Like all of you, I find myself heartbroken over the news that made its way throughout the media on Sunday afternoon. Anytime there is a shooting of any variety it causes us to mourn greatly, especially for the families of those lost in such a senseless tragedy. However, it hits a bit closer to home when you consider the context of this particular shooting. Within the walls of a church, where roughly 50 or so were gathered for worship, such evil took place. I think that we can all relate to being in that setting, and the last thing that we expect to happen is for something like this to take place. Can you imagine attending worship with your family and simply wanting to hear the good news of the gospel, and the morning ends with some of your family no longer on this earth? I hope that all of you will join me in praying for the victims of this heinous crime not only in the days and weeks to come, but in the years that are ahead as they seek to make sense of the senseless.
One particular victim that pulls at my heart in a particular way is the pastor’s daughter. She was only 14 years old. Her father was in Oklahoma on that particular Sunday and not in the pulpit, which is uncommon for him. I can relate. I have never missed more than 3 Sunday’s in any year since entering into pastoral ministry. In fact, I would be willing to bet that since January 2012, I’ve woken up on fewer than 20 Sunday mornings that I haven’t been tasked with preaching. I can’t imagine the guilt that I would feel if something were to happen to my family during one of those Sunday’s. In fact, there’s probably only been a handful of those Sunday’s where my family wasn’t with me wherever I was. However, as a pastor, I can tell you that his grieving is just as much for the rest of those who lost their life than morning as it is for his own daughter. I know that’s hard to fathom, but that’s the way that any pastor cares for his congregation. It may not always seem like it, but that’s the way it is.
As investigators try and find some motive or reason as to why this happened, they haven’t been able to uncover anything as of yet (Monday morning). They know the history of the shooter. They know that he had displayed violence in the past, most notably towards his wife and child. However, why that particular church at that particular moment is still a mystery. As one of residents of Sutherland Springs, Texas said in an interview, “This isn’t the type of thing that happens here. You understand these things in big cities, but not here. There’s only 1,000 people in the whole town.” I can remember back when I was working at a church in Mississippi, having a conversation with the pastor about a particularly difficult family situation in the church that we were dealing with. We actually had discussions on whether or not we needed to take safety precautions to prevent the husband from coming up to the church during worship and taking us out. After all, when you walk through the double-doors of that church, there isn’t anything between you and the pulpit. In fact, that’s the way that it is in most churches, and it’s the reason why many churches employ security personnel on Sunday mornings.
All of this really is enough to make you ask what’s going on in the world isn’t it? However, when we stop and think about it, it’s still not as bad as it is in other parts of the world. As horrible as this event and those of a similar nature are, they aren’t as bad as the 100’s and 1000’s of churches that are being persecuted by the governments of other countries. Every Sunday, we prepare ourselves for a pretty routine worship experience. For our brothers and sisters in parts of the world that are hostile towards the gospel, they prepare for that particular Sabbath to be the day in which they lay down their lives. I’m not trying to diminish the tragedy of what happened in that small Texas town a few days ago. There’s no way to say that it was anything less than an evil and vile act with sin as the root cause. However, we also can’t forget that ever since the beginning of the Christian faith, there has been persecution. In fact, it has been the norm rather than the exception.
Did this shooter attack this particular place because of it being a church? Did he primarily go after one individual or family in the church? Was it just a matter of him knowing that Sunday morning worship would be an easy target? We don’t know, and we may never know. However, we do know that the bride of Christ has been under attack since the beginning. We have to prepare ourselves for being attacked, and I’m not talking about with guns. I’m talking about us understanding that we serve a God who is offensive to this fallen world, and that might place us at odds with the area where we find ourselves at times. May God give us the strength to truly believe that Jesus Christ is more than enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment