The Christmas Murder

As we decorate our homes for Christmas, hanging up lights, and setting up nativity scenes, our minds often rove over the territory of former Christmases.  So many of them merge in my mind's eye into cherished times of family togetherness, plum pudding, thousand piece puzzles, skating by moonlight, and delight in gifts given or received.  

But woven in and out through the warp and woof of the years stands a Christmas memory here and there, like a stranger out in the darkness looking in at Christmas Joy.  Zooming in on those various strangers in the dark, I found that each had its own distinctive pain, longing, or disappointment.

One such dark stranger lurking in my mind's memory was "The Christmas Murder".  I was a young adolescent that particular Christmas but learning that the world wasn't all like a Currier and Ives' drawing.  How was I to handle the news of the murder on the Platte River that one wintry Wyoming December?

North Platte River near Douglas, WY

She was the niece of a missionary doctor my family knew well.  They lived in our area of Wyoming.  She was in high school, attractive, full of life and anticipation.  But on one fatal morning in December, she was found face-down in the icy flow of the North Platte River well out of town.  It was obvious foul play.  Instead of peace on earth for a small Wyoming community, it was the pale of death cast around the edges of holiday gatherings.  To this day, her death remains one of Wyoming's unsolved mysteries.  

North Platte River near Douglas, WY

Wow, her death hit me like a thunderbolt.  I had just recently been in her home a few weeks before this tragedy.  So many aspects of it needed to be mulled over.  Pondered.  Here I was, preparing to celebrate the birth of the Son of God.  Now, disrupting life to the core, I found myself grieving the death of one of His innocent creatures.  

This tragedy propelled the brevity and vulnerability of life to the forefront of my life.  It nurtured a new longing, a yearning for a place where only goodness dwells.  Where all is total peace and joy and love.  And down through the years, as the pages of Christmas after Christmas are turned, the events of life have continued to feed that longing with intensity!

Now I realize with greater appreciation what Christmas is all about. The truth is that peace and joy and love have pierced our dark world with the blazing light of the Son of God.  All the tangled and torn threads of this earthly existence are destined for resolution.  All the questions.  All the "why's".  There will be eventual dispelling of the mysteries.  The fact is that the greatest Christmas celebration still lies ahead.  All that was intended for our rescue from darkness and sin, for our adoption into God's family through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, will be fully and joyously realized then!!  The wraps will be all off!!  We'll be Home for the Holy Days!  At last!!!

Live bravely and beautifully!