Every year our family watches A Charlie Brown Christmas. The show premiered on December 9, 1965, and the most powerful scene almost didn’t make it on air. The CBS honchos were afraid a biblical declaration of the gospel coming from Linus would offend too many people. Needless to say, in 2018 the scene wouldn’t have a chance. Thankfully, every year, or any time we want via this amazing thing called the Internet, we can enjoy it’s profundity again and again:
Charlie Brown: Isn’t there anyone, who knows what Christmas is all about?!
Linus: Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights please?
8Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.9And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.10Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.11 “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.12“And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
14“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, good will toward men!”
The pastor of the church we attend recently said these words, and because I’ve been slowly reading and writing through the gospels, I found them spot on. It’s amazing to me, but not surprising, that Jesus is the most misunderstood person in history. Amazing because when you read the gospels carefully, Jesus is nothing like the popular cultural conception of him; not even close. Not surprising because the real Jesus is threatening. This is a major apologetics point to imprint on our children: the Jesus of the gospels could not be a figment of human imagination. Sinful, self-centered people don’t make this stuff up.
I was reminded while reading Luke 8 recently, that God throughout Scripture, and ultimately in Christ, is completely counter cultural to all fallen cultures. Notice in this chapter how Jesus upends cultural expectations regarding women (several are named in this chapter as his closest disciples and supporters) and family. In the ancient Greco-Roman and Jewish world women were second or third class citizens, and family and clan determined your identity, value, and worth. The two instances in this chapter, among many throughout the gospels, show how Jesus challenged these expectations throughout his ministry. And Yahweh did the same thing all throughout the history of redemption.
These words of Jesus come from what’s known as his “high priestly prayer” in John 17 where he prays before his crucifixion not only for his disciples, but for those who would believe in him through their message. That would include we who claim his name these two millennia later. Many Christians, especially Catholics, but Protestants as well, lament that there is so much division in the Church, so many differing conceptions of the meaning and doctrines of the Christian faith. Skeptics are especially fond of claiming that all the disagreement is evidence that Christianity is a bunch of hooey. But I’ve always questioned this lament of Christians, and criticism of its enemies, even more so as I get older.
One of the more frustrating things about being a Calvinist is the rampant misunderstanding about Calvin and his theology one encounters pretty much everywhere. Even among some of his followers! The old canard is the Calvinism equals determinism, but nothing could be further from the truth. Here is a definition of determinism:
Determinism, in philosophy, is the theory that all events, including moral choices, are completely determined by previously existing causes. Determinism is usually understood to preclude free will because it entails that humans cannot act otherwise than they do.
I believe most Christians go through life with a sense of low-grade guilt because they don’t really understand the gospel. The reason I say this is that I myself was this kind of Christian for many years of my adult life because I didn’t either. What changed? You’ll laugh when I tell you: God’s wrath! Yes, it was only when I discovered God’s wrath, as if for the first time after three decades of being a Christian, and a seminary graduate at that, that I finally came to understand just how good the good new is!
A God of wrath doesn’t poll well in our secular age, so it’s sadly not preached much from our pulpits. A God of love is a much easier sell, but the irony is that God’s love outside of the context of God’s wrath is meaningless. It’s easy for we sinful human beings to focus on one aspect of God’s being to the exclusion of all the others, and it’s natural to want God to accept us as we are, warts and all. The problem with “warts and all” is that the Bible calls that sin, and the wages of sin is death. Because God is just, and wrong must be paid for, he cannot overlook our sin. It’s no different than in a court of law. A judge to remain just, and in his job, must apply penalties to those who break the law. We live in a moral universe, so why would we think it should be any different with God? (more…)
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