Responding to Evil
“We don’t serve a God who is far off. We serve a God who is near. And, in his nearness, he tastes our pain and suffering.”
On Monday, March 27, I was working from home—sitting at my computer working on my sermon for the coming Sunday—when I got a text from a friend. “Have you heard about the school shooting in Nashville?” At first, I shrugged it off. Another school shooting in a myriad of school shootings had honestly made me a bit calloused. I know that isn’t good. Death and murder are awful, but it is a reality that I am now desensitized to them. Then he texted me again, “Bro—it was a small Presbyterian school.” Again, I shrugged it off, assuming it was a different Presbyterian denomination—not the same one I am a part of (PCA) because that could not and never would happen there. But I was now distracted from my weekly routine, so I took a passing glance. Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville. It can’t be a PCA church, right? So I looked it up online (just before their website got taken offline), and there I saw it . . . It was a PCA church, with a small Christian school, just like the PCA church I am a pastor of that has a small Christian school.
Suddenly, I regained my sensitivity—my hard heart melted. Texts ebbed and flowed between me and some friends from seminary who knew the pastor and others at this church. Slowly, information started to leak to my friends. The pastor had gone to the same seminary as I did in St. Louis. His daughter was shot. At first, I heard that she was going to make it. Then the list of names was released, and it hit me hard. This one felt different. I know it shouldn’t have, but it just did. It hit close to home. It hit close to home because the senior pastor’s daughter was one of the victims of this horrific murder, and I have a daughter who is at our church school. It hits home because the kids who were targeted were 9 years old, and my son is 9 years old. It hits close to home because this was a targeted shooting, carefully planned and executed by a woman who had attended the school as a child. This one just hit different.
When these kinds of tragic events happen, the thing that often follows our grief is fear. Fear for the safety of our children. Fear of this thing happening at our church and school. All I wanted to do was to be able to promise our community that this would never happen to us. I wish I could tell them that sad things will never happen to their children. But I couldn’t. The reality is that there is sin in our world. Because of sin, there is evil dwelling in this world. I don’t have to convince you of this truth. The world isn’t the way it is supposed to be. Families shouldn’t be making funeral plans for their 9-year-old children. Children shouldn’t be burying their mothers and fathers.
What do we do with all of this? What do we do about the evil? What do we do with our fear, especially when our fear is warranted? God knows we struggle with fear, and it is no accident that the most frequent command in Scripture is “Do not be afraid.” How can God say that to us? Doesn’t he know what it is like down here in the real world? He can say that to us because of what always follows that command: “ . . . for I am with you.” And while that can at times not feel like enough (God’s presence did not stop this shooting in Nashville or other evil things that happen all over the world that don’t hit our newsfeeds), it is the only truth that is strong enough to drive out our fears. God is near. He isn’t just near in the good but in the ugly as well. He is the Good Shepherd that walks with us even in the valley of the shadow of death. God is near.
Our hope is that the chaos and darkness do not win, even though they often feel like they are winning
When evil rears its ugly face, we can’t be a people who forget the nearness of God. We must remember that we follow the God who not only created the heavens and the earth but also walks with his people in their pain and suffering. We don’t serve a God who is far off. We serve a God who is near. And, in his nearness, he tastes our pain and suffering. He is the God who gets his hands dirty. He is in it with us.
This nearness of God is most seen in the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus who came—not to merely hang out with his people, not merely to relate with them—but to die for them. To taste the evil to the point of death. But he didn’t just die; he rose again. Death and all the instruments of death now have new meaning. They have been transfigured. Death and evil are not the end of our story. Resurrection is. So, be sad and lament over evil, but do not be afraid. Mourn for those grieving, but do not lose hope. How can we possibly not lose hope? Because Jesus is alive, and Jesus is near. Rest in these truths.
Our ultimate hope is that Jesus is still on his throne today. Our hope is that the chaos and darkness do not win, even though they often feel like they are winning. Jesus was victorious on the cross. It is in these moments where we learn to trust him all the more. When you struggle to hope—when the weight of evil in the world weighs you down—pray.
Most of the Psalms are psalms of lament. Scripture is not foreign to your struggles. Use them. Pray them back to the Lord, that his kingdom would come on earth as in heaven. When you don’t know what to pray, Romans 8:26 tells us, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”
And may our response to evil—and the depth of our hope in its midst—bear witness to the glory and peace we have in the resurrected Christ.
