I had just come in from a shopping trip to town and walked down the hallway shedding my town gear as I went.

As I walked past the television, I flicked it on to catch the morning news, half listening as I went.

The headlines staccatoed – there was a train disaster in another State, the freight driver and fireman were both dead.

My son is a freight driver in that State and the route is one he often takes. Was he the driver?

One shoe off and the other in my hand, I made the long walk back down the hall to the TV, a journey of a thousand miles.

Bad news hung in the air.

Just so, in the Garden of Eden. But what exactly was the bad news? It was simply this: God said ‘the day you eat from that tree, you are surely doomed to die.’

They ate. They were dead men walking.

I did not hear the rest of the news that morning.

Terribly composed, I picked up the phone and made the long distance call. My daughter-in-law answered.

“Is everything all right?” I asked with deadly quietness.

“Yes, Mum, yes,” she said, her own relief pulsing down the line. But we paused for those who died because when death hits one, it hits all. Nobody escapes.

Just so, when bad news looked like swamping the whole human race – all two of them, but including every one who came after them – God picked up the telephone line; ‘the Seed of the woman will crush your head, Satan.’

Yet for centuries the bad news broadcast hung in the air.

Then one night, the sky blazed. The hope of all people, the Resurrection and the Life, the Light of the World, came.

Christmas came for everyone, John 8:12.

Elizabeth Price, Team writer with Just a Minute reprice@dragnet.com.au