The Cosmic Kiss

By now you’ve likely learned of the Al Shabaab terrorist attack in Kenya. 147 are dead on the Moi campus of Garissa University College. At least another 79 are injured. Somali Islamists have extended their broad swath of terror in Africa by snuffing out young people, and specifically those young people who claimed to be Christ-followers. In the prime of their lives, our brothers and sisters have been gunned down in this brutal assault on humanity. It’s the country’s deadliest attack since the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in 1988.

One news report I read labeled the atrocity “senseless and barbaric.” What explains such evil on Planet Earth? Does evolution account for it? Does “survival of the fittest” make any sense of atrocities like this?

No. An accidental human race not only exposes the foolishness of its proponents, but it robs its adherents of any vestige of purpose when tragedy strikes. If evolution is true, there is no redemption. There is no hope. There is no Easter on the horizon.

Today is Good Friday. Why do we call it “good” when so many of the events that we recall today were bad? After all, it’s the day of Christ’s brutal execution.

We call it “good” because Christ’s death on the cross was the fulfillment of God’s eternal plan. A plan to pardon human sin. A plan that was, and is, good. By way of a cross, God took the greatest injustice ever perpetrated in all of human history and transformed it into the world’s only hope (First Corinthians 15:3).

Psalm 85:10 sings of a day when righteousness and peace will kiss each other. That was Good Friday. The “peace on earth” announced to the shepherds when Christ was born would come by suffering and a cruel crucifixion.

Was it undeserved suffering? Yes and no. Christ did not deserve it. We did.

Like the description in yesterday’s news report, the cross was barbaric. But that’s where the comparison fades. For the cross was anything but senseless. As a matter of fact, the cross of Christ is the only thing in the universe that makes perfect sense. It was the moment of the kiss.

It was love in action. Grace under fire. Reconciliation on enemy soil. Peace where there was no peace.

We can almost hear the words of our Lord Jesus (Luke 23:34): “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”