| Selection from God Came Near
From: God Came Near
By: Max Lucado
He looked around the carpentry shop. He stood for a moment in the refuge of the little room that housed so many sweet memories. He balanced the hammer in his hand. He ran his fingers across the sharp teeth of the saw. He stroked the smoothly worn wood of the sawhorse. He had come to say good-bye.
It was time for him to leave. He had heard something that made him know it was time to go. So he came out one last time to smell the sawdust and lumber.
Life was so peaceful here. Life was so...safe....
I wonder if he wanted to stay....I wonder because I know he had already read the last chapter. He knew that the feet that would step out of the safe shadow of the carpentry shop would not rest until they'd been pierced and placed on a Roman cross.
...If there was any hesitation on the part of his humanity, it was overcome by the compassion of his divinity. His divinity heard the voices....
And his divinity saw the faces....From the face of Adam to the face of the infant born somewhere in the world as you read these words, he saw them all.
And you can be sure of one thing. Among the voices that found their way into that carpentry shop in Nazareth was your voice....
And not only did he hear you, he saw you. He saw your face aglow the hour you first knew him. He saw your face in shame the hour you first fell. The same face that looked back at you from this morning's mirror, looked at him. And it was enough to kill him.
He left because of you.
He laid his security down with his hammer. He hung tranquility on the peg with his nail apron. He closed the window shutters on the sunshine of his youth and locked the door on the comfort and ease of anonymity.
Since he could bear your sins more easily than he could bear the thought of your hopelessness, he chose to leave.
It wasn't easy. Leaving the carpentry shop never has been.
__________________
Qui-Gon Jenn
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
-"Old City Bar" by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra
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