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Chicago has gotten much attention for the number of murders that have taken place. East St. Louis, Illinois has the highest rate, four times as high as Chicago. Americans love to murder. Worldwide we find that murder is popular everywhere. El Salvador is the most likely place to be murdered, Andorra the least, and the United States right in the middle.
We murder to avenge wrongs, get even, to rid ourselves and the world of people that we feel don’t belong here. Much of the blood is shed by the innocent. Sometimes people are in the line of fire, out at night in dangerous places but mainly victims are the intended target. Murder is many times committed when other crimes are done.
A Chicago police chief has stated that we seem to have entered a different time. It used to be that there was a “reason” someone would murder another. Now, murder has become something else, murder for the sake of murder.
The murderer is shedding blood to satisfy their lust for judgment. They do not understand that blood has already been shed to right the wrongs of men. Another crucial thing not understood is that all wrong-doing is against God and we are in no position to decide right from wrong.
The blood of men cannot avenge any sin. It’s innocent blood that satisfies the law. Children are as innocent as humankind can be and indeed we do shed their blood by the millions. We kill them not for their sins, but to hide our sins.
Christ shed his blood for the sins of all of us. He was innocent, gave his life freely. Why? It was planned at the very beginning of the creation. God would create man in his image and man, in turn, would want to be God.
And so Adam accepted the temptation offered by Eve. Pride filled his heart when Eve told him he was more than able to handle evil. God personally asked Cain to reconsider what he was about to do. But Cain was a slave to the idea that he was God and being he was offended by a lesser person, he had the right to reap vengeance.
Vengeance is mine saith the Lord. It is God, the Creator of everything, whose image we bare. We have blackened it, marred it, and by infidelity with God’s spirit, have become an offense. As scripture puts it, we have become unprofitable to God. We are of no value and like refuse thrown into the fire.
But God, knowing our frame and weakness, offered his innocent blood so that we could come home to Him. He has an open offer to take us in. Our sin is forgiven; all we have to do is come home.