A Christmas Reflection from Tragedy

Well according to the Mayan calendar we are now just two days away from the end of the world.  From the crowds that I have witnessed at local shopping malls in recent days, the thought of the world ending certainly has not disquieted many hearts.  Oh you read of a few groups that have huddled together to welcome the world's ending, but I wonder what will be their response when December 22 arrives with all its uncertainty.  Friends, we know that the day is coming when this world as we know it will end.  But of that day and hour only the Father in heaven knows.  Mayan calendars, Nostradamus, and other instruments of prognosticating the future know nothing of the mind of God, let alone the dates that He and only He has determined.  Now, I believe that Friday might be the day that Jesus comes for His Church, an event we know as the Rapture.  If that would happen, I will gladly join with millions of other believers to welcome that exciting day.  But, unless that event occurs, the world will keep spinning on its axis as it has for countless years; mankind will continue his quest to be like God, much as he has done since the Garden of Eden, with its resulting heartaches and sufferings; and the Church should, and I emphasize that word "should" proclaim with all the authority of heaven that God has provided a way for mankind to be reconciled to a holy God. 

This year the Advent Season has been marked with incredible tragedies.  Those images that filled our television screens and computer monitors this past Friday will be etched into our minds and hearts.  We ask ourselves the question, "How could God allow this to happen?  How could God stand by and allow a madman to destroy the lives of 27 innocent people and their families?  Friends, I have to admit that I have no answers for those questions except to say that they come as a consequence of living in a world still dominated by the power of sin.  Bad things happen to good people because we are citizens of a world still under the curse.  Every day good, decent people die in car accidents.  Every day good, decent people die of cancer and heart disease.  Every day good, decent people lose their jobs.  Every day good, decent people have their marriages ripped asunder.  And each event is as tragic as was that of Newtown, CT this past Friday - except there the tragedy was magnified twenty-seven-fold and was before us on national television. 

Now as we witness the sorrow and the funerals for these children and their hero-teachers who gave their lives to protect other children, our hearts are filled with both sorrow and rage.  How could this happen so close to Christmas?  But did you know that a similar tragedy occurred as part of that first Christmas story.  We read in Matthew 2, "When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.  Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 'A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.'" (Matthew 2:16-18).  Last Friday in Newtown, CT, parents were unaware of the danger that lurked in the halls of Sandy Hook Elementary School.  They sent their children off that morning thinking it would be another normal day.  Yet tragedy struck.  Now just imagine what it would have been like if they had been forced to stand there and watch their children being murdered and could do nothing about it.  Yet that is what happened in Bethlehem that day.  Can you imagine the horrors?  Can you hear the screams of the mothers and fathers?  Can you hear the cries from the little boys, many of whom were just learning to walk, as they were wrested from their parents grasp?  This is part of the Nativity story that we intentionally forget because it causes us to ask the unanswerable question - Why, God?  The birth of Jesus Christ caused the deaths of many little boys in and around Bethlehem, little boys whose lives lay before them, lives filled with hope and joy.  Why did God allow this to happen?  Perhaps it was a proclamation that just as those innocent children died so that the boy Jesus might live, that years later the innocent Jesus - the Lamb of God - would die for those who were not so innocent. 

As I have pondered the events of last Friday through the lens of the Advent story, I have discovered that there is a depth to the story of that first Christmas that we often never explore.  In fact, to be honest, the Advent story raises a lot of deep questions that are ignored in our haste to retell the story in its simplicity.  So, in these remaining days before Christmas, perhaps you could take some time, sit down with your Bible, and re-read the Christmas story.  Read it slowly.  Ponder how you would have responded if you had been Mary and greeted by an angel.  Ponder how you would have responded if you had been Joseph and told that your fiancee was pregnant.  Ponder how you would have responded if you have been one of the shepherds.  Be honest with yourself.  What questions would you have asked?  What information would you have wanted?  In that way you will be getting deeper into the significance of the story.  And, if you want to be totally blown away, read John 1:14.  That should cause you to pause in bewilderment: God became a baby.  The One who created the world became a created being; the One who parted the waters of the Red Sea and caused the walls of Jericho to fall became a helpless infant.  Oh that we might probe the depths of the Christmas story.

Friends, I want to thank you for being on the journey with me for another year.  One can only wonder what the New Year will hold for us as we await the return of Jesus.  But we will be there to help you understand the events from a biblical perspective. 

So, I wish you and yours a very Merry and Blessed Christmas and a New Year filled with His presence in all things.