Love Conquers Hate

On October 2, 2006, Charles Carl Roberts IV entered the West Nickel Mines School house holding a loaded gun. He proceeded to shoot ten girls, between the ages of 6 and 13 years old, and killed five of them.

Eventually he turned the gun on himself and took his own life.

While stories like this are all-too-common in our world today, the reaction of the community was anything but.

This shooting had taken place in the Amish country of Bart Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The families who lost their daughters were filled with grief over the loss of their children, but they were also filled with the love of Christ.

This is why, instead of responding out of their despair, they followed the Prince of Peace and found the faith to act out the loving example of Jesus.

Just one week after the shooting, the same families who lost their daughters in this senseless and selfish act visited Marie Roberts, the wife of the man who had pulled the trigger and taken his own life.

They boldly, and sincerely, offered their complete forgiveness to her. They invited her to attend the funeral services for their slain daughters. They shared all relief funds sent to them with Mrs. Roberts and her own children who had lost their father that same day. They even attended the funeral of Charles Roberts and offered their loving support to his widow and his children.

This is love. This is true forgiveness and Christian compassion.

We saw this same brand of radical love and forgiveness a few days ago in Charleston, when the families of those who had lost their loved ones to the senseless shooting came face to face with the killer and sincerely forgave him.

Where do we find that kind of love? Where does it come from? Are these people just being religious? Are they pretending to love the one who killed their father, or mother, or sister or brother?

Or is it possible that the sort of love that Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount is actually real?

Out of hate, love can conquer. Out of despair, hope can rise. Out of tragedy, forgiveness can overcome and transcend human emotion.

Jesus empowers those who follow Him and put His words into practice. He fills us with real life, and real love that most people can only dream about.

In times of great darkness and despair, this love shines like the sun and puts Jesus on display for everyone to see.

This is why we're called to love our enemies. This is why we are expected to overcome evil with good. Not so we can be door mats, but so that we can demonstrate to the world that the Gospel is real and that His love transforms us into people who can love in the face of tragedy and forgive even the greatest evils.

The message of the Gospel is subversive. It goes against the grain. It makes a real, dramatic, powerful difference at just the right time, and when no one could possibly even expect it.

This is what we are called to, as followers of Christ. We are called to love extravagantly and to forgive inexplicably, and to demonstrate to the world that Jesus is alive inside of us.

Let the Kingdom come.

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*Updated 6/23/15

The Family That Love Built

After the horrific church shooting in Charleston, many are calling for Christians to start carrying weapons to church. One GOP Presidential candidate, pastor Mike Huckabee even said, “It sounds crass, but frankly the best way to stop a bad person with a gun is to have a good person with a weapon that is equal or superior to the one that he’s using.”

While we can applaud Huckabee’s conscience for admitting how crass his statement sounds, we must also point out how decidedly anti-Christian it is, too.

Thankfully, we don’t have to look much further than the Christians who were the victims of this shooting for a better example of how an actual follower of Jesus responds to violence.

“No matter how much hate there is in the world, it's no match for love" Chis Singleton, son of slain Sharonda Singleton, said. “Love is always stronger than hate.”

And the daughter of Ethel Lance, addressing the killer directly in court, said, “I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her ever again. But I forgive you." 

She added: "You hurt me, you hurt a lot of people. May God forgive you." 

Anthony Thompson, husband of the slain Myra Thompson, echoed Lance's daughter's words. "I forgive you, my family forgives you," he said.

Felecia Sanders, the grandmother who shielded her 5-year-old granddaughter from the gunfire, but lost her son in process, told the killer that the parishioners "welcomed you Wednesday night at our Bible study with open arms."  

She continued, fighting tears: "You have killed some of the most beautiful people that I know… And it will never be the same. But as we said in Bible study, we enjoyed you. May God have mercy on you."

Alana Simmons, granddaughter of victim Daniel Simmons, said: "Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate…everyone's plea for your soul is proof that they lived and loved and their legacies will live on.”

"Hate won't win," she concluded firmly.

A relative added, "I am a work in progress and I acknowledge that I am very angry. But we are the family that love built. We have no room for hate so we have to forgive."

While Christians like Huckabee can only suggest bigger and more powerful weapons to solve problems like hate and violence, these dear followers of Jesus – the ones most directly injured by the murders – have demonstrated what the most powerful weapons against hate really are – Love and Forgiveness.

Now, imagine a world where Christians carry guns to church. Imagine a scenario like the one in Charleston where the killer enters and is shot to death by a minister of the Gospel of Jesus. What sort of message would that send? Certainly not one of mercy, and grace, and love. How would that bear witness to the power and the truth of the Gospel? Not at all.

The pastor who lost his life in Charleston can stand before His Lord and Savior in Eternity and hear the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” because the evidence of the Gospel he preached is now on display in the midst of this tragedy for the entire world to see.

This is why Christian nonviolence makes sense. This is why Jesus commanded His followers to overcome evil with love, not with more evil.

The killer wanted to start a civil war between the races. If Christians listen to people like Huckabee, the killer will get exactly what he wanted.

But if Christians listen to their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, then the killer and everyone else will, instead, experience the uncommon, otherworldly, extravagant enemy love that only Jesus can teach us.

May the whole world take notice of what a real follower of Jesus looks like in America today. They are the loved ones of those who were gunned down by hate, but they are also the family that love built, and they have no room for hate, only for love.

Thank you for showing us what the love of Jesus looks like in the real world.

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NOTE: Quotes taken from this article in The Daily Mail and People.com

OUR ONLY HOPE

Once again our daily news carries the headline that more unarmed black people have been killed. This time not by racist police officers, but by an armed white supremacist who sat for an hour and listened to a Bible Study before pulling out his weapon to gun down nine innocent people.

It hardly matters whether these dear people were killed by a white cop, or by an angry white man. They are still dead.

It really doesn't matter how they were killed, by a handgun, or a rifle.
They were still murdered.

It doesn't even matter where they were killed, in a church, or a park, or a department store.
They are all still gone.

What does matter is that, in our nation, this sort of thing still happens on a regular basis.

What does matter is that it will continue to happen, more and more, unless we decide to do something about it.

No doubt some will use this as an opportunity to push for stricter gun regulations.

Others will use this to encourage more open dialog between people of different races and backgrounds.

Still others will exploit this tragedy to raise money for their campaign, or advance their agenda, or to demonize their opposition.

But make no mistake here, none of those things will improve the situation.

None of those responses - even if they are successful - will do anything more than make it harder to kill someone you hate with a particular brand of weapon.

Here's what will make a difference: The Gospel.

Only Jesus can transform us from the inside out.

Only Jesus can teach us the power of love over hate.

What should we do about the horrible news today?

We should pray.
We should love.
We should tell others that there's only one hope for our nation.

His name is Jesus.

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