Death for Life?

Dear children,

keep yourself from idols.

1 John 5:21 [NIV]

  

You shall not worship the Lord your God

in that way, for every abominable thing

 that the Lord hates they have done for their gods,

 for they even burn their sons and their daughters

 in the fire to their gods.

 Deuteronomy 12:31

CNN is reporting this morning that a group of eight people, including a teenager just 15 years old, has been arrested in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, accused of killing two 10-year-old boys and a woman over the last three years as human sacrifices for Santa Muerte.  The victims were killed and their blood was offered on an altar to the saint.  The majority of the accused come from one family, and they were petitioning the saint for protection.

Santa Muerte is the saint of death, historically venerated in Mexico by the lower classes, the criminal element, and drug traffickers. The name literally means Holy Death or Saint Death.  According to my internet research, worship of this saint used to be clandestine, with idols set up in private homes, but in recent years, worship has become more public. The number of believers in Santa Merte has grown over the past ten years or so to approximately two million followers, and has crossed over the border into Mexican-American communities in the United States.

Death is neither a saint nor a sinner - it is an event of human life that each of us face at one time or another.  The news articles do not say what exactly these people wanted to be shielded from, but it could be assumed that they were wanting protection from something or someone that might cause them bodily harm and/or take their own lives.  What a horrific irony that they should take another human's life to protect their own.  Further, the cruelty of a god who demands human blood as a sacrificial offering is beyond comprehension.

Virtually the entire book of 1 John is devoted to the message of loving each other.  John hammers this thought home verse after verse, chapter after chapter.  When I love my neighbor "as myself," I cannot wish them harm or place my interests above and beyond theirs.  Their life is just as important as mine - a concept that is disappearing from a world preaching, "Every dog for himself."