Baptism and Bloodshed

In Episcopal Churches across the country, the lessons to be read are about the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, and the Holy Spirit descending as a dove with the announcement, "This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." In my own mind, I am picturing the awe that must have been with that crowd of people who had come to have their sins washed away in the Jordan by John the Baptizer as this all took place. And here is Jesus, immersed in this water, announced and anointed for all to see: here is the Beloved. Here is the one who will take the sins left in this water and he will dispose of them with his own life.
It's a rather vivid picture I have going in my head. At this point in the story, we aren't in Jerusalem and we aren't at the cross. Good Friday is still many weeks away. And yet, we all know that this is the mission upon which Jesus will embark. To teach us to love God and one another and to know that God will always be with us no matter how good or bad things may be. For that, Jesus is willing to die. And in death, he shows us that one can rise again. Even death can not snuff out life forever. That's the hope that all Christians cling to as we muddle our way through this often messy world. Through faith and trust in God we know that the sin of the world has been overcome by a stronger power of light and life.
And then there is Tuscon. Six people killed, some as old as 79 and one, a young girl born on 9/11/2001, was only nine years old. And a member of Congress hailed as a true moderate who worked amicably with members of the Republican opposition is now in a medically-induced coma, recovering to whatever extent from a gunshot wound at point-blank range to the head. Anger, sadness, frustration are abounding in Arizona and the rest of the country as we all try to wrap our minds around how this could happen. If Jesus came and died and rose again to take away the sin of the world, then why this?
There is no easy answer to that question because we can't know those answers. They are the unknowns that are beyond our comprehension. I don't believe that God delights in this moment, but I do believe that God is with all the people, all of us... including the shooter... as we piece all this together. What I can say is that Congresswoman Giffords had warned people in a television interview last March that the map produced by Sarah Palin placing a gunsight over her district in Arizona was contributing to an already vicious level of rhetoric, and could be misinterpreted by an unstable person. Her comments now in retrospect seem prophetic.
I hope as we shake our heads in shock and horror at what has happened in Arizona, we might take time to repent (meaning "rethink") what we have become in this country. This last political campaign reached down to a level of ugly I have never seen before. Those who thrive on negativity won many victories. But out of this bloodshed, I believe we must turn away from the hate-filled speech that creates scenes like the one in Tuscon. We must emerge out of the waters soaked in the sin of anti-this and anti-that. Because we are the Beloved embodied in our world today. We have been sealed and marked at our baptism. Live to love. Live for love.