Yet Another Tragedy
About a week after the mass shootings in Atlanta, there is another in Boulder, CO. So tragic. A man walked into a King Soopers grocery store and opened fire. Ten people were killed. So horrendous. This news flash is meant more for a warzone than a community. Moreover, for a community that was ranked in 2020 to be the #1 American city to live in for quality of life and the #7 safest city. I’m quite familiar with Boulder. I attended the University of Colorado as an undergrad. I attest to the rankings even back then. It is a very pleasant city. I spent four years on such a beautiful campus just down the road to that King Soopers.
How could such tragedies in Atlanta and Boulder happen? The Scripture teaches that evil does not merely arise from the environment or from nurture. Evil originates from the heart. The fourth section of the sixth chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith reads, “From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, (Rom. 5:6; Rom. 8:7, Rom. 7:18; Col. 1:21) and wholly inclined to all evil, (Gen. 6:5; Gen. 8:21; Rom. 3:10, 11, 12.) do proceed all actual transgressions (James 1:14, 15; Eph. 2:2, 3; Matt. 15:19).
This statement explains from Scripture that we are born with a tendency to sin where our rational faculties (thinking/feeling/choosing) have been corrupted. And though the degree of evil is different through environment and nurture, every person possesses a heart bent toward evil.
Is there hope for the corrupted heart? There is. There is hope for a new heart. This is a hope that springs right out of Lent. As we meditate upon the sacrifice of Jesus all the way to His death on the cross to the empty tomb, we realize the solution from Scripture. A heart that is once dead by the corruption of sin is made alive by the very power that raised Jesus from the dead:
Ephesians 2:4-7
“4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when
we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been
saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
As we are passing through this broken world, let us pray for, love and encourage the hurting and downcast. Let us share the hope that we have in the gospel as we fix our eyes upon Jesus. He is our only hope. He is our strength. He is our life. This is why Jesus said that “in the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b).