i've been following the Amish school shooting a little today. Nobody can really explain it. Apparently the man had children of his own, and he entered the school building after he dropped them off at the bus stop.
But my focus is somewhere else. i've actually seen several of the Amish reporters have interviewed talk about forgiving the man.
Forgiveness. They forgive him.
It just happened, it's still fresh, and they forgive him.
With all the bad things it seems Christians are into these days, here's something good. The Amish forgive this man for what he did to them, even without knowing the reason; there is as of yet no solace in "a good reason" to shoot 10 young girls in a school room. No one knows.
And they forgive him.
In startling contrast to this, i see the entire rest of the world. When the rest of the world is wronged, it decides it needs to make it right by rioting, suing, or finding any other way possible to hurt back.
But the Amish forgive him.
In particular, i see this in contrast to the Muslim world. They believe they have been wronged by America, so they blow up buildings and cars and people.
So what is the crux? What is the difference? i'm just going to be blunt and say that people without Christ have no category for the difference between true Christianity and Islam. Pluralists, secularists-- what sense would it make to them? Aren't all religions the same?
i think this is part of the proof that they aren't.
They forgive him.
As He forgives us.
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4 comments:
forgiveness is an amazing thing, and truly a gift of the Lord.
So I've been thinking...
Is it really "forgiveness" if you're "forgiving" someone for something they did to someone else? The Scriptures absolutely ask us to forgive our enemies but where does it ask us to forgive other people's enemies? Or why is it ok, Christian-ly speaking, to "forgive" (if that's what we want to call it) a man who wanted to rape, and did kill little girls just because he couldn't stop thinking about it? Perhaps this is why we disagree on the capital punishment issue, you seem to think that Christians should forgive other people's enemies as readily as we forgive our own, where as I would prefer to say that while I forgive my own enemies I seek for others' to be brought to justice. And far from me being sad that this man killed himself, I am happy he was stopped before he could hurt more people than he already did, and I am sad only that this man, created in God's image, went so astray in the first place.
Amazing
It can certainly only be attributed to something higher than themselves. Especially from a people who have sought such a pacifist life. Violence or any wrongdoing occurring unprovoked seems to be the absolute hardest to forgive as there is no justification to be made for the doer of wrong... only pure, no strings attatched forgiveness. I heard someone on the news saying "they have simply found inside themselves and in their community what they need to get through this." I had to yell... out loud... "that is a lie!" I can only hope that people will see that there must be something far far greater than themselves to exemplify such peace and such love in the dead center of such a tragedy. What a picture of Christ.
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