Innocent Child

We’ve been in Minnesota for 18 days. Six more until we fly back to Florida. Forecast: cold – below zero cold.

I’m glad we were here for our grandson’s birth. Although, I wish it’d been warmer. The Minnesota kids are supposed to have babies in warm weather; like Robins in spring. They just don’t listen.

The birth of a child is a miraculous event we never want to miss. And it was so nice to see the family. But now, I’m cold and tired and ready to go.

We traded comfort and cozy to enter a cold and icy Minnesota winter; to help and witness the birth of a child.

Here we have no home.

Jesus, you did this. You left there to come here. Why?

You must have longed for the comfort of Home.

Is that why You often slipped off alone – to call Home?

Is that what caused You to rise early and stay up late?

Why would you do it?

Why leave the warmth of a love filled heaven to witness – no, more than witness, to be; the miraculous birth of a Child?

Why would you come to a world so cold?

We came for a visit to help and to witness the birth of an innocent child.

But You came for us, for me.

And I’m not innocent, at all.

How could You do it?

I held the spike.

I drove the nail.

Why would You choose to come?

Choose to die?

Why trade your innocence?

For my guilt?

So you too can be innocent. As you weathered the cold to welcome this new born child into your world ~ I did so to welcome you into Mine.

***

John 3:1-21



1 There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. 2 After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”



3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

4 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”



5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

9 “How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.



10 Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? 11 I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. 12 But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.



16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.



18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20 All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21 But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”

**