Now that we’ve gotten through the hustle and bustle of Christmas, we enter the season of Epiphany. This is a time in the church year dedicated to "manifestation"—the revealing of Christ’s light to the world. It is a season when we celebrate the star that guided the Magi, the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism calling him "Beloved," and the promise that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. You heard this is our prayers and songs last Sunday.
But this week, the darkness feels overwhelmingly heavy.
On Wednesday morning, in the light of day, Renee Nicole Good—a 37-year-old mother, a poet, and a child of God—was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. She had just dropped her six-year-old son off at school. She was sitting in her car with her wife. She was not a "threat to national security" or a "domestic terrorist," as some fearful narratives have already tried to paint her. She was a woman who loved Jesus, who once led youth mission trips to Northern Ireland, and who wrote poetry about the beauty and messiness of life.
As we process the horror of this event, we cannot separate our theology from our reality. We cannot sing hymns about the light of the world while closing our eyes to the shadows of state violence stretching across our own streets.
In the lectionary, the joy of the Magi’s visit in Matthew 2 is immediately followed by terror. King Herod, hearing of a new "King of the Jews," feels his power threatened. He does not respond with curiosity or welcome; he responds with a "preemptive strike." He orders the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem.
Herod’s violence was born of fear—a fear that power is a zero-sum game, that the existence of the "other" is a threat to the "self."
When we hear the conflicting reports from Minneapolis—agents screaming contradictory orders, a mother trying to maneuver her car away from danger, and the lethal response of a government agent—we are witnessing the modern echo of that Herodian fear. It is a fear that sees a citizen, a neighbor, a mother, as an enemy to be eliminated rather than a life to be protected.
The Church and Criminal Justice: Hearing the Cries, issued by the ELCA, reminds us that "Justice is not an abstract concept... it is a matter of life and death." When law enforcement (or in this case, federal immigration agents) operates with a mindset of militarized fear rather than community protection, it is the innocent who suffer. Renee’s death is a tragic manifestation of a system that has become too quick to draw weapons and too slow to see humanity.
The narrative trying to spin her death—labeling her a "terrorist" for allegedly trying to flee a chaotic situation—is an attempt to strip her of the dignity we are afforded by our Baptism. It is a dehumanizing tactic used to justify the unjustifiable. As Lutherans, we are called to speak the truth in love, which means we must fiercely reject lies that demonize victims of violence.
We must also name the context of this tragedy. While Renee was a U.S. citizen, she was killed during an immigration enforcement operation. Our immigrant neighbors live under this shadow of fear daily. The ELCA has long stood for the welcome of the stranger and the protection of the vulnerable. When the tactics of enforcement become so aggressive that they claim the lives of bystanders and citizens in broad daylight, we must ask: What has our silence cost us?
Epiphany is not just about looking at the light; it is about being the light.
If we are to be the church of the Epiphany in 2026, we cannot look away from the video footage or the grief of a wife screaming for her partner. We must let the light reveal the hard truths about police and federal agency violence in our communities.
We pray for Renee’s wife, Becca, and her three children, now left to navigate a world without their mother. We pray for the city of Minneapolis, once again grieving a life stolen on its streets.
But we must do more than pray. We must act. We must demand the transparency and accountability that our faith requires. We must stand with the "Holy Innocents" of our day—those vulnerable to the machinery of power and fear.
Light reveals. May this tragedy reveal the urgent need for justice, so that no more families are left weeping in Ramah, refusing to be comforted because their children are no more.
Yours in the Light,
John Johns