I know a couple with a very young child undergoing treatment at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital right now. I went to visit them this morning, and I had alot of memories just being in the hospital. That’s where, for over three years, our son was treated (sometimes on a daily basis) for leukemia. It’s an amazing place of healing and restoration. And in another sense, it’s one of those few places where you can observe the lavish nature of grace living alongside the devastating nature of sin.

The children’s hospital is where you see mothers and fathers existing on little to no sleep, yet finding the energy to push a child around in a wheelchair. It’s where people volunteer their time to come and rock babies who don’t have the capacity to respond positively in anyway but sleeping. It’s where doctors and nurses try to hold it together as they give families a prognisis. It’s where friends freely bring meals, money, and gift cards to people with no expectation of a thank you note.

It’s a place where grace, in the most tangible of forms, is observable.

But if you’ve ever wondered about how far reaching and destructive the nature of sin is, then spend some time there, too. Every bald little head is a testimony to the fact that the world is absolutely broken. Babies born with defects shout with every labored breath that the world has been plunged into darkness. The constant presence of IV poles and feeding tubes show that sin isn’t just something you’re not supposed to do; it’s the condition of the world we live in.

The children’s hospital is a place where sin, in the most tangible of forms, is observable.

In this environment of sick children, we see in some small way a microcosm of the cross – the most important place where the greatness of sin and the greatness of grace meet. Surely there has never been a more devestating or glorious day in all of history. Sin and grace met in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus.

In places like the children’s hospital – places where life and death, healing and loss, pain and joy are so precariously close together – these are places that remind us of the cross. When we walk through these places, it’s right that we have a sense of the divine, for we are very close to both heaven and hell at the same time. We see grace, and we see sin. And we fall to our knees to pray for those who live there, and in thankfulness that grace has shone on us.