“Mum…” the young girl whispered, “why is there war, and people killing people, and …umm death…?” she questioned.
We were en route to school. Just a usual drive. Just one ordinary morning.
I looked at her face through the rear mirror.
She looked so angelic. So innocent, so untainted.
I sighed.
How do I even begin to explain the concept of sin, and paint its ugly reality against a canvas of soul so white, so unblemished?
Her question stopped me in my tracks. I too had been thinking about the same thing.
Yeah, tell me, how do you cope with the news of your friend’s terminal disease, think about the prospect of your own death nearing, and then hear the headlines that spin your stable world crazy, and still hope for a future in a world gone bad and busted?
I read and heard it all last week.
Barcelona had just been attacked. The Sydney boy had just been confirmed dead after days of his father’s love search for his missing son, while his wife remained unconscious through that single act of atrocity.
Our hearts bleed with the suffering, cry with the tears of our world.
“We have one hope, so strong and so deep that it reaches humanity’s most pitiful place,” I slowly found my words, my voice caught in my throat.
Maybe we all need to start our hope journey today, one single step at a time.
“The Bible gives one hope, and calls it the anchor for our soul…” I continued.
“Toss it to something firm, and you’ll always be safe. Just as a little anchor can hold a massive ship, a small faith in Christ, can hold you firm, whatever the world throws at you.”
My words were carefully chosen, more for my sake than hers.
I need a voice spoken over my soul louder than the explosions and the shooting and the burning that I hear through the air.
Later that night, I took my girl in my arm, opened the Word to her and played a scene that happened 6 hours on one Friday night.
“It wasn’t an ordinary night,” I started.
“It was blood-stained, tear-streaked, horrifying night that marked the history of our world forever. On that day, the most gruesome death occurred to a man called our Saviour. The Jewish leaders decided that he must die…They wouldn’t take him as the Messiah…insisted that he must be executed. Among them were men clad in soldiers garb, priests clothed in religion uniform, sitting on the ground jeering, mocking, sneering…
…but from a distance there was also one desperate crowd… men beating their chests, women wailing uncontrollably, their hearts broken into tiny little fragments too many to gather.
The hill looked gloomy with three battered bodies, bruised so bad they are unrecognisable. Arms spread, heads hung low, voices moaning away in screams of pain with the heavy wind…”
“Girl,” i whispered, my voice dripping slow. ” These men watched deep darkness falling over the earth...they couldn’t contain a pain so deep, a loss so overwhelming that they repeatedly beat their chests...some scenes will never leave you feeling, thinking, living the same.”
I stopped. What do we do when we see something so horrific that a part of us bleeds and dies?
What do we do with that day marked as history, and about that story of a man resurrecting from the dead?
Everything in our life hinges upon what we believe what happened that Friday night.
I brushed away the quizzical look on my daughter’s face, cupped her face in my hand and said, “If Christ had not been raised… then our faith is worth nothing…and we will die for nothing, and live for nothing.”
Now finding my own hope surfacing in my heart, I continued, “but if Christ had truly been raised from the dead….if death had come from what that one man did…and resurrection for all of us because of that one same man…If it really did happen…If God really did let His Son die for us, then the hill called Skull is filled with hope that we can safely anchor our life upon.”
I landed kisses upon her face, “Because of Christ, we have an anchor for our soul. Life is not empty and your death is not final. Our life is marked for destiny. Because of what Christ has done, you are worth more than anything the world wants you to believe.”
The night was getting late.
I rose and slowly edged towards the door. “We must see ourselves through the eyes of the Cross, through the curtain torn in two, through the Great Judge who pardons, through the precious blood dripping on that wooden cross. Our past, present and future are anchored upon our hope in Him.”
Kissing her goodnight, I lowered my head and looked at her straight in the eyes.
“Remember this my love, though our world may go insane, there is still a strong anchor for our soul in Christ…”
