Tuesday, March 22, Holy (Faith & Hope) Week, 2016 . . .
Another day, another tragic act of hate, this time in Belgium, where scores are dead and injured.
A huge number of those injured will die or be maimed for life.
Terror can fog up our sense of faith and hope. (Photo by Santi Villamarín)
The media’s casualty numbers always fall short. Hundreds of shaken witnesses to the chaos will suffer psychologically for the rest of their lives.
One act of lethal violence–be it one murder in Dallas or a massive assault in Belgium–has ripple effects that inflict suffering most of us will never be able to imagine. The suffering goes on and on long after it’s been reported and left for history.
With the world’s human condition being what it is, maybe it’s all hopeless.
Maybe we’re all doomed.
It sure feels like it on days like today. It seems so many days now as if terrorism is sure to prevail–if it hasn’t already. Every morning, day after day, we wake up in edgy anxiety, checking the news to see if the world has exploded.
What we want to know primarily in our personalized fear, of course, is if the violent blowback from each episode of terror is headed in our direction today. We naturally worry about our own security most.
Putting aside where it happened, this latest explosion happened on Tuesday of “Holy Week.” It’s enough to make you want to holler at God in the manner of the Psalmist, “How long!”
It’s enough to shake the faith and hope we followers of Christ live in. I’ve often said that what we call our Christian “Holy Week” could just as appropriately be called “Faith and Hope Week.”
Cowardly attacks by misguided evildoers who have hijacked the great world religion that is Islam shake our sense of faith and hope every time. We’re left reeling with doubt. Our clear faith gets covered in fog.
But every year in every “Faith and Hope Week” I’m reminded that even Jesus had his fleeting moment of doubt in his agony on the cross as he cried out feeling forsaken by his God.
People of faith live with a certain amount of healthy doubt. As I’ve pointed out many times, “true believers” who harbor no doubt about their God crash jets into towers and (as today) blow up people in airports.
Just remember, the battle has already been won.
In this Holy Faith & Hope Week, remember that the Resurrection Day is near.
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