Only Jesus

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”  Luke 2:11 

 The funerals started a few days ago—the burials of twenty precious children in Connecticut whose lives were cruelly and brutally terminated by the terror of evil.  Families weep in anguish.  Our nation reels in horror.  The questions of Why?, How?, and Who could have? tumble over each other in a mixture of disbelief and dismay.  Brace yourself for the honest and hard answers. Why?  Because “the heart of man is desperately wicked”(Jeremiah 17:9) and because “there is none righteous, no not one”(Rom 3:10 ).  How?  With unflinching precision and determination when a person believes the prevalent lie in our culture that we are creatures evolved by chance.  If such is so, life has no value, eternal accountability for actions is non-existent, and people are free to do as they please.  And who could have pulled that trigger over and over and over? Any of us.  All of us.  But for the grace of God, the darkness and death of our hearts (Eph 2;1, 5:8) could easily defy the restraints of a civil culture and the evil would happen at our hands. 

Friday’s tragic shooting shows the undeniable truth—left to ourselves, mankind is hopeless, helpless, and horrible.  We need a Savior.  And He came at Christmas. “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you”(Luke 2:11).  Jesus didn’t come to boost our egos.  He didn’t come to help our self-esteem.  He didn’t come to make sure we are healthy, happy, and living in a house with a two-car garage.  Jesus came because we are doomed, damned, and “dead in our transgressions and sins”(Eph 2:1).  He came because of the sin that showed up in a bloody carnage at an elementary school.  He came because families and friends are filled with gut-wrenching grief.  He came because we need saving, and only He is our Savior.

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord”(Luke 2:11).  There is no one else.  The karma of Hinduism and Buddhism is cruel and heartless.  The Allah of Islam is detached and fatalistic.  The crucified and resurrected Jesus is the only comfort for parents staring at the never-to-be opened presents under the tree.  The righteous Jesus who loves justice and extends grace is the only hope for hurting husbands and boyfriends burying the ladies they love.  A sovereign God of unlimited power and unfailing love who was willing to step into our pain and take our punishment and to provide a way for us to be rescued from a for-sure forever without Him is the only answer to our anguished questions and desperate pleas. 

This past Friday doesn’t make sense this side of eternity, but because a Savior has been born, we can be sure that one day it will.  The “good news of great joy”  means the most when we are crushed and crying.  Though evil wrecks havoc and horror in its dying throes, sin will not have the final word.  Our Savior has come, and He is victorious.