Three students ages 11, 8, and 5, and a teacher are dead after a 16-year-old opened fireinside a Bend, OR special needs classroom last week. A 7-year-old student and another teacher are injured but expected to recover. The shooter, identified by authorities as a former student at the school, was shot and killed by the father of two other students who entered the school after hearing gunshots. Authorities credit that father and a teacher who confronted the shooter with saving lives by stopping the attack.
Analysis and eternal perspective: ‘Senseless’ is the word so often used for an attack like this one, but ‘evil’ is probably more accurate. The brokenness of our world is on vivid display in the details of this story, and as a result, several families are dealing with catastrophic loss and grief. We should begin our contemplation of this story by praying for the parents and family of the victims. God, carry out your promise to be close to the brokenhearted today (Ps. 34:18).
Next, we should pray for the comfort of the heroic father who put his life on the line to stop the attack. According to reports, he is struggling with not having been able to stop the attack sooner, and we should pray for his comfort and peace after being called upon to respond in such a courageous manner.
Finally, this story is yet another reminder of the depth of the fissures in our society. While it is unequivocally true that we should live with the joy of the Lord in our spirits and as our strength (Neh. 8:10), it is also incumbent on us to be aware of the times in which we live (Rom. 13:11), and to gird up in God’s truth in order to respond in a manner that is life-giving and life-preserving (1 Pet. 1:13). There is only one power that adequately vanquishes the kind of evil evidenced in this story, and it is the power of the living God that abides in you!