Dear Friends in Christ,
Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings that took the lives of 20 children and six teachers. It was a tragedy that broke our hearts as a nation. It still does. If you are a parent or grandparent or family member to any children, it is among the worst losses one can possibly imagine. The pain is almost impossible to fathom. Our prayers go out to the families in Newtown Connecticut where so many continue to grieve the loss of loved ones.
In the midst of the national response to this tragedy – debates on gun control, school safety and mental illness – my attention was drawn to this brief video released by a parent who lost their daughter, Emilie Parker, to the horror and evil of that day. She was only six years old. In this video, Emilie’s mom asks the question we must dare to face in all our sufferings: “Does evil finally win?” Please take a look at her answer:
Where was God on December 14, 2012? Why didn’t the Parker’s God stop this shooting? Why did he allow it to take place? Like many Christians who face unspeakable evil, the Parkers simply turned, in faith, to Jesus – God’s one and only son, whom He allowed to suffer at the hands of evil men. And so the Parkers have found, as many have, the promise we have in Christ Jesus – the promise that in Him alone “Evil does not win.” And as painful as the grief is that they feel over the loss of Emilie, there is the testimony of God’s overpowering love lifting them above the pain of their loss. As Paul puts it so beautifully, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
Elsewhere Paul writes of his own suffering, “We despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” (2 Cor. 1:8b-9) How then do we begin to make sense of our pain and loss? Paul praises God for the comfort he has received in distress from God – “So that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). The Parkers are living out that promise, as they turn indescribable pain into a resolve to carry on what Emilie would have wanted – from advocacy for school safety, to connecting children with art, to medical missions to Guatemala to care for children there. Their incredible testimony is a living witness to the fact that God’s love is so much greater than even our most terrible losses. His love alone, in Christ Jesus, gives us hope, and purpose, and even redemption of our losses – so that even what human beings intend for evil, God can turn to good (Genesis 50:20).
C.S, Lewis put it beautifully in a children’s story, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I wonder if Emilie ever heard it. I’m sure if she didn’t, she would have loved the story of the great Lion, Aslan, coming back from the dead and triumphing over everything ugly and evil. In the face of the indescribable pain his friends felt when he was delivered to evil beings and put to death, Aslan explained it this way:
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”
Death itself has begun to work backwards for the Parker family. The birth of Jesus Christ is a promise that death will work backwards from his suffering and death at the hands of all evil, for all time, for all of us. This Advent, may we live in expectation of that promise that in Christ Jesus evil does not win – and that death itself will work backwards.
Yours in Christ,
Phil+
The following letter from Canon Phil Ashey is from the December 13, 2013 edition of the AAC’s Weekly Email Update. Sign up for this free email here.
