Today's Scripture Reading (December 5, 2025): 2 Chronicles 4
The Cambodian Civil War ended
in 1975. After five years of fighting, it should have been a joyous moment for
the nation. Our hope is always that the end of a war means peace, but the end
of the Cambodian Civil War might be an example of a terrifying era that
followed the end of a war, a result that definitely was not peace. At the close
of the civil war, the Communist Party of Kampuchea took control of the South
Asian nation. The Communist Party of Kampuchea became more popularly known as
the Khmer Rouge.
The end of the Cambodian
Civil War was the starting point for the Cambodian Genocide. Over the next four
years, more than 1.3 million people would be executed and buried by the Khmer
Rouge. The regime arrested and executed anyone who was suspected of having a
connection with either the former government of Cambodia or with foreign
governments. Those who were ethnically Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, and the
Champa people, along with Christians and Buddhist Monks, became targets for
Khmer Rouge persecution. The leader of the Khmer Rouge was a man named Pol Pot,
and he has been called a "Genocidal Tyrant.
On January 7, 1979, Vietnam
overthrew the Khmer Rouge, ending the genocide. Dith Pran, a Cambodian
Journalist, escaped from Cambodia and subsequently called the places where the
1.3 million people had been killed, including 50 members of his own family, the
"Killing Fields." It is a name that has stuck and become permanently
associated with the genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
The author of Chronicles
tells his readers about a bronze altar used in the priest's area of the Temple.
But the real meaning of altar here is "Killing Place." This piece of
furniture was not a symbolic space of death, but the actual place where the
animal sacrifices were carried out. Our image of the altar should not be of a
gleaming, polished piece of furniture. It was a large platform that was crusted
with the blood of the animals that met their end at this "Killing Place."
I grew up in a series of
churches that had an altar at the front of the sanctuary. Often, these places
were decorative rails where people came to pray. The janitors had polished them
to a deep shine. And often it was easy to forget that these wooden rails were
still "Killing Places," because it was at these altars that
worshippers came to echo Paul's words.
For through the law I died to the law so
that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but
Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in
the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be
gained through the law, Christ died for nothing (Galatians 2:19-21)!
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
2 Chronicles 5
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