33 People Gunned Down

Today, a psycho gunned down more than thirty people at Virginia Tech University.

What to say? Nothing. Why does this type of thing happen? I heard President Bush pray that the families of those effected receive comfort "from a loving God." And I pray the same thing, because there is no hope of any sort of real comfort outside of God, because comfort in this situation is not natural.

But when I heard the quote, I thought how many people's first reaction will be, "loving God?" "How could a loving God allow this to happen in the first place." An age old question, a good question. And I think one that we in the western world who follow Jesus are less equipped to answer than others -- because of our comfortable Christianity. We live in a society where often the answer to the question, what does a Christian look like, is a person who drives a nice navy blue SUV with a fish on the back for each kid in the family, and goes to church.

What did a Christian look like in the early church? The bible tells us it looks like people who followed Jesus despite the fact that it meant their houses might be destroyed, their possessions taken, their livelihood jeopardized, and their life threatened or snuffed out. And so when tragedy happened, whether natural of man-made, it was the attitude of the Christians that made no sense. They were the first to care for the sick and jailed, filled with joy even as their stuff was being pillaged.

If the Church looked more like that today, if the church loved that way today -- even when the sky is falling, what different question might the people who the sky fell on ask?