Called to Forgive by Anthony B. Thompson

Author:Anthony B. Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living / Memoir;Anthony B. Thompson—Family;Emanuel AME Church (Charleston S.C.);Mass shootings—South Carolina—­Charleston;Murder victims’ families—South Carolina—Charleston;Hate crimes—South Carolina—Charleston;Forgiveness;BIO026000;REL012000
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2019-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

Jesus Still Weeps

“Jesus wept.” The oft-quoted words of Scripture continue to bring healing to me and to others who identify with Christ, believers who strive to be obedient, to follow God, and to live according to His Word.

Almost twenty-five years ago, another incident in our nation brought heartache and shared tears. White supremacist Timothy McVeigh and his co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, two young men filled with anger and hate, took the lives of 168 people inside the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. McVeigh parked a rented truck outside the Murrah building. Filled with fuel and ammonium nitrate, one of the most common fertilizers in the U.S., the homemade truck bomb exploded at 9:02 on the morning of April 19, 1995, destroying buildings, property, and lives.

McVeigh carefully considered other federal buildings in different states before he finally chose Oklahoma City. He later explained that the location of the Murrah federal building provided excellent camera angles for media coverage after the explosion so as to better spread his anti-government message. Like Dylann, McVeigh had little regard for the lives he took of people he had never met.

Of those killed, nineteen were young children playing in the building’s day care center. McVeigh coldly referred to their deaths as “collateral damage.”14

Terry Nichols, who received a life sentence, asked survivors and families of the victims for forgiveness, admitting, “Words cannot adequately express the sorrow I have had over the years for the grief that so many have endured and continue to suffer. I am truly sorry for what occurred.”

He also said he had asked God for forgiveness and found “a real and personal relationship with God through . . . Jesus Christ.”15

But Timothy McVeigh, like Dylann Roof, proudly confessed to the killings, offering no apology, showing no remorse. McVeigh’s execution came by lethal injection at 7:14 a.m. on June 11, 2001. Before his death, he spent his final days of life at the Terre Haute prison, the dreaded maximum-security facility in Indiana.

Like Dylann, McVeigh also showed no regret over the lives he took and the people he hurt, admitting, “I understand what they felt in Oklahoma City. I have no sympathy for them.”16

McVeigh’s defiance and hard heart remained intact right up to his execution, as revealed in the words he chose to hear at the end of his life. Before he died, he asked a prison warden to read aloud the poem Invictus, penned by William Ernest Henley in 1875. The poem’s title means “unconquerable” and proudly, arrogantly boasts the most foolish, laughable claim in the universe: “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”17

Sadly, it proved a fitting poem for the young man with a godless heart, a hate-filled mind, and a grandiose sense of self.

After the Oklahoma City bombing, Mayor Ron Norick appointed a 350-member Memorial Task Force to create a memorial to remember those killed in the Alfred P. Murrah building. The design and development of the memorial was based on a strong mission

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