One day Cain suggested to his brother, “Let’s go out into the fields.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him (Genesis 4:8).

I held the dying bird in my young hands. It was light, as if it were nothing but soft feathers and terrified eyes darting for a moment into mine then above and beyond to some far off branch with beak wide open, gasping and panting for air. And then, as quickly as I had picked it up from under the bay window, it was gone.

Charlie Kirk died under the Utah sun when a bullet from two-hundred yards away pierced his neck. I watched a video that showed six men hustling Kirk to the back of a black SUV. The three-thousand in attendance fled the university in panic and haste. There was no ambulance to rescue Kirk nor enough police officers to nab the assassin. As of this writing, the shooter has been arrested.

Remember when Tesla's were regularly vandalized and firebombed or when LA rioters smashed out cop cars or when two Minnesota politicians were assassinated? The nineteen-hundreds started out with incredible optimism, for many Christians predicted that it was going to be a hundred years of faithfulness and devotion to God. The roaring twenties, Great Depression, two world wars, holocaust, Cold War, etc. proved otherwise. So by the time we partied our way into the two-thousands, we did so with a great deal of paranoia. Twenty-five years later and brain-rot rules.

Forgive my pessimism. The last four years have been a turning point for Millennials and Gen Z. Millions have committed their lives to Jesus in such a short period of time. The soft decline of Christianity in the West finally reversed but not so assassinations and political violence. Not so the way of Cain.

Back in the day, there was a splash park with a shallow pool beside the Flin Flon Zoo in the mining town where I grew up. Summer days were spent joyfully playing with my brother and our friends as our mother chatted with other parents on the warm concrete. Summers in my hometown were moderate and enjoyable. They were a great change from the minus forty Celsius that prolonged the winter months. Usually, such harshness was relieved by March with signs of spring’s liberation in the rising temperature and slow melt of snow on the asphalt roads and side walks and then on the creeping edges of our lawns. Summers were glorious!

Kids, however, can be jerks. I recall a handful of misfits turning my heavenly summer into a frustrating and sad paradox. My memory of those days is spotty, but I do recall some nasty words that were directed at my brother and I in the shallow pool near the Flin Flon Zoo. We set about in a slippery pace to our mother and whined for justice. She recited, as millions if not billions of parents have done, that “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me”. This brought some solace to our anguished hearts and even provided ammunition to use against the small gang of hooligans. This I did with gusto. I felt assured and that everything would be alright.

A simple principle to keep in mind when your head is being held underwater by a much larger boy is that flailing doesn’t stop the bully but that it does act as a sign that something is wrong and will eventually garner the attention of an adult. In the eighties, adults often responded by giving a disapproving look. This happened and caused the bully to suddenly release his grip so that air, rather than water, filled my lungs. It is a lesson that is soaked into my very soul.

Today, we are a perplexing society where the authoritative figures are more likely to punish and cancel people for what they say and express rather than for what they do. Censorship with an allowance for crime is often the primary means of attaining and retaining power. And if people are hampered by the chaos of drug addicts shooting up in front of Wal-Mart or senseless killings in trains or parks or schools, and cannot sensibly discuss the problems and express their emotions then the temptation to abandon tempered justice for blood filled vengeance will grow unabated, manifesting itself in deep, hellish resentment.

In the movie, Field of Dreams, a farmer is mystically instructed to construct a baseball field in the middle of a cornfield. He hears the whisper, “If you build it they will come.” How can he do so when he’s strapped for cash and others fail to believe him? Never mind the doubts of others: what of his own doubts? His struggle highlights our struggle to retain faith in the higher calling of Christ a midst a world that has embraced censorship and violence as a means of power. This has always been a capital problem since the first siblings romped upon the terra and sought the approval of the Almighty. Cain killed his brother Abel in cold blood, not because he was aggressively after Cain, but because Able was solely after the heart of God and accepted as such. Resentment manifested as whole political systems have murdered more men, women and children than any natural phenomenon. If we desire to know what's wrong with with world we need only at times look into the proverbial mirror.

Still, Christ embraced His cross wrongly outfitted to Him. He climbed to Golgotha and allowed Himself to be mocked and crucified as a terrorist would be some two-thousand years ago. Yet, even in His death “tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead.” And “the Roman officer and the other solders at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God”” (Matthew 27:52, 54).

Even the physical death of Jesus can bring life to the lifeless and turn hearts that are furthest from God. What then can the resurrection do?

My young hands were powerless to bring life to a bird that had broke its neck on our bay window, as they were powerless to stop the incursion of hateful, broken hands that held me under the water, as they are older now but just as powerless to bring back Charlie Kirk who died at the hands of an assassin. His blood cries out to heaven from the ground. Even so, my hands can fold and be in accordance with prayer. For it is God who can take what is evil and derive good from it. He instructs us to “conquer evil by doing good” (Romans 12:21b). We are beset with fields of nightmares so that they may be redeemed as fields of dreams. Let not the martyr of good souls go to waste. Let not the crucifixion of Christ be without resurrection and life. Remain steadfast and bold. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be dismayed and do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).

Pastor Aaron