What did we expect? Matthew 12: 2-11

On this first anniversary of the Newtown Sandy Hook Elementary slayings, the outrage is reborn. Voices stilled by the great nothingness of Congress are once again resounding across Social Media outlets. Heads that had rammed ineffectually into the Great Wall of Gun Lobbyists for months after the shooting, voices that cried into the wind as one after another school shooting happened, finally in sheer exhaustion, became silent. Lamentations had no effect.

Pleas for the lives of innocent children, emotional blackmail – what if it was your own children/grandchildren? – requests for simple controls on the types of weapons that might be made available to a sick and damaged public – all these went unheeded. No, all these were pelted with scoffs and sick diatribes about the “rights of the people.”

The right of Adam Lanza to own a gun trumped the lives of those 26 people to live?

Logic does nothing in this war against the weapons of war. Those who are afraid that their “right to bear arms” will be taken from them cannot even see the innocent faces that have been removed from this life.

But here we are, one year after 26 people were gunned down as they hunkered down just as they had been taught, sitting ducks for a madman hell bent on murder. Clearly, it is a time for the voices to rise up again; for the battering rams to return to action. In light of the school attack one day short of the Newtown massacre, just a few short miles from the scene of the murders at Columbine High School, it is time to ask, What are we doing?

One can get all obtuse and make the disingenuous argument that “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” But guns are made to kill. Guns in the hands of people who have hatred in their hearts or sickness in their minds are deadly.

Guns are made to kill. It is as simple as that. They are not toys. They are weapons of death.

Accept that reality.

Jesus asked the people what it was they expected to see when they went out into the wilderness to see John? They went to see him because of the things that he was doing. They must have been surprised when they saw a scroungy, scraggy guy dressed in fabric made from the cheapest of fibers. What did they expect to see? Soft robes? Soft words spoken in sweet tones?

John was not nice about it. He spoke of that which was to come and how there was a great need to be prepared. John preached that the kingdom of heaven was in fact there and that judgment was coming.

It seems very important to me this morning that those of us who believe guns are deadly and that those who scream for their rights to own these are dangerous, that we stand up and speak very loudly against these weapons of death.

The gospel messages cannot be whitewashed. We cannot be nice about it. Too many have died in this past year. Too many children died simply because people with grudges and with the ability to lay their hands on a weapon, picked up those weapons, walked into schools and opened fire.

What do we expect in a nation that allows people to purchase any type of weapon or ammunition? What do we think will be done with these weapons? What do we expect to see?

The first and foremost assumption that we must make is that people buying weapons and ammunition want to kill something…someone. It is simply that simple.

John was a messenger sent to prepare the way for when the messiah came. He called to people to hear, to see, to be ready. We are today's messengers.

At this time, the day after the school shooting in Centennial, Colorado, one year after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, this is the day that we must stand up and proclaim, This is Too Much. This Must Stop.

The insane killings can be no more.

The second and just as important thing we must understand is that the munitions manufacturers are behind this. There is a great deal of money at stake. The Gun Lobbyists are among the most powerful (full of money) in Washington, D. C. These lobbyists and the munitions manufacturers are the ones who gain from the killings of these little children.

Jesus said, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

I can’t help but wonder how much harder it will be for those rich people who have the blood of innocent children on their hands.