Volume 3 Number 6 (1999:6)

26 April 1999

There are undoubtedly many things still to be learned and to be said about the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, last week, but when all is said and done it will probably be easy to take it all in the same stride that one takes all such calamities and large news stories. After all, we've had a number of high school shootings in recent years, and in that respect, maybe the more important stories will be those that probe the cultural reasons we have now come to face as never before the grim reality of children killing children.

But there was something else about the report of one of the funerals this morning that caught my attention. It was the funeral of seventeen-year-old Cassie Bernall, who was shot because, the news report tells us, when the killers asked her: "Do you believe in God?" (according to the report, she paused...the gun was still there...then) she said, "Yes, I believe in God." The gunman asked her "Why?" but before she could answer she was shot to death.

Under normal circumstances, simply to say, "I believe in God," would not amount to much of a Christian confession of faith. The Apostle James reminds us that the demons believe that too, and they shudder. We prefer, under normal circumstances, to follow those words with the rest of the Apostles' Creed, so to make of it a strong and definite confession of Christian faith. Normally, simply to answer "Yes" to the question, "Do you believe in God?" is not, frankly, to say very much at all.

Under these circumstances, however, for this seventeen-year-old to say what she said was telling the world much more. For she was answering in the teeth of two crazed gun-toting juveniles whose question really amounted to a mockery of everything decent and good, and above all, to a mockery of God Himself and the life He bestows. She said, "Yes, I believe in God," and what that meant for all the world to hear was infinitely more than what an answer to some questionnaire would have provided. What she said here was, rather, that she believes in a God who is greater than the terrible evil they were parading before her eyes. She was a true heroine, therefore, a female David in the face of a taunting Goliath. In the raging of these sick gunmen, Goliath scoffs at all the children in Columbine High, enjoying their frail, quavering fright before the power and wickedness they see--who is the God who will deliver you now? Who trusts in God now? Who truly believes? Anyone here that silly?--and one young lady stands against them and with resolute defiance says five words: "Yes, I believe in God." See what she was truly saying? "My God can deliver me from all evil, even from you and your silly guns, yea, even from death. Shoot if you must! Go on, shoot! I believe in God! Christ has delivered me from death--so does my faith teach me--and therefore I need not fear it at all. Yea, and amen! I believe in God!"

Since it is true that everyone must face death, therefore it is also true that there are some ways to die which are better than others. Many would say that to die at seventeen is not as good as to die with hoar hairs and many grandchildren. But faith must disagree. For must it not be the most blessed kind of death to die for the faith you confess? This is what makes men martyrs, and martyrs are truly the highest of all the saints. For it was martyrdom which spread the faith of the early church, as nothing else could; it was martyrdom which propelled the courage and confessions of countless others for centuries afterwards; and, most certainly, it was martyrdom at Columbine High which shouted from the rooftops the name of a God who is greater than all evil, and even than death. Who dares to believe in God now? laugh the blasphemous gunmen. And Cassie Bernall replies, willing to suffer all, even death, rather than fall from this faith. One great saint and heroine rises dauntlessly to confront the very face of Death and says, Yes. I believe in God! Let God be forever praised for the faith of His blessed martyrs.

<:<}

The Shire 1999:6

Copyright 1999 Gandalf the White.