Free Grace Classics: Escape to Reality Greatest Hits, Volume 2 by Paul Ellis

wrong tree.
    Two thousand
years ago a tower collapsed killing eighteen people. This tragedy led Jesus to
pose a question to the religious-minded folk of his day, “Do you think that
those who died were more sinful than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell
you, no!” (Luke 13:4–5).
    Sometimes
people die because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Had those
children and teachers at Sandy Hook done anything deserving of death? Of course
not. There may be no lesson here. No “avoid this next time.” All we can take
from this, said Jesus, is that death comes to us all. So repent, and come to
him for new life (Luke 13:5).
     
    4. Why didn’t God stop this
from happening?
     
    In a manner of speaking, he
couldn’t—not without violating us. I know this will come as something of a
shock, but God doesn’t always get what he wants. He is not willing that any
perish, yet people perish. God could intervene but he restrains himself on
account of love.
    Consider:
The greatest massacre in history happened when Adam ate the forbidden fruit.
Adam’s act condemned the human race to death and God did nothing to stop it. It
wasn’t God’s will for Adam to eat, yet Adam ate. And it wasn’t God’s will for
Adam Lanza to go to that school in Connecticut , yet Adam went.
    Free
will is a powerful thing. With it we can choose life or death and Almighty God
won’t stop us. In giving us the freedom to choose knowing that he would have to
go to the cross to redeem our choices, God was saying that he would rather die
than live without us.
     
    5. Has God left the building?
     
    No. The question, “Where was God?”
implies that God is not here. Perhaps he skipped town when we stopped prayer in
schools or when the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade. “We’re sinners and God
doesn’t want anything to do with us.” Such thinking usually leads to a long
list of things we must do to fix the problem.
    What a
deception! God did not leave us; we left him. God didn’t reject Adam; Adam
rejected God. “Adam, where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).
    The
story of our species is one of unrequited love. God made us for love but we
spurned him. Since then he has waited for the prodigal to come to his senses
and return home.
     
    6. How should we respond?
     
    With love and grace. This tragedy
in Connecticut did not happen because God stopped loving us or caring for us.
Neither did it happen because our religious performance is not what it could
be. It happened because a certain young man made an awful choice and did a
terrible thing.
    What
should we do in response? We should weep with those who weep and mourn with
those who mourn. We should ache and hurt and cry because we live in a world
where children sometimes die from bullets, poverty, and disease. We should pray
for the families of Charlotte Bacon, Daniel Barden, Rachel D’Avino, Olivia
Engel, Josephine Gay, Dylan Hockley, Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, Madeleine Hsu,
Catherine Hubbard, Chase Kowalski, Nancy Lanza, Jesse Lewis, Ana
Marquez-Greene, James Mattioli, Grace McDonnell, Anne Marie Murphy, Emilie
Parker, Jack Pinto, Noah Pozner, Caroline Previdi, Jessica Rekos, Avielle
Richman, Lauren Rousseau, Mary Sherlach, Victoria Soto, Benjamin Wheeler, and
Allison Wyatt. We could pray that in this dark night they might somehow know
the comfort of God.
    And when
the time of mourning has passed we should get up and carry on with the task
Jesus has given us—that of proclaiming the good news of his kingdom. We should
provide a broken world with a prophetic picture of the age to come—the age
where justice reigns and heaven and earth are one. Darkness only persists
because the light does not shine, so shine.
    The
answer to violence is not to stick the Ten Commandments back in the courthouses
or build higher walls around communities. For the children of God, these are
inferior choices. What this sick and dying world needs most is a revelation of God
with us.
    God is
not opposed to us. He