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Letter to the Congregation


 

 

May 25, 2022

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

 

Yesterday, a mass shooting took place at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, taking the lives of innocent victims, including elementary school children and their teachers. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed. Seventeen others were wounded, and two officers were wounded.

 

This act of unspeakable violence has devastated an entire community and shaken our country, our state and our hearts. We must pray for the families of the victims, the staff of Robb Elementary School, the Uvalde Community and the first responders. We know that the trauma of this day has wounded their hearts and will take years of healing. May the Lord bring his peace in ways that pass our understanding and make His face to shine upon them.

 

What makes the situation even more horrible, and unbelievable, is that the shooter was a member of the community. Broken. Empty of compassion. Filled with rage.

 

The incident in Buffalo just a little over a week ago involved an outsider who for the most vile, racist, and hateful reasons sought out and drove to a distant community to kill people who were “not like him.”

 

But this massacre, like so many of these shootings, was perpetrated by a person, a troubled teenager, with direct ties to the lives and community he destroyed. This one, like so many others, began with the shooting of a family member as a prelude to the mass slaughter to come.

 

I feel like my job is to know what to say in these situations. But the truth is, I have no words to express the grief over the violent murder of nineteen children and two teachers. So in times like this I turn to the Psalms.

 

Psalm 55, written by David, speaks to the pain of betrayal. David prays to the Lord for relief when he is attacked— not by enemies from the outside but from people close to him. Psalm 55:4–8 says:

 

4  My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me. 

5  Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. 

6  And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; 

 Yes, I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; 

 I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.” 

 

The sad reality is that this situation in our culture is not getting better. The isolation and fear that festered during the pandemic only amplified the hopelessness, fear and anger of troubled minds. The bitter fruit is only now beginning to show itself.

 

But, into this situation, we must speak words of light into darkness, words of life to the face of death. Into his darkness, David also said (Psalm 55:22)

 

22  Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;

he will never permit the righteous to be moved. 

 

Right now, many people are asking to know, demanding to know, “what we can do.” I believe that if we have courage and compassion, there is much we can do to comfort, relieve and build up what has been torn down.

 

We need to love, hold close, and nurture the children under our care. We need to provide the resources we can make available (human and financial). But first, we must “cast our burden on the Lord,” and acknowledge that we need him desperately.

 

Pray for Uvalde!

 

All of the fatalities are heartbreaking, and each one is personal. We have many families in FPC with deep connections to Uvalde. Even though our grief is heavy, we remember the words of the Apostle Paul who said,

 

you may not grieve as others do who have no hope, for since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. (I Thessalonians 4:13-14).

 

The great American Theologian Jonathan Edwards described it this way:

 

“Every Christian friend that goes before us from this world, is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven. There will be the infant of days that we have lost below, through grace to be found above; there the Christian father, and mother, and wife, and child, and friend, with whom we shall renew the holy fellowship of the saints. 

 

And then, quoting Hebrews 11:38 he continued

 

… There we shall have company with the patriarchs and fathers and saints of the Old and New Testaments, and those of whom the world was not worthy, with whom on earth we were only conversant by faith.”

 

There is so much left to learn about this situation. The church is mobilizing. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

 

Grace and peace. I love you. Soli Deo Gloria,

 

Rev. Dr. Bob Fuller

Senior Pastor

 

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