December 18, 2012
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So this is Christmas
I hug my five year old tight, as I watch news of another school shooting unfold with even more horror. Five year olds. I have one of those. It could’ve been mine. I sit at the foot of his bed late at night with tears running down my cheeks. I am reminded that we are not guaranteed a single day with our children. Indeed, we had been told that Caleb might not live to birth. And here he sleeps, already five years old. And bedtime is such a struggle…but when I think of all the Moms who will never tuck their little boys in bed again…I treasure every minute. Wrapping Christmas presents one by one. I can’t help but thinking of the presents wrapped around the tree for children who never came home from school. Who won’t be there for Christmas morning. And when I think of that selfish man, who wanted his suicide to be noticed and so decided to take 28 lives with his. Well, I confess I want that man to burn in hell for what he did. And it wasn’t even my son.
But what if it had been my son? Could I ever forgive that man? Suppose he had lived. Would I pray for his salvation? Or what if my son had to die at the hands of an evil man as the means of that man’s salvation? Isn’t that what Christmas is about; a holy God sending his son to be killed by evil men…for their own salvation. It isn’t really fair. If it had been my son, I would want justice…I would want that man to suffer in Hell for what he did. But not God. How can he even love us enough that he would do that? So this is Christmas then. The shadow of the cross, a reminder that it was my sin that put him there…and it was for my salvation that he died. How could God love us so much? Remember his love this Christmas.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16