About the shooting in Connecticut

     On Friday, December 14,  Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut witnessed one of the most horrible tragedies in U.S. history as a gunman opened fire, killing 26 individuals, 20 of them being children. This was an absolutely heinous crime, one deserving of our attention and prayers. But is it the worst? Is there another crime that could possibly be more heinous than the murder of innocent children and traumatizing of many others? I believe there is.
     About 2000 years ago, a certain man was beaten, stripped naked, and crucified. Now this is by no means a surprise, for this was the execution for many individuals who opposed the Roman government. However, this man was different. This man lived a perfect life; one of sacrifice and purity. He never did, or even thought, anything wrong. He healed the sick, raised the dead, and taught people how they should act. There was one other thing that still set Him apart, however. He was (and still is) God. He was the creator of the universe (John 1:3) and everything was created for Him (Colossians 1:16). Without Him, absolutely nothing would exist. God, the loving and mighty creator, came down and lived a perfect, sinless life for 33 years and died the most humiliating, heinous, undeserved death that would ever take place. In this death, He bore the sins of the world, past, present, and future. Sins that He had nothing to do with. Sins that He did not have a hand in committing. This is truly evil, even more evil than the Connecticut shooting or 9/11 or the Holocaust or anything else that has ever happened. Why? Because the perfect, innocent Creator and Lord of the universe was killed for absolutely no reason. No one was more innocent than Him because He never sinned and if it were not for Him, no one and nothing would exist. Ever.
     In this moment of sadness, let us mourn and grieve on behalf of the lives lost in Newtown, Conn. But let us never lose sight of the incomparable evil that took place at Calvary, and the incomparable good that resulted in eternal life.