He nicknamed himself “The Greatest” and few disagreed. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay in 1942, Boxing Heavyweight Champion Muhammed Ali died earlier this month. He wasn’t the first personality to step onto the world arena who eventually earned enough public recognition to be branded with a bigger than life nickname!

In the twentieth century, Elvis Presley was “The King” (reportedly responding to the title when he first heard it by saying: “only Jesus is King”).  John Wayne was “The Duke”. Then there was the singer who called himself “Prince”.  It seems to me as if we are subliminally longing for a monarchy!

Over the Memorial Day weekend, when America honors its military fallen dead, the nation was gripped by the story of a young boy who had wandered past barriers and fallen into the Cincinnati Zoo gorilla enclosure. An anxious mom, visitors and zoo staff looked on in fear as the 450 pound gorilla manipulated the tiny child through the enclosure’s running stream as if he was a toy. Within minutes, zoo management decided the boy’s life was in imminent danger. They then had the primate killed. The boy was rescued suffering only minor injuries. End of story? Not by a long shot!

Here we are in the Presidential Primary Campaign of 2016. A campaign, by most assessments, unprecedented in its rancor and divisiveness. Democrats are split between the progressives versus the socialists. Republicans between the outsiders versus the political insiders.

It seems so strange for us in the West that people seek to murder the maximum number of total strangers (including innocent women and children) while blowing themselves up. Our western minds cannot grasp the total depravity of such actions. But we who grew up in a civilization grounded in the light of the Jewish and Christian scriptures perceive the world through different glasses. We have a sense of hope and we believe in the future. We love life and everything that it has to offer. We are optimistic of the future. Even those of us who were born into poor immigrant families hope to better ourselves and enjoy our time on this earth. We dream of marrying and having children, seeing them grow up to become doctors, lawyers and even politicians. These are the dreams of even the atheist and agnostic who are increasingly being churned up by our universities; institutions originally founded by pious men so that everyone could read the scriptures - now unfortunately, these are populated by atheist professors who think they are wise, but are fools. These are not my words, but those of the Creator of the Universe (Rom 1:22).

If a farmer plants seed corn he fully expects to reap corn! (Genesis 1:11,12)

What should a culture which plants seeds of violence, pornography, vulgarity, disrespect of authority, disdain for sacred traditions and institutions, intolerance and rejection of God and His word expect to reap?

We hear the cries “Black Lives Matter”, “White Lives Matter” and “Police Lives Matter”.  All Lives Matter! We have politicized every aspect of life so that we are either for this group or the other, on one side of the issue or the other – Gender, Race, Politics.  We are a house divided against itself.  Maybe there is a transcending cry that needs to be heard: “All Life is Sacred!!” From the womb to the tomb, Creator God has put his seal of love on all of us and breathed the breath of life in all of us.  Until we can create life we have no right to take life.  Let’s stop desecrating the sacred gift of life.  In John 10:10 Jesus said: “…I am come that they might have life…” and that matters.