December 2012

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 

Luke 2:11

  

December has not turned out the way any of us imagined. Instead it arrived full of tragedy and unanswered questions. Evil has raised its ugly head in an attempt to overshadow the reason we celebrate. A friend has said, "The world is in pain... that's why a Savior came." She is exactly right. God sent His son into this world because He loves us. He wants so much to give us hope, a hope that lives on when Evil tries so desperately to take it away.

Last Christmas the town of Webster, NY mourned, and this Christmas they are in mourning again. This is the little town where I grew up. This is the place my daughter calls home. This is where so many hearts are aching and broken today. But we all know it doesn't stop there. It never does, because the arms of Webster, NY reach far beyond a little town on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, and just like the entire country grieves for the town of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, there are people across this land who also grieve for Webster, NY.

Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem because He loved them and felt the pain that sin had brought them. He came to save them from their sin, but they didn't want anything to do with Him. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" Matt. 23:37 He came to save us too. He came to give us hope. He came to give us a song, a song to sing in the face of Evil and in spite of it. "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!"