Numbers 35:15
“These six towns will be a place of refuge for Israelites and for foreigners residing among them, so that anyone who has killed another accidentally can flee there.”
Accidents happen all the time, from spilling a glass of milk to tragic and deadly car accidents. It is a part of life some are all too familiar with. In the Old Testament, “cities of refuge” were designated as places you could flee to if you killed someone by accident. You would find protection there from what was considered legal vengeance- a family member of the victim acting as executioner, called the Avenger of Blood. If you stayed in the designated city, they weren’t allowed to kill you. If you left it, they could.
What happens if you accidently killed your own child? What happens if in warfare you accidently shot and killed a fellow soldier, a friend? What if the Avenger of Blood lives in your own mind trying to find a way to blame you for living while others died? Roberta D. Calhoun described this as “Survivor’s guilt”. In her article called “Survivor Guilt: What Long-Term Survivor’s Don’t Talk About” she states that it is a “common experience”, a mental state of those trying to find the path to continue living after surviving tragedies that claimed the lives of others.
American author Darin Strauss wrote of such a tragedy in his life that has haunted him for 23 years. As a young man of 18, he was driving his car with friends when a young girl of 16, named Celine Zilke, swerved her bike out in front of him. She was killed instantly. At her funeral, Celine’s mom came up to Darin and gave voice to his “survivor’s guilt” that stayed with him for decades. She said, “Whatever you do in your life you have to do it twice as well now. Because you are living it for two people. Can you promise me, Darin?” Years later after living his life to fulfill those words he wrote describing the futility, “Regret doesn’t budge things; it seems crazy that the force of all that human want can’t amend a moment, can’t even stir a pebble.”
Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Shrader in his article “Friendly Fire: The Inevitable Price” describes the psychological toll experienced by survivors as a “lingering fear”. It effects every decision afterwards; avoidance because of distrust becomes the modus operandi. Shrader closed his article with a quote by Major General Matthew B. Ridgeway following the worst incident of friendly fire in WWII, “Deplorable as is the loss of life which occurred, I believe that the lessons now learned could have been driven home in no other way…”
As Christians, we celebrate the death of an innocent man who died in our place, but instead of living under Survivor’s Guilt, which some describe as slow suicide, we now live under our Savior’s Grace and are freed as it states in John 8:36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” We trade regret for faith; exchanging an inability to stir pebbles for that which can move mountains, Mark 11:23. And much like the lessons of friendly fire, the lessons that came from His sacrifice of love “could have been driven home in no other way” than on the cross. Colossians 1:19-20, “For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.” And it is through faith in Jesus that we are ushered into the Kingdom of God, a place of far greater deliverance than the cities of refuge, 1 Corinthians 4:20, “For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”
Everyday we come face to face with a world where accidents happen, lives are lost, and tragedies never seem to tire. But even greater than the stubbornness of this fallen world, there is a Love that keeps singing songs of everlasting peace beyond this grip of pain. For those of us who are given the opportunity of another day, another day of, as American poet Gregory Orr puts it, the “terror of existence”, we can either live it in “lingering fear” or join in with the song.
To Be Alive, by Gregory Orr
To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That’s crudely put, but…
If we’re not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?