Fine Print and murder

Fine Print and murder

By Pastor Rasheed Z. Baaith

     “Everyone who hates his brother is s murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him” (1 John 3:15 HCSB)

     The injunction against murder is found in the Ten Commandments which are the “heart” of Hebrew or Mosaic Law.  Murder is the deliberate taking of the life of a human being by another human being.  Doing so first and foremost usurps the Authority of God.

When Jesus came on His mission to provide us an opportunity for salvation, He took the concept of murder and made it more than just a physical deed, teaching us that the intention of the heart is the primary motivation for the act.

Christ taught murder actually begins when someone loses respect for someone else being a fellow human. Debasing someone because of their race or gender, unfairly criminalizing someone’s behavior or speaking of someone with contempt are all signs of having a murderous spirit.

I think there is little question that George Zimmerman displayed these signs of having a murderous spirit before and after he murdered Trayvon Martin.

Here’s what we need to remember: Zimmerman had been preparing for a confrontation like the one he had with Trayvon Martin for a long time. Despite the weight he put on during the last year, pictures taken of him at the time of the murder show him to be someone in pretty good shape. In addition, he had been training in mixed martial arts for some time. Mixed Martial Arts includes wrestling or grappling, boxing, karate, judo and ju-jitsu. Zimmerman wanted skills. He was getting his body in shape for a fight that had already taken place in his mind.

He trained with an automatic weapon. The weapon he used and according to reports is getting back is a Kal-Tec 9 PF, a 9mm pistol weighing about 12 oz. unloaded and has a five pound pull. It has an automatic block safety which prevents it from firing if dropped. It’s “double action,” meaning one has to completely pull the trigger back in order to shoot the gun.  And a five pound pull ain’t much pull.

So he had trained his body and his mind. I believe he thought if his fighting skills fell short, he would use his gun as a fall back. He believes he is prepared for any coming confrontation, so he seeks one out. And he finds what he is longing for in Trayvon Martin. But like a lot of people, he finds out the real world is a lot different from the one he carried in his mind. He finds his fighting skills don’t allow him to subdue a 17-year-old boy but knows the gun will so he uses it to kill the 17-year-old.

But his murder of Trayvon Martin began a long time before that night that neither he, the Martin family and the rest of the world will ever forget. It began when he decided that any Black youth he saw in his neighborhood was there to steal or vandalize. It began with his first shredding of what Christ came to teach us about one another. That a murderous heart is more dangerous that any gun ever made. The latter has no power over the former. It is the heart that is the problem. God teaches us in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And despartely wicked; Who can know it.”  Who indeed.

Zimmerman’s intent was always to cause as much harm as he could to Trayvon or anyone who looked like Trayvon. He had murder in his heart long before he executed the act on that rainy night. It’s one of the reasons I pray for him. Satan has used him and will use him again unless he comes to a new spiritual awakening. That will not happen without prayers for him.

It’s also the reason I pray for us. We cannot let Satan use us the same way he has used George Zimmerman. We don’t have time to let murder rest in our hearts. We’ve got to save our children.

Because this decision by this jury is saying our children cannot walk the streets once it gets dark, even if they are walking a street where they live; it says that Black life has never had the value of white life in this country and it still does not; it says to us that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Children are still killing other children in the President’s hometown of Chicago, the legal system is still trying to make us believe it works when it doesn’t and racism is still entrenched in America.

And Trayvon Martin is still tragically and needlessly dead. We have learned one other thing that is it is a lot easier to speak of Christian forgiveness than it is to live such forgiveness.  Think about it.