Note: This article was written for FaithVine.com to answer a direct question in their article contest: “What makes a Christian different from anybody else?”
Hope Has Entered The Room: What Makes A Christian Different From Anybody Else Dan Wilt
As I looked into his bitter, tear-filled eyes, I could see the pain of a mother who was a crack addict, a father whose face he never knew, a sister who was prostituting herself on the streets of the city, and an uncle who had committed suicide just the week before. This young, wild-eyed male was set on a vicious course of anger, hatred and fear, and I was the only person standing in his way. As a counselor of juvenile offenders, my task would be great: to subversively love in a system that demanded my faith be relegated to a church building, and to communicate to this battered soul that hope had entered the room.
God Inside
I’d always been aware that I was spiritually sensitive person, as far back as I can remember. On the playground at age six, a friend from a pain-filled home asked me why I seemed so “peaceful” to be around. I vividly remember my squeaky-voiced, confident response, “That’s because I have God inside me, David. You’re seeing him. You need God.”
Strange. Up to that point, my kindergarten mind had only been filled with hazy spiritual ideas I gleaned from a nominal Methodist church we attended as a family. There was that Sunday school teacher, with her pack of frayed flannel images, carefully spelling out Bible stories to us on the dirty fuzz board, week after endless week. My parents were beautiful people, but we never spoke like this at home, at least not that I can remember.
Years later, in my teens, I read the Genesis story of creation. The ancient narrative suggested that human beings were made in the imago Dei, the “image of God.” I remember having a strong, visceral response to that idea. My heart filled with possibility. I began to reflect this idea into the whole display of human activity my young life had experienced – every hug, every divorce, every celebration, every war. The imago Dei made sense of the beauty I saw in other human eyes day in and day out. And yet, what about the pain? What about the horror?
The story led me to a garden. A falling. A breaking. The newspaper began to make more sense; a mix of both beauty and brokenness was at play here. I couldn’t buy the other origin stories: random cosmic soup creations, creatures tied to an impersonal mother nature or father science, self-actualizing demigods, servants of an autocratic divinity, worshippers of myriad gods and goddesses whose images sat on shelves. No other story was making sense to me of the whole picture.
Something Is Right, Something Is Wrong
Something was very right about you, me and the world. But this truth had it’s paradox. Something was very wrong in an otherwise beautiful system. Greed, envy, arrogance, pride, fear and horror unimaginable could flow out of the same creatures who the Scripture called vice-regents of the created order. This garden was filled with pain – the same pain I saw in the young hispanic man’s eyes that day in the home.
Human beings are beautiful, and broken. We are a part of a human family, no matter our belief system. To love a human being, is to love a bearer of God’s image. To destroy a human being, by bitterness, by murder, or by economic indulgence, is to steal away an image bearer from the face of the planet. You and I are human. In this, we are all the same, and Genesis suggests we should therefore treat one another with the highest dignity.
And yet, what about the pain? What about the fall? What about the reality that as of tomorrow my circumstances could call out me the type of person you would ask your children to avoid?
To this blemishing, this marring of the world, the Scripture again spoke. Human beings turned away from their source of identity, and in the turning, the image within was shattered. A series of pursuits then began, spanning the course of human history. Covenant after covenant invited us back into intimacy with our creator. Finally, “at the fullness of time,” the Scripture says, the new Adam stepped onto the soil of earth.
A New Way Of Being Human
The new Adam did not turn away. The new Adam taught the way of being human to we who had lost our memory of the garden. The new Adam wiped away the prostitute’s tears, challenged the rigid religiosity of the churched, and declared love to be the epicenter of the human story. On a cross, in the middle of an ancient, tiny oppressed nation, a new covenant or relationship was established. The promise if we would enter this relationship, this renewing covenant of love? The end of death – death of heart, death of body. The beginning of new creation – new creation of heart, new creation of the cosmos. Hope had entered the room.
And now, I was the ambassador of that Hope to this young man. It had been years since I had embraced the Hope that was changing me daily. My belief in the Holy Spirit, the comforter and shaper of the soul, had grown through experience after experience of God finding lost things, fixing broken things and loving the unlovable – in me and around me.
Burrowing my gaze deeply into the eyes of my wild young friend, I spoke these words.
“It’s time. It all can change. Anything can happen. Now is the time for it to happen. You can be healed. You can live another life. You can meet with God.”
Stunned, he asked me a question that had a ring of familiarity. “You have problems in your life, too. Why do you seem so peaceful?” Instantly, I was back on the playground as a six-year old. “Because I have God inside me. You’re seeing Him. You need God.” With tears, and prayers resting on the Hope of redemption, resurrection, new creation, transformation, healing, deliverance, comfort and salvation, we prayed to the God who was now his own.
What Makes A Christian Different From Anybody Else?
What makes a Christian different than anyone else? On one level, I don’t know. As of today I woke up human, as usual. I didn’t feel more powerful, or more wise, than anyone else I know. My superpowers don’t seem to work; mornings are my kryptonite.
I did, however, wake up again with a Story rumbling in my heart, a Hope stirring in my soul, and an Expectation that the world will be set to rights one, bright day. That Story enabled me to look into a young man’s eyes, and promise more than even years of counseling, a good funeral for his uncle, and a social justice project that might get his sister off the streets. I could promise him the presence of a God who loves him, through any and all circumstances, as he moved forward in life as he knew it.
The ability to promise hope from the basis of historic and personal experience, the ability to tell a living Story that both reveals corruption and invites redemption into the world’s systems or a young man’s heart, the ability to wake up each morning raised from the dead and embracing the vocation of raising others from the dead – this is what makes a Christian different from anybody else.
Friday December 28th 2007, 12:12 pm
Filed under: Brainwaves
Out of creative interest, this guy doesn’t play either the drums or the piano, but made this little piece with the music in his head, the skills in his hands, and the passion in his heart.
The next time someone says, “You can’t…” show them this.
Celebrant: The fire of heaven has taken on flesh. Community:Living God, You are the Wonderful Counselor.
Celebrant: The voice of stars and suns is now audible to our ears. Community:Living God, You are the Mighty God.
Celebrant: The love that binds all the cosmos has revealed Himself. Community:Living God, You are the Everlasting Father.
Celebrant: The Son of God has walked the sojourn of earth. Community: Living God, You are the Prince of Peace.
Celebrant: Now we live, to share Your flame of hope. Community:Living God, let the flame of transforming hope light our days.
Celebrant:Now we live to hear Your voice. Community:Living God, let the voice of enduring truth guide our lives.
Celebrant: Now we live, to give Your love. Community:Living God, let the love that heals the world move our hands.
Celebrant: Now we worship You, Jesus, Son of God. Community:Living God, let our worship rise from lives surrendered to Your will.
ALL:Emmanuel, God with us, today you reign supreme over all things. All things began in You, and all things find their completion in You. The dawn of Your new creation has come, the days of Your redemption are upon us, and the hope of life forever calls us forward. With you, by Your Spirit, we will live the life of love.
We celebrate that for all time to come, for all generations and in all places in this universe, You are the resurrection. You are the life. All who believe in You, will never die. Amen.
(Scriptures referenced: Isaiah 9:6, Colossians 1:15-20, John 11:25)
Boots rustle in the foyer. Coats are slowly lifted off of hooks; scarves and gloves are extracted from baskets designating each owner’s name. There is a hush in the room. Eyes dart back and forth, hearts race in various states of nervousness, unbelief, courage, fear and adventure-inspired ecstasy.
Someone in the room is the True Believer. The True Believer holds that the mission, though treacherous, can be accomplished. Others are not so sure, silent participants in a game they believe may end in failure – and the demise of a family’s holiday happiness. Still others are literally forced to weather the elements ahead to accomplish a singular goal, an ultimate mission.
Yes, it is the yearly Quest for the Perfect Christmas Tree.
Some think the Perfect Christmas Tree is the stuff of fairy tales and legends. But for the True Believer, she knows the Perfect Christmas Tree is out there, waiting, yearning to be brought into the greenhouse warmth of our home. Each year, tradition has it the Perfect Christmas Tree is mysteriously born again, waiting in the fields of a tree farm or forest (or someone’s backyard — should they be privileged enough to play host to this divine gift), waiting to be paid homage with the stroke of a saw blade and a decorating frenzy.
This year, as always, the expectation is high in the True Believer. The Compliant Spouse now enters the scene, and is preparing to embark on the Quest, primarily commissioned to gather the Unwitting Hordes to follow in a pack in support of the True Believer. Through varied terrain, a sea of evergreens, and only the faint hope of a steaming cup of hot chocolate waiting on the other side, the small pack of trained tree assassins make their way to the mini-van.
Christmas carols fill the air as the Compliant Spouse seeks to distract the Unwitting Hordes and the True Believer (as if this was possible), with the real meaning of the season. However, there is a palpable tension in the air. The elusive goal is an either/or proposition. To find the Perfect Christmas Tree will bring immediate and great joy to the True Believer, moderate amusement to the Compliant Spouse, and a brainwashing enchantment to the Unwitting Hordes.
To not find the Perfect Christmas Tree will beg the severest of consequences — the veiled disappointment rippling through the entire team, from which the weakest may never recover. The Quest is a watershed moment frozen in time.
We arrive at the chosen venue (surely the True Believer has been watching the alignment of the stars, and that is why we return to the same tree farm every year), and stumble out of the van. The yearly Wagon Ride at the tree farm is festive, but not engaging enough to mute the underlying voices in our minds. The voices sound strikingly like that of the True Believer. “We must find the Perfect Christmas Tree,” the voices chant. “Failure is not an option,” they burrow into our psyche.
When the wagon stops, the hidden voices dissipate, and we disembark with deep breaths and scanning eyes. We are mobilized, and the True Believer makes silent gestures in various directions (so as not to alert others), toward which the Unwitting Hordes scatter. We must be the first to find the Perfect Christmas Tree — and there are others in the field. We smile at them, but deep down we know that they are our Christmas Adversaries.
Over the next few hours (ed. Note: literal time, not figurative story-telling time), shouts emanate from different parts of the Field. “I found it, this is the best one ever!” cries a twelve-year old voice. “No, mine is waaaayyyyy better,” comes the retort of a ten-year old. “Daddy, taste this snowball,” is mumbled by an experimenting seven-year old.
We’re not finding the Perfect Christmas Tree, for all of our efforts, and the Compliant Spouse is beginning to worry whether or not the True Believer will ever make it back from this perilous journey. The concern is not for her physical return, but rather for her spiritual and emotional return. Each year at this time, the stakes are high.
The continued search is filled with the traditional events we distract our increasing “can’t-find-the-darn-tree” pain with yearly. The Father-Initiated-Snowball-Fight event always has its takers, as the evergreens provide the best deflection for the nasty white orbs. The ever-popular Snow-Tackling-Frenzy is slowly becoming a favorite, at least until someone gets the fluffy, fat rain down their shirt and never wants to play again. But then there is the annual Foot-Dragging-and-Whining-Spectacle. Oh, the humanity. The Unwitting Hordes have honed this piece down to an artful science, saving their best creative energies for last. Even Unwitting Hordes from other tribes listen to my own batch’s mournful wails, and seek to mimic them in sheer admiration.
All these events, however, are simply pre-cursors to the traditional pinnacle of the Quest’s activities: the annual Walk-To-The-Pre-Cut-Tree-Lot event. We never expect the moment to come, at least we can’t voice the expectation in the presence of the True Believer, but it inevitably does.
As we walk toward this unhappy section of the tree farm, Happy Families who have found their own replicas of the Perfect Christmas Tree giggle and laugh, never thinking for a moment that their frivolity only deepens our pain. For those who appreciate Scotch Pine, their sub-quest is all the easier. For we (the True Believer speaks for us all) who will only settle for the Perfect Christmas Tree, which is always a Fir, the search is more of a martyr’s path, and we (the True Believer speaks again for us all) gladly take the less-trodden road.
Out of pity, compassion or sheer amusement, my friend at the Pre-Cut Tree Lot area is always willing to give us a deal on one of the few remaining “winners” left. We find A Tree, which is not the Perfect Christmas Tree, but rather A Tree, and decide to give it a home, in our home.
Re-entry back into the mini-van is a mixture of celebration (the sugar high from the hot chocolate), and re-assuring speeches (the rationalization high from the failed quest) on the usefulness of the acquired tree given by the True Believer. These speeches, of course, are given with the full and unadulterated support of the Compliant Spouse.
Debriefing sessions ensue, usually directed toward the Unwitting Hordes, and their disappointments that “their tree wasn’t picked” (as if anyone could ever take personal ownership of the high and mighty Perfect Christmas Tree).
When we arrive home, a few more events take the edge off of our failed search. The annual Spin-The-Tree-Until-The-Right-Side-Is-Facing-Out event is an opportunity both for the venting of squelched anger, and the airing of general grievances. The Egg-Nog-Spill-Contest always takes place during the oohs and ahhs of decorating the tree. The annual Mommy-Doesn’t-Want-that-Ornament-Hung-There-Because-She-Inwardly-Hates-It-But-Feels-Obligated-to-Hang-It event always stirs up deep feelings of Christmas tradition.
Finally, the children make their way to bed, with visions of Perfect Christmas Trees dancing in their heads. “The tree looks great now, Hon,” the Compliant Spouse offers to genuinely affirm, and soothe the disappointment of the True Believer. With a look, a lean and a kiss, the True Believer offers these words of affection back:
“Thanks for doing this again this year, Hon. You were a real trooper. Next year, we’ll find the Perfect Christmas Tree; next year we’ll find It.” A tender kiss on the cheek, under plastic flora reminiscent of mistletoe, ends the evening. And yet, a spark has been ignited, a chain reaction begun that is unsettling and unfamiliar to The Compliant Spouse.
He cannot sleep for the rest of the night. It seems a metamorphosis has begun that will keep the tradition alive in a genetic thread that may last centuries, even millennia, or more. This year’s True Believer, with the humble seed of a kiss, has passed on the mantle. A new True Believer is born, awaiting next year’s Christmas Quest to reveal himself.
But, for this night, dreams of the Perfect Christmas Tree will wait to be fulfilled until next winter’s drifts give way to the feet of the questing once again.
Sunday December 23rd 2007, 7:18 am
Filed under: Brainwaves
“The fire has become flesh…” one writer said. Merry Christmas friends, and I trust you and your family are having a wonderful season together. As Paul was eager to do, enjoy your festivity, and also remember the poor. If the incarnation is about anything, it is about the needy, you and I, receiving what we most need.
I wrote this little thought on “time” the other day as a little article to our friends connected to www.WorshipMusic.com. I leave it with you as an Advent/Christmas thought, to possible bring some guidance to your year’s worship planning.
Time: A Sacred Ingredient In Worship
Dan Wilt
“It’s time for worship,” today’s church goer says. Time. What an interesting idea.
Time, according to the dictionary, is a way that human beings measure the change that happens all around us, and the connection of events to others - seasons, age, events, stories, generations. Time is a vital biblical idea, and for 2000 + years the faithful have regarded “time” as an essential an ingredient in our worship - as important as the songs we sing or the stories we tell.
What do I mean by this - that time is an essential, sacred ingredient in worship?
Well, if we use “time” to season our worship meal, we will begin to recognize that certain seasons in the Church’s story are celebrated just once a year, and we will creatively prepare for them each time they come around. Just as time comes and goes in our daily lives, so too we should use time to make memories, highlight important ideas and create a sense of expectation in the hearts of those in our worshiping community.
Let’s take Advent (from adventus, meaning “the coming”) for example. According to the historic Church calendar (a worship ingredient), this season is the beginning of the Church year. Advent anticipates what theologians call “the Christ event” (the incarnation). The Advent season itself is like a song, is a picture, a worship reflection, about the human longing for deliverance that led up to the first Christmas morning.
In our family and church, we make a big deal out of Advent. Music, candles, stories and events all play a part in causing us to yearly remember important truths we may have forgotten along the journey of life.
In this “time” of Advent and Christmas, recognize as a worshiper that your entire year, your every moment, is about to be guided by this amazing reality: God, in time, has acted. Your year can now begin fresh and God can redeem anything that happens, because Christ has come. The incarnation is transforming your world and mine. As Paul says in Colossians 1, “…In everything, he has supremacy.”
Welcome to the beginning of our year, to the reality that God acts in our everyday moments, and welcome again to the Christ event that changes… everything.
University Level Study and Certificate (St. Stephen’s University)
Study Retreat Optimally Designed For Creative Leaders
Roundtable Discussion with Scholars
Spiritual Theology & Personal Formation
Trinitarian Worship
Biblical Worship Theology
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Essential Worship And Church History
Contemporary Worship Leaders From Various Denominations
Studies In Community
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Ancient And Historic Worship Forms
Community Learning (3 Voice Learning)
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Beauty of Dominion Hill Centre in New Brunswick
Live teaching with Dan Wilt, M.Min.; Peter Fitch, D.Min.; Gregg Finley, PhD; Spiritual Director Lorna Jones; Peter Davids, PhD, and others, along with Institute video training offered by N.T. Wright, Matt Redman, John Eldredge, Brian Doerksen and others. Special guests to be announced.
Study Bonhoeffer, Athanasius, Lewis and others side by side with other creative leaders in our unique, small size, roundtable learning forum. Some reading to do ahead of time, so apply early.
Course Fee And Schedule: Please note that this is a roundtable university course, not a church conference or seminar.
Students spend approximately 6-8 hours per week day (approx. 60-80 hours over the intensive) in study, reading or course session, but in a relaxing an informal atmosphere. In addition, some reading (approx. 3-4 books and some articles) beforehand is required, in books ranging across topics and the history of the church.
Our course fee is $2700 CDN (certificate fee, tuition, room and board at Dominion Hill, trainers and transportation while at the event).
Churches are asked to support their worship leader in attending this course.
Reviews can be found here. Some of today’s most influential worship leaders have attended our coursework, and are a part of our Institute community: Reviews.
Deepen as a worship influencer; infuse your creativity with fresh life. Spots are open; join us this year!
FOUND ON CHRISTMAS MORNING
Dan Wilt
Delivered at the St. Stephen’s University Christmas Banquet, December 2007
I’ve been asked to give a brief devotional tonight, particularly related to Christmas, and even more specifically to your time away over the holidays.
I recalled a Christmas memory that serves as the foundation for what I’ll share in the next few minutes. The memory pertains to a particular Christmas day that stands out among the 42 Christmases I’ve experienced thus far.
Santa, We Have A Problem
I was about seven years old, as I recall, and at a typical, early December dinnertime, my parents announced to us our Christmas holiday would be spent with my grandparents in northern Pennsylvania. Now, to both adults and children, a Christmas trip, especially with grandparents involved, can mean some very rich experiences - experiences with food, relationships and gifts.
Wait. Gifts. Trip. Santa.
Dear Santa, we have a problem.
Allow me to explain my distress. Ever since I was old enough to wonder, my parents told me that Santa was real, and Santa was the one who brought the Christmas presents. I did find Santa to be a rather quirky benefactor, in that the cookies we left out on Christmas eve for him were often only partially-eaten and the glass of milk only half-emptied. I used to think, “Any right-minded adult or kid would wolf down the full feast of confections available to him in the middle of a long night of gift delivery.” Something about Santa, I decided, must not be quite right.
Santa would also occasionally leave a note of thanks for our thoughtfulness at leaving him the sugary comestibles. Even though I myself was just learning to write, I remember noticing that Santa’s scribbles looked very similar to my male parent’s handwriting. In fact, I often imagined that the smiling eyes of Santa must have looked very similar to my father’s, especially when he was playing an impish trick of some sort on his children.
Santa Knows My Address
Suffice it to say that I had learned to trust Santa. I knew sure-as-shootin’ that come Christmas morning, cookies or no cookies, our tree would have under it at least a few packages that had my name written on them (often in that same, father-esque script).
You see, Santa knew our address. I had sent it to him every year as the return address on the letter. Santa knew where we lived. Santa would be there for me, because he knew me, and I somehow knew him. We had an understanding. I write him letters, I act civil to my siblings, and he shows up in my living room with toys. As long as I lived at 242 Oak Hill Drive, Middletown, Pennsylvania, USA 17057, Santa would show, sure as snow.
But this thought began to grow over the course of our dinner in my now troubled little mind. What if Santa came to our house as usual, and we weren’t home? How would he know where we were? He didn’t visit old people, I was sure of it, and my grandparents were the very definition of the word old. I loved my grandparents, that’s for sure, but at some stage I was sure that Santa had checked his list of old people, and there they were, left out of the Christmas delivery route forever. If we were at my grandparents house, Santa would never find us.
I piped up. “Okay, Dad,” I said, “you and Mom have a way to tell Santa where we are this Christmas, right? What’s your plan? Are you going to leave a map? What are you going to do?”
The Last Christmas Ever
My father was very comforting: “Oh, he’ll know where we are, Danny. Santa always knows.” (To this day, my family still affectionately calls me Danny, even if they try to honor the fact that I’ve grown up into a Dan. When they try to say “Dan,” it feels funny on their lips and comes out “Dan…ny.”)
“How will he know?” I asked, utterly dissatisfied with the paternal answer. The word paternal, and the word patronizing, have a similar root. “He’ll know,” he said again with those flickering, smiling eyes - this time with a firmness that seemed to say “Just trust me.”
How could I trust him? Too much was at stake. What if he was wrong? What if Santa came, found an empty house, and high-tailed it out of there for good, forever, leaving nothing? If I was jilted like that, I’d never come again to that house. That would be the end.
Then it hit me. This could be the last Christmas ever! No, wait. Last Christmas would be the last Christmas. This would the Christmas after the last Christmas ever. This would a Nothing! An absolute, nada, noway, nohow Nothing! On the Best-Memories-Of-Childhood scale, it would be a zero, a zilch, an empty wasteland of unfulfilled Christmas dreams strewn across a barren, muddy tundra.
The Long Journey To Nowhere In Particular
A few weeks later, distraught, I crawled into the car for our 4,296 hour ride (this is only 2 hours in adult-time), and began our journey to No-Christmas Land. “There are barely any homes here, no real addresses,” I remember thinking as our old chevy wagon buzzed along the highway.
My grandparents lived in a humble borough called Gowen City, near the larger city of Shamokin. That area of the state is known as the “coal regions” to most Pennsylvanians, and to a distressed Christmas child is the remote, nether region of the world. While the area is quite populated, and life carries on as usual in a small American town, I could only see a landscape riddled with rundown, abandoned homes and large looming coal hills.
I remember staring out the window at the wintry hills along the trip north, nothing in front of us but a little highway rolling like a zipper over the forested inclines ahead. “Nobody lives here,” I mumbled. My only solace was the hope of seeing one of my favorite cousins, and playing with his Christmas presents. And cookies. There were always the cookies.
On Christmas Eve, we finished the night with a warm cup of hot cocoa and a few of Grandma’s hockey pucks. (Editor’s Note: The cookies were actually called Angel Cookies, and rate a whopping 10 on the “how long they have to be soaked in hot liquid before they begin to be soft” scale. My brother, sister and I swear you could’ve used them for an NHL game in a pinch. Their sister cookie, another of Grandma’s specialties, were called Michigan Rocks. You get the point.) After shuffling upstairs, I snuggled under three thick comforters with my older brother and sister in the chilly front bedroom.
“Do you think he’ll come?” my sister whispered. “No,” I said. “He’ll never find us.” My older brother chimed in with a torturous grin: “You’re right. He won’t find us… because he doesn’t exist.” I punched him, and rolled over to bury my face in the pillow.
Found On Christmas Morning
The next morning at about 5 am, with low expectations and the faintest shred of hope, I jumped out of bed and gingerly tiptoed down the hard wooden stairs of my grandparent’s home. A sharp u-turn at the bottom of the stairs would reveal either my worst nightmare, or my moment of salvation. As I spun around the corner, tethered to the banister pole at the bottom of the stairs, I saw the tree. Beneath it, presents glistened in the flashing colored lights.
“I don’t believe it,” I thought. “Santa found us. Santa knows where old people live. He knows where my grandparents live. And, he knew we’d be here. Santa looked for me, and Santa found me. Santa looks for people, and Santa finds people.” The cookies, half-gone once again, made me feel as though I had at least offered a small token of thanks to my chubby, fur-faced friend. My father later assured me, “Santa is no dummy, Danny. Santa knows where you are. Santa always knows where you are.”
The Faith Of The Pursued
Christmas is either the celebration of the most definitive event of human history, or it is nothing. Christmas cannot simply be a part of the Christian story. It simply will not bear such limitation. It is either the celebration of the redemptive incarnation of God, the pivotal event of all human history, or a it is a horrible sham.
Christmas is a declaration in a bustling world of religion, irreligion and feigned religion, that it is not primarily people who look for God, but rather it is God who looks for, and finds, people. It defies the stance of the religious pursuit. It is the faith not primarily of the seeker, but of the sought. It is the story not primarily of the finder, but of the found.
Our faith is not one in which the human being pursues God, and ascends to him when we’ve unlocked the secret worship code that opens the relationship. Your faith and mine rests on a God who descends into our reality. This is a God who pursues us and finds us - no matter where we live, no matter where we go.
This Christmas, you and I are not dealing with a God who, like an old relative, hopes you have a nice time with family or friends between terms, and that you attend a church service in the middle in order to either recall important moral ideals or nostalgically recover your childhood. We’re dealing with a God who has pursued the human race since the beginning of time, and who finds you and I no matter where go, or how far from home we stray. Jesus is God’s declaration that God pursues, and we respond.
God is seeking you, even now. Are you willing to be found, and to embrace all the encounter will mean?
Raise Your Christmas Expectations
This Christmas, expect to be pursued, and found by God. Make yourself available to the unique encounter that is waiting for you. The reality of Emmanuel, God with us, will come crashing into your soul if you’ll make space for reflection.
Reflection on what? The unique story, in all of historic human experience, that God descends into flesh and blood, pursues us, and finds us - all of us - right where we are.
Colossians 1:15-20 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
In working on the next issue of Inside Worship magazine, I came across a profound sermon from Bishop N.T. Wright of Durham. Years ago, I had the privilege of sitting in his living room at Westminster Cathedral, as he shared with my friend and I his perspectives on worship.
Here is an excerpt from his sermon, The Road To New Creation. It’s a beautiful piece of work, and thanks to www.ntwrightpages.com for providing it.
The Road To New Creation (excerpt) Bishop N.T. Wright
…If you turn Christian faith into simply the hope for pie in the sky when you die, and an escapist spirituality in the present, you turn your back on the theme which makes sense of the whole Bible, which bursts upon us in everything that Jesus the Messiah did and said, which is highlighted particularly by his resurrection from the dead.
A religion that forgets about new creation may feel some sympathy for the battered and bedraggled figure in the ditch, but its message to him will always be that though we can help him a bit, ultimately it doesn’t matter because the main thing is to escape this wicked world altogether. And that represents a tragic diminishing and distortion of what Christian faith is all about.
The God in whom we believe is the creator of the world, and he will one day put this world to rights. That solid belief is the bedrock of all Christian faith. God is not going to abolish the universe of space, time and matter; he is going to renew it, to restore it, to fill it with new joy and purpose and delight, to take from it all that has corrupted it. ‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom, and rejoice with joy and singing; the desert shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.’ The last book of the Bible ends, not with the company of the saved being taken up into heaven, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, resulting in God’s new creation, new heavens and new earth, in which everything that has been true, lovely, and of good report will be vindicated, enhanced, set free from all pain and sorrow.
God himself, it says, will wipe away all tears from all eyes. One of the great difficulties in preaching the gospel in our days is that everyone assumes that the name of the game is, ultimately, to ‘go to heaven when you die’, as though that were the last act in the drama. The hymn we’re about to sing ends like that, because that’s how most people have thought. But that’s wrong! Heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world; God will make new heavens and new earth, and give us new bodies to live and work and take delight in his new creation. And the ‘good news’ of the Christian gospel is that this new world, this new creation, has already begun: it began when Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead on Easter morning, having faced and beaten the double enemy, sin and death, that has corrupted and defaced God’s lovely creation.
Put it like this, in terms of Jesus’ spectacular story. The world, and we humans within it, are in a mess, left for dead in the ditch. The secular world walks past on one side; it hasn’t got time to worry about other people’s problems, because there’s a profit to be made and power to be grabbed. The modern religious world walks past on the other side, believing that this world doesn’t matter because we’re going to leave it fairly soon and go somewhere else. (These two, of course, reinforce one another.) But the living God has come with healing and hope in Jesus Christ, has picked up the battered and dying world, and has bound up its wounds and set it on the road to full health.
This deeply biblical theme, so well known to some other traditions (such as the Eastern Orthodox) and so completely forgotten in much of the Western world and church, makes glorious sense not only of the whole sweep of biblical thought but of the very specific and practical work on which we rightly focus this afternoon. My friends, we are here because, whether we’ve thought of it like this or not, we know in our bones that looking after Number One isn’t where it’s at; that in Jesus Christ we are called not to save ourselves from the world but to bring salvation to the world. We are here because we are committed to the pilgrim way, the way that leads to God’s new Jerusalem, and because we know that on that road there is healing: then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
Most of you know who Louie is, the founder of the Passion movement and conferences. Gathering thousands of university students across the globe, Louie is one of our most powerful communicators of biblical truth to this age group.
It’s a new year, according to the Church calendar. For those who are interested, the Lectionary (in this case, the Revised Common Lectionary) takes us through the whole of the scriptures over a 3 year period with the rest of the Church.
Advent is the beginning of the Church calendar year, and now would be a good time to connect with the readings if you or your community would like to engage with the wider streams connected with the historic Christian year.
The 3 years are noted as:
Year A (beginning 2007)
Year B (beginning 2008)
Year C (beginning 2009)
and you would traverse the whole of the scriptures if you read these daily.
Sunday December 02nd 2007, 2:00 pm
Filed under: Brainwaves
As per the post below on SimpleCarols, this happens to be my favorite carol. It’s a quick clip, low res, low volume, and all the verses, but anyhoohow…
