The memory of those awful events
continues to haunt us and we begin by expressing our heartfelt sympathies with
surviving witnesses of the atrocity and with bereaved relatives. Jesus Himself wept outside the tomb of his
friend Lazarus and onlookers saw how much he loved him. May God grant that comfort in Christ that is
so sorely needed.
It is not our purpose to start
thinking about how the terrorists were able to get away with such wickedness on
a human level. We certainly see the
depth of sin as such things are planned in detail, and we see the impotence of
even the best government to prevent it.
There are far deeper questions.
Where was God? Was He unable to
prevent it? If He was not unable then
why did He let it happen? Can there be
any good purpose in such a thing?
We are so affected by what
happened because it has come home to so powerfully. It happened on Kenyan soil, it specifically
targeted non-Muslims, and there were mobile phone conversations as it
happened. Yet, sad to say, history is
littered with such massacres. Boko Haram
has been slaughtering thousands in northern Nigeria. Little more than 20 years ago 800 thousand
are reckoned to have been killed in Rwanda.
During WWII 6 million Jews suffered in what is known as the Holocaust. 2015 marks the centenary of what many call the
Armenian genocide when around 1 million or more perished.
Let us not pretend we have all
the answers. The mysteries of why such
things happen go right back to the very start when Adam and Eve fell, and the
whole human race with them. God made a
creation that He described as “very good”. Why did sin come in to spoil it? And the evil consequences remain with us today! Was God just an observer, unable to control
creatures He had made, Satan, and the first couple? You do not get rid of the problem by
declaring that God gave them ‘free-will’.
At the very least surely God knew what they were going to do, for He is
omniscient. He could have prevented the
serpent from getting near Eve, or made it unable to speak, or used another
animal to speak opposite words; in fact He left Eve completely to herself.
No, we must rather confess 3
things: God has all power (omnipotent), and all knowledge (omniscient), and His
ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9), and past finding out (Romans
11:33). God has purposes of judgment as
well as blessing, of warning as well as comforting, purposes for the future as
well as for the present, for others as well as for myself, for His own glory as
well as for our good. Read the Bible and
see how God perfectly weaves together all events, both good and evil, to fulfil
His gracious plans that finally brought His Son our Lord Jesus Christ into the
centre stage of world history. You do
not have to understand how the weaver so expertly manages his loom in order to
appreciate the finished product!
Even if we do not have all the
answers, there are some very important things we must say about which we have
no doubt.
(1) God is just, despite what has happened. “Shall
not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25),
proclaimed Abraham when God revealed to him that He was about to destroy Sodom. Measured on the time line of eternity, and
weighed in the balances of God’s law, God never acts unjustly in punishment,
although He acts mercifully times without number.
(2) Sinners deserve eternal hell, whether those carrying out
atrocities, or those on the receiving end.
Sin is nothing less than rebellion against God. David confessed his adultery as “Against you, you only, have I sinned and
done what is evil in your sight,…” (Psalm 51:5). Adam was threatened with death (Genesis
2:17); Ezekiel reiterated that “the soul
who sins shall die” (18:4); the New Testament teaches “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23); and the last book of the
Bible tells us of “the second death, the
lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14). It
is this death as hell, as separation from God, that our Saviour had to undergo
on the cross, as He cried out of the darkness, “My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Anything
we experience less than this is less than we deserve.
(3) The response must be repentance.
Jesus was told of a massacre and this was His warning. “There were some present at that very time
who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices. And he answered them,
"Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other
Galileans, because they suffered in this way?
No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish”
(Luke 13:1-3). We must stop asking the
question ‘Why?’ because we do not have all the answers. We must not suppose that such an awful death
is a punishment for specific sin, because Christ denies it. We must stop just focussing on what happened,
or those who were involved. Jesus says
that we must start to think about ourselves and our readiness to face the
judgment when we are summoned sooner or later from this world. Someone might say that this is not very kind,
that much more comforting words need to be given. But apart from the fact that would be to
impugn Christ Himself, consider that such a warning is great kindness. If during the post-election violence you were
warned not to go to a certain place because of trouble there would you not have
been profoundly grateful. The Lord
Jesus, who infallibly knows all things present and future, had graciously
warned you.
(4) The Christian has great hope. Thank God that all those who die in Christ,
have the assurance of eternal life (John 10:28). Death is but a short sleep for them, when
they are absent from the body but present with the Lord. The terrorist’s bullet may kill their body
but it cannot kill their soul. For this
reason Christ told us to love our enemies and not to fear them. Christianity is the only religion that gives
this assurance of resurrection, “But in
fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have
fallen asleep. For as by a man came
death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ
shall all be made alive. But each in his
own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to
Christ” (1 Corinthians
15:20-23).
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