Minnesota School Deaths Leave Me Speechless
Note: You can read a related poem here.
A teacher, a security guard, five high school students were shot to death at school yesterday by another high school student who, having previously killed his two grandparents, then shot and killed himself (see the article here).
The Chippewa Red Lake Indian Reservation, the nearby town of Red Lake, Minnesota, and Red Lake High School are reeling in shock and disbelief today. So am I.
A tsunami I can handle (see here & here), even with nearly 200,000 human deaths. The amoral power of nature is to be both respected and feared, of course, but there is no conscious intent to harm, there is no malice aforethought or even a question of right and wrong in such a tragedy.
But the senseless, intentional, malicious and deadly actions of a student named "Jeff" that took away the lives of nine other living, breathing human beings in their home and in their high school classroom, leaves me numb.
As a Pastor of reasonable intelligence and knowledge of the Word of God I can rattle off all the biblical and theological truths about sin, evil, spiritual warfare, and the forgiving, redeeming, sacrificing love of God until I'm blue in the face but it will be a long time, if ever, before I will be able to come to any measure of "peace" about what happened in Red Lake.
For those who were killed I feel a profound sense of sadness and grief, almost as though they were my own children, my sister or my brother. The unfairness and injustice of it all appalls me. Even if I had "all knowledge and faith to remove mountains" it would still be incomprehensible to me. I have the same feeling I had in the cemetery in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) where 1,000,000 victims of the German siege of that city are buried, the vast majority of whom were civilians.
Along with Job in his suffering, I cry out "Why?" to God even though, unlike Job, I already know the unanswerable answer to that question. Six million Jews murdered. Nine native Americans murdered. I feel a sense of horror as though reality and the whole of creation have been twisted out of shape. I can hardly recognize the world as being the same one that I woke up to just 16 hours ago, when those ten people in Red Lake were still living and their future was still open to a different outcome.
As for "Jeff," I have little or no feeling at all. You see, I can relate to those who were killed. I can imagine and even feel the confusion, the fear and the terror that must have overtaken them in their last, fleeting moments of life.
But as for "Jeff," I cannot imagine. I cannot feel. Yet I weep for him, but not in the same way that I weep for those who he killed. I weep for "Jeff" because he became, or allowed himself to become, so badly fallen from the image of God that I can no longer relate to him as one human being to another. At least not now. Not today.
I am in no position to either ask for or to offer forgiveness to "Jeff." Others will have to grapple with this matter, and that struggle will sear their souls until it leads them either to an eternal hardening of their heart or leads them to their knees as they confess and repent to God of their own weakness and sin.
Psalm 51:17 tells us that "the only sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart God will not despise." No doubt there are many broken spirits and many broken hearts in Red Lake tonight. In time, by God's grace, there will be contrite hearts as well.
As for myself, all I can do is pray. I pray for the victims of this terrible crime. In prayer I entrust them to the care and mercy of Almighty God. And I pray for their friends and families. I pray for them what Jesus taught in his "Sermon on the Mount" when he said, "Blessed are they who mourn; for they will be comforted."
And, yes, I pray for "Jeff." Although I am not inclined to pray for "Jeff" my Savior and Lord compels and commands me to pray for him. I am not quite sure what it is that I ought to pray for, but I shall entrust him, also, to the care and mercy of Almighty God. For I know that God is merciful, but also just. God can be trusted to sort this all out with a measure of perfect righteousness that, at present, completely eludes me.
And I pray for "Jeff's" family, who have lost three loved ones today. The grief, suffering and guilt they must be experiencing must surely test the limits of their physical, emotional and spiritual endurance.
Somehow, for the moment at least, Easter seems to be very far, far away.
May God have mercy on us all.
A teacher, a security guard, five high school students were shot to death at school yesterday by another high school student who, having previously killed his two grandparents, then shot and killed himself (see the article here).
The Chippewa Red Lake Indian Reservation, the nearby town of Red Lake, Minnesota, and Red Lake High School are reeling in shock and disbelief today. So am I.
A tsunami I can handle (see here & here), even with nearly 200,000 human deaths. The amoral power of nature is to be both respected and feared, of course, but there is no conscious intent to harm, there is no malice aforethought or even a question of right and wrong in such a tragedy.
But the senseless, intentional, malicious and deadly actions of a student named "Jeff" that took away the lives of nine other living, breathing human beings in their home and in their high school classroom, leaves me numb.
As a Pastor of reasonable intelligence and knowledge of the Word of God I can rattle off all the biblical and theological truths about sin, evil, spiritual warfare, and the forgiving, redeeming, sacrificing love of God until I'm blue in the face but it will be a long time, if ever, before I will be able to come to any measure of "peace" about what happened in Red Lake.
For those who were killed I feel a profound sense of sadness and grief, almost as though they were my own children, my sister or my brother. The unfairness and injustice of it all appalls me. Even if I had "all knowledge and faith to remove mountains" it would still be incomprehensible to me. I have the same feeling I had in the cemetery in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) where 1,000,000 victims of the German siege of that city are buried, the vast majority of whom were civilians.
Along with Job in his suffering, I cry out "Why?" to God even though, unlike Job, I already know the unanswerable answer to that question. Six million Jews murdered. Nine native Americans murdered. I feel a sense of horror as though reality and the whole of creation have been twisted out of shape. I can hardly recognize the world as being the same one that I woke up to just 16 hours ago, when those ten people in Red Lake were still living and their future was still open to a different outcome.
As for "Jeff," I have little or no feeling at all. You see, I can relate to those who were killed. I can imagine and even feel the confusion, the fear and the terror that must have overtaken them in their last, fleeting moments of life.
But as for "Jeff," I cannot imagine. I cannot feel. Yet I weep for him, but not in the same way that I weep for those who he killed. I weep for "Jeff" because he became, or allowed himself to become, so badly fallen from the image of God that I can no longer relate to him as one human being to another. At least not now. Not today.
I am in no position to either ask for or to offer forgiveness to "Jeff." Others will have to grapple with this matter, and that struggle will sear their souls until it leads them either to an eternal hardening of their heart or leads them to their knees as they confess and repent to God of their own weakness and sin.
Psalm 51:17 tells us that "the only sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart God will not despise." No doubt there are many broken spirits and many broken hearts in Red Lake tonight. In time, by God's grace, there will be contrite hearts as well.
As for myself, all I can do is pray. I pray for the victims of this terrible crime. In prayer I entrust them to the care and mercy of Almighty God. And I pray for their friends and families. I pray for them what Jesus taught in his "Sermon on the Mount" when he said, "Blessed are they who mourn; for they will be comforted."
And, yes, I pray for "Jeff." Although I am not inclined to pray for "Jeff" my Savior and Lord compels and commands me to pray for him. I am not quite sure what it is that I ought to pray for, but I shall entrust him, also, to the care and mercy of Almighty God. For I know that God is merciful, but also just. God can be trusted to sort this all out with a measure of perfect righteousness that, at present, completely eludes me.
And I pray for "Jeff's" family, who have lost three loved ones today. The grief, suffering and guilt they must be experiencing must surely test the limits of their physical, emotional and spiritual endurance.
Somehow, for the moment at least, Easter seems to be very far, far away.
May God have mercy on us all.
posted by Bird of Paradise at 10:53 PM
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