Christmas still calls

Bombs are exploding overseas, mutilating thousands of men, women and innocent children. The bereft are inconsolable. Losses are horrific. Protests are erupting everywhere. The dreaded escalation of war continues.

Here in the United States, evil still rears its ugly head as it has done down through the centuries. In October, the once-peaceful town of Lewiston, Maine, for example, joined the ranks of cities rocked by mass killings, its total being 18 dead and 13 injured.

Also, in October alone in Baltimore where I live, there were 24 homicides and 60 shootings. And of those 60 non-fatal shootings, three were at a high school and five at a university.

Yet here I am basking in the luxury of flannel sheets on chilly nights. My freezer is packed with food. Water is free-flowing. The flames in my makeshift fireplace are soothing in the quiet of my living room where my television with all of its reminders of turmoil is turned off.

And in the midst of all of this conflict and my own feelings akin to survivor’s guilt and frustration over how best to help the suffering, Christmas is calling.

Christians throughout the world once again are pausing to remember how the Son of God took on flesh, the critical first step in the Father’s unfathomable and merciful plan to redeem fallen mankind.

Our Christmas focus on Christ, not on commercialism, could not come at a better time than now.

The same Savior needed after the fall is the same one who alone can defeat the evil rampant in the world today, consuming generations of people who embrace its promptings to hate.

People are always asking why bad things such as war, betrayals and unkindness happen to good people. Some even blame God, believing he could have prevented the consequential suffering. God could have, had not one very special gift to mankind trumped all: dominion. It is found in Genesis 1:26-28.

God will never dishonor himself by going back on this tremendous gift of free will. And when our choices cause us pain, God never stops encouraging us to “confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help” (Heb 4:16).

 Second Peter 2:4-10 also reminds us that, “… if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, … and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he preserved Noah, … then the Lord knows how to rescue the devout from trial and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who follow the flesh with its depraved desire and show contempt for lordship.”

Battles against evil have always been the Lord’s.

Consider Judah’s king, Jehoshaphat. When he received word of the multitude coming against his people, he proclaimed a fast and gathered the people to seek the Lord’s help. He prayed with his face on the ground, extolling God’s might and victories, citing how God dispossessed the inhabitants of their land and gave it forever to the descendants of Abraham who were now powerless before their enemies and in need of God’s help (2 Chr 20:1-12).

What hope they must have felt when the spirit of the Lord came upon the son of Zechariah who prophesied that “the Lord says to you: Do not fear or be dismayed at the sight of this vast multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s” (20:15).

What hope we have today as we continue to fast and pray for deliverance from enemies, humbly worshiping the One whom kings and shepherds sought in Bethlehem, the Great I Am become flesh.

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