A Fourth Church Sermon by John W. Vest

View pdf of bulletin

Thursday, April 19, 2007 | A Service of Remembrance for Those Affected by the Virginia Tech Tragedy

No Easy Answers

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Shock.

Sadness.

Anger.

Disgust.

Guilt.

Grief.

Pain.

Weariness.

Numbness.

Sorrow.

These and many other words attempt, but ultimately fail, to describe the spectrum of emotions that we feel, have felt, and will feel in the aftermath of the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Any time an event like this takes place, our hearts break. As a pastor who works with youth and their families, many of whom are heading to college next year or have siblings or children in college now, this kind of tragedy hits close to home. When we send our children to school—to college, to high school, to elementary school—we assume that they are going to a safe place to learn and grow and thrive. Some this week have used the word sanctuary to describe our hopes and prayers for what schools should be, and I find that to be an apt description. When this sanctuary is violated, we all feel it in a profound and visceral way. We feel violated ourselves.

If you are anything like me, your shock at this horror is matched only by your desire to find answers to help make sense of it all. Judging by the media coverage of these events, we are not alone. No matter how horrific they are, we seem to find comfort in details. We seem to recover some sense of security by knowing as much as we can, as quickly as we can.

In our haste to find answers, we jump to conclusions. Intentionally or not, we rush to demonize the killer, to portray him as the embodiment of the evil we experience and fear in this situation. It’s a cruel irony, but it’s a reaction as old as humanity itself: the more monstrous we make Cho Seung-Hui, the safer we feel because he becomes something completely other than us. We hold him at a comfortable distance and feel safe.

We look for people to blame. We’ll dissect Cho’s mental state and motivations for years to come. We question the response of university officials and law enforcement officers. We look for warning signs that were missed. We blame the media for sensationalism and overexposure. We blame a society saturated with violence. Some of us blame gun control; others blame the lack of gun control.

And at services like this throughout the world, and in the quiet of our own homes, we pause to remember the lives that were lost. We join our hearts and spirits with those who mourn. We join our voices to theirs as we pray, sing, and search for hope in the midst of darkness.

We look for answers.

As Christians, we wonder where to find God in all of this. We look to the Bible for answers, for something that will help it all make sense.

But there are no answers, at least not easy answers. Simple answers and platitudes seem trite and shallow. And friends, the truth is that the Bible is not an answer book. There’s no chapter in here on how to respond to horrible tragedies. There’s no instruction manual. There’s no appendix to explain it all. There’s no answer key.

You need to understand that we Presbyterians have an interesting approach to this book. We consider this book to be the Word of God spoken through the words of humans. 1

This is a human book. It contains the hopes and dreams and questions and longings of many different people who experienced God in their lives and responded in faith by writing those experiences down for later generations.

And so in this book we find pretty much every human emotion you’ve experienced so far this week and every human emotion you’ll experience in the weeks to come.

Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, questions God about the death of innocent people: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25).

Poor, afflicted Job remains defiant in the face of his undeserved suffering: “I hold fast my righteousness, and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days” (Job 27:6).

King David wails in pain at the death of his beloved son: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Samuel 18:33).

In the Book of Psalms, we find a range of attitudes:

Anger: “The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done” (Psalm 58:10).

Fear: “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck” (Psalm 69:1).

Abandonment: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1).

Hope: “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1–2)

And in the gospels, a very human Jesus expresses trust and submission, even in the face of his very real fear: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mark 14:36).

The lesson to be gained is this: whatever you are feeling today is okay. Whatever you felt yesterday is okay. Whatever you will feel tomorrow is okay. It’s part of being human. Our scriptures bear witness to this. Our scriptures reflect the great diversity of human experience. The beauty of our biblical canon is that it represents humanity for who we are. It’s as much about questions as it is about answers, which is a validation for us as we search and grope for something to hold on to.

Yet this is also a divine book. And so we hear in these words of humans the voice of God, speaking words of comfort and truth.

We hear the voice of God telling us that Cho was not a monster—like us, he was a human being, flawed and broken, as we all are in this flawed and broken world. We shudder at the violence of his acts, the abrupt end of young lives full of potential and promise. But if we allow them to, these deaths remind us of the violence and death that fills our entire world, from Baghdad to Chicago and all places in between. We hear the voice of God telling us that there is not one person to blame. This evil is a condition of our fallen world. This evil is something we all participate in and are all affected by.

Not even two weeks ago we celebrated the mystery of the resurrection, God’s ultimate statement that death is not the final word, that even from the grips of death, God can bring about life. May God help us to remember the light of Easter during these dark days.

For the Apostle Paul, the death and resurrection of Jesus is our ultimate sign of hope. For Paul, Christ’s resurrection is a preview of what lies in store for us. Indeed, it is a preview of what lies in store for all of creation—those we consider monsters and those we consider innocents. Like Christ, the death that we experience in our lives will one day be redeemed.

When discussing what resurrection means, Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15:

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:50–57)

Did you hear that?

Resurrection means imperishability from perishability.

Resurrection means immortality from mortality.

Resurrection means perfection from imperfection.

Resurrection means life from death.

As hard as it is to understand, resurrection means that the brokenness of this world is made whole.

Now I don’t believe, as some do, that tragedies like this one are part of some great divine plan beyond our comprehension. I don’t believe that God causes death to bring about life. I don’t believe that God causes evil to bring about good.

I do believe that we live in a broken world that is full of evil and violence.

I do believe that God can take that evil and violence and redeem it.

I do believe that as the children of God we play a part in this redemption.

I do believe that from death God can bring about new life.

I do believe that the love of God surrounds us all.

This is what I hear in the voice of God, bursting forth from that Easter story.

In another one of his letters, Paul reflects on the sufferings of his own day, the tribulations that he and his sisters and brothers felt in the world around them. I want to close with these words from Paul, found in the eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans.

Friends, in these words written by a human being who experienced all of the joy and pain of life that we experience ourselves, listen for the word of God.

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31–39)

Amen.

Notes
1. See the Confession of 1967, found in the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Book of Confessions.