A week and a half before Christmas... shopping, presents, wrapping paper... parties, plays, winter programs. A hurried kiss on the forehead, 'Have a great day', and off they go, and off you go... Not realizing it was the last time... not realizing the presents will stay unwrapped... unopened...forever.
The Connecticut heartbreak is everyone's heartbreak. It could have been our school. My children. Yours. China's stabbed children are our children. My son. Your daughter. For, no man is an island. The senseless killings of innocent awaken unrelenting pain in each of us... in their faces we see our face, in their anguish, our anguish.
Just few days ago, I have written a post From Bad to Worse about often skipped over part of the Christmas story which has an uncanny similarity to yesterday's heartbreaking massacre . I feel like my heart is ripped out piece by piece just thinking about it....
Mary and Joseph didn't expect anyone when there was a knock on the door that night. When the strange visitors saw the Child, they fell at the His feet and worshiped Him. Imagine that - respectable, educated, foreigners who traveled long distance – maybe months, more like years– now prostrated at a child’s feet? In worship?!! They also brought some interesting presents – not a Tonka Truck or Thomas the Train or even the latest LEGO DUPLO® set. It turns out that the gifts were packed with meaning and value (for more on this, visit What are frankincense and myrrh? The discerning can already smell a scent of death, already a perfume of suffering in the life of the little boy Jesus.
After the wise men left, Joseph was warned about the murder plot. They packed their belongings, got their family refuge visa and escaped for their lives. Soon after they arrived in Egypt they heard the news from home.
The unthinkable did happen. The worst kind of genocide against innocent baby boys. Precious children victims of the deranged king. There were screams. The wailing. The tiny corpses. The entire communities wrapped in inconsolable mourning. Why? Why? Why? Did some of the shepherds who saw the angels lose their babies that night? Was their Christmas Eve hope snuffed out by the thrust of the sword? By the recurring nightmares of that horrible day being re-played on the screen of their mind?
The unthinkable did happen. The worst kind of genocide against innocent baby boys. Precious children victims of the deranged king. There were screams. The wailing. The tiny corpses. The entire communities wrapped in inconsolable mourning. Why? Why? Why? Did some of the shepherds who saw the angels lose their babies that night? Was their Christmas Eve hope snuffed out by the thrust of the sword? By the recurring nightmares of that horrible day being re-played on the screen of their mind?
Often it is impossible to understand the mystery of evil God allows in this world. When the tragedy knocks on our door, we weep and weep and weep until we have nothing inside left... We gasp for answers…why, why, why? We feel abandoned by God…forsaken by the Lofty One too far removed to relate to our human sorrows and heartbreak. But, God became human. He entered fully our broken world, from the day He was born until the day He died. They tried to kill Him before He was even a preschooler... and He grew up to be slandered, misunderstood, persecuted, tempted (yet without sin), betrayed, treated unjustly and finally crucified – dying a shameful, painful death of the worst criminal. Oh, how we grieve His heart when we still think He doesn’t understand… oh, how we add unnecessary pain to our deepest sorrows when we still believe He can’t empathize, can't relate to our suffering - yours and mine...
In all their afflictions He was afflicted…. Isaiah 63:9
He was …a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief… Isaiah 53:3
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? ... Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?Just as it is written,“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” Romans 8:32-36
Please take a moment to pray for the victims and the families of Connecticut shooting, the stabbing of the Chinese children, for the perpetrators of these crimes and the grieving communities around the world. Pray for all of us, as we raise our children in an increasingly hostile world with fractured families, disconnected communities, shattered values and most of all, separated from the healing, redemptive power of the love and grace of God found in Jesus. May God show His great mercy to us all.
Please take a moment to pray for the victims and the families of Connecticut shooting, the stabbing of the Chinese children, for the perpetrators of these crimes and the grieving communities around the world. Pray for all of us, as we raise our children in an increasingly hostile world with fractured families, disconnected communities, shattered values and most of all, separated from the healing, redemptive power of the love and grace of God found in Jesus. May God show His great mercy to us all.
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