Six Shot at Nevada Bus Stop

Six high school students were shot at a school bus stop yesterday. Last week, a shooter killed random people in an Omaha shopping mall. We used to think of shootings in connection with battle fields and armies. We might have even laughed to hear that teenagers in 2007 would think of their school cafeteria as a battleground. It is now common place to hear the news reporters refer to the "war on terror" and not be referring to Iraq or Afghanistan. It's a different kind of age, but it isn't.

The sun and the moon were set in the heavens to be a sign and to show the seasons. It will be the wind and waves that will cause the earth to be perplexed. The (one-year) Gospel reading for Advent 2 spoke of how the world would continue to be shaken...by the world. It will even crumble and decay until it passes away. Our hope is not in the sunshine or in the wind against our back. Guns will continue to be fired and greed and jealousy will continue to destroy. But this kind of destroying is only surface deep. They can't destroy the way our Lord Jesus destroys.

And that is where our hope endures. The "with-us" God became man and took all the sin and destruction that is man and put it to death. The nails and the timber of Calvary's cross thought they were contributing to a war on terror, by killing that Jesus, but really Jesus was destroying sin, and death, and crushing the head of Satan. And so you and I have hope and we live clinging to Jesus. Heaven and earth will pass away - but the Word of the Lord (that's Jesus) endures forever!