On Wednesday of this week, there was a shooting in a Colorado high school. Two students were injured and the shooter – another student – died by suicide. This shooting took place twenty minutes after political activist Charlie Kirk was killed in a shooting incident in Utah. The incident in Colorado was largely overshadowed by the incident in Utah. These two horrific incidents involving guns were unrelated in so many ways, and yet they were very much related by the presence of firearms and the willingness to use those firearms to inflict harm on another human being.
Kirk – a child of God, a husband, and a father of two young children – was killed by a gun. And yes, the shooter in Colorado – troubled though they must have been – who injured two of his classmates and then shot himself (on World Suicide Prevention Day, no less) was also a child of God – made in God’s image.
As news of Kirk’s death and the shooting in Colorado came out, I just so happened to be wrestling with Paul’s words from Romans for this week’s sermon, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21) This is our task, as impossible as it sounds. And the good I seek – as hard as it can be, at times – is the good that I see in Jesus Christ, whose non-violent life and self-sacrificial death shows us a far more difficult – but far more Holy – way than the way we human beings often seek. . . This way – the Way of Jesus – is the good that overcomes evil.
May this Way be the good that we seek, with God’s help.
See you in church!
Grace and Peace,
John
Prepare for Worship
This Week: “Find Them with Kindness – Clothed in Love: Week 2”
Read Romans 12:20-21
Read Luke 15:1-10
Read Colossians 3:12-17
Read or sing Hymn # 653, “Give Thanks to God Who Hears our Cries”
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