Nathan E. Lewis

In October of 2006 Charles Carl Roberts IV walked out of his house and entered the nearby Amish school. In the school building, on his cell, he called his wife, who was at a Mom’s In Touch meeting praying for the children of the community, to tell her that he was not coming home. He shot 10 schoolgirls killing them and then he shot himself. The reaction of the Amish community was a genuine and immediate forgiveness, a remarkable presentation of the gospel while the entire world looked on in shock.
Bettie Mitchell, founder and director of Good Samaritan Ministries, powerfully points to the gospel of forgiveness in the midst of this tragedy. She notes that when Mr. Roberts entered the schoolhouse, the oldest Amish girl (13 years old) said from the back of the classroom, “Shoot me first.” Bettie observes that forgiveness flows from this self-sacrificial spirit. This 13 year old girl was willing to sacrifice her life in hopes of preventing the deaths of the other girls. Bettie writes, “May we lay down our wounds and our sufferings and lift up our heads. Yes, “shoot me first, but I won’t shoot you back. I will overcome evil with good and I will repay evil with kindness.”
The media was swift to descend upon the schoolyard, a quintessential plot of Americana. In vain the media attempted to evoke from the Amish leaders’ outcries of hatred and revenge. But all they would say was “Now we begin to forgive.” The Amish elders called for immediate forgiveness. What pictures come to your mind when you think of the Amish? Horse drawn buggies? Refusal to use electricity and other modern conventions? Moralism? Legalism? Separatism? Who would have ever dreamed that the Amish would face the world on prime time television and call for immediate forgiveness? The Amish represented Christ who said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
At the funeral of Mr. Roberts, 70 Amish attended. Afterward, the Amish leaders promised his wife, “We will educate your children.” This is a complete forgiveness modeled for all of us. Bettie Mitchell reminds us of another swift action of the Amish leaders. Several nights following the shooting, they demolished and removed the schoolhouse so that it could not be used as a memorial for the tragedy. On the lot they left one tree – a symbol of the tree of life. Mitchell writes, “As a counselor, I know that, if we go to bed angry at night with refusing to forgive in our hearts, it will go deep into the unconscious mind, while we are asleep, and begin to grow roots of bitterness from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Silently, these roots of bitterness grow deeper and deeper. We then proclaim that somehow, forgiveness is a process, and we have a right to stay angry as long as we want. The Tree of Life remained in the field: starkly against the horizon – one tree. It grows roots of peace, because before the sun sets, the anger is given over to a Living God, to create a living people. The immediacy of forgiveness is a life and death issue for all of us.”