To Hell In A Handbasket?

Hello Emmanuel,

In a conversation with a church member yesterday, it was noted how heavy the world seems today--just a lot of stuff… serious stuff… ugly stuff…. the kind of stuff that affects the human spirit.

Combine the violence of shootings and beatings and floods with the cultural battles over same-sex marriage.  Then combine that with tensions around gender identity and flags with the international disgust over ISIS and jihadists.  The world just gets ‘ugly’.  I can’t think of any better word to use.  There are moments when I find myself thinking like my grandparent’s generation:  ‘The world is going to hell in a handbasket.’

And then there is the conversation I had with my brother yesterday.  It didn’t have to do with the ugliness of the world, but with the smallness of the world.  With communication opportunities at an all-time high (social media like facebook, twitter, instagram and endless numbers of blogs and on-line ‘newspapers’ and numerous tv stations), nothing can get past the media today.  And if the media misses it, someone with a camera on their phone will catch it.  Oh, who are we kidding?   Everyone with a smart phone IS the media.  Everything can and will be known.  And most of the time, everything that gets told about, gets told about with a bias… sometimes a heavy bias…. Sometimes an unfair bias?  Who knows?

So here is the question:  is the world an uglier place?  Or are our endless communication techniques just better at uncovering the ugliness that has always been there?  How would our spirits be affected differently if there had been such social media in the 1940’s?  Could you imagine a German officer’s video clip taken at a concentration camp going viral?  Or someone in the 1800’s taking a selfie with their chained-up slaves who had just been taken from their African village and boarded onto the ships to take to the colonies… and then posting the selfie on facebook?  How about the burning witch trials in Massachusetts going on Instagram?  Or CNN with a reporter in Kentucky when brother was shooting at brother during the Civil War?  Or the invasion of Native American tribes because the white man wanted more land?  I could go on and on…..

And what if there was Twitter or Instagram when Israel invaded or got invaded by a foreign country?  What about in the 1^st century when Jesus walked the walk to Calvary?  Could you imagine that on YouTube?  How would our spirits be affected?

My thoughts are this:  the sins of the world have always been present—even the really ugly, heavy sins that disgust us.  We are just better at seeing them and hearing them.  We have little choice but to take it all in and contemplate the results.  It is much more difficult to ignore them or hide from them or claim ignorance.

And with the increased knowledge of the sins of the world hopefully comes the increased knowledge of our need for God’s redeeming grace.  It is more difficult than ever to claim that the world is an okay place.  Maybe there was a simpler day when someone (perhaps on Walton’s mountain?) could possibly think the world was okay, if not perfect.

We have always needed God’s redemption.  We are just more aware of our need than ever. 

So if your heart is heavy with all of the world’s ugliness, consider this:  perhaps the world hasn’t changed nearly as much as your awareness of the world. 

And may your awareness for your need of God’s grace change just as much.

God is Good,

Pastor Joe