The sentence that did not finish

One · What happened

Two injections, and she was still breathing

Prosecutors said Pike and others killed a classmate in January 1995. Colleen Slemmer was nineteen and Pike was eighteen. Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 and is the only woman on Tennessee’s death row. The state scheduled her execution for the evening of 30 September 2026. The Sixth Circuit paused it that day, and the Supreme Court voted six to three to lift the pause.

The Nashville Banner, citing the media witnesses, reported that the curtain over the chamber window went down and came back up. When it went down a second time, Pike could be heard snoring loudly. A little before nine o’clock the reporters were asked to leave. Her lawyers at the federal public defender’s office said she had received both syringes of pentobarbital and her heart had not stopped. She went by ambulance to a Nashville hospital. Her attorney said she was alive and receiving life-saving medical care.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement late that night that it had followed the established protocol. Governor Lee called carrying out a lawful sentence “among the State’s most serious responsibilities” and said he was highly disappointed. He ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.” People who share a pew answer differently when asked if Tennessee should carry out death sentences, and the courts and the legislature will go on arguing over the method and the law for years. Nothing here weighs in. The execution of Gary Wayne Sutton, set for 3 December, will not go forward this year.

Two · What it is doing

What you wanted in that room

The morning after, you opened your phone and read that a woman had been given two lethal injections in a Tennessee prison and taken away in an ambulance. Something in you answered before you had decided anything. For one reader the answer was anger that a sentence handed down in 1996 still had not been carried out. For another it was horror at the room. A half second after the horror came disgust at the people who had wanted the thing done.

Colleen Slemmer’s mother traveled from Florida to witness the execution, the Banner reported. No one is telling her what to feel. The rest of us watched from other rooms, with a thinner stake in the case and thicker opinions about it. If you shared the story with a line of your own on top, that line told your friends which side you stand on. Each side hears the other side’s line as proof of what it already believed.

Whichever line you wrote did a job for you. A small job. It sorted you, in front of the people who follow you, into the decent half of the country. Contempt for the people who wanted her dead and contempt for her share a root. Nobody in this story needs your caption, and a person who writes one is mostly doing it for the sake of his own standing with his friends. The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable stood by himself and prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11).

Three · Where the ground is

A man who agreed with his sentence

Paul tells the Christians in Rome that the governing authority “does not bear the sword in vain.” The ruler is “the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4). Believers who hold the same Bible disagree on how far that sword reaches today, and no argument made here would settle it. The man who carries it answers to God for how he does. Colleen Slemmer and Christa Pike were both made “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27).

Through Ezekiel the Lord tells the exiles in Babylon how He feels when a wicked person dies. “As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezekiel 33:11). The words went to the house of Israel, and they describe the heart of the same God who gave the sword. Both the reader who felt glad at the news and the reader who felt only disgust at everyone else’s gladness have those words to answer.

The man on the other cross

Luke writes that two criminals were led out with Jesus to be crucified, and one of them rebuked the other. He said they were receiving “the due reward of our deeds” and that Jesus “has done nothing wrong.” Then he asked, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered that “today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:39–43). A man with nothing left but the state’s sentence called it fair and asked for mercy he had no claim on. Luke does not report what passed between Pike and God on Wednesday, and a reader who says he knows is supplying a reason that Scripture does not.

Jesus hung between the two men, and the criminal had called Him blameless. He died under a sentence He had not earned. The reader belongs on one of the outer crosses, with a life that has earned a sentence. Paul calls the exchange a matter of first importance, “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3).

Four · Today

Five things, and none of them are “stay informed”

Colleen Slemmer has been dead for more than thirty-one years. Pike is in a hospital bed while a governor and two sets of lawyers decide what happens to her, and no one in that process needs your opinion this week. The next few days have room for five smaller jobs.

1. 01

   Reread what you sent about it.

   Open your messages and posts from the morning after and look at the words you put on top of the headline. If one was a joke at Pike’s expense or a sneer at the people who wanted the sentence carried out, tell the person you sent it to that you regret it. Ezekiel 33:11 gives the Lord’s own words about a death like this one. Read your caption beside them for half a minute, then delete what you can and apologize for the rest.

2. 02

   Ask God to comfort Colleen Slemmer’s family.

   Her mother traveled from Florida to Tennessee for the execution. The sentence she came to see did not finish. Pray for her tonight and again on Sunday, along with the rest of the family who have carried the killing since January 1995. If your congregation has a member who lost a child to violence, find out which day of the year is the hardest for him and put it on your calendar.

3. 03

   Pray for everybody who was in that room.

   Pike belongs on the list, along with the corrections officers and the medical staff. Pray that she asks for what the man on the cross asked for in Luke 23:42. The people who carried out the protocol will be asked about that evening for years, and some of them may sit in a pew near you.

4. 04

   Read Luke 23:32–43 to the people at your table.

   Luke’s account runs twelve verses, short enough to finish before anybody leaves the table. Ask each person which of the three men on the crosses he feels nearest to. A child may pick the one in the middle, and a grandfather may pick the one who agreed with his sentence. Anyone who would rather pass can do that without explaining why.

5. 05

   Ask your pastor about the prison and the grieving family.

   Send him a message today asking if anyone from the church visits a prison or a jail. Ask too if the congregation has a plan for a family that has lost someone to violence. If the answer to both is no, offer to be the first person who goes and the first one who sits with a family, and ask him to pray with you before you start.