Students and parents at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, where three children and three staff members were killed in a recent shooting, were greeted with a magnificent double rainbow as they gathered for the first time in weeks.
Dave Barnes, a contemporary Christian singer and songwriter from Nashville, posted video and images on Thursday evening of parents and children enjoying the rainbows, which pierced the partly cloudy sky as the families assembled for the first chapel service hosted by The Covenant School since the massacre.
“It was like God was yelling from heaven, ‘I see you! I have not forgotten you!’ It was one of the most poignant things I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Barnes remarked on social media. “God never promises for everything to make sense. He’s God and we’re not. But He promises that He loves us and will always take care of us.”
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God established the rainbow after the Noahic flood as a symbol of the covenant He made with mankind and other creatures to never destroy the whole earth with water, according to the account provided by the book of Genesis. The apostle John recounts in the book of Revelation that a rainbow appeared around the throne of God in heaven.
Other residents of Nashville posted images of the double rainbows, some of which showed the end of the rainbows settling on the steeple of Covenant Presbyterian Church, the conservative evangelical congregation which started The Covenant School. One teacher from another nearby school said the double rainbow was the first she could remember in the area.
Members of the church recently expressed hope in Jesus Christ and His resurrection on Palm Sunday during the first worship service they held since the massacre. “The world has changed since the last time we got together on the Lord’s Day,” Rev. Britton Wood noted. “Today is the day that we are reminded by our King, who lived for us and who died for us and who has risen for us, today is the day that He reminds us of the things that have not changed, of the Kingdom that cannot be shaken. And let that draw us to offer God worship with reverence and awe.”
A 28-year-old woman who identified as a man killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School as classes began on March 27. Police revealed that the shooter, whom The Daily Wire will not name in accordance with company policy, executed a “targeted attack” and wrote a “manifesto” ahead of the massacre.
The three 9-year-old students killed in the shooting were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs, the daughter of Covenant Presbyterian Church senior minister Chad Scruggs. Dr. Katherine Koonce, the school’s 60-year-old principal, was also killed, as were 61-year-olds Mike Hill, an employee at the school, and Cynthia Peak, a substitute teacher.
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Rev. Billy Barnes preached on Palm Sunday from the final chapter of Luke, in which Jesus appeared to His grieving disciples on the road to the town of Emmaus shortly after His resurrection. The passage is marked by the disciples expressing confusion after Jesus’ death without realizing that He was walking alongside them even amid their mourning. Barnes noted that reminders of the good news about Jesus Christ bring healing to the soul, even through pain and sorrow, because “God is in control and He is sovereign.”
“We are all on the road to Emmaus together right now,” the minister said. “He is with us. And He will be until the end of the age. And He is risen. Everything is true. It’s all true.”