“1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.”
Good morning. Sunsets. For me, there is no better way to end one’s day than to watch the sun descend behind a tall ridge or sink into a deep ocean. I sit in awe as I watch the colors become more brilliant the further the sun descends beyond my sight. Sunsets indicate to me that the act of Creation did not stop with the seven days in Genesis, but rather the work of Creation goes on until God perfects and redeems it completely
Over the years I have discerned three important facts about sunsets:
1) No two sunsets are the same
2) No sunset is ever ugly
3) Each of us have a fixed number of sunsets to watch
This morning I awake with this 3rd fact about sunsets challenging my faith, testing my patience, and trying my hope. If hearing of 20 people killed in far away El Paso, Texas was not disheartening enough, then came news of 9 people shot dead in nearby Dayton, Ohio. In all, 29 people who have no more opportunities to watch the sunset.
I’m not sure when mass shootings and senseless death first entered your consciousness, but for me it was my senior year of high school. On April 20, 1999, two heavily armed teenage students entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Before they turned their guns on themselves, 13 people had been shot dead and another 20 wounded.
That was 20 years ago this year and this morning I found myself filled with frustrations as old as Psalm 13 and wanting to ask, how long, Lord? More and more I want to know, How long, Lord, will precious life be violently disregarded? How long, Lord, will public spaces be as unsafe as battlefields?
And what of the profound desperation for the families and friends thrown into depths of profound loss? Well I believe Psalm 12 also speaks for them when it asks, How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?”
I’m not sure about you, but I know how I want such questions answered…TODAY. Starting today all life will be regarded as sacred. Beginning today kids can go to school or to the movies without the fear of dying. Starting today my thoughts will be at peace and today my heart free of sorrow. Beginning today my enemies will know only defeat and mockery.
Now what are we to do if the answer isn’t today, tomorrow, or even 20 years from now? Like the psalmist, we will have to search for what remains in the midst of defeat and loss. What’s left standing for Psalm 13?God’s unfailing love and salvation. And it is upon these two enduring remnants that sinking hearts can eventually stand and shattered lives can someday rebuild.
But at this moment families and friends in Texas and Ohio are not concerned with standing or rebuilding. At this moment the sun has set on the dreams of families excepting to attend graduations and weddings in the near future. At this moment the sun has set on the hopes of friends wanting to throw surprise birthday parities and raise their families together.
So Chris, what’s the answer? I’m not entirely sure. What I do know is this: as the number of violent deaths increase so increases the responsibility placed upon the living to put a stop to it. So this week I encourage us to think of what we can offer or sacrifice that reflects our commitment to this solemn responsibility over any of obligation to further delay or excuse. Because in the end our earnest desire is not for more delays or more excuses, but for more sunsets.
CJE