St. Luigi?

Amid the celebration of all that is holy, namely Jesus Christ and the message of Christmas, I resent the constant inference that Luigi Mangione might be in the same league. The same group of people who got soundly defeated in the last election are planning to up the ante in their battle against Western Civilization. 

The Democractic Party gave up the age old formula it had followed of picking candidates to run for the Presidency who would represent politically centrist views. That is because the Democratic Party’s radical Marxist element hijacked the party a while ago so those sort of accommodations were not deemed necessary. The last United States elections tested whether the American people would stand for that. They would not. What will the most radicalized members of the Democratic Party do next? I think the answer to that lies in terrible stories which keep on popping up in the news. Indicative of the standard operating procedure of the radicalized democrats is the case of Luigi Mangione.

The case unfolded on a cold December morning in New York City when a darkly dressed figure with a large backpack jumped out of the shadows and shot somebody in the back. The man killed in such a cowardly way was Brian Thompson a husband, father of two and the CEO of the United Healthcare medical insurance company. The 26 year old man who has been arrested and will stand trial for this cold-blooded murder is Luigi Mangione. He was the valedictorian of his high school class and an Ivy League graduate with two degrees. 

Liberal news sources, leftist professors’s and social media Marxists have begun a nasty smear campaign against the dead man who for obvious reasons can’t defend himself. The posts, and some commentaries suggest this man had it coming. What is the truth about the Health Insurance industry? Only a very careful study and quantitative analysis could tell us that. Opinions are not always reality and emotionalism can lead us astray of the truth. But, that hasn’t stopped some people from advancing their agenda.

Some of  those people have compared Brian, the murder victim, with Hitler and suggest that knowing what we now know about Hitler would mean that it would not be a murder if we killed him before he was able to implement his plans. That’s too big of a stretch. 

The notion that murder is prohibited in the Bible is no longer central to this discussion for many. We are not talking about an accident or self-defense here. As a Christian we should know the difference between right and wrong and the way that we need to go about righting any perceived wrongs. The Marxist view that we are all either “oppressed” or the “oppressor” does not play out in the Bible the way it plays out for some in the Luigi case. 

The reality of sin touches us all. There is no innocent person on this planet. Perhaps, we could say that we have all sinned against others and they have sinned against us. We need to both be forgiven, and we must extend that forgiveness back to those who have hurt us. This of course doesn’t preclude the notion of improving our home, community and the world by fixing broken systems. But, we can’t do it with a “chip on our shoulders,” nor a bullet to the back.

Here’s what it looked like when one of the prophets called on people to repent of their sins. In the 55th Chapter of the prophet Isaiah’s Book, he did not call out companies, races or classes of people to repent, but he called upon individuals to reflect upon their own lives and seek God’s forgiveness immediately. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on you, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”  The whole season of Christmas is a season of hope and we should all take advantage of the free gift of salvation but we have to own up to our own shenanigans and quit making excuses. It’s time to get real while we have that opportunity. No St. Luigi, no, no, no! 

John the Baptist did the same thing as Isaiah did when he called for repentance. Repentance prepares our heart to welcome the Savior that was born on that Christmas Day.* This Christmas season let us commemorate the birth of Jesus by getting real and getting saved by the precious gift that God sent us, Jesus Christ. 

Isaiah 9:6- For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, The everlasting father, The Prince of Peace.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy Hanukkah to all my readers around the world. I always look at my statistics at the end of every year to see where my readers are from.  This year, I am making a list for you so that you can see who else is reading my blog. I listed them by number of readers and going from highest to lowest. The top three countries this year reading my blog are Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel. 

Hong Kong, Singapore, Israel, U.S.A., China, Spain, Germany, Russia, France, Canadian, Malaysia,Australia, U.K., Ireland, Poland, Indonesia, South Korea, India and the Netherlands.

* while we do not know the exact day of Jesus’ birth what we do know is that God thought it important enough to announce it to the shepherds in the field and to guide the three kings to see the newborn babe Jesus. Therefore, commemorating it is a worthwhile thing to do.