Recently I was reading the news
and saw the announcement that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had finally
closed their investigation into the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Shooter, Stephen
Paddock. The announcement struck me as
somewhat odd.
The investigation had gone on for
over a year after this man had barricaded himself in a Las Vegas corner suite
overlooking a country music festival and let loose with over a thousand rounds of
ammunition on the unsuspecting crowd below.
All told over fifty-eight people were killed and scores of others were
wounded in the attack.
Though Stephen Paddock was
eventually found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the hotel room
strewn with shell casings and over twenty weapons, the investigation
continued. Paddock’s guilt had been
firmly established within minutes of SWAT entry into the hotel room. There was no doubt who had committed this
horrendous crime. Still, the
investigation continued.
Investigators descended on
Paddock’s home and other real estate, searched his bank records, and contacted
anyone with any connection to him to establish whether this crime was committed
alone or in concert with other conspirators or accomplices. Within weeks the FBI had determined that
Paddock had acted alone. Still, the
investigation continued.
Investigators interviewed
Paddock’s relatives and associates, and scoured electronic devices, email, and
social media. Though guilt had been
established, and no accomplices had aided in the crime, the search for a motive
would continue for over a year with no discernible reason why someone would
commit such an atrocity. This man held
no religious or political ideology that might account for his actions that we
could identify. Unlike the DC Beltway
Sniper of several years ago, Paddock was not a disenfranchised castaway trying
to get even with the world. In fact, he
was quite affluent. As far as could be
seen, he was not the victim of an abusive home that might explain his
actions. The elusive question of Why
haunted us, and so the investigation continued on, and on, and on. Finally, the FBI closed the case announcing
that no motive could be determined for this horrible crime.
When faced with tragedy,
suffering, sin, and death, the first question we ask is Why? We desperately try to make sense of tragedy. Maybe if we understand why, we can make peace
with what occurred. Maybe we can
mitigate it somehow. It provides a
justification. It makes us feel better,
it makes us feel useful, it makes us feel in control.
Sin however, has no
rationale. It is completely irrational
and senseless, and this scares the hell out of us. It means that any one of us has the potential
to commit grave evil, and perhaps this is the teachable moment from the Las
Vegas shooting.
Any person who has ever had kids
understands what I mean. I can think of
countless moments where my children have gotten in trouble for breaking some behavioral
norm. They know our rules, these have
been clearly communicated. And for
almost every incident where something like this happens, I can remember staring
at my kids and asking them why they did it.
Every time this happens I get the following response, a dumbfounded
expression as the child says, “I don’t know.”
It frustrates me and my response is usually to press the issue, “Give me
a reason why you did it.” The kid, again
confused, says, “I don’t know.” Maybe I
should just appreciate their honesty and move on to discipline.
This behavior holds true for
adults just as well. Ask the person who
was arrested for murder if he knew that murder was wrong and that there would
be negative consequences, and he will tell you he did. Ask the husband who was caught cheating on
his wife of twenty years if he knew that his infidelity would destroy his
marriage and his family, and he will tell you he did. Ask the gossip who sows discord by
fabricating lies about another person whether they knew that slander was wrong
and injurious to the other person, and they will tell you they know they
shouldn’t gossip. None of it makes any
sense, and yet we do it anyway. So why
do we do it?
The Bible addresses the question
of sin almost from the outset. In the
book of Genesis, the Bible describes the creation. In it, God creates the world out of
nothingness, orders it, and creates life.
On each day of creation, God surveys his work and calls it Good. On the sixth day of creation, God creates
mankind, creating them as man and woman and gives them dominion over creation
to rule it in God’s own image. He gives
them the plants to eat, blesses them to be plentiful, and places them in the
garden of Eden, giving Adam and Eve meaningful work in carrying out God’s
will. It is this arrangement that God
describes as Very Good.
However, in the garden of Eden
grew the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God had warned Adam not to eat from the tree. He tells Adam that in eating of it, he would
surely die. God clearly communicated his
will to Adam. Adam knew God’s
expectations, and he understood the stakes.
However, in all of Adam’s
blessings, he cannot live with the status quo.
Rather than receiving God’s grace and blessings as they were designed to
do, they decided they wanted to take become like God, effectively putting
themselves in his place. When Adam and
Eve disobey God by eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they set
themselves outside of God’s will. By
doing so, we see the entry of sin into the world, and with it, death enters the
world as well. The author of Genesis
offers no explanation, no excuse, no justification for Adam and Eve’s
rebellious act. They knew God’s will,
they had everything they could want, and yet they disobey God. All of creation stands aghast at this
senselessness and becomes subject to the corruption of it.
The story doesn’t change
throughout the scriptures. We see the
same thing in the nation of Israel. God
had set aside for himself a nation consecrated to him. Through Moses God delivered them from slavery
and bondage to Egypt, and delivered over to them the land of Canaan, the
Promised Land. In the book of
Deuteronomy, Moses gives his last address to the nation of Israel as they
prepare to enter and conquer the Promised Land.
He urges them to follow God’s will communicated to them in the Sinai
covenant. He tells them they have a
choice between obedience and life, and disobedience and death. He explains to them the blessings associated
with obedience, and the curses associated with disobedience. In his impassioned plea he urges them to
choose life. Joshua, Moses’ successor
would repeat this choice to Israel after they conquer and begin to settle the
Promised land.
And yet, we see the same senseless
disregard for God’s will. Throughout the
history of Israel, Israel would disobey God, follow after gods of their own
making, and forsake the God who promised such rich blessings. Senseless.
Irrational. Why?
We are no different than
Israel. Paul describes our situation in
this way:
“For since the creation of the
world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have
been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are
without excuse. For although they knew
God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their
thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. They exchanged the truth of God for a
lie…”
Paul makes clear that God’s will
has been made manifest to us. And yet,
we actively subvert God’s will, and exchange his truth for lies.
As humans, we expect wickedness
to be met with justice. In fact, we
demand it so long as justice is administered to a third party. But when we realize that the wicked one is
us, we sing a very different tune. We
realize that there is no way that we can fulfill the demands for justice for
our own sin. And yet, the requirement of
justice must be fulfilled. Paul tells us
that ultimately, “the wages of sin is death.”
This is the offense of the
message of the cross. “For the word of
the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it
is the power of God.”
To the world the message of the
cross is foolishness, it is audacious disregarding of what makes sense to
us. Wickedness demands justice, yet we
cannot pay it. We want grace, yet we
deserve the demand of justice for our wickedness.
So what does God do? God gives us both. He fulfills the just requirement of the law,
and redeems us through grace in one man:
Jesus Christ.
The author of Hebrews tells us
that though Christ has been tempted in every respect as we are, he met those
temptations without sinning. Christ fulfilled
God’s will where we subverted it.
And though, we were guilty of
transgressing God’s law, bringing with our transgressions the curses of the law,
Christ became the curse of the law in our place.
Though we fall short of
fulfilling God’s will for us, God credits the righteousness of Christ to our
account.
Paul tells us, “For while we were
still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous
person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God
shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
It makes no sense. The math doesn’t seem to add up. And yet, God declares this to be true, so we accept
that it is true. And there it is, the
audacity of grace, the foolishness of the cross. Christ died, that you may live by faith in
him.
May we all become fools and
accept the audacity of Christ, the foolishness of the cross.
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