Articles
The Sin/Crime of Murder
Sadly, we are learning that the Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps was the result of a suicidal pilot who took 150 innocent people with him. While down south for my uncle’s funeral last week, I learned that my brother-in-law had a friend brutally killed in broad daylight on his own property. Two strangers bludgeoned him with a hoe, tried to set him on fire and then dispatched him with a shotgun blast. They then tried to kill an Alabama state trooper.
What’s going on here? Actually, nothing new. Murder raised its ugly head in the very first family as brother slew brother (Gen 4:1-8). Throughout Scripture we read of murder across the moral spectrum:
1) An entire city of priests is wiped out by a mad king (1 Sam 22:18-19).
2) A woman slays her own grandsons to secure her throne (2 Kgs 11:1).
3) A whole class – prophets – were always targeted for murder (Mt 23:31).
4) The birth of Jesus was marked by the slaughter of baby boys (Mt 2:16).
5) The form of death for the Savior of man’s sins was murder (Ac 7:52).
Our headlines are filled with murder. Murder has shaped the very course of human history. Unlawful killing happens on a grand scale involving millions of innocent victims; it is also a one-on-one crime of passion. At its most basic level, murder is an act of ultimate contempt for human life – life that God has created in His own image. Murder is not, as PETA fanatics shriek, the killing of a whale or an eagle. It is the forcible, irreversible termination human life, an act that defiles what is sacred, devastates loved ones, rends the very fabric of society, and brings all opportunity for repentance, growth and service to an end. The murderer unlawfully assumes the role of judge, jury and executioner.
But where does something so heinous begin? Jesus ties it to anger in the heart (Mt 5:21-22; 15:19), which at first appearance may not have murderous potential, but left unchecked can eventually explode in extreme violence. More subtly, some so resent the presence of an unwanted child in their life that they choose to “abort” (read, murder) it.
It is not shocking, but it is certainly distressing, that there is such a callous disregard for life in our own society. Such is the outgrowth of extreme selfishness combined with the ideology that human life is merely an accidental product of mindless, natural forces. Ideas have consequences.
