It is easy to be angry at the people who committed these acts of terror. It is easy to hate, and it is easy to let that hate fester and grow, until we hate all Muslims. And perhaps worst of all, it is easy to make ourselves believe that God hates them.
But God is a God of love. He hates these acts of violence and reigns of terror, but he loves his people, and desires to reconcile all of creation unto him.
And plenty of Muslims are good people, as we saw in Egypt. On January 28, 2011, just days after revolutionary protests broke out in egypt, the police were pulled from the streets. That included the police at Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai desert, leaving the monks inside defenseless, and all the ancient treasures of the monastery unprotected. Soon the local Bedouin who lived around the monastery showed up with their Kalishnikov rifles - rifles that they were not supposed to have, and no one knew that they had. They surrounded the monastery and said, "We have been living here and protecting this monastery for centuries. And we are not going to let anything happen to it now."
And so today is not a day to let hate fester, or to plot revenge. That is not the way of the gospel. Jesus tells us to love our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute is. After all, Jesus broke bread with Judas. No, today is a day to remember those who were lost, and to honor that memory. And it's a day to love and hope for the future when God's reign will be evident to all.
"[The Lord] makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. He says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress." ~ Psalm 46
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