How bad is it? “There have been 251 mass shootings in 2019, according to the Gun Violence Archive.” “This year, more than 520 people have died in mass shootings and at least 2,000 have been injured” (USA Today, August 5; 3A).
How did Jesus deal with terrible things during His visible ministry? Instead of transforming society, He went to the cross. His ministry had been to the shunned, the sick, the suffering, the grieving, and even the dead. In bad times He showed mercies, loving kindnesses to the humble, but to general crowds, we might say to television audiences, He warned, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3).
Martin Luther described two kinds of theologians, theologians of glory and theologians of the cross. Glory guys are confident they can make things better. You see them on TV, politicians and pundits arguing their way about improving society and blaming those who disagree. No fear of God. Cross people despair of our efforts to make things better. “It is certain that one must utterly despair of oneself in order to be made fit to receive the grace of Christ” (Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 18).
We church-goers want to make society better, to realize in our communities and nation the positive commands of the Second Table of the Law, but how? Glory guys think we can fix things with a law here, a law there. Cross people see it differently. While we pray and work for a peaceful society (1 Timothy 2:2; 1 Peter 2:12), we go at it knowing we’re deeply flawed by sin. It has to be Christ working in and through us (Philippians 2:13). “While Christ lives in us through faith, he now moves us to do good works through that living faith in his works” (Proof 27). “This is the love of the cross, born of the cross, which turns in the direction where it does not find good, which it may enjoy, but where it may confer good upon the evil and needy person” (Theses 27, 28).
Do we church-goers understand? We won’t live or die by things getting better. Whatever happens in society, we die and live in thorough-going repentance. “Now is the judgment of this world…. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:31-33). Jesus went to the cross because things were that bad. They still are.
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