Naomi Rose Ebersol, age 7;
Lena Zook Miller, age 7;
Mary Liz Miller, age 8;
Anna Mae Stoltzfus, age 12;
Marian Stoltzfus Fisher, age 13.
All little girls; all targeted by a 32 year-old man specifically because of their youth and their innocence and their gender.
All died early this week, killed by a man who shot them to death before taking his own life in their one-room school house in an Amish community in rural Pennsylvania.
Naomi and Marian died at the school; Anna was declared dead on arrival at Lancaster General Hospital; Lena and Mary both died early Tuesday at the hospitals where they were being treated.
Imagine their fear; imagine their terror; imagine their hopelessness when they realized that this man fully intended to do very bad things to them.
Anna Mae Stoltzfus’ 8-year-old sister, Rachel Ann; Marian Stoltzfus Fisher’s 10-year-old sister Barbie; 6-year-old Rosanna King; an unidentified 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl lay recovering from multiple gunshot wounds in nearby hospitals. 6-year-old Rosanna was taken off of life support and sent home to die, but later showed signs of recovery, so she has been returned to the hospital for further treatment. She may still die – only God knows at this point. Marian and Barbie’s little sister Emma escaped before the shooting began.
Who are these little Amish girls and why were they treated so cruelly? What was the reaction of their families and their community? Is there something we can learn from this that will help us in our own walk of faith?
The stories coming out of Bart Township, Pennsylvania, are nothing less than incredible, nothing short of inspirational.
These people known as the Amish are living out the Christian faith in a way that is the most perfect illustration of our text today that I could find anywhere.
Jesus said, "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16).”
Thirteen-year-old Marian Fisher pleaded with Charles Carl Roberts IV to shoot her first, hoping the gunman would spare the younger girls imprisoned with her in their tiny one-room schoolhouse.
As the Amish community laid Marian, three of her classmates to rest Thursday, and one on Friday, details emerged of the grim moments inside West Nickel Mines School before Roberts opened fire.
The girls were not frightened by Roberts initially when he entered the one-room schoolhouse and began talking to the children in a normal, if somewhat rambling way.
But when Roberts brought a gun into the school, ordered the boys and adults out of the building, tied up the girls and began barricading windows and doors, the girls knew something very bad was about to happen.
Marian’s 11-year-old sister, Barbie, who was wounded in the attack, is now awake and telling her family what happened inside the classroom Monday morning.
Her family has relayed the story to community members. Barbie told her family that Roberts, who left a suicide note saying he hated God and had been dreaming of molesting little girls, asked the girls in the classroom to pray for him.
One of the girls then asked him, “Why don’t you pray for us?”
When the girls realized Roberts planned to kill them, Marian said, “Shoot me first.”
Barbie said, “Shoot me next.”
They were trying to offer themselves so the younger girls could be saved.
Their courageous effort failed.
They displayed courage and faith in the face of a real and present danger, and they did so with poise and grace. Thinking not of themselves but of the younger girls who were crying softly around them, these girls offered themselves in an attempt to save the others, or at least to take up time so that help could arrive in time to save some of the others.
The response of the family members and the members of the rest of the Amish community should cause all of us to recalibrate our idea of being Christians, of being sheep among wolves, of being “shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.”
Sam Stoltzfus, 63, an Amish woodworker who lives a few miles away from the school where the shootings took place and a relative of Anna and Rachel, said that the victims’ families will be sustained by their faith.
"We think it was God’s plan, and we’re going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going," he said. "A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors."
Another grandfather was asked if he had forgiven Roberts. “Yes; in my heart I have,” he replied.
When asked, “How can you do that?” he replied, “With God’s help.”
There is no seeking of revenge, no demand for stricter gun laws or tighter enforcement or anything of that nature. There is only a calm, somber sense of quietness and an atmosphere of forgiveness in the midst of the mutual grieving. Many of the Amish in the community, including the families of Roberts’ victims, have openly and privately sent messages of forgiveness and support to Roberts’ widow whom many have known since she was a little girl herself.
No recriminations, no blame, no anger, no animosity.
Amazing!
The children lived and died what they believed, what they had seen modeled by their family and their community, and what they had been taught from their earliest moments on earth to be what the Christian life is to be about. Those surviving them are living it out as well. Their testimony is not only being widely publicized but widely accepted as well, even if it is incomprehensible to many. The character of Jesus Christ and the reality of His love is being manifested to millions the world over.
Jesus told His disciples that day he commissioned them to go out by twos and preach the Gospel that they were being sent out as sheep among wolves and that they were to behave in a particular way when the ravenous beasts fell upon them. His message is not only to them, but to us as well.
Let’s look at it a bit more closely.
To get an idea of what this word picture really means, I want to use some things I learned about sheep and wolves from a book by Phillip Keller, titled, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. Not having very much exposure to sheep myself and realizing that we are referred to as sheep by our Lord on several occasions, I am deeply grateful to Mr. Keller for his insights.
He said that sheep need to be protected from predators, poisonous weeds, weather, parasites, all kinds of diseases, and insects. In fact, there is a certain type of fly that lays its eggs on the mucous membranes of the sheep’s nose. As the hatched larvae work their way up the nose, the sheep have been known to beat their heads against rocks or trees, sometimes to the point where they are dead as a result. The advanced stages of infection from those flies often cause blindness. Sometimes the sheep panic and stampede in an attempt to escape the flies. When they become that agitated and distressed, they often become exhausted, lose a great deal of weight, and some even die.
The most severe enemy of sheep is the predator – the carnivorous wild animals such as wolves, coyotes, and cougars. Mr. Keller wrote, "Two [wild] dogs have been known to kill as many as 292 sheep in a single night of unbridled slaughter. Ewes, heavy in lamb, when chased by dogs or other predators will slip their unborn lambs and lose them in abortions. A shepherd’s loss from such forays can be appalling. One morning at dawn I found nine of my choicest ewes, all soon to lamb, lying dead in the field" (p. 37).
"On several occasions [cougars] came in among my sheep at night working terrible havoc in the flock. Some ewes were killed outright, their blood drained and livers eaten. Others were torn open and badly clawed.... Some had huge patches of wool torn from their fleeces. In their frightened stampede some had stumbled and broken bones or rushed over rough ground injuring legs and bodies.
"Yet despite the damage, despite the dead sheep, despite the injuries and fear instilled in the flock, I never once actually saw a cougar on my range. So cunning and so skillful were their raids they defy description" (pp. 108-9). Wolves are just as deadly.
Why would a loving Savior willingly and intentionally expose those He loves to such great danger? What possible purpose could it serve to have those young girls murdered so brutally last week? Did you know that Roberts planned to do to those innocent little girls what Duane R. Morrison actually did do – and more – to six school girls at Platte Canyon High School five days earlier in Bailey, Colorado, before he, too, killed one girl and then shot himself to death?
Roberts had all the equipment necessary to barricade all access to the schoolhouse, tie down all of the girls, and then do unspeakable things to them for an extended period of time. God intervened, as many believe including their families, and preserved them from suffering such gross violations by taking some of them home to be with him and allowing the gunman to take his own life.
Many people have a difficult time with this, but the Amish themselves do not. They understand and accept that His ways are far above and beyond our own and we cannot even grasp His thoughts. They understand Him to be wiser then we, and they know Him to be loving through it all. Yet, there is something in us that balks at the relative unfairness in all of this.
Jesus warned His disciples and all of us who would be His disciples too one day, that they and we are to be as innocent and unthreatening as sheep, yet He was going to allow us to be set upon at times by those who would seek to torment and destroy us in cruel and vicious ways.
What matters is how we respond. Remember that we are not our own, but that we have been bought for a price, so we are to glorify God in our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:20). Does this make Romans 12:1 take on a clearer and more impactful meaning? To “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship,” really means something powerful in this light, doesn’t it?
Sheep are meek and humble and harmless. Wolves are ravenous and fierce, totally without regard for those they seek to destroy.
Man is wicked by nature, but there are wicked men who are more viscous and heartless than others, just like wolves. We are tender and unthreatening like sheep and like the dove, yet we are to have the shrewdness of serpents. Quite a contrast, don’t you think?
Doves have long been a symbol of purity and innocence – nothing threatening about them, just like those little Amish girls. Serpents, on the other hand, have the most uncanny ability to avoid conflict and escape threatening situations whenever possible. Just as a snake will usually not attack but seek to escape, we are to do likewise. Snakes do nothing to attract attention to themselves or to be offensive to anyone and are adept at eluding conflict.
Can you picture anyone like that in your own mind? Sad to say, we probably don’t think of many people close to us right away, do we? But those little girls and their families, people who are complete strangers to us, they epitomize it for us, don’t they?
Jesus is demanding that we be careful and cautious in our dealings with others, that we do nothing that would appear threatening or offensive. If attacked, we are to be as harmless as doves, not attacking back, but being just like the Amish are today in the midst of the evil that has befallen them – kind and tenderhearted, forgiving, just as God in Christ has forgiven them (Ephesians 4:32). And, we are to do so, knowing ahead of time that people will seek to do us harm in any number of ways. They will be unfair, they will be mean, they will be greedy and selfish and self-centered and self-seeking and liars and thieves and murderers. They may very well seek to be cruel and to destroy us. Our response is to be that of sheep, that of doves: meek, humble, innocent, inoffensive, unthreatening, gentle and kind.
Not much room for macho in that, is there? Not much room for harsh or critical or judgmental is there either?
Jesus didn’t command or prophecy this in a vacuum. He lived it all Himself. When He was cruelly treated, He uttered not a single harsh word in return, but took the viciousness with the meekness of a lamb, even though He had the power and authority to annihilate His attackers. In 1 Peter 2:23, we read, “and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.”
How many of us would do likewise?
Jesus goes on to tell His disciples that a time would come when every situation they encountered that involved people would carry with it the potential for danger and punishment for them just for being ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues; and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles (10:17-18).” These things didn’t happen on this first training mission, nor on the one that came later when Jesus sent out the seventy by twos to fulfill the same kind of mission as we are studying today.
These things He is speaking of here are the things we read about happening in the book of Acts to the apostles after Jesus rose and ascended back into heaven. There we see dozens of examples of these cruelties and more. Jesus does something here that is quite common with all of God’s prophets throughout the Old and New Testaments, and Jesus was speaking as a prophet in this instance. The prophets many times spoke of truth revealed to them in a way that gave no definite time frame – they just promised that something was going to happen at some point in the future. With God’s true prophets, it always did. And, like all true prophecies, this one, too, came to pass – many times over and still does today.
The men to whom Jesus was speaking that day, and others who would follow, would really speak before the rulers of the world in defense of the faith soon after this, as would many who followed after them all down through the ages. These men themselves would speak before the rulers of that ancient world, from the local authorities, to the religious authorities, on to the rulers in the surrounding nations, even to the ultimate earthly ruler of the day, Caesar himself.
Most often, they would not stand in judgment for murder or theft or sedition or vandalism or any other crime. They were innocent of any wrong, yet they would be brought up on phony charges by men who hated what the Gospel did to unsettle their world. Jesus allowed this just so that He could get His personal message to be spoken by His personal messengers into the ears of the most powerful men in the world just as much and as readily as He was getting it to the common folk. Very much like the testimony of the Amish community right now in our day.
The whole point is for the message of the Gospel to get out and for the reality of the risen, living Savior to be manifested to the world. That’s what we’ve been studying for ever so long. That’s what Jesus came to do Himself – to be and to preach the good news that God Himself came to be one of us, to pay the price for the sins that doomed us to eternal damnation and torture, that He defeated death and sin, and that by faith in Him and Him alone we could receive eternal life and be with Him in His very own home for eternity.
He sacrificed Himself for the message, and He is willing to sacrifice us for the message as well – it’s that important.
That’s what the people of the Amish community in rural Pennsylvania understand and are willing to live out this very day. That’s what those little girls knew and understood last Monday.
The question is: Is the message that important to us?
Clear back in the Beatitudes during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:10-12).”
Persecution is a guarantee. Those little girls knew it and lived it, and some of them died for it – it was their purity and innocence that made them targets. Those surviving them are living it out every single day, also. Despite what some may want to believe to the contrary, that is the truth of the matter, and, this is nothing new to any of them in that community.
This is how they live everyday and have lived for several centuries, since the 1520’s. They have long been known for being peaceful, honest, hardworking folks who take their faith seriously, especially in regards to living simply, without modern conveniences and without help from the government. They believe that violence is never justified, especially when they are personally attacked. In fact, throughout their history, the Amish and other groups similar to theirs, like the Mennonites, have been persecuted and killed simply because they would not fight back and people hated their beliefs and their innocence.
Those children are already receiving their reward for their faithfulness. Their families and the other faithful in the Amish community will also receive their reward one day, right along with those they lost last week.
For now, they are living out in real life being sheep among wolves and being harmless as doves. Are they shrewd as serpents? I believe so, for by their very Christ-like response to this evil they are gaining the respect and admiration of millions. Instead of evil and disgust they are receiving kindness and an outpouring of support from across the world. Even the normally stridently skeptical media is accepting it at face value. There is no guile in these people. Would our group or would we individually be able to say the same?
Yesterday, Charles Carl Roberts, IV, age 32, was buried in his wife’s family’s plot beside the grave of the daughter he and his wife had lost back in 1997. She lived twenty minutes and her loss had eaten at him and embittered him all this time. The graves are behind a Methodist church just a few miles from the schoolhouse where he went on his unexplained rampage and where he shot ten little girls, killing five before killing himself. Half of the 75 mourners at the funeral were from the Amish community whose young ones he murdered.
They were there to give comfort and support to the young widow and mother of three who also suffered a great loss in the same tragedy that they lost their loved ones. What an amazing testimony of Christian love and charity in the face of misfortune and heartbreak, in the face of unexplained violence against the innocent.
Today we have looked deeply into the general tone of Christ’s message to His disciples and to us about what to expect and how to deal with it. We have examined the living witness and example of people in our own time, in our own country, who are living this out as we sit here today.
May they be a true example and model for us to follow. May their sense of loving forgiveness and tender mercy to others despite what they face convict each of us to really examine our own capacity to be harmless as doves and shrewd as serpents as we live as sheep among wolves.
May we be inspired and motivated to adjust our way of thinking and our way of life to better embody the mind and attitude of Christ in the face of evil.
And may God forgive us for holding on to our personal agendas and our sense of self to the point of sacrificing His commission.
Let’s pray.
