I was home only a few moments Sunday when I heard about a murder. Dr. George Tiller had been shot and killed. I wrestle with the fleshly side of me and the Christ-like side of me.
The fleshly side is the side of me that thinks like the world. It’s a world of justice without Godly insight. It’s the disgusting world of feeling somewhat satisfied because the lives of so many innocents will, if only for a day or two, be given reprieve. Justice for the thousands who have died at his hand. The fleshly side. Disgusting and ungodly.
Then, there’s the mind of Christ. The side which finds even more disgust in our violent life. Life…it is so precious, and robbing it from anyone, including Dr. Tiller, is wrong. The authority over life and death was given to the government under the authority of God. No one has the right to kill anyone outside the laws of a country who trusts in God.
There’s the problem. Does our country trust in God? Already there are government buildings who have been directed to take down any references of our country’s slogan “In God We Trust.” No, the man who walked into that Lutheran Church in Wichita, the one which has taken all the blood money of Dr. Tiller over these many years, that man was not trusting in God. Not any more than any of us who let our fleshly side win in this argument over life.
Now, the greatest damage to the cause of life, has been done. We who are pro-life will be cast in the same light as this man who trusted in flesh, instead of God. The blanket of discouragement, of persecution, of abortion zealotry… legislators who will knee jerk reaction and make more laws which will cause more anger and more dividing of this great country which, at one time, truly did trust in God.
Now, more than ever before, do we trust in God? What will be the ultimate outcome of this disgusting action in Wichita? This one death, un-noble, misguided and certainly wrong, will now blow winds of change against the pro-life movement. Especially to the generation of young adults who are seeking truths. What will they think of us now…now that the media will group believers with this misguided man who killed Dr. Tiller.
Can we survive? Was this the first shot of a new war. A war where the lambs will certainly be slaughtered? But, then, that IS our role. Defeat flesh, live by the spirit. Pray for Dr. Tiller’s family. Let the Spirit of Christ dwell richly in you today.
Pastor Mark