What Bethlehem and Newtown have in common

“Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.’”

When I first heard the news of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, I experienced the emotions of shock, sadness and grief for the innocent lives lost and the families forever broken. Added to the horrific event is that it happened during the Christmas season, a special time in our culture for children.

It reminds me of that part of the Christmas story told in the New Testament book of Matthew where King Herod kills all the babies two years old and younger in Bethlehem, as he makes a desperate attempt to extinguish the threat of the prophesied King of the Jews, who is rumored to have been born. But as it’s told in the story, Jesus is saved from Herod’s wrath as his parents, Joseph and Mary, escape with him to Egypt.

The emotions I felt upon hearing the news of the recent tragedy were soon followed by a sober reality that in 2000 years not much has changed. There is a direct connection between the slaughters in Bethlehem and Newtown.

As the media searches for “answers” to this tragedy, I am dismayed that the solutions most often mentioned are stricter gun control laws and better availability of mental health counseling.

Gun control only deals with the method of violence, not the causes of deranged and demonic thinking from which the violence springs. And although I support mental health counseling, it is unable to deal with the broader cultural issues at hand. The real answer has to address something much deeper and more systemic.

The human heart, though capable of amazing good, is also capable of unthinkable evil. As the Old Testament says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

In the New Testament, we have the answer to the fallen state of human nature when it proclaims: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

The only true solution to the condition of the human heart and the violence, which it produces, is an inward and spiritual change brought only by the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ.

Though we’d like to think our society is much more just and humane than the stark brutality of the Roman Empire, how can we make such a claim when even in modern times it is the most vulnerable who continue to suffer the consequences of our pride, selfishness, and sin.

The lyrics of a song called “Spirit of the Age” by musician Michael Card poignantly express this truth while at the same time holding out the hope of victory that is always present in the aftermath of such tragedies as Bethlehem and Newtown:

I thought that I heard crying coming through my door.

Was it Rachel weeping for her sons who were no more?

Could it have been the babies crying for themselves,

Never understanding why they died for someone else?

The voices heard of weeping and of wailing,

History speaks of it on every page.

Of innocent and helpless little babies,

Offerings to the spirit of the age.

No way of understanding this sad and painful sign.

Whenever Satan rears his head there comes a tragic time.

If he could crush the cradle, then that would stop the cross.

He knew that once the Light was born his every hope was lost!

Now every age had heard it, the voice that speaks from hell.

“Sacrifice your children and for you it will be well.”

The subtle serpent’s lying, his dark and ruthless rage.

Behold it is revealed to be the spirit of the age!

Soon all the ones who seemed to die for nothing

Will stand beside the Ancient of Days,

With joy we’ll see that Infant from a manger

Come and crush the spirit of the age.