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LITTLETON TRAGEDY #2
On the TV screen, they only gave a first name for her.
"Judy" had come within seconds of death, there at Columbine
High School, and miraculously escaped. One of the two teen-aged killers
who participated in the April 20 rampage had this young girl right in
his sights. For some reason he never pulled the trigger.
"I begged him not to shoot me and he just
put the gun in my face and he started waving it," she told reporters
a few hours later. Then she added this explanation, a possibility for
why the Littleton, Colorado tragedy took place. "He said it was all
because someone was mean to him last year."
And that one line is such a chilling, despairing cry.
Dylan Bennet Klebold and Eric David Harris had been outsiders at Columbine.
It was engraved on one of the arches at the high school: "The finest
kids in America pass through these halls." But somehow those generous
words didn't seem to have come true for these two disaffected boys. They
had been outcasts, rejects.
I mentioned in yesterday's emergency message, which we're so quickly rushing
to pull together, how God, our heavenly Father, plans for good . . . but
permits evil. Sin and death were never part of His creation blueprint
for Earth, but He allowed one of His created beings, an angel named Lucifer,
to lie, and deceive, and rebel, and even kill. The Creator God very clearly
communicated with heaven's residents, and with Adam and Eve, and with
their descendants, that sin and death were inseparable curses. One would
lead to the other. And then He permitted them both for a certain length
of time that only He knows.
And ever since that earlier tragedy, in Eden, there have been people who
felt like castoffs. Certainly Lucifer portrayed himself as one to anyone
who would listen. And here in 1999, six thousand years later, the enemy
of this world has succeeded brilliantly at getting people split apart,
separated, alienated, divided, simmering in their sense of isolation.
This new word, "Goths," has been in the national vocabulary
now for just under two weeks. There were only a fragmented few kids at
Columbine High School, out of 1,870, who embraced this tiny demographic
definition. They were the Trench Coat Mafia, with the ankle-length black
coats, the black berets, the ever-present sunglasses, the dirty hair.
And in every news report you could find, it was these kids — the Trench
Coat Mafia, the Goths — who were AGAINST the others. This wasn't a peaceful
coexistence; on the contrary, it was a subtle war that ran all school
year long.
Newspaper reports described the other factions that existed, not just
in Littleton, but in high schools everywhere. There were the jocks, of
course . . . one of the main targets for Dylan and Eric. In fact, they
shouted out once: "All jocks stand up!" before opening fire.
Jocks and black kids were the two main enemies; tragically, young Isaiah
Shoels, 18 years old, who had survived two heart surgery procedures, was
marked by both of these enemy labels. He was a weight-lifter and a football
player and a wrestler AND black. He died because of his race on April
20, just as 6,000,000 other victims did at the hands of Adolf Hitler,
also born on April 20.
In the initial reports coming out of Littleton, the Trench Coat Mafia
was given this description:
"A group of social misfits who talked lovingly
of death, played out war game fantasies and, according to some, singled
out black students and campus athletes Tuesday in lethal PAYBACK for old
taunts and prejudices."
Other groups included the skateboarders, sometimes
dubbed "the skaters," the rich kids, the brains. Just a few
miles from where we record, at Ventura High School, students openly talk
about the groups, the various subcultures. Jocks, geeks, white supremacists,
gang members, surfers, break dancers. And do these groups get along? a
reporter asked. No. Not very well. Violence is always just underneath
the surface. Always, there are old scores to settle, old insults to return.
A kid attending North Hollywood High, also a self-proclaimed member of
the Goths, wore the Gothic emblems as if daring someone to take him on.
He has the black trench coat, the white face powder. And the day after
the shootings in Colorado, he told news media people: "Man, I had
thought before about blowing up the school." Why? Here's his answer:
"Kids here are so judgmental it's pathetic. They call me ‘freak,'
‘Satan,' any little name that they want to throw out."
And of course, the vicious circle is always spinning. Students who feel
alienated gravitate to a certain subculture, often an odd, misunderstood
one. They dress strangely, talk different. So the label of "weirdo,"
"freak," "nut case" is even more firmly affixed.
I mentioned yesterday how even the old "Cain and Abel" story
has these same elements. There's resentment. Anger. Why? Because one kid,
Abel, is "in," and the other one isn't. God accepts the sacrifice
of Abel, who has brought to the altar what God asked for. But Cain, going
his own way, brings a gift of HIS own choosing. And when it's not accepted
by heaven, he instantly feels the dividing line of separation. He's on
one side, his own brother on the other.
Even in the Wednesday papers the day after this happened, reporters told
how groups like the Trench Coat Mafia would routinely jostle with two
groups on campus: the high school athletes . . . and the Christian kids.
Prayer clubs would meet on the Columbine school grounds, and this small
group of Gothic-attired students felt very alienated. One student, Ben
Grams, admitted later: "Yes, people taunted them. They hated anyone
and everyone. They were just mad at the world. Mad because they weren't
popular." Here in Ventura County, a high school agreed that it's
the same everywhere. "The social hierarchy was typical," she
said. "There were the cool kids, most everyone else, and the freaks
— the loners who kept to themselves."
Well, friend, there are no simple answers for what happened on that campus.
Certainly not from this studio. After all, God has led us to minister
from right here in Simi Valley, California, which, you might recall, is
the home of the FIRST Rodney King verdict, where two subcultures clashed
so violently, the city of Los Angeles was virtually paralyzed by three
days of race riots. But I can only say again: the Lord God of heaven has
a plan, and His enemy, Satan, also has a plan. And what we saw in Littleton,
and here in Simi Valley, and all around the world here in 1999, is the
fruitage of Satan's plan. To divide people. To breed resentment and hatred
and a thirst for payback.
It was the same in the Bible. There were Israelites and Philistines. Jews
and Gentiles. God's chosen people and the rejects on the other side of
the fence. And virtually everyone walked around mad during every waking
hour. Even Jesus' twelve closest followers were a persecuted, self-pitying
group hungry for revenge against Rome. That was their common theme; if
they'd had a web site, you can believe that killer statements would have
been a regular theme with Peter, James, and John.
Even in our continuing grief over this recent tragedy, though, we can
look up to and celebrate what the Apostle Paul invites us to embrace.
Notice; this is from Ephesians two:
"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were FAR AWAY have been brought
NEAR through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has
made the TWO . . . ONE . . . and has DESTROYED the barrier, the dividing
WALL of hostility."
I'm sure you noticed with me the immediate reaction
to what happened on Tuesday afternoon in Littleton. Where did people go
that evening and in the days to follow? They went to church. Parents of
white students and black. Brothers and sisters of jocks and geeks and
skateboarders and Goths. Catholics praying in Protestant churches and
vice versa. At the altar of Jesus, there were no barriers. All were one
in their time of need, one as grieving children of the also grieving heavenly
Father.
In Galatians chapter three we find a bit more even.
"You are ALL sons [and daughters] of God," Paul writes, "through
faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have
clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave
nor free, male nor female, for you are all ONE in Christ Jesus."
Now friend, I don't deny that demographics exist.
The labels are there, even in the church hierarchy. I don't happen to
fit the label of a jock, or a Goth. Geek, maybe, though I'm a bit old
for that. But I'm a rather Caucasian sort of male, with a bit of college
education, married, semi-retired, a happy Protestant Christian of the
Seventh-day Adventist persuasion. These labels are fine; I accept them.
High school students have them too; that's reality. And sometimes they
dress the part in a hopefully harmless and inventive way. But what a tragedy,
and what a departure from God's plan, when our CATEGORIES divide us and
destroy us. What a ruining of heaven's blueprint when our IDENTITY comes
from the long coat we wear, the menu on our Web site, instead of the fact
that we are God's children, and Christ's brother and sister, and valued
parts of the body of Christ. They were redeemed children of the King;
if Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris could have only known that their value,
their eternal priceless worth, came from THAT.
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