Chennai hit by worst rain in 100 years. Chennai submerged. Airport shuts down. Non-stop torrential rains ravage the southern city of Chennai.
As I read these headlines my heart sank. The first few days of December seemed like an unending nightmare. I mean this was my city in the headlines everyday. This was the city I grew up in, these were the streets where we played hide and seek and hopscotch. This was the place where I went to school and college. This was the city that was close to being completely submerged.
I had read about the Syrian refugee crisis. I knew about the ISIS situation. I had prayed for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and yet, it did not hit so close to home. The day I lost all contact with my family I panicked, the day I found out that the airport had shut down and trains were cancelled, I shuddered. There was no way I could reach my family if there was an emergency. Three streets away from my parents' house the floodwaters were rising and destroying everything in their path.
Amidst all this chaos and confusion my heart raced back to a time in history, 2000 years ago when a helpless little baby was born. When God the Father saw His beautiful world completely ravaged by the effects of sin, destroyed by death, marred by destruction and scarred by hatred. When this world that He had created and called good had gone all bad, He chose to send His one and only son to save it. That is the 'awesomeness' of Christmas! That God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son...
So often in the hustle and bustle of the season we tend to forget this. We tend to lose focus of the fact that Jesus came so that you and I can be rescued from the eternal consequences of sin, so that you and I can have life and life in abundance. Eternal life! Everlasting life!
This season in spite of the holiday madness, will you take time to step aside and reflect on Jesus? Will you bring into focus the enormity of his birth? The floods in Chennai brought things into perspective for me.
The city that was wiped out and destroyed by the flood slowly started rising up again because the common man reached out to his neighbour. But on a much larger scale God the Father, Creator of this universe reached out to mankind that we might be saved from the eternal effects of sin. And that gives me hope.
Wishing you a Christ centred Christmas and New Year!
Photo Credit: Unsplash
