The Real Meanning of "What Would Jesus Do?"

When Jesus hung on the Cross he cried out, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do", he showed us what it means to be a lover of souls and a forgiver of sins. Imagine the grace and character it takes to forgive the very people who are responsible for your torture and murder. It is one of the statements Jesus makes that reveals to us his divine character. It is a powerful witness to the world about his message and the reality and depth of his belief in it. But how do we, his body, live out this call to forgiveness to others? I fear that this lesson is all too often lost in the church/congregational world of today. We are quick to adopt sound business principles as to how to run a church organization but we are slow to pick up on sound spiritual principles that show us how to live our lives together. Fortunately, there are examples to remind us of how we should live and who God really is.
A few months ago the news was filled with tragedy that took place in Amish Country. As one who has visited the Amish areas in Pennsylvania on numerous occasions, I know first hand that the Amish are quiet, reserved, hard working, savvy, devout believers for whom their Christian faith is not ancillary to their lives but is central to who they are and how they live. Faith is not show but something to be lived out no matter what the circumstance. The text came to Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania last October when Charles Carl Roberts IV, a depressed and angry area resident whom the Amish community knew but who, himself, was not Amish, marched into a one-room schoolhouse and took 10 children, ages 6-13, all girls, and shot them all before committing suicide. Five of the girls died immediately, one died some days later, and the other four girls are still recovering. The effect was devastating for the families and the community. Five funerals were held within two days for the fallen girls, each funeral procession of Amish buggies passing by the house of the killer on the way to the cemetery. How do you forgive someone who has done something like this to your loved ones and to your community? While it is a trite and worn expression that fits easily on wrists or t-shirts these days, the question must still be asked, "What would Jesus do?"
The answer to that question came in the form of 35 people, all Amish members of the community. In the midst of their grief and the devastation of the murder of their children, 35 men, women, and children - some of them related to the murdered girls - attended three days of funerals, not two. Not only did they attend the funeral services for their own girls: Marian Fisher, 13, Naomi Rose Ebersol, 7, Anna Mae Stoltzfusand, 12, and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7 but they attended one more. They attended the grave side service at a local Methodist Cemetery of Charles Carl Roberts IV, the shooter of the girls. They went to comfort Robert's wife, Marie, and their three small children. One mourner, Bruce Porter, who had come all the way from Colorado said, "It's the love, the forgiveness, the heartfelt forgiveness they have toward the family. I broke down and cried seeing it displayed." We may sit around and debate long and hard what real forgiveness is, but I know of two instances where it was lived out. One was on the Cross of Calvary as Jesus hung dying unjustly. The other was in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, in an Amish community that believes that forgiveness is showing love in the most difficult moments of life.