Rising crime across the US made the news again this week.

The pundits on both sides were quick to blame the other.

What you might have missed was a story in the New York Times about a series of murders in Iran. It wasn’t just the details of the crimes that were so shocking, it was who the murderers were: an 81-year-old man and his 76-year-old wife.

The couple was mild-mannered and respected; no one could have imagined they were capable of killing their own adult children by drugging, stabbing, and then dismembering them. Surveillance video shows the man carrying garbage bags to the dumpster while his wife held the door for him.

But the couple was not only unrepentant, they were proud of what they did.

The Times said, “The case has rattled the psyche of the Iranians.”

What does it take for something to rise to the level of “psyche rattling?”

Jesus Christ had that effect on some people. In John 8:12, he told the religious insiders, “I am the light of the world.”

It rattled them.

Light gives life, but it also exposes evil, even in the places you’d never suspect, like in the hearts of religious insiders, or in the hearts of an elderly couple.

Jesus Christ came to deal with what’s wrong with the world deep down, the sin in the hearts of us all.

But he’s got to rattle us all first.