I remember driving to my grandmother’s house as a little kid, and as we went through all the winding roads of rural Southwest Virginia, I always remember seeing a sign attached to a tree on one particular bend. The sign very plainly stated in red letters, “Jesus is Lord.” I grew up in the church and while I probably never had a real understanding of the Christian faith until seventh grade, I always thought the sign was rather redundant. It seemed strange to me that in the anyone in the Bible Belt would have any doubts about the fact that, “Jesus is Lord.” It is only as I have lived a bit longer and learned a bit more that I truly have an idea for why this statement is so important. In fact, I believe now that the entire message of the Bible and of the Christian life can be summed up in, “Jesus is Lord.”
Ever since the fall of man, the world has seemed to be completely out of control. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book in 1981 entitled, “When Bad Things Happen To Good People.” Kushner’s son was diagnosed with the disease progeria, a disease which causes rapid premature aging and early death, usually at about the age that developmentally normal children are going through puberty. In the book Kushner concludes that the world is in its current state because though God is entirely good and loving, He is not all powerful. Kushner paints a picture that God created the world, but things have just gotten so bad, that He can’t even deal with it at this point. While I have the highest respect for Rabbi Kushner, I do not take very much solace in his conclusion, and I do not think it is biblically sound.
1 Chronicles 29:11 says, “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.” To me this invokes an image of a god who is not confounded by anything. Jeremiah 32:17 says, “Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You”. These verses give clear biblical evidence that God has not lost control of His creation, but one might argue that it appears as if He has. We live in a world where all the evidence seems to point towards chaos, not towards an all powerful God.
For me this has hit home in the past two days maybe harder than it ever has before. The Virginia Tech shootings of April 16, 2007 have been an extremely difficult situation for me because I know a large amount of people there, and growing up in Southwest Virginia; I’ve spent much time at Virginia Tech. It feels as if somehow, a part of my life has been taken and defiled, in a way that seeing the Hokies lose at basketball and football never has. I mourn with those who lost love ones, I sympathize with the trauma that my friends who attend VT are going through, and I just have this overwhelming sense that things can never be the same.
But that is just one isolated incident in my own life experience. For most of America, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were earth shattering. For some people cancer has had devastating effects as it has taken away parents, spouses, children, siblings, friends, and various other loved ones. The world is a messy place, with real pain and what seems to be endless amounts of sorrow. We live in a fallen world and I see no other way to explain it than by simply identifying that sin has become interlaced in every part of life. However, this is not the final word on the situation.
In John 16:33, Jesus tells His disciples “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” 1 John 3:8 tells us, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” Jesus’ first coming to the world was to begin the restoration process on this broken world. He died on the cross to make right the relationship between God and man, but that is not all He did. He fed the poor, He healed the blind, He touched those with leprosy, He showed His control over nature, He raised people from the dead, and the whole time He enacted signs of the Kingdom of Heaven. Not only did He begin the work of restoration, but He taught and called His followers to take part in the work for themselves. One day He is going to return “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain” (Revelation 21:4).
For the families and friends of the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings and for all the greater Virginia Tech community, I would never want to downplay this time of mourning in your life. There is most definitely a time to mourn, and right now it is a completely valid place to be in. But the central message of the Gospel speaks to you and to everyone a message of hope in this and in every difficult time in life. Cho Seung-Hui is not Lord of the universe. Osama Bin Laden is not Lord of the universe. Cancer and AIDS are not Lord of the universe. Poverty is not Lord of the universe. Pain is not Lord of the universe. The quintessential message of the Gospel is that Jesus is Lord, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). Jesus is Lord.
