What a Mass Murderer and I Have in Common

A week has past since the horrific manslaughter of more than 50 people who were shot and killed ruthlessly from a hotel room 32 stories above a country music festival by an unpredictable and introverted accountant named Stephen Paddock.

No one could have guessed that this white, rich, gamble-loving, 64 year-old, male had it in him... Apparently he wasn't medically insane, and apparently he had no links to extreme terrorist groups or far out religious causes.

A CNN article actually stated that after investigating more than 1,000 different leads, still - authorities have not been able to pin down any clear motive for why Stephen Paddock would do such a thing.

It's disconcerting to put it lightly - because to think that someone would just arbitrarily decide to buy a bunch of weapons and randomly start shooting at thousands of innocent people, for no particular reason whatsoever - is more like terrifying and horrific and just plain bizarre.

Everyone wants to know why? but the answer remains shrouded in mystery.

...What impresses me is the thought that maybe Stephen Paddock didn't even need a reason. Maybe it was just an evil and sick heart lashing out against thousands of helpless people with gunfire because of a terrible disease called sin.

Sin? Yeah, and even though it would be more convenient to talk about what happened a week ago because of some other sophisticated cause - ultimately it's only sin: terrible and rotten sin that can lead a person to do such a thing.

Sin is a terrible evil, and what's so uncomfortable in talking about it is that deep inside we all have to realize that we've been plagued by it as well. It's a ruthless epidemic that has infected the whole human race (Romans 3:23), and if that same stuff that led a madman to commit such heinous crimes also dwells in us - then we can only imagine what we are also liable of doing.

...There's a really shocking song by indie artist Sufjan Stephens in his Illinois album that talks about the life of another psychopath named John Wayne Gacy Jr.

John Wayne Gacey Jr. was an American serial killer and rapist who targeted young male victims, and was convicted of raping and killing at least 33 teen-aged boys or young men before he was detained and later executed on May 10, 1994... In many of the cases involved, Gacey Jr. would bury his strangled victims in the crawl space of his own home.

And so in the midst of describing Gacey's horrific deeds in Sufjan's chilling song - Sufjan concludes the tune by saying, "In my best behavior, I am really just like him. Look beneath the floor boards for the secrets I have hid."

...I think that that confession is such an inconvenient and totally troubling truth for all of us. Sure, we are rightly appalled by Stephen Paddock's murder rampage in Las Vegas last week, as well as John Gacey's inhumane acts towards innocent boys a couple decades ago - but in our own behavior are we really all that different?

Of course we are! we say... from a human perspective we aren't half as sinful as those other guys! but actually from God's perspective every single one of us is just as guilty of sin as any other mass murderer and thus, we are completely deserving of the same condemnation as that of them. In Romans 3 Paul accurately declares that "no one is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one" (v. 10-12). And then verse 19 says, "Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God."

When you think of guys like Stephen Paddock or John Gacey Jr., and feel hatred as well as tremendous indignation for what they have done and want them to rot in hell - just keep in mind that before God we are completely silenced, and have no argument with which to contend because we are just as guilty of breaking God's perfect law as they are.

I am just as guilty of it.

I too have killed someone innocent.

I have killed the Son of God as a result of my sin.

...Before the cross of Calvary, I Sam Killins as well as Stephen Paddock and John Gacey Jr. stand on level ground.

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Articles Referenced:
CNN article
John Gacey Wikipedia