This week’s Boston Marathon bombing was a life changing event for all those who witnessed it. It completely caught us off guard and denied all sensibility. It was a horrible tragedy. It was an act of violence so heinous that it brings up all sorts of questions and causes people to respond in a variety of different ways.
As I watched the real time responses via social media, it became apparent that two reactions were foremost in people’s minds: “We must find out who did this and make them pay” and “We need to do something so this kind of thing never happens again.” These are predictable responses to an act of terror, like this, especially one so close to home. It got me thinking, “What would the solution to these two responses look like and how should we, as Christians, be praying at a time like this?”
This Sunday’s passage, in the book of Acts, serves as a divine window for answering these two questions. Saul, the zealous Pharisee, was responsible for the arrest and extermination of Christians in the early half of the first century. He was, no doubt what we would call today, a terrorist. I believe we can see, in the way God and others dealt with Saul, some hope for our present world and how we might respond to events as senseless as the marathon bombing.
Join us for worship on Sunday morning at 10:30 and for prayer and Christian Formation classes at 9:15.
