The Dawn of Redeeming Grace

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." - Isaiah 9:2

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that whether you are home for the holidays, abroad on some adventure, or anywhere else, that you are feeling the love, joy, and peace that this day traditionally symbolizes for us as Christians.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16

Love, because although we live in a world that is separated from God, He loved us enough to send Jesus down to earth. This wasn't Jesus' vacation, as my pastor said this morning, but Jesus' mission: to act as the reconciliation between humankind and God. When we read John 3:16, we tend to wield it as the ultimate Evangelical trump card: "Perish or have eternal life, unbeliever! Bible says so!" But how appropriate this verse is for Christmastime, especially the first half! God gave us his son! That's Christmas for you. The most priceless gift ever: a gift because God gave it to us for free, priceless because there's no way we could ever work to deserve it or repay it.

"And Mary said: 'My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.'" - Luke 1:46-47

Joy at the news of Jesus' birth! This was the moment that all of creation was waiting for: the incarnation of its Creator as one of its own, a being of flesh and bone, just like the rest of us. And who isn't filled with glee at the sight of a baby? The angels definitely had something to sing about. Mary was pretty stoked, too. Everything about Jesus' birth was "good news" - which, when rendered in Middle English, becomes gospel. The knowledge of God's love for us and the salvation we acquired through his son Jesus is enough to keep us joyful even when there are no decorations, no trees, no cookies, no carolers, no presents, parties, or even people. Christmas is all about just one person: Jesus, our Savior.

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." - Luke 2:14

Peace on earth. Today, it seems both more desperately necessary and desperately futile to wish for peace. I mean, I don't think Jesus was even born on a "silent night". Probably lots of cows mooing and donkeys getting fussed up about a baby taking up room in their feeding trough. Of course, today it's hard to find silence anywhere, what with phones and TVs constantly feeding ads and music into our homes, missiles and bombs going off in a third of the world's unstable regions, people arguing, weeping, mocking, cursing; and when you want to escape it all and just withdraw into your own mind, it's hard even then to tune out the doubt, the anxiety, the pride, the distractions... in short, peace is hard to come by.

But it's so, so, so important to pursue peace, to make it manifest in our lives in the lives of everyone around us. To actively go out and create it in places or people that don't have it. It's more important now at this time of year than any other, and I'd say more important at this point in the history of the world than any other.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." - Matthew 5:9

No coincidence that Jesus is the son of God, is it? His birth was the beginning of the restoration of peace in the universe, the harbinger of shalom. But he has entrusted us, sons and daughters of God, to be peacemaker ambassadors of God's kingdom to this world. The celebration of Christmas should be a reminder for us to continue to live lives of peace, as well as lives of hope, healing, and salvation. But when Jesus was born, the message of the angels (God's messengers) to mankind was: peace on earth.

Said the king to the people everywhere, "Listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people everywhere; Listen to what I say!
The child, the child sleeping in the night,
He will bring us goodness and light,
He will bring us goodness and light."

How are you pursuing peace?
What other reminders has God placed on your heart this holiday season?

Swat Night!

Hey all! Andrew asked me to share a bit from my Swat Night testimony, so here’s a short(er) version of what I said:

I was born into a Christian family, with two ministers for parents. My uncle was the pastor of the church we went to (my grandfather was the pastor before he died), another uncle was the choir director, and my aunt was the youth director. So, growing up my four siblings and I spent most nights of the week at church. I guess it’s not surprising that I accepted Christ and was baptized at six.

Maybe more (or less?) surprising is that it actually felt pretty awful a lot of the time, being at church so often and constantly surrounded by people so involved in the church. I remember at one point when I was around 10 years old my mom putting her foot down so to speak, and saying that we had to make some changes because we were at church entirely too often, and she was worried about the effect it was having on our grades since we were out so late every night. It sounds kind of dramatic, but it was true. At this point in time my father was the minister of music of a church with well over 5,000 members and my mom worked in the discipleship office. This church was also about 45 minutes from my house. This meant that it was not unusual for us to come home around midnight.

I’ve never had serious doubts about God’s existence. What I have doubted, however, is if I’m truly accepted by Christ. I spent a large portion of my childhood fearing that I wasn’t really a Christian and that I would go to hell. I think this partially comes from the fact that I accepted Christ too young to fully understand Him, and partially from my own insecurities. When I was in eighth grade I started going to my church’s teen program and in many ways it was a life changer for me. I was suddenly thrown into a group of teens, mostly older than me, who loved God and loved to have fun. My aunt, director of youth at church, constantly commented on how we were the most special group of teenagers she’s ever worked with. My social life at this point was more dominated by my church friends than friends at school. More than that, my church life became dominated by my church friends to the point where the only joy I had in church was in hanging out. I became a social church goer. I was good at pretending I cared about God but on the inside I was mostly apathetic.

This apathy was fully cemented by my sophomore year of high school. Almost all at one time most of the people in the teen fellowship moved, many of them out of state.A few months later my family also changed churches, moving to a much larger church, with over 23,000 people, because the bishop of this church was ordaining my parents. Having no family or friends here made me care less about church than I ever had before. Church had been the center of my social life growing up and for the first time I had no friends at church to lean on, and rather began to spend more time with my school friends, most of whom were not Christians. While this wasn’t bad, it contributed to me losing interest in God.

By the time I came to college I really saw no need for God. I believed that Jesus existed, but I did not feel I needed to do anything for him or that there was any kind of personal connection. My mother told me she was worried about my spiritual life, but I just didn’t see it as important. I didn’t see the importance of joining a Christian fellowship my freshman year, so I wasn’t a part of any. I did start off the year going to church, but by the middle of my first semester I was barely attending. Church at Swat was and is frustrating to me, because it is not what I’m used to at home. At the time I did not feel I was getting anything out of it (other than a free breakfast), because my concept of church was simply as a social gathering and not as a place to learn about God. I’d grown up in a black church, and I was looking for the same kind of experience, with the same kinds of people and music.

I hit a low point the middle of my spring semester freshman year. I was having problems with my family, and had decided not to come home that summer. Partially as a reaction to this I started attending church more regularly again. Somehow, the last few weeks of school it worked out and I agreed to come home that summer. I wasn’t ready to go immediately home though, and my friend Sonja had been bugging me for weeks about coming to this thing called Chapter Camp. I didn’t really know what it was, but I knew it would buy me an extra week away from home, so I signed up. In the process of all this turmoil I’d realized something I hadn’t thought of before: how I couldn’t separate my own beliefs from my parents’ beliefs, and I felt like I wanted to formulate my own thoughts. At Chapter Camp, for the first time, I was given the chance to discover Christ for myself. This opened up the door for me to really spend the summer exploring God, and to join two Christian fellowships when I came back to Swat.

As I reflect on my feelings about God I realize that so much of how I interact with God and how I feel about church is based on my social standing. While community is important, it’s easy to forget that God is the reason for that community. Although my relationship with God is stronger than ever, I still found myself thinking of the reason for church and Christian community being to satisfy me, rather than to glorify God. I’ve come to realize that putting God first is more than the action of me going to church and talking about Him, but it’s my mental state as well.

That's basically been my spiritual journey up to this point. I'm always happy to talk about this, or anything else, so if anyone ever wants to talk just shoot me an email!

Post-Thanksgiving Response

Hi friends, I sent Andrew an email response to his Thanksgiving posts due to my inability to be comment-length concise, and he requested that I share it with you as well. For those of you that don't know, I'm a '10er currently living in a French monastery with a Catholic-based, ecumenical, charismatic community. I'm nearing the end of a two and a half month formation in which I experienced community life and learned about the Bible, the Holy Spirit, ecumenism, Ignatian spirituality... and so on. Commence copy-and-paste of email:

We had a really good lesson a few weeks ago about Christian communities and how they work, etc., and there are a few points that might give you some room to think. So, the lesson in part was describing the difference between projects for God and projects of God. Projects for God start from our needs, move on to our plans, our organizations, and then finish with praising God. And it's not a bad thing for us to look around and assess our needs and move on from there, but sometimes we need to check ourselves and make sure that we aren't building up these great projects for God without actually asking God what He wants and how He wants to accomplish it. So yeah, we're God's workers, but it's important to remember that it's God's work first. If it's been coming from human sources only, even if you're doing it for God, it's bound to founder. (note: this teaching is based on Mt 7, 21-27)

But as you describe it, it doesn't sound like the work on campus is foundering. It sounds like it's not progressing as quickly as you see it in Acts. You have a good point in saying that we have the same Spirit as the disciples in Acts; the question is, are you inviting the Holy Spirit, personally and as a group, to come and work? A lot of songs about the Holy Spirit are songs of invitation (the only one in English I can think of right now is "Holy Spirit, come with your fire") and if you look in Acts 4, 23-31, very soon after Pentecost, the disciples pray again and are filled even more with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't come once and it's finished, we've received all we can hold; if even the first disciples received a fresh infusion of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, then surely we too have a constant need to receive the Holy Spirit more deeply and more fully. God the good Father gives his Holy Spirit to those who ask of Him, but it's important that we ask, and ask often!

And then I'd also like to leave you with Luke 17, 7-10: "Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat? Won't he rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink'? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' " My question for you would be why it is that are not satisfied with the fruits you do see on campus. Is God asking you to do more and you're ignoring His call for other things? Are you looking for signs that what you have done was a success so that you can feel good? It could be good to take some time to discern why you're feeling so frustrated. I'd encourage you to pray, and in the beginning of your prayer, ask for the grace to know whether or not you're following His will, and you can even pray that your time of pray be aligned with His will, that He conform your intentions and your heart to His.

Yeah, so that's all over the place and not everything I want to say but it takes me forever to type on these silly keyboards! I'm trying to be encouraging, sorry if it didn't work very well. Pray, rest in the silence, take a passage from a Gospel and repeat a word or phrase that touches you slowly, allowing the Holy Spirit to engrave it in your heart, and seriously, seriously renounce any feelings of pride or perfectionism that might be driving you. If it feels like you're trying really hard and seeing no results, that means you're trying too hard. It shouldn't be you doing the work, and don't ever let anyone tell you any differently (including and especially yourself).


That's all from the email! Don't be a stranger if you have any questions or disagreements or clarifications.