Luke 13

I read Luke 13 last night, and was struck by the bit right at the beginning where the people tell Jesus about Pilate mixing the blood of Galileans (presumably those he murdered) with their sacrifices. The people seem to be expecting Jesus to condemn Pilate, but instead he says, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." (Luke 13 vv 2 - 5)

The thing I find interesting about this is that we today have the opposite mindset. We don't hear of disasters like the Boxing Day tsunami and think, "Did they sin?"; we think, "Isn't it terrible that innocent people suffer?" It IS terrible that people suffer - I don't want to trivialise suffering or disasters or murder or disease or anything like that - but we've forgotten that no one is innocent and in fact we all deserve death. We're not victims; we're sinners who have rejected God and who need to repent. Repentance is not a 'lifestyle choice' for the super-religious; it's the only thing that will save us from the punishment we deserve for rejecting God... but until we, as a society, get out of this mindset that believes we are innocent victims we'll never see any need to turn back to God and repent of our rebellion.