Well for those of you that know me, you are aware that Samson Alabama is my hometown; those that did not know that, now you do. Until this point I have said very little about the tragic events that occurred there a few short weeks ago. We spent time in our Sunday morning gathering praying for the community, but other than that, I have been silent. As I was celebrating my 8th anniversary friends of mine were going through one of the most horrendous events ever in that small village. March 10th will forever be etched in the mind of Samsonites as day all desire to forget but all will remember.
Michael McCendon was a classmate of mine. I really didn’t know him that well. We spoke in school, played a couple of sports together, and did the traditional rural small school thing, but we weren’t close. As reflect back some 10-15 years I don’t recall anything that would ever lead me to believe this young man could ever do something so sinister. It seemed like all the trite, cliché responses you typically hear after an event like this was accurate. He was nice and quiet and kept to himself.
I was sitting in my rocking chair waiting for Christy to come home, getting ready for our Anniversary night when my sister called and asked me if I had heard from Mom and Dad. I could tell by the passion in her voice, she was startled and a little scared; she then began to tell me the information that she had heard which at that point was minuscule and patchy, but of course it caused both us of to long to her the voice of our parents and know they were OK. Fortunately, shortly thereafter I was able to speak to Mom and she began to put the pieces together of the day’s events. I will never forget that conversation.
The more information I gathered, the more broken I became. This is Samson for goodness sakes! I would usually refer to my hometown as Mayberry where nothing remotely exciting or dangerous ever happened. It was as far removed from reality as anyplace in the planet, or so I thought growing up! We had our yearly fights and drugs were becoming fairly prevalent, but that was the extent of our “danger.” Now my sleepy hometown has forever lost its innocence, forever stamped with this tragedy, forever branded and reminded of the reality of evil.
As I process what has occurred, the only way I can make sense of any of it is through the lens of the cross. The cross allows perspective to see that we has humans are broken and in need of repair. There is real evil in this world. The fall of Adam and Eve is not a mythological story, but rather a literal event whose implications are just are real today as when Cain killed Abel. No one, at least no one that I respect, can dismiss these actions without declaring them evil and heinous. To hate one’s life so much that he would take the life of another is the ultimate expression of our sinful nature it is the epitome of evil and the work of Satan.
My prayer for my hometown is that through this tragedy, they will more clearly see the substitutionary work of Christ. Jesus endured the agony of the cross to purchase us from the evil one. His death is the only way to bring sanity to this world. Evil is present, this world is broken, but Jesus died to begin the process of putting us back together, and then through his church, to begin putting the world back together. His resurrection is the guarantee that it will happen! We will never understand tragedy this side of eternity, but tragedy does force us to articulate our own matrix and paradigm for understanding and believing and interpreting life’s events. Jesus Christ is the only way I can make sense of the “real” world. His death, resurrection, lordship, and reign is the only way I can sleep at night.
I don’t have answers for this tragedy. Unfortunately, far too many “well meaning” Christian leaders attempt to theologize and philosophize when we simply need to point to Jesus. My heart breaks for young men who had their family ripped from them. Only the peace of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit can comfort. I don’t have words for a family which has been destroyed. I simply pray that Jesus reveal himself through this. I will close with an amazing quote by C.S. Lewis. Writing in The Problem of Pain, Lewis enduring “a great dark night of the soul” in his own personal life pens these words.
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
