Bloodshed on Christmas Day. It's happening, even if we can't see it.
Today, we may wake up to open presents and eat immoral amounts of food.
Oh, United States of America! You are blessed beyond measure and you don’t even know it! Your economics aren’t perfect. Your government is going through a rough change. You’re worried about employment and immigration…Yet most of your people can still get up, go to school or work, and have rest at night. Your skies are clear of artillery. Your ground is clear of land mines. Your women aren’t in perpetual fear of rape. Your children still play in parks. Shootings still make headlines because they’re not daily occurrences.
Will Aleppo continue to make headlines? Or will it fade into the woodwork? Like so many other cities and countries?
On Christmas Day, much of the world cries. Syria suffers another day of bombing and death. Mexico and Latin America drags itself through another day of drug cartel violence. Vietnam suffers the loss of thousands of children’s innocence in its tremendous sex trade. North Korea and China lose another day’s worth of people to starvation.
I don’t want to ruin your Christmas. But I don’t want you to forget what goes on beyond our borders either. I don’t want to forget. I want to feel for people. They’re not their people or your people or my people. They’re just people.
Don't feel guilty about what you have or about what goes on elsewhere. Instead, be truly grateful for what you have, and let it remind you to pray.
Jesus didn’t let himself forget anyone. He came because of the pain the world. And he didn't distinguish among people. Samaritans, Zealots, Pharisees, Prostitutes, Criminals, Children- they were all the same to him. He felt for all of them, never forgetting a single one. He came because of them.
We may not be able to go out among the hurting in Aleppo and the rest of the world. But we can choose to remember them and to pray.
Isn’t it appropriate for us to do it on His birthday?
