Orlando – What Would Jesus Do?

• Posted on sdgale
• in 'CHOP Talk' Blog
• on June 13, 2016
• Comments Off on Orlando – What Would Jesus Do?

Fifty dead. Forty-nine people murdered inside a nightclub in Orlando. The shooter killed. Many more injured. A city shaken. A country in shock. What would Jesus do?

I think Jesus would weep. That’s what He did when he stood at the tomb of His friend Lazarus. Lazarus had died. Jesus wept.

He wept at the loss of His friend. He wept at the grief of Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha. But above all He wept at what had become of His Father’s world. The scourge of death stared Jesus in the face, and He wept.

I think He’d weep at Orlando as well. He’d weep at the misplaced zeal and murderous intention of the shooter. He’d weep for the lives lost and the pain devastating families and friends. He’s weep at the hate and invective filling social media.

Jesus would weep over a world gone awry, spinning rapidly away from the God who created it.

But Jesus would do more. He did more at the tomb of Lazarus. He raised Lazarus from the dead. Where there was death, He brought life. Where there was despair, He brought hope.

Jesus’ tears at Orlando would not just have been shed at the nightclub. They would have flowed at the concert venue, where one of His sheep was gunned down the day before, a 22-year-old singer named Christina Grimmie.

Senseless. But that’s what the world’s become. Jesus weeps for it.

Jesus weeps but He does more. He came into this messed up world to bring hope. A hope that wins, that overcomes, that delivers from the grip of evil. Jesus is that hope. He wants us to hear that.

Christiana Grimmie knew that hope. She knew Jesus. He was her Savior, her strength, her shield. That’s something she sang about. The words were not just song lyrics. They were life, filled with the robustness of joy, carried on the winds of faith.  Listen to her describe her hope in song.

I’m sure Jesus would weep at what happened in Orlando. He would want us to weep, too. How can we not grieve over the hate and pain and senselessness?

But Jesus would take our head in His hands, and lift them until our eyes met His. And He would say that He has an answer. He is the answer. He came to fix this messed up world. He came to change hate-filled hearts. He came to dry our tears, not with empty words of comfort, but with the empty tomb that spoke of death being conquered.

Twenty-two year old Christina Grimmie sang about that hope. Here are the words to the last stanza.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—

This is the pow’r of Christ in me;

From life’s first cry to final breath,

Jesus commands my destiny.

No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,

Can ever pluck me from His hand;

Till He returns or calls me home—

Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.

 

Stanza 4, “In Christ Alone” Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend

Copyright © 2001 Kingsway Thankyou Music