Sadness has fallen over our land since last Friday and the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut.

Over these last few days my thoughts have wandered to the days when my three sons were in kindergarten. I imagine what I would feel if this tragedy had happened to them. I know I would be full of questions: what, how, and, the biggie, why. I would want to know did my child suffer, was he scared, did he know what was happening and the danger he was in. And I would want to know where was God.

When I read the news accounts and see the photos, my sadness is overcome with numbness; numbness because of the massive amount of grief and loss parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents and neighbors are feeling. How can a parent continue in the face of such loss? There is only one way I could continue and I was reminded of it yesterday in church as one of the pastors prayed for the children, parents and community and invoked the name of Immanuel, God with us, an ancient name for Jesus.

That first Christmas 2000 years ago began months earlier with a visit from the angel Gabriel to Mary. He told her that she was going to have a baby and he would be called Immanuel which means God with us. And so God broke through into humanity and came to earth as a tiny, helpless baby. That doesn’t seem like the plan the God of the universe would devise. Surely with his power and might he could come up with something more spectacular. Nevertheless, a baby was born and he was Immanuel.

Shortly after he was born, wise men came looking for him. They tipped off King Herod that a new king had been born and they wanted to know where he was. Herod’s chief priests suggested that they try Bethlehem where the prophets had predicted the Messiah would be born. Herod, enraged by this threat to his throne, ordered that all male babies younger than two years old be killed. And so, one night soldiers rampaged through Bethlehem murdering little babies. God was with Mary and Joseph and Immanuel and they had already fled to Egypt.

Jesus Immanuel grew up just like any other child would grow. He became a man and experienced everything we experience except that he didn’t sin. He was sad and grieved when his friend Lazarus died. He experienced fear and questioned God when he was facing his own death. He felt God pull his presence away as he hung on a cross, suffering toward death. Immanuel leaned on these experiences on Friday in that school with his arms around those little children.

We ask why terrible things happen, especially when it happens to little ones as innocent as kindergarten students. We will probably never know the reason, or at least a reason that makes any sense to us. What we do know is that we live in a world tainted with sin. More than tainted. It is a world in which sin proliferates. It is a dark world. Only when God breaks through, Immanuel, is the darkness lifted and the light shines bright.

We are sad. Parents are grieving. And this is right and appropriate. Take solace in knowing that Immanuel is here. On Friday, God was with the little children and brave adults as they met death. Today God is with us. Tomorrow God will still be with us. So  through our tears we sing:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise him, all creatures below; praise him above ye heavenly hosts; praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

God is with us. May you know his presence this Christmas season as we celebrate the birth of Immanuel.