Letting Pain Point to Christ: My thoughts on the Aurora tragedy

"Lord, let this death feel unnatural. Let its pain sink in and leave those behind searching desperately for something more. Let them feel, as you do, an utter resentment for death and its power, and especially for its source. Death is not from you, Lord. It was never what you created us for. Let them know that truth beyond a shadow of a doubt. Let them recognize the undeniable signature of the enemy on this painful reality, and let their pain fortify them to do battle against him with more ferocity than ever."

At the mid-week prayer meeting at my church this week, I introduced myself to a visitor about my age and invited her to pray with me. I reveled in the prayer she lifted and worshiped along with her the way only two Spirit-bonded believers could. And as she began to pray for a family in our community that had just lost two members to a murder-suicide, I was moved deeply. "Lord, let this death feel unnatural." Definitely not the way I would've begun a prayer expressing my heart's desire that the family be comforted. "Let them feel utter resentment..." Yeah, definitely never prayed that one before. "Death is not from you, Lord. It was never what you created us for." Wait, what? I'm not too sure this  staunch and quite practical Calvinist really believes that... but... somehow, it rings so true in my heart... I was intrigued, moved, provoked to thought. But somehow I managed to move on with my life without too much more thought on the issue - a bad habit I admit I somehow manage to do far too often.

And then it happened. Friday morning happened. The news made impact like an all-too-familiar punch in the gut. Another brutal act of senseless violence - yes, I've woken up to a few too many similar stories on the radio even in my short 21 years, but this one, this one was somehow different. Mostly people my age, gathered to have a good time the way I often gather to have a good time, shot by a university student I have more in common with than I'd care to admit, in a town literally too close to home. In an instant my thoughts,
Kayla's prayer from Wednesday night, burst through my door to meet me right where I was at. How to pray? How to think?

For quite a while, I ruminated mentally, gathering the facts and problem-solving on a level that honestly didn't come close to unraveling the gut-wrench deep in my stomach. Then Saturday afternoon, 30 hours after the initial news, it all hit me. For real. I suddenly struggled to finish my drive home from work as a flood of tears burst from my gut, rushed through all of me, and finally escaped from my eyes. And with it also escaped the simply human words I'm often too theologically technical to ask: "Why? God, why?..."

In that moment and many moments since, I have felt a fraction of what those who experience the real pain of death feel. And Kayla was right. Death feels unnatural. It feels desperately painful. It feels, just, wrong. No matter how many theological puzzle pieces we can give ourselves and those involved, somehow the "why" puzzle never seems satisfyingly put together. And - here's the amazing new thing for me - that's okay.
That's the way it should be. You see, death feels unnatural because, quite simply, it is unnatural. Genesis 2 gives us a glimpse of the stark contrast, how it should be - man full of the everlasting life-breath of God, man minus separation, man pre-loss and pre-lonely. Man as each and every one of us was created to be. But then chapter 3 happened. Sin happened. Death happened. And so death passed onto all men, because now all of us sin (Rom. 5:12). Yes, death is all wrong. It was not what we were created for. And everything in all of us, as image-bearers of a perfect, sinless God, is disappointed, repulsed, pained, and wronged by it.

And that is why Christ. Because sin was never the way it was supposed to be. Because the one who feels the most pain and resentment at death is God. Not that death is stronger than God by any means, but the sovereign God who graciously allowed the capacity to sin when He gave man free will was no less satisfied by its consequence, universal death, than we are. In fact, immediately after the sentence of death fell off of His lips, He pronounced authoritatively that this mortal consequence would not be permanent. His plan to reconcile, to replace death with everlasting life would prevail (Gen. 3:15).

And it did prevail. When Christ, who came "that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly" (Jn. 10:10), died Himself to pay the ultimate consequence of sin; when Christ, who Himself is the life (Jn. 14:6), broke away the stone and emerged from the grave, life conquered! Death, the ultimate and final enemy of us all (1 Cor. 15:26) died! And it is because of (not in spite of) the deep and unrelenting pain of death we feel along with its victims that at the sight of the empty tomb we cry out with Paul, "Death is
swallowed up in victory! O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?... Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" (1 Cor. 15:55-57).

So in the face of a tragedy like the Aurora shooting, let's not try futilely to erase the pain of death with theological arguments or hopeful catch-phrases, but let's allow ourselves and others to experience the deep pain of unnatural death - and then let's point passionately to the death-defeating work of Christ. Let's point to a merciful God who sacrificed everything to provide escape from the grip of death that both He and we so
desperately hate. And through it all, let's eagerly await the day when God's death-defeating plan will be fully consummated at the return of the victorious Christ, the day when the God of life declares, "Behold, I am making all things new" (Rev. 21:5). "He will wipe away every tear... and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away" (Rev. 21:4). Let's let our pain point us to Christ.