Why the Nihilism, Macbeth?

I have been reading back through one of Shakespeare's classics, especially calling to mind this moving and yet haunting speech of the enraged Scottish king (V.v.17 ff):

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth's wife died too soon. He knew this full well. His only mechanism for coping with this disaster is one of nihilism. In dealing with death, life becomes some less than real, a "brief candle" or a "walking shadow." It is a nervous actor that rehearses his lines for the days and hours before a performance, only to perform them and then be removed from the play itself. The closing couplet, perhaps the most famous lines of the entire play, captures the essence of Macbeth's nihilism: life is not real, but an intense story with no purpose. Life is but smoke and mirrors.

I wonder what Macbeth would have to say if he had read Tuesday morning's newspaper? On one the nation's premier engineering campuses, 32 students and one murderer lay dead. The evidence has been sifted through and a clear motive seems lacking. The killer tried to pin it on the charlatanry of his classmates, but this is hardly tenable. Even if they did cherish their iPods and a few drinks with friends, he has no right to make such a judgment. Who is he to take life into his own hands? In light of this atrocity, it would be very easy for us to say that life is in fact a meaningless tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It would be easy to opt for the smoke and mirrors. However, I think that this would be an incorrect response.

Life is meaningful. All lives are infused with meaning because they are God-breathed. Nihilism has no ground upon which to stand; if it did, then it would be standing upon something, as opposed to nothing. It would be even better to sat that life has meaning because someone is there. As Francis Schaeffer maintained against the atheism and nihilism of modernism, He is there and He is not silent.

God has a lot to say about death. He has placed death at the center of his drama of redemption, at least since redemption has become necessary. Adam and Eve were clothed with the hide of some animal, sacrificed for their sake to hide their shame. Abraham was given a ram to stand in the place of his beloved son Isaac. God told Moses that the life of an animal was in the blood and in order for a wrong to be set right, that blood would need to be presented to Him with the understanding that the this blood could have been that of the offerer himself. Death is everywhere present when true forgiveness is near.

We see this drama come to its climax in the death of Jesus Christ. Crucifixion was the means and death was the end, at least for three days' time. In this event, God was nailed to a cross. The just died for the unjust. In Blacksburg, a confused and self-intoxicated youth took 32 lives which did not belong to him, only to turn the gun on himself and take another life that did not belong to him. In his mind, justice may have been his motive, but in no way was justice achieved. In fact, we who grieve now look for justice. We try to pin something on someone (the president, the campus security, the shooter's professors, his family), likely just to satisfy the retributive voice in our aching souls. Yet, on the cross, the just offered himself to help the unjust become just. A perfect life ended in a perfectly beautiful and yet perfectly scandalous death. God died.

The Gospel tells us that God was raised from the dead by God. It also tells us that because of t his resurrection, all people have the guarantee of their own resurrection. Some will be resurrected to life, others to death. Only here will justice be achieved. God will be there and He will not be silent. "All won't be treated just the same," sang Johnny Cash in his song "When the Man Comes Around." Schaeffer was right. Cash was right. The shooter was wrong.

As I attempt to make sense of this horrific tragedy, I continually mumble to myself those prayerful words of the early church, "Maranatha" or "Come, Lord, quickly." They said this as they stared down Roman soldiers and Roman lions. I say it as I stare down a Tuesday morning newspaper with the large black word "massacre." Life does have meaning, especially when we learn of it not from an idiot, but from the God Himself who speaks not only with sound and fury, but with silence and comfort, telling us of justice that will arrive with the resurrection and the establishment of his kingdom. As I try to make sense of what happened at Virginia Tech, this retributive resurrection signifies everything.