The Light Is Shining - Do We Get It?

It was around Easter time a number of years ago and a series of deadly tornadoes swept through eastern Alabama and western Georgia – destroying homes, businesses, and churches; tragically killing a number of people getting ready to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. I remember listening to a sermon from the late Frank Harrington, preacher of Peachtree Presbyterian Church, who noted that evil seems to especially raise its very ugly head at these special times of Christian celebration.

Here we are again as a culture, in these days of Advent leading up to the celebration of the birth of our Lord – and evil seems to have especially raised its very ugly head at this special time of Christian celebration. The headline on the front page of today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution sums up well the reality of moments like this: “Details emerge, but few answers.”

On this Sunday morning in the middle of Advent, Christians are going to church to worship God with serious questions on their hearts. It is interesting to observe how many believers I have either heard say or read a comment on Facebook that said something similar to “Lord, come quickly.” In an odd kind of way that comment reflects the reality that Advent is actually about preparing for the reappearing of our Lord. Hopefully we won’t forget our own role in preparing for the reappearing of our Lord by being the body of Christ to the world as we expand the rule of the King by expanding His kingdom!

Yet what is also true is that o this Sunday morning in the middle of Advent, lots of non-believers – some of whom want to believe – are staying home watching the news or perhaps watching anything but the news because they can’t stand to hear any more and are wondering what is with a God who allows twenty innocent little children to be murdered.

The apostle John, in the opening chapter of the fourth gospel speaks to moments like this. Two things in particular stand out to me. In John 1:5 he says, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” And then a few sentences down, in verse eleven, he says, “He came into His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” In response to our question, “why doesn’t God do something?” I think John would answer, “He has!” No desire here at all to minimize this awful, all but unspeakable tragedy – but I’m not sure solace is found is suggesting God hasn’t done anything about such evil.

If we read a little further in John, we discover “but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (1:12, 13) The “children of God” as defined here simply don’t do the kind of evil we witnessed on Friday. They simply don’t. The good news of the gospel is that God has acted, once and for all, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth in a way that enables us to renew and restore our God-intended purpose when God made the world in the first place.

Luke tells a story about a man named Simeon (Luke 2:21ff) who is described as “righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel.” In meeting the requirements of their Jewish faith, Mary and Joseph take baby Jesus to the Temple and among the people they meet is Simeon. When he sees the baby Jesus, this old, Spirit-filled man takes the baby into his arms and declares, “Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a Light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”(2:29-32)

If Simeon is right, then we are confronted with the reality that God has acted; but like those of Jesus’ own time, the “darkness has not comprehended it.” Again, children of God don’t do evil like this. A really sobering question for me is how in the world could a young man like the one who did this get to that point in his life – in an age when the church has so many resources to announce to one and all the good news that in Jesus, God has acted decisively to defeat sin and death? Equally sobering is the fact that we tend to notice the awful expressions of evil, but the pages of the same AJC that announced “but few answers,” almost daily has stories of innocent children killed by evil adults who apparently “have not comprehended” that the Light is shining in the darkness. Yet the “public clergy” in our culture, presumptuous enough to suggest that they speak on behalf of the Kingdom of God, are more interested in who gets elected president; who can or can’t get married; when, if ever is abortion permitted; and, if you live in Georgia, that earth-shattering moral issue of whether or not a convenience store can sell beer on Sunday.

Can there be any wonder that “the darkness doesn’t get it?”

Jesus had lots to say about moments like this – none more convicting than Luke 13. To people who seem to be following Him around and asking thoughtful questions about a tragic expression of evil led by Pilate where innocent blood was shed in the midst of Temple worship, Jesus said, “repent.”

Some will be quick to say that the evil world around us needs to repent. Who could argue that point? But the more thoughtful among us will reflect a little on the brutal reality that if we were more engaged in expanding the kingly rule of Jesus in this world, there would be less news like this awful tragedy and fewer stories in the daily editions of the AJC where this kind of evil happens right around the corner from us.

In that context, the word “repent” is staring me right in the eyes in this season of Advent as we prepare for the coming of our Lord.

Among the Gifts of Christmas

When any of us takes a moment to remember and reflect, chances are we can think of gifts along the way that were given to us at Christmas that impacted us in important ways. I can still remember my first (and only) electric train and an old black and white photo of my Dad helping me put it together on the living room floor on a Christmas morning long ago.

I can remember sitting in the airport in Cincinnati in the wee hours of a morning waiting to fly home for Christmas. Vicki had given me a battery operated, digital calculator that could do basic math – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It was a pretty impressive little device in 1973 – especially for a guy whose high school business classes had business machines that could multiply and divide, but to accomplish that task for a fairly simple equation, it took several minutes of some mechanical processes going on that were slow and noisy. But this little calculator – hand-held calculator – could do more complex equations instantly.

Then there is the cross-stitched version of the Greek text of Philippians 2:5 from a student secretary over thirty years ago that still hangs in a prominent place on my office wall.  On that same wall is my favorite Bonhoeffer quote in beautiful calligraphy, a gift from my oldest daughter. And I still think about that cold February Saturday morning where, as a part of a tour, I was able to walk through the dugout and on to the turf of Turner Field, thanks to a Christmas gift from my youngest daughter and her husband.

I understand that often the idea of “gift giving” becomes more “what am I going to get?” than “what can I give?” but I’m not sure all the bashing that goes on about allowing Christmas to be a time of giving to others is exactly the message the world needs to hear from believers. I also understand that sometimes the gift giving thing gets out of hand – I’ve probably been guilty of that myself. But there has to be a better way to address that problem than the blanket condemnation we hear sometimes!

What we must remember is that Among the Gifts of Christmas, is not only the rather extravagant gift of God’s becoming a human to redeem us; but also the gift of calling those who follow Jesus to live an incarnational life as the body of Christ in this world.

John (1:1-14) reminds us that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” and that “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” And Paul, writing to believers in Philippi, (Philippians 2:5-11) tells us of one who “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”

That gift – a gift described as one from which “we have all received grace upon grace” (John 1:16) – means that God would “rescue us from the power of darkness and transfer us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13,14) That transfer is so real, that Paul can say of his own life as a prisoner on behalf of Gentiles who now follow Jesus, “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Colossians 1:24)

Among the blessed gifts of Christmas – the most extravagant of the extravagant – is the reality that in God’s coming in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, He makes it possible for you and me – the body of Christ – to continue to be Jesus to the world. No mere metaphor, the idea of the church as the body of Christ is our incarnational mission to the world.

During this blessed season of Christmas, may we all proclaim a message of “grace upon grace” with the promise of rescue and transfer.