April 20 – Believe

Some hard things happen in April. We have the remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr being shot and killed in Memphis, Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The mass murders at Virginia Tech happened in April, and today we observe the 20th anniversary of the Columbine killings. It’s hard to believe such a delicate and pretty month can unleash such terror.
But I know that there is no season for massacre, no season for death. There is evil at work in every month of the year. I believe this because I have seen it. I have seen the terrible cruelty, I have felt the nearly unbearable pain. There is evil that works by making – or allowing? – people to commit horrendous acts of violence, and others to stand by passively. There is evil that works by getting inside a person like an infection, causing them intense and unrelenting suffering of the body, mind, or spirit. Evil victimizes the vulnerable and sometimes turns these victims into victimizers.
But I also believe that good is stronger than evil because I have seen it. I have seen people do amazing things to stop harm. And I have felt the love that will not let me go even in the face of the most intense evil. Evil will drive you to despair, but good will lift you back up.
I know that Jesus died on a spring day and was laid in a tomb. And I know that through him God disrupted, defeated the powers of death, and that hope prevails. We have a God who restores and redeems – this is the message flooding through the scriptures from beginning to end. And this is the message of God that floods our world.
Good will not die. Love will not die. This I believe.

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