"Say it isn't so!"

"It was a big marshmallow bunny...with a shot gun?!"

There are terrible injustices in life...terrible ones. Car bomb kills 17 in Afghanistan...Local hiker plunges to her death...22 slaughtered in New Towne shooting!...15 year-old high school junior diagnosed with brain cancer...LA plane skids, kills 5...46% first USA marriages end in divorce...Tribal prejudices predict famine...Detroit blight... 

Untimely frustration and disappointment and the pain of injustice assumes many forms....it's never humorous to those experiencing it. I don't need to give you more examples--it's all around us, close and distant. And how should we qualify or compare one tragic injustice to or against another? Can't...they're all BAD. 

Something deep inside us argues that life just shouldn't be unjust; it shouldn't be this way. Bad things, people, circumstances, happenings,...bad stuff shouldn't exist; and if it happens, it should get fixed! Someone should make life different. Someone should promise or guarantee different outcomes than tragedies--injustices--or someone should pay! Right?!

Exactomundo. It's why Jesus Christ came...and wept (John 11:35)....then, summarily, he proceeded to do "the fixing deed." He gave himself up to die, in part to fix the ultimate "injustice," forever separation from God and from one another (Romans 3:23; 6:23; John 3:14-16).

OK, so why do we still see and experience injustices...why are they still happening all around us, right here in our lives, near by, and far away in the lives of other people? Didn't the fixing deed work?

Consider this. 85% of my original family members still live in Pacific Northwest. Consequently, I experience some predictable, growing discomfort the longer it's been between visits. When I make arrangements to visit (purchase a plane ticket, make arrangements for transportation, etc.) I realize a visceral decrease in my  discomfort--because I know I will soon, at the scheduled time, be there and be with them. Tangibly, that promise is represented by the ticket in my hand. In the meantime, I'm still here and they're still in the Northwest.    

OK, so what? Here's a two-piece very simplistic answer to that comparatively more complicated question, "Didn't the fixing deed work?" Jesus Christ--the GOD-MAN (John 1:1-4)--purchased a ticket for each of us that promises our being re-united with both God and our friends and loved ones. It's for a future scheduled flight. In the meantime, yes, there's some living and dealing with everyday life to do (I Peter 1:3-7)--waiting for the flight. You're waiting; everybody's waiting...living and waiting.

So yes, the injustices will continue to happen...for a while. 

Do you...do your friends...have their tickets in hand!? Then let's make sure everyone knows about em...

 ...the Good News.

Dick