God and Virginia Tech
April 20, 2007
What can one say about the tragic shooting of 33 people at Virginia Technical Institute on Monday April 16th?  Why did it happen?  Where was God?  How can one still believe in a god of infinite love and power when we see so much evil going on?
First, I think that it is important to really realize how much suffering there is in the world.  On Monday, 5 US. and 13 Iraqi soldiers died in an attack in Iraq along with at least 51 other civilians.  11 Iraqi children were killed in a bomb attack in Iraq over the weekend.  And all over the world people are suffering and dying.  On Monday approximately 1,400 people became infected with AIDS, 95% of them live in developing countries without ready access to medical care.  On Monday almost 3,000 children died of Malaria and 16,000 children died of hunger.
And tragedy can strike us on our own American soil as well.  Every year in the US. 1,500 children die due to abuse and neglect. 3,000 children die as a result of gun violence, 30,000 Americans commit suicide, and 160,000 Americans die of lung cancer.  These are all estimates, but this list of tragedy can go on and on.  It does not include those who die of accidental drug and alcohol overdoses, pollutant caused cancers, car accidents, etc. etc. etc.  When reading a list like this it is hard for the mind (and even harder for the heart) to comprehend.  The individual lives turn into statistics and figures, and even the figures congeal into one big ball of despair that just sticks like a lump in our throats.  We can neither swallow our pain nor let out our cries of anger and sorrow.  And so we become numb to the horror of it all and try to move on with the monotony of our lives.
But then an event happens like the shooting at Virginia Tech.  Comparatively the deaths of 29 students and 4 faculty should just be another drop in the bucket of our world’s sorrows.  But there is something different about this event.  It is not just the fact that the people involved were so young and their deaths were so senseless.  It is all of those things and it is because we can identify with these victims.  We have all sat in classrooms where we felt safe and secure, whether in college or high school.  The students and faculty who died on Monday were all people like us, who had no reason to assume they were in danger, and yet a force of unreasonable terror came and cut their lives short.
Such an event rips away the veil of fog from our minds and shocks us back into the reality of this world.  It loosens the lump in our throats and allows us to morn openly.  When tragedy is brought home we get the chance to revaluate our lives and cry out to God.
So what is a proper response?  How do we eliminate the pain and resolve the conflict between the loving God that we long to know and the cruel world that we know all to well?
First we grieve.  And we grieve knowing that God grieves with us.  In the Talmud there is a story about how the Israelites rejoiced after they crossed the Red Sea and escaped to freedom.  But rather than rejoicing the Talmud tells us that God was weeping for the dead Egyptians who washed up on the shores of the Red Sea, for they were also God’s children.  And again in 2 Samuel we are told that when a plague struck the people of Israel “the Lord was grieved because of the calamity.”(2 Samuel 24:16)  How can we interpret this?  Can God be moved to tears and regret?
In Genesis 6:6 we are told that “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain.”  And so he sent a flood which almost destroyed God’s creation.  If God could cry real tears, and if God knew the suffering of God’s beloved creation we can be assured that God’s tears would flood the world. There is the old children’s story that when ever it rains it means that angels are crying in heaven.  How fitting it is then that just before the shooting at Virginia Tech the East Coast experienced one of the biggest rain storms in the past century.
I would like to add to this fable a new story.  In Genesis 1:1, before the world was created we are told that “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”  In other words we are never told where this water came from; it was there before creation.  Maybe God contemplated for an eternity before he created us.  Maybe in that contemplation God knew all of the pain and suffering that we would have to go through if we were given the gift of life.  And as God thought about this God wept.  God wept bitterly before the beginning of time for all of the misery that we would suffer in our lives.  So, in response to the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech let us grieve with our creator.
But then God moved on.  God did create us and so God must have had hope that we would be able to overcome this suffering. (Rom 8:18-24) 
There is a proper time and place for grieving.  “There is a time to everything, and there is a season for every activity under heaven.”(Ecc 3:1)  Once the time of grieving has past we must also move on.  We must not let our grief drag us into despair, or numb us back into the fog of indifference from which we have been aroused.  We must transform our grief into action, or we will drown in our own tears.  This action is born of hope.  The hope that we can make a difference and that we can prevent such tragedies from happening.   This hope was instilled in us from the very fact that we were created and it is promised to us by God.
But simply to hope is not enough. Saint Augustine once said, “Hope has two children: anger and courage. Anger at the way things are, and the courage to change them.”  We are saddened by the tragedy at Virginia Tech and we are outraged at a society that seems to breed hatred and violence.  Therefore, let the tragedy at Virginia Tech become a rallying cry to all people who have faith in the Lord and hope in God’s promises.  Let it be a call for us to take action against the evils of our society.  Let us get angry and respond to this act of violent hatred with an act of violent love.  Let us fight this evil, not by pointing fingers and throwing stones, but by letting down our guard and opening our arms.  Let us embrace our neighbors and tear down the walls of segregation that leave people feeling isolated and cut off from their fellow human beings.  Let us expose our hearts and gain strength from our shared imperfections.  And let us turn away from images of worldly power, greed, and violence, and look toward God in faith, hope, and love.  Only then can we begin to dry the tears that threaten to pour down from the ends of the earth and engulf us all.
AIDS statistics: http://www.until.org/statistics.shtml
Malaria statistics: http://www.amref.org/index.asp?PageID=50&PiaID=1
Hunger statistics: http://www.bread.org/learn/hunger-basics/hunger-facts-international.html
Gun violence and children statistics: http://www.neahin.org/programs/schoolsafety/gunsafety/statistics.htm
Suicide statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm
Child abuse statistics: http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/fatality.cfm
Lung Cancer statistics: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1x_What_Are_the_Key_Statistics_About_Lung_Cancer_15.asp?sitearea
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