Like everyone, I heard today with a heavy heart about the murders in Blacksburg Virginia. The last I heard there were 31 victims, most of them students. I’m from Virginia and have been to the campus of Virginia Tech. Two of my best H.S. friends went to college there.
Two things are on my mind right now about this hellish reality. First, where was the killer the day I visited campus? My 1979 visit was fine, but I’m sure today, someone died on that campus that shouldn’t have even been there. I need to count my blessings for the life I have and how long I’ve lived. Our lives are but a mist, a vapor, and every day is precious and full of grace. We are mortal, short-lived, fragile, and closer to death than we usually comprehend.
Second, I noted that the news media, as usual, lacked the vocabulary to comprehend what had happened. They call these murders "a tragedy." On this terrible day, I’d like to say that "Romeo and Juliet" is a tragedy. Or Hurricane Katrina. Or the flooding, this past winter, of some of our members’ homes. But the intentional, ruthless murder of 31 innocent young people at Virginia Tech is much more than just "tragic." It’s sinful. It’s an outrage. I marvel that we spend so much time in this country being "outraged" about all kinds of questionable political matters, but when it comes to sin, the cat’s got our tongue.
These poor kids were murdered. Sin, as Romans 1 predicts, gave birth to death. And as the news media speculates now, ad nauseam, about what excuses "drove" the murderer, may we be a people of greater conviction that Jesus had it right: "don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean…for from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts…" (Mark 7:18-21)
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