Brenda and I attended a Christian elementary school very much like The Covenant School of Nashville, Tennessee.
Like the Covenant School, our school came from the heart of a local church who desired “to assist Christian parents and the Church by providing an exceptional academic experience founded upon and informed by the Word of God.”
Before Monday, March 27, 2023, few outside Nashville knew anything about the small, private, Christian school in Tennessee’s largest city. We wish the name was still unknown to us, but after the murders of three children and three staff members, our wish is impossible.
We should consider the murderer’s motives and her narrow hit list, her past connection to the school and her current identity as male. None of this is irrelevant. All of it reveals the deep depravity in the heart of humanity. Someone else can do that research and provide commentary. I want to head in a different direction.
Weep with Those Who Weep
I do not know anyone at The Covenant School nor at Covenant Presbyterian Church. Yet, I feel like I know them all because they are my brothers and sisters. I know the murdered nine-year-old girls. They exit minivans each Sunday morning and come into our church building. I know their moms and dads, their brothers and sisters. I know the three assassinated faculty. These faithful servants of our Lord died with him a long time ago when they gave themselves to Christian education. My mom was one of them. I’ve worked alongside them in the local church for many years.
The dead and the surviving are my people, and I am overcome with emotion – joy that the Lord has brought to himself those that are his and deep sorrow for parents without children, husbands without wives, brothers without sisters, aunts without nieces, a local church where every member is suffering, and dozens of young children whose innocence was shattered as gunfire rounds hit bodies near them.
For them I pray to our Father in heaven, that he would come to the aid of my brothers and sisters, that he would give them sleep at the end of the day, that he would, both now and in the days and years to come, remember them in their grief, that he whose son was murdered on a cross would extend never ending grace in all its aspects to those who lost at the hand of a murderer, that they would not lose heart in the promises of our God, and that they would be faithful to the end – for the glory of our God, for the testimony of the name of Jesus, and for the good of their souls.
Addressing My Confusion
To myself I turn to the Scriptures to try to make sense of what has happened to my brothers and sisters. I am drawn to Paul’s words to the Corinthian church, to the Holy Spirit’s words to our church, to the Spirit’s words to me.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you (2 Corinthians 4:7-12).
I can read “that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” May God grant grace to live it.
As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.