This is one of my favorite views in Juneau.  No matter the time of year or the weather conditions, this scene has always left me deep in thought.  Today is no different.  You see, down below, deep in the fog, is my city.  If you look closely, you may be able to make out some faint outlines of houses along the Douglas Island side of Gastineau Channel, perhaps enjoying a brief thinning of the perpetual fog of today.

It is quiet up here.  I am the only one on this mountain. A sense of awe settles over me as I gaze on the cross, standing tall and in the clear overlooking this cloudy, damp town.  It occurs to me that not just the city of Juneau has been plunged into the fog today.  The whole world seems to be in chaos and confusion.  The type of confusion that comes from not being able to see clearly.  Kind of like being in the fog,  I myself have experienced it recently.  There is so much going on lately it's hard to make sense of it all.  The little I can understand brings me a deep sadness. We live in a time of great uncertainty.  Things/people/jobs that we have been taught to count on are changing or in some cases being ripped away from us.  I have never seen a society more divided.  A cursory glance at my social media feed reveals a glimpse into the depths of the envy, strife, misunderstanding, and many times thinly veiled hatred that has permeated our society.  I mourn that part of this madness has even crept its way into my own thoughts.

There is one reason why this view brings tears to my eyes.  I have a brief moment of clarity as I realize I have forgotten the cross.

The cross lifts us above the fog.  It carries us out of the darkness below.

Down in the fog, living the day to day life is where I need to remember the cross most desperately.  The cross is the answer to the confusion, the envy, and the hate that even relatively normal people like myself can feel building inside me at times.

The cross is my verdict.

What do I mean by verdict?  Let's examine some of the reasons for all this fog.  Why am I envious of others?  Why do I argue and get defensive?   Why do I get impatient with those who are closest to me? Why am I constantly worried about my life, my job, my money?  And God forbid but why would I ever hate anyone?   It's because deep down, at some level, I know I'm not cutting it.  Oh sure, there are times where I feel like I'm accomplishing great things.  There are times I feel like I'm advancing in my skills/learning etc.  But it never lasts...there's a voice inside me that will eventually whisper "you aren't doing enough...you are failing".

I try to escape it.  I find solace in seeking out the praise and admiration of people that I know and respect.  It's great...for a while.  Some of us may also turn to increasing our influence or power.  Maybe that's why we hate.  Perhaps we just can't stand anyone else having a "leg up" on us.  So in order to be higher, it's easier for us to push others down.  I know there are times I find myself chasing the beauty of this place that I live.  There is peace and solitude here that soothes my soul. But the sad truth is that even these panoramic views that bring me such satisfaction begin to pale after a while and become normal, almost mundane.

The truth is, I think what all of us are looking for down there in the fog is for some ultimate authority to just look at us and tell us that we are good, that our work is done and it is perfect, that we are precious and valued.

The cross answers all these questions.

The cross says that our ultimate authority knows about that nagging voice inside that tells us we are not good enough.  In fact the cross confirms that this voice is true.  What horror right?  But what the cross also speaks of is an ultimate authority who:

"...though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."--Phil 2:6-8

The God from whom all of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, desperately seek approval, came down and fulfilled the verdict of that nagging inner voice.  He stepped down into the fog and took on himself my verdict.  Maybe it doesn't seem like that big of a deal...but I assure you, it's a cosmically big deal.  We all want others to take responsibility for their actions.  We want justice, for ourselves and for others. But you have to admit (at least I do) that cosmic justice may not be in my best interest.

But that's not all.  We get the verdict that should have applied to him.  This is what lifts me out of the fog!  God smiles on me.  Not because I'm special, but because, somehow, Jesus verdict gets applied to me.  The ultimate authority can now approve of me because it's not my work that counts, but Jesus.  In Jesus, I no longer need a "leg up" on anyone.  I no longer have to get defensive, what am I defending?  The work is done. Completed.  Perfect. 

I no longer have a reason to hate others.  I no longer need to fear.  I can call God my Father!  What does it look like to really live this way?  Let's read further on in Philippians, written by a man who fully embraced the cross:

"...But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith---that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

The cross lifts me out of the fog and lets me see things clearly.  I can rest, in spite of the chaos.  I can love, in spite of the hate.  Jesus calls to you as well...can you see the cross?  Spring is coming.  Can you feel it?

The Unfinished Symphony

It is winter in Alaska, and for a weather geek like myself, it's one of the most exciting times of the year.  It seems like there is always something interesting brewing out over the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean to our west.  For those of you that aren't familiar with the geography and climate of Juneau, I will fill you in. 

Juneau lies on the SE panhandle of Alaska and is along the west coast of continental North America.  It is bounded on the east by the Coast Range, a chain of mountains running north to south along the Alaskan Panhandle and western British Columbia.  To the west are several mountainous islands and various saltwater channels eventually leading out into the Gulf of Alaska.  Due to it's proximity to the ocean and it's location on the west slopes of the Coast Range, Juneau is usually in the cross hairs for many of the storms which develop in the North Pacific and track eastward.  These systems tend to track into the eastern Gulf of Alaska and then stall out and slowly die, having trouble passing over the higher mountain ranges to the east.  The result is long periods of clouds and precipitation.  In the winter, Juneau is also a battleground between cold air which tries to spill over and through mountain passes and channels from the Yukon, and relatively mild air from the west and south orgininating from the Pacific.  Snow can pile up quickly, but can also change to rain and wash away as fast as it came, leaving no trace of the winter wonderland behind, replacing it with piles of slush.

It is also a place of great physical beauty.  Wonder is everywhere.  There are mountains, fjords, and glaciers.  On clear nights you can see the Auroras to the north.  There are so many stars.  It is not uncommon to sit on a beach, with snow capped mountains in the background watching whales spout in the distance, or colonies of sea lions frolicking by the shore. People travel from all over the world here in the summer just to be close to the beauty.  Even those of us that live here will do some pretty crazy things just to experience the grandeur and the majesty of this place.  It is really indescribable and even after living here for several months, I still have to remind myself that I am not on vacation. 

It's like all of nature is in a sort of dance.  It is happening all over the world.  I think it's just more noticeable in places like SE Alaska.  Everything is moving in rhythm, teeming with life up here.  Maybe a better way to describe it is that it's more like a song.  From the atmosphere to wildlife, even in the length of the days, everything has a beat, or a harmony if you will.  The atmosphere provides rain for the plants and animals.  The plants provide oxygen for the atmosphere.  The mountains and glaciers act to store water for the lowlands below.  If you think about it closely, everything is in orbit in some sense. 

To expand things out, take even our solar system with the planets moving in step together around the sun.  Then we broaden our view and find that even our sun is moving in orbit as a part of our galaxy.  Taking an extremely wide angle look (and here is where I will stop because I am certainly not an astrophysicist and am not even going to pretend that I know how galaxies work) high powered telescopes have enabled us to see that there are countless galaxies even bigger than our own.  We could even take it down to the micro scale and look at something as simple as an atom.  Even here we find orbits, minute electrons in a dance with the protons and neutrons at the center. 

Why are we attracted to these things?  Why do I find myself almost in tears at the beauty of this place?  Why do certain songs move me, certain harmonies stir something inside me?  And yet, I find even when I get to the mountain peak, set foot on a glacier for the first time, or finish listening to that beautiful melody that there is still a sense of something missing.  It's almost depressing.  It's like I want to join in the harmony, to become a part of it, to lose myself in it.  I can get close.  Really close.  But at the end of the hike or at the final note of the song, I'm still an outsider.  Everything else is a part of the dance, but I am standing still. 

C. S. Lewis says it this way in his book "The Weight of Glory"

We do not just want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.  We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to become part of it...That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods.  They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't.  They tell us that 'beauty born of murmuring sound' will pass into human face; but it won't.  Or not yet...

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door.  We discern the  freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure.  We cannot mingle with the splendours we see.

So what is this dance of nature?  What is this mysterious harmony (although imperfect now) for which I long?  And why can I not get into it?

That story is a long one.  The longest one in the world.  It dates back to time beyond time.  The story was going on eons ago, before our world even began.  It is a story of love and tragedy, but also of hope restored. 

Once again I ask you to just play along with my thoughts for a moment.  Even if you disagree with me.  It's fun to imagine right? 

If you grew up in the Bible belt like I did, then you either sang the songs or at least heard the Sunday school lesson (who thought of the name "Sunday school" anyways...I mean we go to school Monday through Friday...wouldn't we want Sunday off?  Obviously whoever thought this up was not a fan of fun!)  about "God is love".  You would have heard it over and over again.  The same stories, the same songs.   Then if you're like me, it became rote memorization.  Then it became disillusionment when you figured out how bad the world really was...or how bad I was.   How can God be love?    To me this is all well and good and it makes for a cute Sunday school lesson until I thought about the implications of what it truly means and how it might explain many of my longings and desires. So let's examine these claims a bit more closely.

We are taught that God is a personal God and that he is love.  So who does he love? And how do we fit into the story? 

Let's assume for a moment that there is a God and that he has always existed.  Tough stretch of the mind for myself...because my mind is trapped by the concept of time.  But when I think a bit deeper, it makes sense that even time itself had to have come into existence at some point. Therefore it's logical to think that there is something (or someone) outside of time which was responsible for time.  But I digress.   Let's also assume that God has always existed in three persons, something else I was taught.  This is called the doctrine of the Trinity and I'm not sure I understand it well enough to explain anything about it.  Let's suffice it to say that it would be a bit like a two dimensional stick figure trying to explain the concept of a cube to another two dimensional stick figure.  Perhaps that's not the best illustration but it's the best I can do when I'm running short on coffee!  The point is that God existing in three persons is tremendously important for the concept of God being love.  For it means that love too has always existed. God was not lonely.  There was perfect love, perfect adoration, perfect community from infinite time past.  The three persons as one in perfect union in perfect love...together forever.  Once again C. S. Lewis describes this better than I can:

All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that 'God is love'.  But they seem not to notice that the words 'God is love' have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person.  If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love.  Of course, what these people mean when they say that God is love is often something quite different: they really mean 'Love is God'.  They really mean that our feelings of love, however and wherever they arise, and whatever results they produce, are to be treated with great respect. Perhaps they are: but that is something quite different from what Christians mean by the statement 'God is love'.  They believe that the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else. And that, by the way, is perhaps the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions: that God is not a static thing--but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama.  Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance.

Here is where we come to our part in the story.  Even though there was no lonliness, only perfect harmony and community, for some strange reason, God decided to expand the circle. 

Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image,

after our likeness...

And God saw everything that He had made,

                                                          and behold, it was very good...

So if we think about the implications of this, it seems to mean that we were intended always to enter in to this dance.  Always adoring and loving our maker and in perfect love and harmony with each other.  The crux of community.  And that's not all!  We are told that God looked at us and in turn adored us, loved us. We were beautiful.  The world was beautiful because we all mirrored the beauty and love out of which we were made. 

Before you start thinking this is too mystical or weird, just mull over it for a second.  What do we do when we are stirred by love and beauty.  We create.  Why do we paint or compose music?  Why do we take pictures of sunsets or landscapes?  Why do we construct buildings...roads to new places etc...  Maybe it's all biological or natural selection.  Or maybe we can't help it because even now at some base level we still bear a twisted image of true Love and Beauty.

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;

no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth;

their words to the end of the world.--Psalm 19:1-3

Deep calls to deep

in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers have

swept over me.--Psalm 42:7

So the song that nature is singing (albeit now in an imperfect sort of way) is this:  "Our maker is beautiful...our maker loves us...he is everything."

This is the dance to which I am trying to join.  This is why I chase beauty. It is what each one of us is trying to fulfill.  Some of us do it by chasing beauty in nature.  Some by chasing it in a woman (or man).  Some of us by wealth or power or fame.  It is likely that many of you (like myself) chase it by just trying to be good enough so that perhaps one day I will be deemed worthy enough to enter in. 

Because what we really want is to hear someone say "You are beautiful...there is nothing wrong with you...you are perfect...good...I adore you...you matter...I am pleased with what you have done...I am deeply proud of you...you are noble and courageous...powerful and strong"

We were made to live on that.  Without it, we are dead.  It's why we spend our lives looking for it.

And we come up empty.  The beauty is not enough.  My relationships either let me down or I unwittingly destroy them.  I can never be good enough.  I can never work hard enough to justify my existence.  The only voice talking to me is that one that says "You are ugly...you don't make the cut...no matter what you do you will always fail...no one is looking out for you...you are a disappointment...you're a coward...you are weak"

So what happened?  It seems like the dance is still going on but I am no longer in it.  It appears like all of nature is doing that thing for which it was intended, but I am not. 

I was born with this desire to find my own way.  There is a large part of me that wants to make my own dance.  I want to be captain of my soul and the master of my fate.  I don't want any part of harmony if it means I give up my rights and my independence...especially if it means forgiving those wrongs that have been done to me.  I think this might be what they always talked about in Sunday school as sin.  And to my dismay I find that I love myself above all.  I do not love my maker.  I do not want to fulfill my purpose.  I want to be the center of the orbit...and I'm quite good at being there. 

But it means that I'm stationary.

It means I can never enter the dance.

It means I'm dead.

This story is not a tragedy however.  Remember 'God is love'?  God the three persons in one, perfect in love and harmony, became a man as well.  Another tough thing to think about or explain.  But again, if there is truly a God, it makes sense that there are things about him that would really give us some brain cramps.  Once again, it's like the two dimensional stick figure trying to explain the concept of volume.  

As soon as Jesus was baptized, He came up out of the water.

  At that moment heaven was opened

and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove

and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said,

                                  "This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased."

Now there was finally a man who could enter the dance!  There is a man who is a part of the circle.  His name is Jesus.  His name is Love.  And then came the unthinkable.  This man was cast out of the circle.  His perfect love and harmony which he had enjoyed from eternity past was ripped from him.  His Father turned his face from him in disgust. 

Because he became everything that voice inside of me had been telling me I was.

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised and we esteemed him not.--Isaiah 53:3

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned --every one--to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.--Isaiah 53:6

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt. Isaiah 53:10

For our sake he made him to be sin

who knew no sin,

so that in Him we might become

                                                   the righteousness of God.--2 Cor 6:21

Jesus...love incarnate...was unmade so that I could be remade.  So I can be a part of the circle again.  Once again I love how C.S. Lewis puts it:

And now, what does all this matter?  It matters more than anything else in the world.  The whole pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way around) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance.  There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made.  Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection.  If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water.  If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.  They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone.  They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality.  If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry.  Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever?  Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die? 

Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ.  If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which has always existed and always will exist.

He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has--by what I call 'good infection'.

So are you like me, a chaser of beauty, feeling like it's never enough?  Do you work tirelessly to make something of yourself, only to feel that nagging voice telling you that it's meaningless?  Are you trying to enter the dance through your relationships with other people? Through your family even?  Maybe you feel the need to control everything about your life...to just find a place of safety and comfort where no one can hurt you.  But you can never quite get there. 

What we all need is to know Love.  I need Love to find me.  I need to know that I am  welcome into the circle...into the dance. 

Now when I get to the top of the mountain, and see the beauty of nature, vast and expansive, stretching before me from horizon to horizon...it speaks to me of that story which has played out from before the dawn of time.  And if I listen closely, I can now hear another voice whispering to me:  "You are my son, who I love dearly.  I am well pleased with you." 

You can hear it too.  Today if you like. 

The Darkest Hour...Just Before the Dawn 12/23/2015

"The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness

on them has light shone.

You have multiplied the nation;

you have increased its joy;

they rejoice before you

as with joy at the harvest,

as they are glad when they divide the spoil.

For the yoke of his burden,

and the staff for his shoulder,

the rod of the oppressor,

you have broken as on the day of Midian.

For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult

and every garment rolled in blood

will be burned as fuel for the fire.

For unto us a child is born,

to us a Son is given;

and the government shall be upon His shoulder,

and His name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

I've been meaning to blog for some time now.  Especially since moving to this place, so cold and so far away from everything and everyone I have known, and yet so astonishingly beautiful that many times words and even pictures are not sufficient.  So I have finally been driven to the point where I need to write down my thoughts.  Rather than journal my thoughts, at which I have never been either successful or consistent, I thought I would simply share them with you.  It is my hope that in reading the random thoughts that go through my head, that you will also be pushed to "wonder" or to reason through things that matter.  I already do too much "wondering" about things that don't matter, and I'm sure there will be things about which I write here that probably do not matter very much.  However, I believe that everyone has moments where we will think about things that matter, things of lasting value, and wonder perhaps if others do as well...even if we are unsure and hesitant in actually making them a topic of conversation.  It's safer to stick to trivial things.  If this is you, then rest assured that there is at least one other human being on this planet who is like you!  These posts are for you.

I distinctly remember many Christmas's from my childhood.  One of my most vivid memories is the traditional Christmas stories and movies that we would watch...all cozy with our hot chocolate and marshmallows (because hot chocolate is not sweet enough).  Remember "It's a Wonderful Life"?  I still hear that little kid saying "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings".  What does that even mean anyways?  I'm a little bit of a Scrooge when it comes to Christmas. I think this is because I build it up in my mind as this warm, cozy holiday.  It's all about having a loving family around, giving gifts, Santa Claus, endless Christmas music (ever notice that there are some songs played 1.2 million times during the month of December that if they were about anything else besides Christmas...would be buried somewhere in a "top 10 worst musical scores" list), and doing good things for people in need.  The reason I'm a Scrooge about this type of Christmas is that it seems to always over promise but under deliver.  All the warm fuzzies from Christmas day fade quickly into the realities of stress, family discord, financial hardship, and in some cases real human suffering by December 26.  In fact, the older I get, the more even the good parts of Christmas get less satisfying.  The joy is more fleeting, the feelings less warm and more transient, while the harsh realities of life press in and become more real and more permanent. 

This present Christmas brings all of this into focus more clearly.  Joyful expectation has turned into deep loss.  Excitement over new life has been replaced with the reality of brokenness and sorrow.  Time around the fire with family is now tempered with loneliness.  What do I do?  Stoically accept what life throws at me because hey well...it's fate and we're all the product of a random collision of molecules anyways?  Become bitter and angry at God because He let me down?  Bury my feelings, put on a good face and pull myself up by my bootstraps and pretend like everything is as it should be?  All these things are natural and I have felt them at some point...and yet are they grounded in what is true?

Let's pretend for a moment that there was one of those Christmas stories that was true. 

It's the oldest Christmas story and we have made it into one of the warmest and fuzziest of them all.  It's about a little baby boy, born into a poor family who didn't even have a crib to put him in.

Can we just look at it not as a legend for a second and reason through it?  Just humor me and let's see if the reason for Christmas could actually bring something real to answer the brokenness we live in. 

The poem above comes from the book of Isaiah, written hundreds of years before the Christmas story begins.  If you grew up in church like I did, then you probably heard this passage read every year.  But then, if you're like me, you probably heard it so much that you yawned your way through it and were ready to get to the good stuff, like the presents. 

We start out by seeing a contrast of light and darkness.  Apparently there are these people living in a land of "deep darkness"  In Juneau, we just experienced the winter solstice.  It's pretty dark up here this time of year.  Even the day time may not be that bright as the sun just barely gets above the mountains near mid day.  If you're on a north facing slope, you're in the shadows the entire day.  It's like the night never ends.  I can relate already to this poem. 

On closer examination, those words "deep darkness" actually come from one word, for which another definition would be "death shadow".  So there are these people that are living in the land of the "death shadow".  Is this just some spiritual metaphor?    It also says that on these people a great light has shone.  I think we can all agree that without light, we would have a hard time surviving.  The sun gives us heat, light, helps us produce vitamin D (sadly lacking up here).  So light and life are synonymous.  Light reverses darkness.  So if there is a light breaking out on these people who are walking in the "death shadow", then we can reasonably assume that there is a life breaking out that will reverse the death shadow.  Back to my question, is this a spiritual metaphor?  If so, then it just gives me some warm spiritual feeling about having some ethereal spirit life somewhere.  Maybe you can find hope in that, but I need something more concrete.  It's not a secret that this world seems to be winding down.  Even the sun has a lifespan right?  Take even the deli sandwich I got the other day.  Left it out over night...and guess what?  It's decaying!  Like it or not, you and I too are winding down.  I can't help it.  I'm not a strong as I used to be.  I can't run as fast.  I don't recover from injuries very quickly anymore.  I'm like that deli sandwich...decaying... just at a slower rate.  If there really is a way to reverse the "death shadow" I want to know.  What if instead of a sun that is running down and a body that is dying (albeit slowly), we could know the source of light and life?

"Again Jesus spoke to them saying, "I am the light of the world. 

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness,

but will have the light of life."--John 8:12

"Martha said to him (Jesus), 'I know

my brother will rise again on the last day'.

Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this?'"--John 11:23-26

So who is this Source of light and life and how do we get it?  How does this give us any hope? 

Hope comes in most unexpected ways. 

"For unto us a child is born,

to us a Son is given;

and the government shall be upon His shoulder,

and His name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

So you're telling me that this promise comes in the form of a baby that was born 2000 years ago?  Doesn't sound like a way I would choose to fix the world.  Why doesn't God just come in and obliterate evil?  If he is really God, why doesn't he do something to fix my pain?  Why do so many horrible things happen? 

It is becoming apparent to me when I ask this question that I am not considering what I am asking.  What if I am not seeing the whole problem with the darkness?  What if God sees that the stakes are much higher than I thought.  What if the problem of darkness or evil is not something that  affects me or is present around me, but instead it's so pervasive and widespread that it's become the biggest part of who I am?  How then can I stand in front of the light?  Light by definition destroys darkness.  It's what light does.  It doesn't chose bits and pieces of darkness to destroy and let's the "less dark" parts go.  If I am not affected by darkness but AM darkness then how will this light affect me?  How can I ever know true life if this life is from a God in whose presence I can't stand?  Perhaps you disagree with this assessment.  That is fine.  We naturally feel offended that God would destroy us...because we have to have some good in us right?  And then we have those moments where we look into our hearts and are appalled by the sheer depravity that we find there.  If you haven't had that moment yet, it's coming.  Or maybe you're like me for years and just try not to look to closely...

But doesn't it say that God is love?  How can such a God love us if He would destroy us if we were in His presence? 

Quite a conundrum. 

Meet the real Christmas.  God's way of satisfying both His love and His justice.  As C. S. Lewis says, if God is truly God, then it makes no sense that we would relate to Him as one person to another.  Instead, it would make more sense if we related to Him like characters in a story relate to the author.  If you are in the story, you have no way of knowing the author.  So if the author wanted to make himself known to the characters, he would have to write himself into the story.  Christmas is where God inserts himself into our story. Dorothy Sayers (a British novelist) says it better than I can:  "Jesus was not some kind of demon pretending to be human; he was in every respect a genuine living man.  He was not merely a man so good as to be "like God"--he was God.  Now this is not just a pious commonplace; it is not commonplace at all. For what it means is this, among other things: that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is--limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death--God had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine.  Whatever game he is playing with creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair.  He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself.  He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death.  When he was a man, he played the man.  He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile."

Jesus came and went through what I am living through.  I by no means am living through it perfectly.  Jesus however, did.  I am still, in spite of my best intentions, screwing up this Christmas season.  No matter how much I want to have faith, I don't have it.  No matter how much I try to be unselfish and live a good moral life, I fail.  And even when I succeed in living a good life, give money to the needy etc... and generally live so that people around me will see that I am a good person,  I find myself quite prideful about it. I feel pressure of living up to a law that I can never fulfill.  I feel the guilt of past sins.  Sometimes I wish that someone better could just live my life for me.

"and the government shall be upon His shoulder..."

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;

I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,

not an iota, not a dot,

will pass from the Law until all is accomplished."--Matt 5:17

Christmas says that Jesus came and wrote Himself into my story.  He came to experience my pain. He came so that the law which tells me every day "you will never be good enough no matter how hard you try" will be on His shoulders.  He passed with flying colors.  He came to take the "death shadow" on himself. 

"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice (which could be translated "screamed")

'My God, my God why have you forsaken me?'"

The gospel says that justice has been satisfied.  Evil was put on the shoulders of Jesus and then was undone.  Even death itself then worked in reverse.  Physical death no longer has any power.  Pain no longer wins. Suffering is not forever. 

Christmas says that the earth, although twisted and broken now, will be restored.  What is ugly will be made beautiful.  What is beautiful now will be made unimaginably brilliant. 

"For we know that the whole creation has been groaning

with the pains of childbirth until now. 

And not only the creation,

but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit,

groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons,

the redemption of our bodies.--Rom 8:22-23

Maybe you too are struggling this Christmas.  It could be that you are wondering is there any hope for you?  Does anyone care?  Are you as utterly alone as you feel?  Many people have come up to me in the past few days and said things like "wow I'm sorry this has had to happen to you at Christmas of all times".  I understand what they mean, however, of all times this is the time of year where it should be most apparent why I needed Christmas to have happened all those years ago.  If you're in my shoes this Christmas, or perhaps struggling with even deeper things than I am, here is what I want you to know.  You are loved.  You are so highly valued that no one less than God himself chose to take on your pain and your emptiness and died for you.  You are not alone.  You have a Father who knows exactly what you are going through.  It's ok to be sad.  But if we know and believe the real story of Christmas, in spite of our sadness, we have hope.  The opposite of joy is not sadness, it's hopelessness.  In Christ we have hope.  You have hope. 

To be honest, I did not mean for this post to be this long.  My intention is to share with you my current thoughts working through a tough situation.  I know that not everyone will agree with what I have said.  Perhaps many of you will think that it is a stretch to think this way.  Maybe you are right.  If anything, my hope is that this post will lead you to explore this story a bit more on your own.   It's possible you grew up hearing this story all  the time as I did and still have a lot of baggage or even anger towards Christianity.  You could just be a skeptic.  That's ok.  I think I have hit all those points at one time or another. 

This Christmas, just take some time in between the hot chocolate, the presents, and the sappy Christmas movies to pause and reflect on why/what/who we should celebrate.

Merry Christmas!