For the life of all flesh is its blood. Leviticus 17:14

And the life of men is in the blood of The Lamb …

Recent and ongoing reports of violence, murder, mayhem and destruction sparked a family commentary on violence against the innocent, the under-represented, and the misrepresented … to which I’d venture to add these thoughts …

There is no new thing under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

The death culture … nearly as ancient as time. Originating with a serpent in A Garden and two unwitting accomplices… spawning alliances between humanity and an adversary hell-bent on destroying the thing The Creator calls good – life; primarily life created in His image.  

For the life of all flesh is its blood. Leviticus 17:14

Spill the blood. Take the life. But it’s not enough to be consumed with bloodlust …  An innocent animal was slaughtered to cover the shame of The First Adam. The compensation for sin is always death. But the satisfaction derived when that first life was taken doesn’t compare to the kind of exhilaration derived from the violent destruction the life of an innocent one made in the image of his Creator. There was rejoicing in dark places at the first murder, when Cain slew Able. 

And it Didn’t Stop There …

It’s kind of an understatement to observe that the thirst for the shedding of innocent blood persists. I say “innocent,” because none since The Fall have been altogether innocent (“For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23) – save one. A unique case where the only One who was wholly innocent sacrificed his life; submitting to a violent, brutal, unjust death so that the death sentence for the sins of humanity might be forgiven. An unholy alliance was formed between the enemy of men’s souls and blind, willing, proud, fearful – men.

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?  You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight James 4:1-2”

The Age of Evil

But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come.  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good … 2 Timothy 1-3

More recently forces of evil and their human co-conspirators manifest as a diabolical, maniacal Nazi driven to exterminate God’s chosen people; First Nation genocide; Strange Fruit, swaying in Southern breezes; as mutilated and murdered 14 year old Emetts and other young brown bodies; assassinations of leader-dreamers on motel balconies in Memphis. It looks like students lost in Columbine, Friends and family eliminated at movie theatres, weaponized aircraft reigning down death from Towers of the world’s largest financial center, the unrelenting, unapologetic denial of breath to Erics and Georges. It looks like eviscerated 16 and 85 year-olds walking on sidewalks, 8 year-olds sitting in parked cars and babies sleeping in strollers, and private citizens lying in bed. It looks like unsuspecting, fish in a barrel, commuters on subway cars. It looks like mass infanticide, like an epidemic of out of control vehicles plowing down pedestrians, a mutant plague claiming sinner and saint alike, and it looks like unchecked, rage slaying college students and friends at house parties and on front porches, like defenders of law, order and democracy trampled and battered on The Steps of Democracy, and like anguish and agony for fathers and mothers sons and daughters in Ukrainian towns just to name a few. And in terms of the quest for death, we shouldn’t overlook human excesses that threaten the life of a planet – this one.

It may be an understatement to observe that bloodlust and bloodshed persists, but if we haven’t already done so, we should take note of the rate of acceleration. It feels as though someone or something lit a match, tossed it onto every type of depravity, doused it with accelerant, and a combustion of death and murder has erupted. True, perhaps there are cameras and social media opportunities everywhere such that documenting and reporting have increased extensively. But there’s a sense that extended media coverage and cell-phone video only capture the proliferation of converging wickedness resulting in death; they don’t account for it.

And so it’s not your imagination. This extreme trend of hyper-convergence, synchronicity and frequency of evil ending in loss of life we’re witnessing may be a recent development unique to this Age, but the seeds were planted long ago, and the dynamic has been gaining momentum and evolving over time. The outcomes weren’t as obvious to the naked eye for the most part, and where they were detected, they perhaps appeared more linear and sequential.  Now that the fruit of wickedness have become near impossible to deny, even the deceived are forced to try and make sense of it – just miscalculating and drawing false conclusions about root cause.

Most of us are loathe to consider ourselves co-conspirators in the horrors our eyes behold of late. That’s because we believe our hands are clean. We don’t want to believe that our private, individual thoughts actions, or misdeeds can actually facilitate, inspire or produce life or death. And we certainly don’t believe that our individual sin is capable of conjuring death beyond our own experiences. We don’t believe we have the capacity to impact the next town over, much less people and events in far-away countries. Even if we agree with The Scripture that the wages of sin is death, the thing that so many miss is that we don’t control its timing or reach, or who it will affect. Unless it’s premeditated, we can’t anticipate when, where, under what conditions our sin – public or private will be weaponized to exact some type of death.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?  You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. James 4:1-2

Perhaps it’s time we searched our hearts, examined our thoughts, scrutinized our actions, reactions, and appetites and considered whether they produce life or death – in us, in those around us, and in our planet. Just because we can’t draw a straight line between our misdeeds and disruption, destruction, atrocities and death doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. Each day we awaken as agents who chose, serve and produce life, peace and The God of life, peace, and love –  or we partner with the prince of darkness, ruling over a corruption and destruction in a fallen world. What to do … What to do ….

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:7-10