We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful

This will be a sorrowful Christmas for many in Newtown and, indeed, around the country. This is almost an unbelievable tragedy and yet the bigger question, as we look down through man's past, is why does not happen more? That it does not happen more in our safe, little American towns makes it all the more tragic when it does. And so, we search for answers. Our secular media interviews myriads of psychologists, psychiatrists, and mental health workers in an effort to help their viewing American public come to terms. Yet, there are no answers without Christ. It seemed appropriate for one news channel to report that Newtown folks would be gathering at the local church for prayer and comfort but returned to the secular purveyors of mental health for the "how's and why's." Indeed, an increased use of the adjective evil has been heard repeatedly on the news channels. But I think the term is unjustified, for at its root it must be defined in Biblical terms, without properly defining and employing its opposite defined in the same manner. Douglas Wilson nails it

It is not possible to build a culture around a denial of God-given standards, and then arbitrarily reintroduce those standards at your convenience, whenever you need a word like evil to describe what has just happened. Those words cannot just be whistled up. If we have banished them, and their definitions, and every possible support for them, we need to reckon with the fact that they are now gone. Cultural unbelief, which leads inexorably to cultural nihilism and despair, is utterly incapable of responding appropriately to things like this, while remaining fully capable of creating them. In the prophetic words of C.S. Lewis, “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

Doug Wilson

So this is a good time to reflect but not just on the tragedy but on the Maker and Creator of the universe. The One who will bring justice for the sufferers of this situation. The One who will make all things right at the end of time. And the One who comforts the broken and hurting now.

So we must confess that while the spirit of Christ is alive in the world, the spirit of Herod is not yet gone. And the only way to expel that kind of darkness is to boldly proclaim that Jesus came into this world precisely to destroy this kind of darkness through His death and resurrection. He was born in Bethlehem from Mary, and He was born again in Jerusalem, the first born from the dead. His grave, just like Mary, was full of grace. - Doug Wilson