A Cap Gun For Christmas

I’m giving my son a cap gun for Christmas.  I bought it last week.  It’s a really cool one made out of metal that comes with a fake leather holster.  It’s fashioned after an old western style revolver and uses those rings of caps; eight rounds of snap-crackle-and-popping fun. 

And then this morning happened…

Teachers were teaching.  Kids were kidding…and reading and writing and laughing and playing and pushing and yelling and talking about what they want for Christmas.  And a thief was thieving; entering the sheepfold by some other means than the door.  He scratched and clawed his way over the fence.  His purpose, as is that of any thief, was to rob the sheep of their safety and solace.  He was hell bent on stealing innocence, killing life, and destroying any sense of boundary or security in the minds of those present and those watching around the country.

I, like you, wept as reports streamed in over the internet of the carnage in Connecticut.  I, like you, struggled to process, categorize, and file the emotions that bombarded my soul.  I wanted to race to my kids’ school and just hold kids and teachers, and pray for them.  Not even just my own.  I pray for my own with nearly unceasing pursuit.  No, rather, just pray for any teacher or kid I meet – I would caution the reader right now and insure the deepest measure of sensitivity from me to you and your emotions, though this is honestly what I wanted to do – like a rapid fire prayer ambush of sorts; to somehow show that this could swing the other way too. 

Then I tried to empathize by putting myself in the place of the children who filed out holding hands and crying, of the teachers who never imagined they would have to use this part of their training from teacher-in-service-days, or of the administrators who battled the spearing “could I have stopped him” question.  I tried but failed to imagine what it felt like to be a parent of a Sandy Hook Elementary School student and get a call from the local police, or to catch the news before the call.

Eventually I just had to drive, which was fine because I had some errands to run anyway.  I drove to the town opposite mine.  I returned an item to a store, stopped at the bank, and filled my car up with gas.  Probably things many people in Newtown, CT were planning to do today.  And as I was driving I thought about the cap gun my wife and I have sitting on the shelf in our closet for my son at Christmas time.  “I wonder if we should skip it for Christmas and give it to him next summer for his birthday,” I thought.  But then I was reminded of something…

I was reminded of when I was a young boy my son’s age.  I remembered getting a cap gun for Christmas or a birthday.  It was a small black revolver type with a shorter barrel, like one from a 20’s gangster movie.  It was on my hip when we played “cops and robbers” or “cowboys and Indians,” or when I pretended I was hunting for bears and wolves and stuff in our woods.  It used the same rings of caps; eight rounds of snap-crackle-and-popping fun. 

Then I remembered the delight of shopping for a cap gun for my son last week.  “Not the plastic one, that’ll break.  Not the one without a holster.  Not the one that used the strips of caps.  Nope…that one…right there.”  I remembered the flood of joy I felt and the race of pictures through my mind of Christmas morning when he would open it, jump around the room, run to grab his Woody (from Toy Story) hat and Woody doll and head outside for an adventure.  I was giddy at the checkout counter, and the guy probably noticed, but I didn’t care.  Frankly, I wanted to buy two so I had one too, but that would wait.  This one would be solely for my son.

All this while I’m driving.  On one hand I’m asking if we should give him the cap gun at all, and on the other hand I’m whelmed with remembrances of joy and excitement and anticipation to give the cap gun.  And then it hit me – a thought, that is.  The same thief that scratched and clawed his way over the fence into the sheepfold to steal, kill, and destroy, on the other side of the country was attempting the very same siege upon my joy. 

The sinful temptation after events so pierced through with evil and terror as what we saw happen this morning, whether actually near to us or near only by virtue of media, is to swing in our reaction relative to the various means of evil and terror itself.  My reaction in questioning the appropriateness of gifting my son with a cap gun is a case in point.  Another example may be to pull my kids out of school and keep them home.  Another may be to lobby for heavier security.  The examples are numerous, but each of them born from fear or death or fear of death, the very eau de toilette of the Thief himself; each of them a win for the Thief.  Indeed, not giving my son a cap gun would be a win for the Thief, who loves to steal, kill, and destroy our joy and excitement and anticipation to be blessed and bless others.  I felt it as I drove even, the joy of giving fading to a darkened fear of “what if…” 

Conversely, however – and this is truly good news – where the Bible accurately accuses the Thief of killing and stealing and destroying, in the same breath it loudly and more boldly declares Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, as One who came to give life in abundance!  Yes, each of those three things are categorical opposites of what we saw go down this morning; opposites of the pursuit of the Thief.  Jesus Christ gives (not steals) life (not death) in fully assembled abundance (not shattered destruction).  And for you and I here today, alive, with the tragedy of 27 people from Connecticut not here today, alive so immediately present in our minds and hearts, the truth about Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd generates great hope; and what a particularly apt season for such hope.  It is especially a hope that ought to turn us outward in joyful willingness to give life abundant; to pray for and serve and love those whose lives were actually and really forever changed today.

For many today the Thief stole and killed and destroyed what can never be given back, raised up or rebuilt.  We dare not diminish the far and wide effect of such an evil feat.  Yet, the Thief has only won if in it all He maneuvers in like manner with us; if we miss the farther and wider effect of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, who has given back, been raised up and is presently rebuilding unto a joy and excitement and anticipation beyond our imagination. 

And speaking of imagination…  I’m giving my son a cap gun for Christmas.  And I will pray and trust that my God in Christ Jesus will graciously allow him the imagination to play “cops and robbers” and “cowboys and Indians” and pretend he is hunting for bears and wolves and stuff in our woods like I did when I was his age.