The Reason For The Season

 

A man once asked me “if your friend were killed with a pistol would you wear a little pistol around your neck or would it be offensive to you?” It’s a good question, to be fair, and the answer is pretty simple…

It depends.

This raises the question, “What would this depend on?”

The circumstances surrounding the event.

Lets try a clumsy analogy. Say a child was walking home from a late movie with his parents and both were taken from me by a man with a gun, he might harbor a deep resentment towards the object used to take them from him.

That’s understandable, right? But let’s try to imagine a similar circumstance in a different light.

Suppose the same tool is used to take the same parents from a child but with an additional piece of information… the boy notices his father making the conscious decision to take the bullet destined for the child. The bullet meant for the child is taken by the father, willingly, purposefully, and the child see’s it.

That which was meant for evil is now a backdrop for the radiant light of his father’s sacrifice.

Is the gun used just a gun anymore? Is the bullet still a painful reminder of something which cut deep? Yes, certainly, but its more than that with the right perspective. It is a somber sobering reminder that someone loved him enough to be cut down by death for his good.

Let’s add another detail. The child is horrible. The depth of his depravity knows no end. Every act of love towards him is taken for granted as if he is owed it by virtue of his existence. The food in his belly and roof over his head are OWED, not gifted.

Second scenario, the boy see’s the brilliant display of love and for the first time in his life realizes his father loves him with a depth that makes his depravity seem like a mud puddle compared to an ocean.

What do you suppose the effect would be?

It’s like a freight train. If you don’t get hit by it you might feel the wind but you aren’t changed, however, if you are in its path you are forever changed. Nobody walks away from that the same.

Do you see why we treasure the cross now? Something so horrific they had to invent a new word for the level of torment it inflicted is now, for some crazy reason, an icon of Christian hope. It is something to fix our eyes upon. Its horror reflects our horrific state, the same state that the Good God of all creation saw us in, and STILL chose to save us in.

Christianity, REAL Christianity, is not for good people. It is for wretches. Good men don’t need a savior. Christ didn’t come for the righteous, HE came to save hopeless, spoiled, rotten, people who take the very air they are gifted as something owed to them. And by them I mean US.

I’ll tell you something else for free. Another reason why we look to the Cross is because our savior is not a dead man hanging from it. We don’t even have a tomb to go visit. We have no bones to enshrine. We have no means by which to leave flowers at the foot of a grave because the one who came into this world as a helpless newborn is the perfect, sinless, Creator God who patiently waits for all of us to be gathered from ALL nations so that when (not if) He returns every person clinging to that old rugged cross, trusting in the God man Jesus Christ’s work will bask in His glorious presence amidst a restored, perfect creation where the face of God is our sun and tears have no place and death is no more.

If you want to know why I emphatically declare that you need Christ it’s because I want the absolute best for you. Do not be satisfied with shallow pursuits of the flesh which cannot fill that gaping vacuous eternity shaped hole in your soul. Seek Christ and you will have Him for His name is the only one under heaven by which a man will ever see the face of God and live.

Christ is Lord.
Seek Him while your heart beats. 

It’s your choice. You can have infinite pleasure OR sin. 

Not both.