You’re as mad as hell.
You look at the pictures of children (who could be your own) who lost their lives in an act of unadulterated evil, and the grief overwhelms you. Imagining their last moment twists your stomach into knots.
Grade school survivors lost their friends and teachers, along with the prospect of an innocent childhood.
That’s because a young woman walked into a private, Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, and shot three nine-year old children and three adults on a beautiful Monday morning in March. The shooter also lost her life.
We do not have many answers, but I’m not sure that matters at the moment. We’re mad and sad wordless.
Our groans have no language except in the ears of God. And His hearing is not muted. The breaking of our hearts ring clear in His court.
The calls for justice are cries for help.
We are weary of watching our neighbors suffer. We fear harm will come to our school, to our church, or to our friends and family.
Despite the enemy’s attempts to suck the love out of us and turn us against one another, acts of violence like this one expose the gaps in his plot. You see, God created us in His image, and one very important aspect of His creative genius is our disposition to love one another. Despite his efforts to divide us, which are all too successful, there is still a seed in us that gravitates to community.
We want to be together. We want to love.
Jesus and Lazarus
When Jesus looked at the place where His friend Lazarus was buried, John tells us that “Jesus wept” (John 11:37). Jesus, eternal Son and member of the triune Godhead, was moved in His spirit and shed tears of grief for His friend.
Jesus grieved deeply because He loved His friend greatly.
Grief is an expression of love, and it shouts again that the enemy has not won. He has not eroded our divine design beyond repair.
And in surprising fashion, our grief even trains our own hearts to show us that we have capacity to love people we’ve never met. People who are very different. People we might not even enjoy knowing. But we all bear the Imago Dei that binds us together like the root system of the Sequoias—not always visible, but ever faithful.
Jesus is Life
After Jesus grieved the death of His friend, He said, “Remove the stone” and raised Lazarus back to life. He showed us that He is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). Despite the enemy’s plot to steal life, Jesus robbed the grave that day, and then went on to crush death forever at the Cross.
The devil declares Jesus a kill-joy. Jesus proves Himself as a life-giver.
“A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” —John 10:10
Jesus does not take life. He died in our place and for our sins to give us life. Abundant life. Eternal life. And every effort to steal it away, to undermine human flourishing, is a demonic plot to sear our conscience, harden our heart, and deny who God created us to be.
But it shall not be so.
Sitting in the Grief
Stark acts of violence awaken our souls. They prompt us to feel again. We find tears we did not know we had as we weep and wail. Our grief is inexpressible because lost love is now found, and darkness is pushed back by the light of the Gospel.
A renewal of empathy rises up, and we sit with our neighbors. We grieve with them, but we do not despair. Instead, we grieve with hope in Jesus—the One who has conquered the grave and holds all power to forever hold us fast.
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