Still has Shrapnel in His Body

Tonight's news reveals that the second Boston Marathon Bomber has been captured alive.  Residents in the area immediately surrounding the capture site cheer the officers and emergency personnel who have brought a sad chapter to an end.  People of Boston breathe more freely tonight, even though the carnage of Monday hasn't changed, and there will be an exhaustive investigation as to how these two young men could possibly gain anything by killing some people and injuring hundreds of others.

Through the course of these last four days we have heard a certain resolve from the people of Boston and from an entire country.  Unlike some other tragedies, this one galvanized the will of a people.  More than once I have read or heard people say that forces of evil will not win.

They cannot win.

A few years ago I traveled in Israel for ten days with Shimshon, an Israeli who carried shrapnel in his  body from a suicide bomber twenty years ago.  He happened to be on a bus when the bomber performed his deadly act.  Some on the bus died.  Shimshon survived and vowed that, to his dying breath, he would fight those forces of evil.

The bomber failed miserably in his attempt to frighten a people into submission.  Conversely, it caused one man to step up to the plate in a new way.  Metal fragments cause him pain from time to time, but they also motivate him to tell the truth as he knows it to anyone who will listen.

Evil did not win in Jerusalem that day.  Evil did not win in Boston on Monday.  Instead, the forces of good come together to defeat evil.  Oh, evil will win a battle from time to time, but it will not win the war.  That war has already been won in Christ whose wounds are those of victory.

Prayers for Peace

Did the person or persons responsible for the bombings in Boston today know they would kill an eight year old?  Would it have made a difference?

Certainly that knowledge did not make a difference in the Sandy Hook tragedy in which the shooter took direct aim at young children (and adults, too).

What kind of evil possesses a person to take lives as if life has no value?  This is not something new.  It has been happening since the beginning of recorded history.  Those familiar with the Bible know that very early on a brother killed brother out of jealousy.

Ultimately in this world there is no answer for this kind of evil.  Each generation deals with its mass killings or bombings or acts of hate.  Each time we pray it will be the last.  It won't be.  It won't because of  the evil that lurks in this world.

We are in the season of Easter proclaiming life and new life.  We do not give in to evil but proclaim final victory over death and evil.  Those without conscience can rob us of almost anything in this world, but they cannot take faith and hope.  They cannot take the sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life.

And so we pray.  God in heaven, bring peace to a troubled world.  Bring comfort to those who have suffered loss.  Bring soundness of mind and spirit to all.  In the name of the one who looked evil in the face and won the battle for us, Jesus Christ, we pray.  Amen.

Pure Water

On the way into church this morning, a Bethel couple pointed out a sign just across Third Avenue from Bethel Lutheran. They chuckled that a water service has the "purest water in Rochester."

It was clear that the husband and wife were contrasting that water with the water we commonly use in churches to baptize. As it would happen, there was a little girl baptized in "pure water" this morning.

We are in the season of Easter. We have just come through a long season of Lent following Jesus' path to the cross. We have now spent eight days celebrating the resurrection that brings new life. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews in the Bible weighs in on this pure water: "Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water."

Bodies washed in pure water. Consciences made clean by the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. What a gift.

I suspect that most of us want to drink "pure water." Is not a body washed clean by the pure water of Christ an even better gift?

Maybe we better put up a sign: "Try our pure water. You will be eternally thankful."