God Always Wins

 It is interesting the things that we remember.  Some things stick with us.  I am now fifty-eight years of age, yet I recall a particular night when I was about six or seven years old.  I was in the back of my parents’ car driving from my grandparents’ home in Brooklyn to our home in Queens.  About six or seven blocks from our home traffic came to a sudden halt.  A head of us about fifty feet at the next intersection there had just been a nasty accident involving several cars.  What sticks with me is that suddenly a woman came racing towards our car.  Her face and arm were bloodied from an injury from the accident.  My father opened the car window, and the woman came close to him, begging him for help.  In doing so, her blood got on my father’s jacket.  My father did what he could to help her until the police and other emergency vehicles arrived.  I recall going home that night and my mother doing what she could to wash the blood out of my father’s jacket. 

This is simply the story of a car accident, but clearly coming close to suffering can stain our clothes, but also can stain our minds and hearts.  I remember this car accident some fifty years after it occurred.  I was not personally involved in it but witnessing it effects – on the woman and even on my father’s jacket - has stuck with me all these years.  Suffering effects not just those directly involved but even those indirectly involved.

This week, a community that I am connected with was affected by a terrible incident of gun violence.  The incident wound up taking the lives of the young man who was the assailant, his grandfather, an elderly priest, and the priest’s sister.  Evil has visited this place no doubt.  The affected are not just the four who are dead, but their families, the school communities of these families, the parish community of the deceased priest, and on and on.  We should not forget that every person even hearing of this tragedy has had their “jackets stained.” 

Evil is present in the world, no doubt.  It has the potential to stain us, to stick with us, or we can use the opportunity to reach out to the one who heals.  Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law.  He heals those who came to him who were ill or possessed by demons. He removes the stain of suffering of evil.  Ultimately, he would take on our punishment and conquer sin and death.

My friends, we need to pray.  Please pray for those mentioned in the story above and all who are involved in acts of evil.  May the dead rest in peace.  May all who are affected come to know that evil never has the final answer.  In the end, God always wins.  In fact, he has already won.  We should not have our jackets stained by the presence of evil, but rather cleaned by the victory of Christ.

-           - The Servant