BLAH!!!!

The title of this post was the sound I made today as I checked my e-mail and read through some of the Christian publications I receive. As I read many of these publications, thoughts and reactions regarding the death and subsequent memorials for Senator Ted Kennedy this past weekend abounded. I was more than ashamed to be this closely linked to such people. Condemnation, a lack of mercy, and vehement spite were all more than obvious in the lines of these writings. All for who? A dead man that your judgment or knowledge of the truth will not do any good for now was your target.

Was he a murderer? So was Paul the great apostle. Did he commt adultery? So did the great King David? Was he a "bleeding heart" liberal? Peter was viewed as such by the Christians in Jerusalem following his teaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. Am I stating that Ted Kennedy was as great or righteous as these men, certainly not. I am saying that by casting your judgment on this man you are placing yourself on the same level as the Pharisees who plotted and crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. Congratulations, you win the piety of the week award.

These people claim to be living and walking in truth and light but their judgment on this man proves differently. To cast judgment on this man's sins is to claim that you yourself are spotless. Are you? If you answered yes you are in direct denial of the fact that the Bible repeatedly tells us we are full of sin. Are your sins that much less than his or just less publicized? You celebrated Ronald Reagan at his death with no word of his divorce and remarriage yet you literally spit on the grave of Ted Kennedy. Trust me, I agree more politically with Reagan but since when do our political beliefs dictate how we represent the bride of Christ?

Can we call a sin a sin? Yes we can, but not like this. We have the right to use the law of God to point out man's sins when working hand in hand with the gospel. Nowhere in scripture are we given a post-humous license to point out the sins of others though. Last I checked, it is not possible to teach the gospel to a dead man. So then the question as to why to expose and relish in his sins publically or privately is felt needed or appropriate needs to be answered. I personally don't have that answer but I feel shame for being included in a group of people who believe they do. I thought I was only supposed to feel shame as a Christian from those outside the church.

As I type this I think of mistakes I have made in the past and people who may only know me from instances in which my sinful nature was rearing it's head. I wonder if I died today what judgment those people who barely know me would pass upon me and my soul's eternal resting place. Yet, even when thinking about the shadiest and lowest places I have been I can't imagine any of those people celebrating my death or damning my loved ones for memoralizing me. Yet, that is what "Christians" have done today. No wonder Christ preferred to hang out with what the public and most pious Jews cast away as trash.

Has any bill that Ted Kennedy passed ever affected my Christian life in a negative way? Possibly, I don't really know. More importantly though, has my Christian life ever affected Ted Kennedy's? I can answer definitley no. I have never ministered to him. I have never prayed for him. Therefore, my time and right to allow scripture to judge his sins has expired because I have no hope of using God's word to save his soul, if it needed saving. If you have prayed for him or did personaly minister the truth to him, God bless you and have faith that the seed you planted did not go without reaping of some sort. If you didn't, time's up. Just as you are incapable of saving yourself or a dead man, your judgment on this dead man will bring you no closer to God.