It didn't used to be like this.
It used to be when there was a tragedy like the one that occurred last Wednesday a half mile away from Reagan National Airport Runway 33, there would be a national story on it during the nightly news, an article in the morning newspaper, and general information that would trickle out slowly in the months that followed, long after the disaster had slipped from the public consciousness.
Today, events like the collision of American Flight 5432 and the Army Blackhawk helicopter utterly consume us. The explosive moment is replayed hundreds of times on 24-hour news networks, being ingested and analyzed, scrutinized and dissected by countless millions, too many of whom rush to social media to spawn absurd conspiracy theories ("That had to be intentional, there must have been someone on that plane that the government wanted dead"), and cannon fodder for political marksmen ("This is the result of DEI programs" on one side, or, "It's no coincidence that Trump made cuts to the FAA 8 days before this happened" on the other).
Not only have we lost our ability to keep our mouths shut and grieve with one another when tragedy strikes, we've also lost our ability to accept that sorrow, tragedy, and disasters happen with an all-too-common frequency in this fallen world.
And many times, they aren't the fault of anyone. They're just tragedies.
But that's something we just can't accept. We need to find someone, some villain, to blame. We need to point fingers. We need to pretend that we know how to fix it or prevent it from happening the next time. We need to believe that somehow the unimaginable pain being experienced by others actually proves that we are right about some peripheral issue.
And why? Because those things give us the illusion, they maintain our self-intoxicating mirage that we have some control over the painful realities of living in a fallen world.
But no matter how much we hate to admit it, the plane crash over the Potomac shook us all because it's yet another stark reminder that we don't.
In fact, the only real power we do possess is choosing how to respond to our lack of control - either by continuing our hopeless, hapless charade otherwise, or surrendering to the God who actually does. The God who announced and initiated a kingdom that would counteract and conquer the deceptions and the dead-ends the world presents.
The inauguration of His eternal Kingdom was never just about growing numerically, or simply gaining more people to agree with our side of political fights.
It's always been about liberating man from the miry clay, the uncrossable chasm, the inescapable pit, the hopeless circumstances we find ourselves in. It's about deepening the conviction and growing the maturity of believers to remember in moments like these that no matter how dark or how bad things get, faith is the victory that overcomes the world. We all need His truth, we need His Spirit, we need His peace.
Last Wednesday night, 67 people made the journey every single one of us will take soon enough, as they stepped out of this world and into the next.
I pray that they were ready to stand in the presence of their Savior. I pray we all are as well.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
