Last Friday, I watched for nearly three hours as family and friends gathered to honor the memory of Botham Jean—the young man who was shot and killed in his own apartment on September 6. The funeral brought a mixture of thoughts and feelings to my mind: grief, anger, and confusion were amongst them. Even though we graduated from the same Christian university, Botham was much younger than I, and we never met. Still, Botham was my brother in Christ, and I was and am truly sad—deeply so—for his family and friends and especially for the great loss God’s kingdom experienced with Botham’s death.
I’ve prayed for Botham’s family and friends, I’ve prayed for the church, I’ve prayed for the Dallas community where the rash violence was perpetrated. But I haven’t made sweeping statements about the shooter or police officers or white people in general, because I have no idea what motivated and led up to the senseless shooting that unfolded that night. Only the shooter knows. My prayer is that justice will prevail and that people everywhere take to heart the comments of Botham’s friends, family and coworkers at the funeral and in the days since: they said Botham didn’t think of people in terms of their color; he thought of them all as people who needed to know the love of Jesus. I know that’s right.
Jesus loved us all enough to die for us even while we were his enemies. God accepts all who come to him in humility looking for his grace. And we are called—even commanded by our God—to pursue peace and kindness and justice and reconciliation and mercy and truth and unity, because vengeance and judgment belong to God alone. If we who claim to follow Christ can’t lead in things that silence hate of every kind, we can’t complain when others fill the vacuum with angry shouts of division. We have a lot of work to do. I don’t claim to know how to get it all done, but I want to be a man like Botham who loves people in ways that resonate louder and longer than words alone.
— Patrick Barber