All are aware of the Elementary School shooting in Newtown, CT. Just logging onto Facebook I saw that most people had something to say about it. Some responded with anger. Some responded with sympathy. Most responded with some mixture.

Asside from the emotional response that it seems we all received as a result of this horrible murdering of 20 children, everyone has differing opinions on how the government should respond. Should the government restrict the use of guns? Should teachers themselves be equipped with them?

Religious responses have also come about. Some are angry at any mention of religion while others are saying that this is a judgment from God because of the wickedness that America has become.

I am not one to say why God does or does not do something. I do not know why 20 children and 6 adults had to die. Tragedy is but an understatement explaining what happened. Why a person would commit such atrocities is unfathomable within our minds.

We long for an existence free from such attrocities: a place where children are not murdered, people do not die of cancer, women are not abused, and men are not violent toward one another. We know within us that this is not how the world supposed to be.

Such motives are not always brought about by religious extremists like that of those who attacked the World Trade Center. The problem is not always incorrect beliefs about the world. The problem is much deeper. The problem is our very nature.

The Bible would agree. These things are not good and they are a result of of being in a world corrupted by sin. This corrupted world is the one in which we live and we grow almost accustomed to most of the atrocities around us.

We think nothing against the hatred we have against our brother. We excuse ourselves saying our hatred is justified. And indeed, we may very well have a justified hatred for specific others. However, we deserve no less hatred directed towards ourselves.

In Adam Lanza, the one who committed this atrocities, we see most explicitly who are are apart from Christ. I am not arguing that a person needs to be a Christian in order to be a good person. What I am arguing is that nothing but the grace of God causes us from committing atrocities ourselves. We are more desperate for the grace of God than we realize and we ought to seek after him accordingly.

This evil within us needs not last however.

There is a hope and that hope is Jesus. The good news of Christianity, the reason for which so many of us find hope in Jesus is this: though this world might be broken now there will come a glorious day when there will be no more pain, no more tragedy, and no more hatred. This fallen world will be made new.Wewill be made new.

Let us who claim to follow Christ therefore not spend all of our energies arguing that the hope of the world is more guns. The Second Amendment is not the hope of the world, Jesus is.

Let us also not be so quick to say that this tragedy is the judgment of God upon our sin. Yes, God does judge sin but sometimes tragedy happens simply because we live in a fallen and corrupted world. Let times of horror, tragedy, and hatred be the times when we most vividly display the mercies and love of God upon our neighbors.

Let our tongues be forever telling of the grace of God and the future hope that we have in Christ.