The Nashville Covenant School shooting is still a painfully fresh wound for many, especially the families of the three children whose lives were senselessly taken by a woman identifying as a transgender man. The manifesto of the shooter has yet to be released so it’s currently unclear why this woman targeted this school specifically, but for the Covenant Presbyterian Church, to which the school belongs, this atrocity isn’t deterring faith.
Rev. Billy Barnes took the stage at the church for the first sermon after the shooting took place and began speaking. While he alluded to the shooting, his focus was on one fact; that God was still in control.
To relay this, he referenced “The Chronicles of Narnia,” specifically “The Magicians Nephew,” the first story in the tale’s chronology.
The theme was that Jesus had already rescued us due to his sacrifice but people don’t understand this or want to hear it due to their unwillingness to embrace His message. He appropriately references the children’s story, detailing the moment when Aslan creates Narnia through a “creation song” that can be heard by everyone but a few including the character “Uncle Andrew” who didn’t hear because he refused to.
“In that book, they talk about Aslan’s creation song when he speaks and Narnia comes into being,” said Barnes. “And C.S. Lewis talks about Uncle Andrew. He said ‘now the trouble with making yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed’ and Uncle Andrew did.”