God weeps.
That, if anything, has been the primary theological response of Americans in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre where 20 young boys and girls were murdered.
Indeed, in the wake of such incomprehensible tragedy, perhaps this is the only theological response that makes much sense. It’s not that God is absent, whether through lack of care for humanity or lack of prayer by humanity. Rather, God is with us, weeping with us, sharing in our sorrow.
That is after all, as my friend the Rev. R.G. Wilson-Lyons noted, the radical promise of Advent and Christmastide, that God is with us in the midst of violence, tragedy and injustice.
God weeps with those who weep. Jesus wept at the death of his own friends. Jesus wept in the garden of Gethsemane.
There is power in a God who weeps.
My fear, though, is that in our understandable anger at those who will blame the Sandy Hook tragedy on gay people, atheists and progressives, we will miss something about our God who weeps.
That God has been weeping.
For a long time.
God weeps for the thousands (270,000 from 2001-2010) who die with little notice each year from gun violence in the U.S.
God weeps for the young men and women shot and killed in our cities, but forgotten and ignored because, no matter their age or circumstance, the color of their skin makes them thugs subhuman in society’s eyes.
God weeps for the scores of innocent men, women and children obliterated in American drone and missile strikes — and the people who carry them out.
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