The Blame Game

Christ is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!

Not 24 hours after the tragedy at Virginia Tech. I began to notice how people, mostly media, began to blame somebody or something for the events of that day. They ask the "What if" questions. They ask, "What if the campus had been locked down?" or "What if the student responsible had been taken out of school?" or "What if gun laws were changed in this country?" These are fair questions because they get at the heart of the issue and as reporters and journalists they have the duty to tell us what is going on and to do so responsibly. What ultimately comes of this is that we make our opinions based on their results and conclusions, sometimes blurring the line between reality and someone's opinion.

I wonder though what would happen if instead of blaming someone or something all people would look on the inside of themselves. It certainly is a lot easier to blame an outside factor and not a personal condition. The condition that I am talking about is that we are all born into sin. We have a sinful nature and that sinful nature causes us to be only concerned about ourselves. We are the only one who matters to me the most, i.e. individualism. It is because of Easter and the fact that Christ arose that sin is done away with. Yes, even those of us in Christ still sin, but we are forgiven and we know that what we have done is wrong.

See, if instead of blaming culture for our woes we placed the responsibility on sin, we would soon discover that most crimes in this country and around the world would go away. They would go away because when we realize that we are capable of sin that will open our eyes to see people as they are, as human beings, made in the image of God. Now I am not enough of a psychologist to say if the person responsible for the Virginia Tech. massacre were aware of his sinful nature that that would have prevented him from doing what he did. I am confident though in the fact that perhaps we as a society would look at people different: Men and women would not be viewed as objects, equality would be the norm instead of an exception, people would think about what they are about to do to another person perhaps even not hurting them. The whole Don Imus issue would not be an issue because it would not have happened. Rap lyrics would speak of the good of society instead of trying to "pass the blame" as has been given as a reason for the vulgarity in the music. Teenagers would not line up people up in an alley and shoot them execution style just to rob them (Star Tribune, 4-19-07). We would see people and love them and care for them and help them through their tough times.

Unfortunately we do not even think about sin because that is considered something religious and how can a society that does not endorse religion talk about a human condition such as sin. However, sin does matter and it does cause problems and the events of these past few weeks are the result of sin. When one confesses that, "Christ is risen!" sin takes on and shows that we are in need of grace and mercy and forgiveness. When that is done we love the people we come into contact with. That is placing the blame where it belongs!

Christ is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!

Alleluia! Amen!