CHRISTMAS CROSSWORDS

                                                     CHRISTMAS CROSSWORDS

The old man sat alone in his dingy rest-home room contemplating what had just happened. He’d created a scene at the family Christmas dinner. As an unbeliever he couldn’t go along with all their ‘Jesus talk.’ Maybe the glass of wine had gone to his head, but he had told them what he really thought! He’d seen and experienced too much evil for there to be any God. And so he had been taken home early, to sit alone with his thoughts. One of his grandchildren had given him a small present. As he sat there in his misery, he tore off the wrapper: Christmas Crosswords. He let out a gasp of exasperation as he cried out, which only reminded him what had really annoyed him at the dinner table. They’d been discussing Jesus taking His first and last breaths – something to do with the Christmas sermon they had heard at church that morning. The message had been From Manger to Cross. Jesus breathed His first breath in a stable and was gently placed in a manger. He breathed His last after being nailed to a cross. ‘He did it all for the salvation of sinners’ they said. ‘Bunkum!’ and it all went downhill after that.

He loved his kids and grandkids, so, he felt the tingle of remorse enter his heart. He cracked open the little book, was it about Jesus’s seven words on the cross? Was it to do with Christmas things? He started with the easy ones. ‘Animal feeding trough.’ He wrote manger. The word stable intersected on the downward. But what was this at 3 down? The clue was cancelled. ‘Whatever can that be?’ So, he went for a couple of easier ones on the horizontal and wrote in cross and sins. ‘Yes!’ he thought, second letter ‘o’ and fifth letter ‘i’. Forgiven! Cross, sins, forgiven. His breathing became laboured. ‘I hope my family can forgive me. I’m such an old fool.’ Then he looked again at what he’d written. ‘There’s the cross. There’re my sins.’ It was then that the word forgiven came crashing home to him. ‘I am a sinner who needs forgiveness for my sins!’ He paused as his heart started racing. His breathing became erratic. He remembered that what had annoyed him most at the Christmas dinner was the conversation about Jesus on the cross. ‘Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last.’ He had joked about Jesus’s ‘cross words’ from the cross. ‘Wouldn’t you be angry too if you were nailed to a cross?’ No one laughed as he continued to mock Jesus. The reality was that he had no clue why Jesus was born, and even less of a clue what He was doing on that cross. So, like those who surrounded Christ on the cross, he mocked Him. But not now. Something had come over him. He began calling out with a loud voice…

At the funeral those who had gathered were reminded of what the nurse had heard coming from the old man’s room which had drawn her attention. ‘He was calling out these words, “Lord Jesus, save me! I’m a sinner in need of Your forgiveness! Please forgive me!” Sadly, he’d breathed his last before they had got to him. “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (1 Thess. 4:13-14). The nurse said that he had died clutching a little book to his chest, Christmas Crosswords.’ The grandson who had gifted the book asked if he could say a couple of words. ‘This was our best Christmas ever! Yes, we’re all sad that the Lord took granddad away. But that was the day he got saved. Praise God!’

Have you finished the Christmas crossword yet?

Excerpted from my Christmas with Christ book. See your local online Amazon to source a copy - Christmas with Christ : McKinlay, Neil Cullan: Amazon.com.au: Books