What do the names Dylan Klebold, Seung-Hui Cho, James Holmes, Adam Lanza, Dylann Roof,Syed Farook, and most recently, Omar Mateen all have in common? They’re all mass murderers. How sad that each one of these obscure young men has become a household name b/c they purposefully conducted their own purge of society! They wiped out a horde of people they didn’t even know.
We recoil at the horror at what they’ve done. Surviving family members are forever changed. Nothing in life will ever be the same – except for those haunting images of loved one’s final moments. Everyone gropes for some understandable answer to the question, “Why?” But I ask, “Will any answer satisfy?” Cho hated what he perceived was the arrogance of the wealthy. Roof hated what he perceived as one-sided racism. Mateen claimed he was an ISIS devotee. But maybe, the scariest of all, Klebold just wanted the notoriety for being the greatest mass murderer of his generation.
Horrific! whatever the motive. Unconscionable. Abominable. Inexcusable. And here’s one more descriptor, epidemic. In other words, we haven’t seen the end of this travesty yet – nor will we. Just ask anyone who wears blue these days.
Why do I say this crisis is epidemic? Why not visit us this Sunday to learn what the Bible teaches in that 6th Great Old Testament Commandment, “You shall not murder.”