Wake Up, Look Up

[Music]

hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach

wrock and in today's episode we're

asking the question where can shame go

it's prompted by something that was in

the news this week a horrific story of a

14-year-old girl from New York City

whose father lives in Pakistan and

actually asked her to come visit him

over the summer kind of lured her out

there and when she got there he murdered

her along with her uncle they shot her

until she was dead for social media

posts they said brought shame on their

family this is what's known as an honor

killing and if you're not watching on

video I'm using air quotes because

there's not a lot of Honor in it but the

idea is if someone brings shame on your

family to reclaim your family's honor

you need to kill that person more common

than you think there were 588 honor

killings in Pakistan last year alone uh

Pakistan has laws on honor killings but

as you might imagine the laws don't stop

people from doing things they don't

change the cultural norms that lead to

the the thinking of doing these kinds of

things and there are loopholes in fact

we're starting to see more and more

fathers and uh male Patriarchs of the

family from Southeast Asia getting uh

immigrants from America to come back out

there to force them into marriage

imprison them or even kill them because

of what they've done now this is

prompted as you might imagine incredible

outrage in Western countries like

America and it should it should what

happened is

barbaric but the response in America is

also interesting after all we have long

since adopted moral relativism a moral

relativism is the idea that there are no

absolutes that that really it doesn't

fall on society to say to someone this

is good or this is bad this is right or

this is wrong we've forgone moral

absolutes in a lot of areas including

sexuality gender human relationships and

even murder in a lot of instances uh for

instance the argument over abortion has

shifted from whether the fetus is a

person because medical technology olog

is showing us more and more that that's

true we have American politicians who

will argue that a woman should be able

to abort a child uh within days of

actual full-term delivery well why

wouldn't that be true uh We've forgone

the idea that human beings are made in

the image of God and if they aren't then

it's really just the strong and the weak

or if you're in Pakistan the pure and

those that bring shame on their family

I'm not saying that what happened is

okay far from it what I'm saying is it's

interesting how Americans are selective

in their moral relativism kind of feels

like the moral categories where

Americans want to do what we want to do

we say ah uh We've outgrown moral

absolutes but when someone from another

country seeks to impose their own

Morality In Their Own culture that's

when we get on the high horse but the

truth is the West has no better answer

to the shame of this Man's family or to

the sinfulness of social media posts

than Pakistan does because the truth is

14-year-olds shouldn't be posting

pictures salacious pictures of

themselves on the internet they

shouldn't be killed for it to be sure

but they shouldn't be doing it in the

first place but of course the West in

its foregoing of moral absolutes has no

category for saying that we use words

like self-expression which seem to cover

the idea that a girl flaunting her body

on the internet at a young age for grown

men is somehow okay because it leads to

her

self-actualization and of course where

do fathers go in a society that tells

them increasingly that their voice isn't

needed and that they shouldn't be

seeking to restrain the sexuality of

their children where do they go with

that shame look at that this guy's doing

in Pakistan is awful full stop it's

awful but it's also an attempt to deal

with shame and sin and the only way

really to move cultures that are honor

and shame cultures off of this kind of

thing is to give them a better answer

for sin and shame it isn't to stand off

at a distance in America and say oh what

a bunch of evil and barbaric people and

then shift the conversation to late term

abortions we don't have a moral leg to

stand on the better answer is the Gospel

of Jesus Christ because the gospel will

say Sin is Sin it doesn't tell this

father to sweep it under the rug but it

tells him that the sin that he's so

angry about and the shame that he feels

ultimately should be nailed to the cross

of Jesus Christ because on the cross

Jesus becomes the teenager who shows

these salacious pictures on the cross

Jesus becomes the father who failed to

teach his daughter better he becomes the

embodiment of our sin and God's anger

and wrath is poured out on him not on

this 14-year-old girl and not even on

the father but on Jesus he dies under

the weight of that and three days later

when he rises again he promises both the

daughter and the dad a new way forward

that they're both given the

righteousness of God and that the holy

spirit of God himself will live in them

and lead them to something better listen

America doesn't have an answer for sin

or shame but but Jesus does that's why

the answer to this ultimately isn't

imposing sanctions on Pakistan or some

kind of Western educ ational initiative

the answer is to pray for the gospel to

go forward to pray for the mission work

that's being done in Pakistan that it

would reach fathers like this with a

better answer to sin and shame and to

pray for our own work because the truth

is we got to teach our own kids about

what they put on the internet about how

they view their bodies and about where

they go for meaning purpose and

satisfaction Pakistan doesn't have the

answers neither does America but Jesus

does so let's go to heaven hey thanks so

much for watching this episode of wake

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