“911 call me”

Tuesday July 26, 9:12 pm: “911 call me”

No one ever wants to get that text. I was on my way home when my phone lit up from one of our elders. John lives about a mile from Family of God and has family in the Detroit Police Department, an invaluable asset for an inner-city congregation. So, I called him immediately.

“Hello.”

“What’s up John?”

“Larry ah…his son, little Joey, ah…shot and killed this evening.”

“…”

“Pastor?”

“Um, yeah, I’m here. Are you sure?”

“Well, I heard ‘pop, pop, pop’ from over that direction this evening. And then (name withheld) called me and said Joe had just been shot and killed.”

Silence and the still night consumed me the rest of the drive home. Family of God was certainly not immune to tragedy, but there was no way that this could have been true. Rumors fly around all the time. Afterall, it hadn’t been that long ago when we had multiple people tell us that another member had died, only for that member to walk through the doors a week later as if nothing had happened. If Joey was dead, I needed to see it for myself.

Sitting in the driveway, I began searching the internet. It didn’t take me long until I found the headline from the Detroit News: “Teen shot and killed in southwest Detroit; suspects held.” My heart sank, but I held on to one fact: the boy killed had not been named in the article. Perhaps Joey was still alive. Maybe the rumor just got misconstrued. It’s going to be okay.

But it wasn’t. Almost immediately after walking into my house, a Facebook screenshot was sent to me by one of the most reliable Southwest Detroit moms I know: “My brother, they killed my baby brother.”

Blackness, numbness, muffled noises. Everything seems to be in slow motion as you sink deeper and deeper into the abyss. You probably know that feeling. Some more than others. It’s that feeling of being stuck and not being able, nor wanting, to move forward. Nothing makes sense. Nothing can fix the situation. Nothing matters.

The next few days were spent connecting with Joey’s family and talking, praying, and gathering details for services. We broke the news to our volunteers, our staff, people who knew him, worked with him, spent hours and hours with him. In all of this, I kept asking questions. Through tears and anger I kept yelling at God. “Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” the Psalmist writes in Psalm 10. Where were you, God? Why did you let this happen? Lord, if you had been here my brother, my son, my friend would not have died! (John 11:21).

This is what we do when tragedy strikes. We deflect. We blame. We find something or someone to make the scapegoat because it makes us feel better, even if just for a second. I found myself doing this a lot in the following days. I was desperate for something (or someone) to hate. If I could locate that person or that thing, I could unleash the monster inside me and allow it to feast so that I could remain focused on what I had to do as a pastor for the family.

But this is exactly what Satan wants. He wants to you blame God. He laughs at you when you direct attention from the true suspect in tragedy. Casting blame onto someone(thing) else may be your natural instinct but it is actually quite satanic. It’s not the gun. It’s not the broken family. And it’s not God.

Tragedy, suffering, death. They all begin with sin. Death of all kinds happens because sin has infiltrated every ounce of our being. It has completely destroyed and disrupted our lives and the lives of those around us. When another person overdoses on heroin? Sin. Dad abandons his family? Sin. 14-year old shot and killed outside his home? Sin.

So, ask questions. But ask the right questions. Don’t ask, ‘Why didn’t God prevent this from happening?’ Ask, rather, “What has God done to redeem this?” What has God done, not to prevent death and tragedy, but to ensure that death is not the end?

On the night that shook our neighborhood, I rushed to my computer and sat down with my wife. I began frantically searching through my Google Photos, desperate to find an ounce of tangible memory of Joey. Together we found quite a few photographs from Joey’s time at Family of God. One of him at Camp Arcadia with the group of other young kids. A couple of him at the Detroit Zoo on a Family of God summer field trip; one on the tortoise statue outside the reptile house with his friends and one at the penguin exhibit with his brother. Another of him playing basketball in the alley at church, one of his favorite things to do. Even another of him enjoying a picnic lunch across the street from church in the empty lot. One of my favorites was one that I tried to capture for our tutoring page and Joey was doing everything he could not to do his homework. I chuckled at this one.

And then I found it; the one I had been hoping I still had somewhere in the archives.

On a sunny afternoon, with light pouring in through our sanctuary, Joseph, along with his brother Justin, were baptized into Jesus Christ. Through simple water and the powerful Word of God, both Justin and Joey received promises from God.

The promise of forgiveness. The promise of the Holy Spirit now dwelling in his heart. The promise of redemption. On this day the Lord spoke. The same voice who spoke the earth in existence, spoke to Abraham, Jacob, Moses and Joshua, spoke to Joe. It was the same voice who commanded the waves to cease, who prayed the Psalms, and who instituted Holy Communion. That same voice who spoke from the cross beautiful words of forgiveness and hope, saying, “It is finished.”

Jesus spoke to Joseph and said, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine (Isaiah 43:1).” Joseph was claimed by Jesus on that day. He received forgiveness for his sin, life eternal, and adoption into the family of God. Something that no one, not even his murderer, could ever take away from him.

And it’s the same voice of the Savior that commanded Lazarus to rise from the grave that will call Joey and all others to come out of the grave into the new heaven and new earth which God has promised to those who believe. The redeemed world that we are all heirs of in Holy Baptism. On the last day, we will rise and be in a new creation with no sin, no death, no suffering. All this old mess will certainly pass away (Revelation 21). Death does not get the final say. There is infinitely more!

So, what has God done to redeem this? He has done all that was necessary for you. He has given his one and only son Jesus Christ to die for you. So that you would be forgiven. So that you would have eternal life. So that you would have victory over death. So that you, with Joseph, will rise again on the last day.

This was the message Pastor Hill and I shared with hundreds of neighborhood people of all ages at the funeral and the committal. In a moment where death surrounded everyone, quite literally at the cemetery, we blessed the body and grave of our brother Joseph. And then I shared the Easter promise that Jesus is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). With all of my strength and tears flowing from my eyes, I said these words: “Christ is risen!”

These wonderful words were met with a shout of acclamation so loud, the gravestones shook as the sound reverberated through the cemetery.

Thursday August 4, 1:15pm. “HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA!”