Coping With Guilt

I enjoyed talking with a fellow minister today who also happened to be a Vietnam vet. He has barely talked about his experiences in the decades since, and initially felt incredible guilt over what he had to do over there. "I don't know what I would have done without Christ," he told me.

He clings to Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ..."

Not a day goes by that he doesn't think about Nam.

This is all strangely consoling to me. I was not a helicopter gunner, but I was a chaplain, always preparing for my death or that of my soldiers. And when I think of Dave or Dana Lyon, I am filled with guilt. I waited for Dave to take the initiative to reach out to me after our first encounter. I never reached back to him. I never reached out to his wife, though I likely crossed paths with her quite a bit. In both cases, my empty, extroverted "Let's definitely keep in touch" was nothing but words of wind, an assurance of touch without a hand.

And the soldier who loved his wife and the Lord and dreamed great dreams was snatched from the world--never to see 31, celebrate a fifth anniversary, or hold his giggling boy in his arms.

I cling to Colossians 3:1-4, "My life is hidden with Christ in God..."

We must all deal with guilt in this broken world of broken hearts. Some of it will be misplaced, but much of will be the result of true, objective guilt. We bear the ugliness of the world upon our hearts. The blood of the soldier and the cries of the widow testify against mankind, much like the blood of Abel, which cried to God from the ground.

The blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, for it speaks in favor of the sinner who has found refuge in Christ. Our Savior cried the widow's cry at the grave of Lazarus, he bled the soldier's blood. But He did all this--He bore the very worst of our sin and suffering in His own body--that we might cry and bleed with purpose and hope.

Let us lay our burden of guilt, the misplaced and the real, upon Jesus, who nailed our trespasses to the cross. And let us find in Him our freedom to live, both in this life and the next.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)