November 22, 1963
It was a day you just don't forget. It was the day after my 5th birthday. I was playing with a toy car that I'd gotten as a birthday gift the previous day. I was racing it down the hallway of the house my family had just moved into not long before; just having a 5 year old day.... Then my mom told me to come and sit on the couch and she'd watch cartoons with me until my brother Jim got home from school.  But there were no cartoons.... only news reports. The late Frank Reynolds from ABC News was on. He was talking about the President being shot and probably dead... I remember my mother crying as she sat there watching. Overwhelming sadness.... then the sad announcement that President Kennedy was dead. If you were old enough to remember it, you remember where you were and what you were doing. Chances are real good that you will remember exactly what you were doing September 11, 2001. ... Memories of events like this just don't fade.
Something much more monumental and tragic and yet beautiful happened on a Roman cross 2,000 years ago, yet so often times we don't remember.. why is that? Because when we remember that it forces us to remember why the event took place to begin with... Our sin- Christ died on the cross for us. He took the sin that should have caused us to die on that cross and bore it himself . 1 Peter 2:24 tells us that Christ bore our sins in His body on the tree (cross)...
The death of a President is a monumental thing for sure - but how much more monumental that the King of the universe would die for His subjects? The tragedy of the asassination of a President or planes killing thousands of people are unspeakable. But the death of Christ is MORE unspeakable. As much as it is unpleasant to think about, the president killed and the people killed in those planes and towers, were sinful people. They were not innocent. However, they certainly didn't deserve dying at the hands of fellow sinful people. But they and we deserve to die at the hands of a Righteous God who instead of killing us, killed His son. He died in our place! Let's remember and yet rejoice!