"It is the Pivot Point on Which the World Turns"

Tom McDonald has written a beautifully thoughtful piece explaining, within the context of world events, the crux of our Christian faith:

Christians have one reference point that has to remain at the center of all our understanding: the cross. There’s a reason one hangs over every altar. It is the pivot point on which the world turns. Nothing, utterly nothing, makes sense without.

I finally watched Noah last night, and while it certainly has problematic elements, one thing it does exceptionally well is depict the world very close to the moment at which sin entered in.  As Noah says to Ham in the move, “We broke the world. We did this.” What we’re witnessing now is the fruit of that first sin.

The wood on which Christ hung was felled in Eden, by our hands. And after all this time, mankind still holds the ax at the root.

We are doing what we can–albeit too little and too late–as civilized people to try to help those on the brink of annihilation, and this is as it should be. We cannot solve all the world’s problems, but we damn well better solve the problems we created, even if it means a 4 point drop in the popularity polls.

I find it interesting that the threatened slaughter of the Yazidi triggered US action, but our leaders could barely raise a voice in protest when Christians were being ground into dust. As I’ve said before, the hour is clear: it’s 64 AD, and whether Christianity is a new faith as it was then, or an old faith as it is now, the persecution is for the same reason: we threaten those who seek power as an end. We upset the narrative. We are an inconvenient reminder that mankind not only broke the world, but killed its maker, and did both things as actions of a free will.

Do read the whole thing.
Tom hits on something here that for me is central.  It is inconceivable, plainly irrational, to make sense of what is happening in the world.  The cruelty, the inhumanity, the wickedness being unleashed is incomprehensible.  Unless you look at it through the filtration system of the Cross and its meaning.

There's no other way to look at what's happening.

None.