How Could God Do That?

    It has been so long since I had an idea for my blog, I wondered whether this year's Christmas letter had used up my few remaining brain cells, although that might have been an unnoticed, preexisting condition. For me, the last few days before Christmas are like finals week when I was in college. I am a never put off until tomorrow . . . type person, so, while my classmates were writing papers, finishing projects and cramming for tests, I was bored. Now we are in the finals week of Christmas preparation, my cards were written and mailed weeks ago, the decorations are up, the gifts are wrapped, and the cookies are baked--which may explain why my thoughts were too scattered to wrap in words. So once again, while others are busy shopping, wrapping, mailing and finishing projects for the holidays, I am bored. But the aftermath of recent tornadoes and the impending celebration of Christ's birth have scraped together enough brain residue for me to blog.

    This December, off-season tornadoes brought death and destruction to Kentucky and neighboring states, obliterating homes, and killing people from infants to elderly. Tragedies like that can cause even believers to question God. And our secular society, which usually ascribes control of the weather to Mother Nature, declares a disaster such as this tornado an act of God. Ma Nature makes a nature call, God is suddenly the one in charge, but He is a sadistic Sovereign. Natural disaster, how could God do that?

    And then there are the personal tragedies. We have had seven funerals at our church in the past year, four more than the year before, and only two related to Covid. Sympathy cards arriving with Christmas cards, how could God do that?

    But then I think of Christmas, the most unlikely scenario imaginable. A King was born in a stable, his royal birth attested by lowly shepherds. A Mighty God became a helpless infant, grew up a child of the poor, lived as other men, loved as no man can, worked miracles, died for our sins, rose to conquer death, and will someday be acknowledged as the culmination of all things. What Christmas commemorates is that Christ loved us enough to become one with us. Immanuel, how could God do that?