Why Aurora?

The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado is yet another one of those unspeakable acts to which, as a friend of mine likes to say, we must absolutely speak - especially people of faith who believe that a sense of order and purpose somehow exists even when life is a its most capricious.

Faith helps people make sense of senseless things not by taking yet another stab at ageless (and impossible) questions like, 'Why do bad things happen to good people?' but by suggesting that no matter how random, brutal, and morally reprehensible any activity upon this earth might be, there remains a force for good of substantial size and weight.

We see this force at work in those who surround the grieving, medical and emergency staff who respond not simply because they're paid but because that is their vocation, and in that sense of grief, horror and compassion that grips us all.

Because we're human, we ask 'why?' Because we're human, we'll never know why.

The horrors in Aurora may move America toward more effective gun control laws and greater security measures in public places, however our most helpful move may come in the ways we more deeply understand the fragility of human life and how it moves us toward acts of compassion. This is that force for good that Christians stubbornly insist, wins out. It's what causes us to hug our kids a little tighter and lobby harder for social change.

Yes, we are a fearful people living in a fearful age. We are deeply troubled by the tragedy of it all. But our faith calls us not to nihilism and hopelessness, but to the only action we know how to take: comforting and mourning alongside those who suffer most. Finding Jesus in acts of such devastating horror played out in Aurora last week may be nearly impossible, but finding Him in the aftermath is not.