Erika Kirk forgives her husband’s alleged assassin

My wife and I watched the entire memorial service for Charlie Kirk yesterday afternoon. Never in my life have I witnessed such an event.

Between the stadium and the adjacent overflow areas, approximately ninety thousand people were in attendance. The service was broadcast across every major US television network as well, according to White House Communications Director Steven Cheung. The president and vice-president spoke, as did the White House chief of staff and four other cabinet officials. Chris Tomlin, Brandon Lake, and several other nationally known Christian recording artists led in worship. The service, including worship, lasted much of the day.

But the moment in the service that most struck many of us came when Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika, announced that she forgave her husband’s alleged killer. She explained: “I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it’s what Charlie would do.”

There is an eternal world of meaning in her decision, for our nation and for our souls.

What Robert Redford thought about death

After Robert Redford died recently, his longtime creative collaborator wrote a New York Times article about a conversation the two had a few years ago about death. According to J. C. Chandor, Redford “did not obsess over death” for this reason:

When he laid his head down at night, all he needed to know was that he had given everything he had to all that he loved. . . . As long as you gave them everything you had you could be confident meeting whatever is waiting for us all on the other side.

Is this true?

If we base such confidence on our works, how can we know whether we have done enough? What about our mistakes and failures? Should we risk our eternity on our personal opinion?

Charlie Kirk reportedly chose as a fifth grader to trust in Christ as his Savior. His pastor, Rob McCoy, told the memorial service yesterday that Charlie viewed politics as an on-ramp to Jesus, believing that if he could get you rowing in the current of liberty, you would come to its source, and that’s the Lord.

As a result, Erika Kirk knows that her husband is now in glory. She told the crowd that when she had to view his body after he was murdered, “I also saw on his lips the faintest smile.” As she said a few days ago, “The bullet came, he blinked, and he was in heaven.”

Consequently, she could forgive his alleged killer because she knew that her husband’s death was merely his passage into eternal glory.

Jesus knew the same. He could pray for his Father to forgive his crucifiers (Luke 23:34), confident that he would soon be with his Father in paradise (v. 43). Stephen similarly prayed for God to forgive his killers (Acts 7:60) shortly after he saw Jesus and knew he would soon be with him (v. 56).

If we know that the worst that can happen to us leads instantly to the best that can happen to us, we are free to love those who hate us and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44).

“The tyrant dies and his rule is over”

Second, Erika Kirk could forgive her husband’s alleged killer because she knew that the evil he perpetrated could not defeat the good that her husband lived and died to advance.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once proclaimed, “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In light of God’s nature, this declaration only makes sense: if our Lord is so sovereign over his creation that “his kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19), and he is so benevolent that his very nature “is” love (1 John 4:8), good must ultimately triumph over evil.

There will be much heartache and innocent suffering along the way, but God redeems all he allows and uses great evil for even greater good (cf. Romans 8:28–30). As a result, with all due respect to Dr. King, I would adjust his assertion to say, “Right shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but God bends it toward justice.”

And he uses the sacrificial faithfulness of his servants to “bend” this “arc.”

In his remarks yesterday, Dr. Ben Carson noted that Charlie Kirk died at 12:24 p.m. Then he read John 12:24, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” The multitudes who heard the gospel as they watched the service are just some of the “fruit” God has produced from Charlie’s death. As are the multitudes that have come to faith and come back to faith in response to his passing.

During the service, Mikey McCoy, Charlie Kirk’s personal assistant, quoted the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule has just begun.”

If we know that God uses right to defeat wrong, we are free to forgive those who hate us and give our best to help them know our Lord.

“The most important thing is my faith”

During yesterday’s service, it was truly astounding to watch public figures, one after the other, explain how to know Jesus and call America to a gospel of forgiveness and grace. Apart from Charlie Kirk’s death, I cannot imagine another platform by which this message could have been shared so effectively with so many.

Would you agree that our divided nation desperately needs healing and reconciliation? Would you agree that we therefore need the revival that yesterday’s service was intended to advance? Could God be redeeming Charlie Kirk’s horrible death by using it as a harbinger of such a movement?

The answer lies with us. Will we pray earnestly for spiritual awakening to transform our country? Then will we help answer our prayers by sharing Christ with everyone we can and forgiving everyone who opposes our faith?

When asked how he most wanted to be remembered, Charlie Kirk replied, “I want to be remembered for courage for my faith. That would be the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith.”

Can you say the same today?

Quote for the day:

“Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.” —Ronald Reagan

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