this week witnessed a horrendous burst of evil

From the least to the greatest, their lives are ruled by greed.
From prophets to priests, they are all frauds.
They offer superficial treatments for my people’s mortal wound.
They give assurances of peace when there is no peace. (Jeremiah 6:13-15)

This week witnessed a horrendous burst of evil. A gunman opened fire on a crowded theater killing 12 and wounding over 70 more.

The question is why? Why would a young man of 24 do this. He seemed to have a good life. He was a PhD student in neuroscience and in general seemed fine.

It was a Batman movie and he told the police after he was captured that he was the Joker. The Joker was probably one of the most psychotic villains ever to come out of a movie. It is suggested that the part of the Joker drove the star who played him in the second Batman movie to suicide. What will come out of this in this young man’s diagnosis is only speculation.

But why would someone emulate someone who was so evil?

That always bothered me when I hear of people worshipping Satan. Why? Do they figure that evil has such a hold on the human race that the devil has won, and they might as well get in good with him?

I believe that much of the problem is with our society. We look at evil and it doesn’t bother us as much anymore. The villains get worse and worse in movies. At the comic conventions, you will see more people dressed as bad guys than you will as good guys.

The rationale? Bad guys have more fun, they say. They have a better time. There is even the song by Billy Joel in which he says “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun.”

Why would people emulate evil? Why would they model themselves after evil?

I don’t know and wish I did. In fact there are a lot of things I do not know and wish I did.

But I think they see the evil having a good time. The vicious evil glee with the Joker in the movie Dark Knight acted was truly frightening. It was as if he had absolutely no soul. He did not care and, as one character in another movie said, he did not care that he did not care.

What do we do? Quite frankly, there is little we can do. Evil will be here in moderate to severe form until Jesus comes again. I do believe that in this nation where prayer in schools was banned over forty years ago we are beginning to reap our harvest. Unless something amazing happens, a move of the Spirit in America, it will only get worse.

But all we can do remain pure in the midst of evil, remain good, remain honest and loving. It seems so futile, but it is also why Jesus died: to save us from evil.