In recent days, during the overlapping Christmas season of 2025, our hearts are heavy as we absorb difficult-to-comprehend news.

• We grieve the tragic murder of Carl and Michelle Reiner.
• We mourn lives shattered by the mass shooting at Brown University.
• We recoil from the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi Beach.

By September 30, 2025, the Gun Violence Data Hub reported 11,197 shooting deaths in the United States alone, numbers that cannot begin to capture the human stories behind them, nor the many other forms of violent loss. By late November, nearly 400 mass shootings had been recorded, leaving hundreds dead and thousands wounded.

Even the Christmas story begins with the holy family fleeing a terrorist king at night, a quiet reminder that God chose to enter our broken world not from a distance, but from within it.