeance. Someone evil had done something so heinous as to be beyond human comprehension. Monday’s events at Virginia Tech were immeasurably and unspeakably costly in terms of human life and suffering. There was a price to be paid, and somebody needed to pay it, if not in this life then in the next.

But as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Furthermore, Reformed theology is very clear as to who makes the ultimate decisions about heaven and hell. And, it is never okay for any Christian to wish that another person, no matter how wicked, be consigned to hell.

That was early Tuesday morning. By later that day my anger had given way to numbness. Still numb I watched the end of the televised convocation in Cassell Coliseum. Up to that point nobody’s words had been comforting to me. Like that unnamed mother in Matthew’s second chapter I could find no consolation. Then Nikki Giovanni defiantly read her poem. Then the students and others in attendance broke into a very familiar cheer: “Let’s go Hokies!” and I lost it. My anger was overcome by my grief. This grief broke through my protective shell, overwhelming the numbness. I cried. I sobbed. I bawled like a baby.

None of this was totally new. The Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine, 9/11, and learning that a young man to whom I’d been a pastor when he was a little boy had been killed in Iraq: with each of those incidents had come a very similar grief, anger, and numbness. But Monday was different. People were killed in a building, maybe even in rooms, where I’d taken classes. With a horrifying sense of purpose a murderous madman had walked across ground upon which I have walked many times – not sacred ground per se, but still some ground that was mighty important to me. This was my school – and my sister’s, and my son-in-law’s. A favorite uncle and two of my cousins earned degrees there. Hokie Nation had been attacked by one of its own. This was up close and personal. And I took it as such. Thus the anger. Thus the grief. Thus the numbness. All normal. All legitimate.

But within the framework of my Christian faith there has to be something beyond the anger, grief, and numbness. As a Minister of Word and Sacrament I am called to do more than lament or cry out for vengeance. Somewhere in this pastor’s heart there must be room for forgiveness. Within the Gospel I preach, the Scripture and theology I teach, and the Good News I am called to proclaim I must find and share words of hope and consolation. In this Easter Season I must point others, as well as myself, toward the reality of resurrection.

But it’s hard to preach resurrection while one is still emotionally stuck in the darkness of such a Good Friday experience. This past week has been much more a time of suffering and death than it has been a time of new life. The darkness of crucifixion has overwhelmed the glory of resurrection in my heart. “A voice was heard from Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

The original context of those words was the aftermath of Judah’s destruction by the Babylonian Empire. It was a time of death, destruction, and defeat. Jerusalem was in ruins. The temple had been reduced to rubble. The nation’s best and brightest were either dead or on their way to exile in Babylon. It even seemed that God was dead and buried beneath the ruins of the temple.

Mathew uses those words to describe the aftermath of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents following the birth of Jesus. Mothers – and fathers – were crying out in the midst of the grief, shock, and pain of losing their children at the jealous whim of a madman; a paranoid shell of a king who was terrified that another had been born to take his place. Like their Judean forebears, these first century mamas and daddies were weeping for their children, refusing to be consoled.

Where in the aftermath of unspeakable horror and tragedy do any of us find consolation? For Christians it is found in God’s Word. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Our Good Shepherd Jesus is always with us, even in the deepest, darkest valleys of our lives. Not always dispelling the darkness. Not always holding death at bay. But with us, comforting us with his presence.

“Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” So a long ago psalmist questioned God. “… [wherever I go] even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast." Thus he answered his own question. “… even the darkness is not dark to you; the darkness is as bright as day, for darkness is as light to you.” The deepest darkness cannot come between God and those he loves. Wherever we go, there God is. In life and in death we belong to God.

Even when the events of life have driven us to the point of barely believing in his existence, God is still there. When our lives are shattered and our hearts are broken beyond seeming repair, God is there, offering to help us pick up life’s broken pieces, offering healing for our seemingly irreparably broken hearts. He doesn’t force himself upon us. Nor does he even demand that we believe. He gives us time to grieve. He patiently waits for the tears to dry.

And at some point, sometimes without us even being conscious of it, by the power of his Holy Spirit he moves in and through the people, places, and events in our lives to make us whole. There will be scars. There will be painful memories. There are some things that can never be undone. But the Lord our God can lift us up and out of our darkness and empower us to live again.

For those parents and other loved ones of the victims of Monday’s atrocities such words are not easy to hear right now. Nor are they easy to believe. Still we need to say them, and say them with conviction, never glibly tossing them out as pious platitudes. More than that we need to hear them again, maybe for the first time. Even more than that we need to, by faith, believe them. We need to believe that in the vast and eternal providence of God life will ultimately triumph over death, light will ultimately obliterate darkness, and heaven will ultimately restore what hell has torn apart.

We need to believe that in the aftermath of last Monday. We need to believe that when we read the daily lists of men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to believe that when space shuttles fall apart in the sky, tsunamis wipe towns and villages off the face of the earth, and religious fanatics fly planes into skyscrapers. In the midst of our shock, anger, and grief we need to cling to the truth of God’s providential grace and steadfast love. That will never magically take the hurt away. It will enable us to endure it, and in time move beyond it.

The only final word I can speak is God’s as it was handed down to us by the Apostle Paul: “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who can bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed interceded for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Amen.