Light Beyond the Darkness: A Reflection on the Johnson Lake Tragedy, Evil, and the Hope of Eternity

This weekend, the community I call home in Central Nebraska was rocked by an unspeakable tragedy.

Though I currently live in Kearney, Holdrege is my hometown. It’s where I was raised. It’s where my parents, my sister and her family, my sister-in-law and her family, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and many of my closest lifelong friends still live. I was just at church in Holdrege yesterday. This is more than news to me—it’s personal.

Over the weekend, in nearby Johnson Lake, Jeremy Koch tragically ended the lives of his wife, Bailey (a teacher at Holdrege Public Schools), and their two sons, Hudson and Asher, before taking his own. This horrific act occurred the night before Hudson was supposed to graduate from Cozad High School. Members of my family and many of my friends in this region knew Bailey and Jeremy personally. I did not. But in this part of Central Nebraska, if you don’t know someone, you know ten people who do.

As I write this, the entire region is in shock. Grief is thick. Confusion is real. And deep theological questions are already echoing through the community:

• Why would God allow something so evil?

• Was free will involved?

• What happens to the soul after death—especially in a case like this?

I want to offer some thoughts. Not because I have all the answers (I don't)—but because I believe that thoughtful faith and honest grief belong together.

When the Soul Becomes a Passenger

A few days ago, I published a blog exploring the difference between human and animal souls. One key idea was that human beings are designed not just to be in their bodies, but to pilot them. We’re meant to be rational, morally responsible agents—souls steering the ship.

But sometimes, due to profound mental illness or trauma, that capacity breaks down. The soul isn’t gone—but it becomes a passenger, no longer at the controls. The body might be moving. The mouth might be speaking. But the soul isn’t piloting.

And when the soul is no longer in control, and the mind’s instruments are malfunctioning, disaster is almost inevitable. It’s like a plane on autopilot—except the controls are broken, and no one is flying the aircraft. This, I believe, may have been the case with Jeremy.

Now, I’m not suggesting he was never responsible for anything. Scripture exhorts us to “take every thought captive” (2 Cor. 10:5). I believe Jeremy may have had the opportunity—weeks or even months ago—to seek help, surrender his thoughts to Christ, and choose a different path. But by the time this act occurred, I doubt he had the capacity to freely choose anything at all.

He wasn’t piloting the ship. He was a passenger in a broken vessel.

There Is Blame to Go Around—But There Is Also Grace to Extend

That said, multiple parties bear responsibility for allowing a cognitively impaired man—who had already exhibited violent behavior—to stay overnight with his family.

According to public accounts, Bailey once awoke to find Jeremy standing over her with a knife. This deeply disturbing incident—which she later disclosed publicly—was one of multiple signs of serious mental and emotional instability. While there may have been additional red flags, this alone should have triggered a level of intervention that, tragically, never came.

Behind that failure may also lie an uncomfortable but critical truth: insurance companies often dictate how long someone can stay in treatment and what kind of care they can receive. It’s frequently not the doctors, counselors, or therapists who make final calls—it’s the insurers. If profit margins or policy restrictions contributed to Jeremy’s release, then our broken healthcare system also shares in the moral weight of this tragedy.

While honoring the pain of those who are grieving, we must also reflect on some difficult decisions that were made—and what we can learn from them.

By many accounts, Bailey was a woman of strength, insight, and deep faith. She didn’t hide her struggle—she made it public. She spoke on podcasts. She wrote with transparency. She tried to use her story to offer hope—not just for her husband’s healing, but for others walking similar roads. That’s what makes this situation even harder to comprehend. She was doing so much right.

Bailey loved Jeremy. She wanted their marriage to survive. And in an age when vows are often taken lightly, her loyalty was commendable. But love—even covenant love—must never blind us to the reality of danger. Jeremy wasn’t piloting the ship anymore. His soul had become a passenger. His brain was broken.

As a highly educated woman with a PhD, Bailey likely understood this. And yet—perhaps out of hope, perhaps out of heartbreak—she allowed Jeremy to continue living in the same home where her children were sleeping. That was a tragic miscalculation. Not one of malice, but of misplaced hope.

What about all the relevant agencies? Were they communicating with one another? Where was CPS? Were they aware of Jeremy’s condition and his psychological history? If not, why not? If they were, why didn’t they intervene?

We must learn from this. Mental illness can be just as deadly as physical illness—and sometimes more so. It doesn’t remove human dignity, but it does demand intervention. When someone is a passenger rather than a pilot, the rest of us must act before the crash. Many free choices contributed to this tragedy, and we must learn from all of them.

A Word to the Church

And here, the Church must also examine its conscience.

Too often, women in abusive marriages are told to ‘just stick it out,’ ‘pray harder,’ or ‘submit more’—as if blind endurance is the measure of faithfulness. And while fighting for marriage is noble, preserving life and safety is non-negotiable. It’s not a betrayal of Christian values to say, “I need to get out of this house so I don’t get killed—and neither do my children.”

The Church must be a place where it is safe to say that.

We can and must hold marriage in high esteem while also holding up wisdom, protection, and discernment. Pastors and Christian counselors must be equipped not only to promote reconciliation but to recognize red flags and help people take wise, protective steps—including physical separation when necessary. We need churches that say, “We’ll help you stay safe first—and we’ll still pray and fight for your marriage second.”

These are not competing priorities. They are two sides of the same Christlike love.

What Happened After Death?

Now we shift to the question that haunts so many of us: What happened when their souls left their bodies?

According to the Apostle Paul, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). But many Near Death Experience (NDE) testimonies suggest that there’s often a short transitional moment—where the soul, having survived the death of the body, is disoriented, aware, and conscious of the scene. We cannot say with certainty that this happens in every case, but it seems to occur often enough to warrant attention.

What was that moment like?

I don’t know.

But I imagine it was filled with horror . . . followed by healing. I imagine Jesus entered the scene, not with condemnation, but with truth, mercy, and restoration. If Bailey and the boys were followers of Jesus—and if Jeremy, despite his mental state, had a genuine relationship with Christ—then they were all received into the arms of the One who makes all things new.

I imagine the horror melting away. I imagine Jeremy, healed and restored, weeping and undone. I imagine Jesus holding each of them. And I imagine a reunion, not because the evil was dismissed, but because love triumphed over it.

In the words of a powerful song: “I can only imagine.”

Why Would God Allow This?

Let’s be honest: this is the hardest question.

Why would a loving, all-powerful God allow such horrific evil?

Here’s how I respond:

1. God is love (1 John 4:8).

2. Love requires freedom. Forced love is not love at all.

3. God, in His omniscience, knows all possible outcomes.

4. He chose to actualize a world in which human beings are truly free—free to love, to create, to heal . . . but also free to destroy.

5. Even though terrible evil occurs, God can and will redeem it. What others intend for evil, God can use for good (Gen. 50:20). He works all things together for the good of those who love Him (Rom. 8:28).

6. These momentary horrors, as real and heavy as they are, “prepare for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).

And let me be especially clear here: God did not causally determine this. He allowed it—because He sees the end from the beginning and knows how to redeem even the darkest moments for ultimate good—but He did not make Jeremy do this. God permits horrors He hates only when they are necessary to bring about goods He loves even more—eternal goods, soul-making goods, Christ-reflecting goods that outweigh even the deepest wounds of this fallen world.

Jeremy made choices. So did Bailey. So did the professionals who released him. So did the institutions that failed to act. There’s plenty of human responsibility to go around—and we should all learn from it. But the God of love did not causally determine this evil. He allowed it in light of the free choices of humans and the good He knows will emerge on the other side of even the most horrific events.

Two Truths to Hold in Tension

Let’s be clear:

1. This was a horrific act of evil. Lives were stolen. Trust was shattered. And yes, blame must be assigned.

2. God is still perfect love. He has not lost control. He has not abandoned us. He has not abandoned them.

Only Imagine

So let me end where we began:

I didn’t know the Koch family personally. But I know many who did. And my heart aches for each of you.

To those grieving: I grieve with you. To those angry: You have a right to be. To those numb and confused: That’s normal. To those wondering if God is still good: I promise you, He is.

And to all of us:

Let’s imagine. Let’s imagine what it was like to see Jesus. Let’s imagine minds healed. Let’s imagine a family made whole. Let’s imagine tears wiped away by the Savior’s hand.

Let’s imagine the One who holds every soul, every sorrow, and every story—until the day we see Him face to face.

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Dr. Tim Stratton