For Christians around the world, Christmas is the joyful celebration of the birth of Jesus. To affirm their beliefs — that God is present and hasn’t abandoned them — the faith community at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, is embracing its holiday traditions just days after a deadly shooting there.
“When people say, ‘Where is your God?’ He is more evident now than he’s ever been to us,” the Rev. Sarah Karlen told The Associated Press. “I’m sure the phrase ‘Prince of Peace’ and ‘God with us’ is going to be leaned into a little more this year.”
Karlen is a pastor at City Church, which in the late 1970s founded the school where she’s also the theater teacher. On Saturday, in the same space decorated with festive trees where students had performed their Christmas concert just the previous week, the church held the funeral of a 14-year-old student, Rubi Patricia Vergara. She was killed Monday when another student opened fire, also killing a teacher and wounding several others at the school on the same campus.
“When we say that God is with us, especially here at Christmas time — when we say, you know, Emmanuel ‘God with us,’ that he came to Earth to be with us — I know beyond a shadow of a doubt each and every one of us here at City Church would say that in a very new way,” Karlen added.
Decked in holiday light displays and a Nativity scene, the evangelical, nondenominational church with over 1,200 members also hosted a vigil service Tuesday.
Then, drawing from Scripture and particularly the Book of Job, pastors addressed the challenge of reconciling faith in a loving God with his allowing great suffering to occur.
Karlen also challenged some of the taunts on the school’s social media that questioned its religious beliefs. To the assembly’s applause, she repeatedly affirmed God’s presence in the midst of the grieving and the weariness.
“None of us on our staff are saying that we understand why or how something happened. But we do understand that God sees us, sees things very differently than we do,” Karlen said later.
Police are continuing to investigate why Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, 15, attacked the school before fatally shooting herself. While dozens of school shootings have happened across the U.S. in recent years, the vast majority are carried out by teenage boys and young men.
Barbara Wiers said faith is helping teachers, students and families make peace with the possibility they will never have complete answers.
“There may never be sense made out of this senseless tragedy. But. God, right? God understands, and God was there, and God is still here,” said Wiers, the school’s director for elementary education and communications. “Ultimately, it’s not about man’s judgment, although there’s going to be all of that — because of the legal system and how that plays out. But God’s just judgment will reign. And we trust him for that.”
The school remains closed as staff work to repair the physical damage so that it won’t retraumatize teachers and students immediately upon their return, Wiers said. Safety and wellness protocols are also being reviewed.
But on Christmas Eve, City Church plans to hold caroling and candlelight services, hoping that the community will draw comfort from the familiar traditions.
“We know this is a long road for all of us, but the start is to be in the presence of God with one another, and to hug one another, and to sing together, to pray together,” Karlen said.
Other churches affiliated with the school, as well as the broader community in Madison, quickly came together to help, from alumni starting food drives to evangelical ministries sending chaplains to pastors sitting up with those hospitalized.
“Healing will come slowly, but they will not be left alone,” said the Rev. Kerri Parker, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, whose member organizations include about 2,000 churches and 1 million Christians.
At Saturday’s funeral, Vergara’s uncle, Andy Remus, said the family has “no bitterness or unforgiveness” toward the Rupnows. He urged the school to continue its mission to teach Christian values and praised the community’s response.
“For every person that says, ‘Where is your God now?’ There are 10,000 good, caring people in Madison,” Remus said, his voice breaking.
Abundant Life Christian School is part of Impact Christian Schools, a network of private educational institutions that welcome families regardless of their creed, said Impact’s executive director Chuck Moore.
Moore said he hoped the shooting’s occurrence so close to the holidays wouldn’t forever tie Christmas with tragedy for the community.
“Even in the midst of awful, it’s still a time we can rejoice,” Moore said. “We can focus our celebration on who Christ is.”
Already teachers at the school have talked about Jesus and faith in “every classroom, every subject, all day long, because God isn’t siloed to Sunday,” Wiers said. And that focus will continue when the school reopens sometime in January.
“We’re changed. Our family is changed. But God hasn’t changed. He didn’t move. He hasn’t been altered at all,” Wiers said. “And the message hasn’t changed. God is good. God is good all the time. He is faithful and he is true. And while we are brokenhearted, he’s going to walk us through this.”
In the last prayer before leaving the church for the cemetery on Saturday, City Church’s lead pastor also urged the community to let God’s comfort and promise of eternal life break through the crushing pain.
“There is a heaven, don’t let your heart be troubled,” the Rev. Tom Flaherty said. “This is not all there is, folks.”
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