Murder and the Reality of Eternity

Juarez is known for the high murder rates due to the drug wars taking place between various cartels. The statistics are staggering, with over 3,000 murders in 2010. That is almost 10 per day in a city of about a million people. Chicago had only 435 murders in 2010, with a population of over 3 million, and we often think of that as a dangerous city.

It is easy to read statistics like that and be shocked for a moment and then move quickly on with your life. However, it is much more difficult to breeze past when you actually are around it.

This past week, for the first time in my life, I heard the gunshots of a murder in progress. I was sitting and preparing to give a sermon when I heard 10-15 shots pop off down the street. I quickly looked up, but didn’t see anything happening.

The regularity of this sort of thing taking place in Juarez was evident in the way people responded. People just continued walking down the street, hardly even pausing. The cops took nearly an hour to arrive and they leisurely roped off the crime scene. No one was surprised or upset that someone had just been killed, right on their block.

It struck me a little bit deeper though. That person had just been hurled into eternity, probably as a result of their involvement in drug use or sale. He hadn’t woke up that day thinking that it would be his last one on earth. He was just living his life, like it was any other day, and then it was over. He now had to stand face to face with God and be judged for all eternity.

What a sobering reality! Just like that young man, we don’t know when we will breathe our last breath. It could be today, 10 years from now, or more. However, we will all die. We will all one day stand before God in the judgement. That is a scary thought.

What will God say to that man? What will he say to you and me?

I am thankful that God has revealed himself and his will through his word. In the Bible, God tells us that we are all sinners deserving of his righteous wrath. If it were solely up to us, he would condemn us all to hell. Whoa…

However, praise God that it isn’t all up to us. He offers us a free gift of forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ. The only requirement is that we put our faith in him and allow him to be the Lord of our lives. If we have been covered by the blood of the Lamb, then our penalty has been paid and we are free to live eternally with him.

Though this gift is free, receiving it isn’t easy. We must die to ourselves, give over control of our lives to him, and follow him forever. Jesus says,

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:34-38)

We often try to soften Jesus call to discipleship. We want to make the gospel easy, or ‘cheap’ as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it. But Jesus makes it clear that the life of a disciple is a life of denial of self, for the glory of God and the spread of his kingdom.

The young man that I heard get shot in Juarez didn’t know it was his last day, and neither do we know when our last day will be. What we do know is this: we will all have a last day and be forced to come before God. If we rely on our own efforts to pass through that judgement, we will surely be condemned forever! However, if we put our trust in Christ and follow him with our lives, then the penalty has been paid and we will be reconciled with the God of the universe.

I pray that we will consider our own mortality, the brevity of our lives, and think about eternity. Most live as if they will never die, or just try to ignore the fact of death, but the truth is that we cannot run and hide. I was confronted with that reality when I heard the gunshots in Juarez, and I hope this story helps you be confronted with it as well.