By Pastor Rich Bitterman
The bullet didn’t just pierce skin. It cracked the illusion that we could disagree and still stay human.
Charlie Kirk’s body hit the ground beside a folding chair.
Someone screamed. Others froze. Phones fumbled in trembling hands. The white tent snapped in the wind. Somewhere in the crowd, a father whispered, “Get down.”
By the time sirens carved a path through the silence, a young man with a gun had vanished into the American bloodstream.
Now he has a name.
Tyler Robinson. Twenty-two. Alleged. Caught. Handcuffed. Alive.
And we are left behind with questions hotter than justice.
What are we supposed to do now?
It would be easier if we were only angry.
But there is something more complicated churning inside the body of Christ.
A grief too bruised to name. A rage we feel guilty for carrying. A hollow place where vengeance crouches and licks its lips.
Some Christians are praying. Some are cursing. Some are doing both.
But there is a story older than our fear.
It starts with a sermon.
Stephen stood before men who claimed to speak for God.
He opened his mouth, and the old story of Israel came pouring out.
He called them stiff-necked. Blind. Murderers of the Righteous One.
They dragged him outside like garbage.
The first stone broke the skin. The second, the jaw. And as the blood filled his mouth, Stephen did something no modern Christian seems quite ready to do.
He prayed for the man who held the coats.
He asked forgiveness for the hands that shattered his bones.
He gave grace while his heart was still beating.
What would it mean to forgive that fast?
Not when the verdict is read. Not after the funeral. But while the shots still echo.
What kind of gospel grows in a soil that broken?
We’ve spent so much of our modern Christianity numbing ourselves with safe slogans and forgettable prayers. But Stephen wasn’t reciting bumper stickers. He was standing inside the furnace of God’s Spirit, praying through blood.
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
That line is not soft.
It is a declaration that the kingdom of God is real, and it does not play by the rules of our tribe or our politics.
The Church today is full of clenched fists and sharpened tongues. We post screenshots like scripture. We bless and curse from the same mouth. We say things like “just saying what needs to be said” and ignore the rot we’re feeding.
And yet we wonder why the Spirit feels so far away.
Forgiveness isn’t forgetting.
It isn’t pretending nothing happened.
It’s war. The kind that happens inside the chest when the Holy Spirit tells you to lay your weapon down and bless the one who drew theirs.
You don’t forgive because the world tells you to.
You forgive because the man on the cross forgave you.
And he didn’t wait.
Neither did Stephen.
Stephen’s prayer was heard.
Not just by God.
But by a young man named Saul, whose fingerprints were all over that execution.
And though Saul went on raging, rounding up Christians and dragging them from homes, something had cracked open inside him. A goad buried deep. A prayer he couldn’t forget.
And one day on a Damascus road, that man heard a voice from heaven.
“It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”
It always is.
Forgiveness leaves a splinter.
Even in your enemies.
You may never stand beneath a tent with bullets flying. But you will be wounded. You will be hated. You will be misunderstood. That is not failure.
That is the cross-shaped road.
You will want to hate back. You will have verses lined up to justify it. You will call it justice.
But the real question is not whether you’re angry.
It’s whether you’ll trust Christ enough to lay your vengeance down.
Stephen looked up and saw Jesus standing. Not seated. Standing. Ready to receive. Bearing witness to the kind of faith that stops heaven mid-song.
And even then, Stephen died.
He did not get a reprieve.
He got a Savior.
So what should we do now?
We pray for justice.
We ask for peace.
We name the evil.
And then we say it aloud, even if our voice shakes:
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
Not because they deserve it.
But because Jesus does.
Forgiveness isn’t a soft option.
It is a blood-soaked, Spirit-driven revolution. It is a war against hell that begins inside the heart of one believer who dares to look up instead of looking back.
So if you’re asking what now?
Do what Stephen did:
Speak the truth.
Stand tall.
And when the stones come…
Pray like heaven is listening.
Because it is.
Let them say of us:
The bullets flew.
But we did not return fire.
We knelt. We forgave.
And we looked up, where Jesus was still standing.
That’s an incredibly tall order. Evil always seems to get a free pass by the righteous taking the high road and turning the other cheek. When do we finally say that enough is enough? I need answers and I’m losing patience fast. This demon destroyed a family and hurt millions of people around the world. Where’s our justice?
The best way to destroy those demons is to forgive. I will always remember a story Corrie Ten Boom told of her time in a Nazi concentration camp. After the war, she went around the world telling her story and the story of forgiveness. One evening after telling her testimony to a mass of people who came to listen to her, a man made his way to the front of the room where Corrie was. He reached out his hand to her and asked her if she would forgive him. He was one of the Nazi guards at her concentration camp. She stood there frozen for what seemed a long time. Her sister died at that camp. Yet, Jesus told her that if she didn’t forgive her enemies, neither would He forgive her, her sins. After what seemed like eternity, she reached out her hand and forgave this former Nazi guard. I pray that Christians will forgive Tyler Robinson, and that he will find the truth in Jesus Christ. The love Jesus has for Tyler is deeper than any hate this young man had for Charlie.
Dear Pastor,
Have you authored any books? I would buy them in a heart beat!
Your words form a holy Jumbotron in my mind’s eye, and understanding comes flooding into my soul where I hide things that hurt. Thank you.
Absolutely. This is the only way to dare to call oneself a Christian and Charlie K knew it. He said just that back in 2014.
We are to forgive everything, no matter how “unforgiveable” our mind may see the deed. For Christ’s sake. Because that us what he tought us by his words and by his earthly life and by his death on the Cross. We truly do not have an option not to forgive, as there isn’t one IF we are followers of Jesus.
Dear Pastor,
Have you authored any books? I would buy them all!
Your words create a holy jumbo-tron in my mind’s eye; words sinking deep into my soul where I stuff many things.
Thank you
Pastor,
Please tell Jesus to practice what he preached (see Matthew 25:31-46 and 26:24). Silly me. He’s dead. Like C.J.
Also, Jesus’ Abba didn’t forgive Cain for killing Abel, not to mention Adam and Eve got kicked out of Eden for their One Strike and You’re Out. Like Father, like Son.
Beloved,
You forget: Jesus is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the earth. In other words, before Cain, Eve, Adam, and yes, even you and me were ever born, God had already made plans to forgive the unforgivable. The Trinity agreed: You, Me, and every person ever to be born, are worth sending the only Son, The Lord Jesus, to pay your sin debt so you could be with Father, Sin, and Holy Spirit for ever. So, yes: like Father, Like Son. Hallelujah! Amen
The Father, SON, and the Holy Spirit. (Correcting error in my post above.)
I read Matthew 6 and then I said that as hard as it was, Erika, Charlie Kirk’s wife, must forgive Tyler Robinson.
I also entertained this thought:
What would happen if Erika did forgive Tyler for the murder of her husband? Could her heart be changed and softened so much by Jesus, that she could feel mercy instead of contempt for Tyler? Would she feel differently for Tyler and perhaps not want Tyler to get the death penalty for her husband’s death?
Will Tyler getting the death penalty make Erika Kirk sleep better at night?
Will we all sleep better knowing that his soul probably went to hell and the he got his “just deserts” ?
When Jesus died on the Cross, the Blood that He shed is powerful enough to cover any sin. Any sin. All sins. There is only 1 sin that the Bible mentions that will never be forgiven…. and that is blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.
If Tyler wants it, forgiveness is there for him. Salvation is for Tyler, if he wants it. Jesus died on the Cross for Charlie Kirk, but He also died on the Cross for Tyler Robinson.
Salvation is there for anyone who wants it.
Jesus is here for anyone who calls upon His Name.
If we repent for our wrong doing, God will forgive us. Yes, even Tyler Robinson.