Sigh or Shine

By Not Known

Today is the second last day of 2012, and what a year it has been! I did a Google search for a listing of significant events in 2012. A cursory glance through a search result drew my attention to two words: ‘killed’ and ‘shot’. Events featuring ruthless politics, vicious wars, and massive natural calamities topped the list. I literally sighed at the end of that search. I wondered for a moment what ‘significant’ means as far as the world is concerned. If there is one thing I can say about 2012 – it has been another disastrous year! What a depressing note on the second last day of 2012. Not very encouraging, is it?

    If Google search had existed since the Fall of Adam, I am quite sure that my ancestors would have sighed the same way I did at every year-end. Human history is not any brighter then as it is dark now. Perhaps we should do away with self-consolation or self-congratulation, and get real about the true condition of life as we end another year. Then, we might realise how helplessly and hopelessly depraved humanity is, and how much we all need Jesus.

    From his birth to his death, Jesus was a “wanted” man. He was wanted by King Herod for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him (Matt 2:13). When boy Jesus escaped to Egypt, Herod ordered the blind killing of boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity (Matt 2:16). As an adult, he was closely watched by his opponents who eventually persecuted him to the cross. He was “shot dead” not by bullets, but by the curses of humanity’s sins. Sigh… what a life! I am quite sure this killing more than 2000 years ago would have topped that year’s list of significant events.

    All other so-called ‘significant’ world events in the entire human history are reasons to sigh. But the one truly significant event of Jesus’ birth and death consumed all the sighs of human history yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Our helplessness and hopelessness are written off together with all our sins when we trust in Jesus alone for eternal life.

    On this second last day of 2012, I wonder what a Google search for significant events in your life would have yielded. What words would summarise your life? Would you sigh or shine? However 2012 has been for you, Jesus has written over every day of your life with these words: FORGIVEN, HOPE-filled, SIGNIFICANT. How will you live tomorrow and in the new year?

Benson Goh