There has only been one story this week and that has been the death of the 6 students in Berkeley. They had gone out on J-1 student visas which allowed them to work during their vacation and experience something of the American dream. Sadly it all turned into a nightmare.
It was a 21st birthday party and 13 of the guests, including the birthday girl were on the 3rd floor balcony when it gave way catapulting them to the ground 12 metres below. That seven miraculously survived, albeit with some horrendous injuries, is a testimony to the efficiency of the ambulance service and hospitals in the locality.
Many who sympathised had family members of a similar age and could identify with the loss being suffered by the student’s parents and friends.
It seems such a waste of young lives at their peak with all the potential they represented. Death always seems to be an intrusion into life and never more so when it comes to young people in their prime.
In Jesus time on earth, and perhaps even today, there was a presumption that people got what they deserved so when a tower fell killing 18 the question arose, “were they bad people?” The answer given by Charles Spurgeon the preacher, “No, they were bad builders!” chimes with the Lord’s reply which took the attention off the deceased and onto the enquirers. In saying the dead were no worse than the living he underlined the need of repentance if they were not to come to a sticky end (St Luke Chapter 13 verses 4/5).
There can be a false grief as well as a genuine grief. The national mourning in the UK that followed the death of Princess Diane was an example of the former. It is much easier to contemplate another’s death than consider your own!
On the other side of the US 9 people were gunned down in church while they were at prayer. Dylann Roof had been welcomed into the meeting before he opened fire. The local Senator called it a hate crime and claimed that they were killed because they were black.
The only survivor (she had pretended to be dead) along with relatives of the deceased in an emotional confrontation in Charleston offered Dylann forgiveness in the hope that he would confess and repent.
Of course he cannot confess what he hasn’t grieved over and he cannot grieve over what he has not seen – namely his sins – and he cannot repent of what he has not confessed. It is one of the most important operations of God’s grace to give us eyes to see our sin and hearts that are willing to confess it; then we can truly repent.
When this happens we can sing with Charles Wesley: –
Accepted in the Well-beloved, And clothed in righteousness divine,
I see the bar to heaven removed; And all Thy merits, lord, are mine.
Death, hell, and sin are now subdued; All grace is now to sinners given;
And lo, I plead the atoning blood, And in Thy right I claim Thy Heaven.