Rethinking the Reason

By: American Decency Staff

As I write this the week before Thanksgiving, Christmas is still over a month away. The carols have not yet become inescapable and stale, the snow has not yet flown, and the debates over holiday greetings have not yet begun. The campaigns to get the word out that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" are just starting to roll out.

I think sometimes we can get so caught up in little battles like "the war on Christmas" and take them as personal offenses – that the things we value are no longer valued by our culture. But, as we are fond of saying, Christmas is all about Jesus – He was marginalized and we will be too.

In spite of being raised in a Christian home, in Reformed and Baptist traditions, and in conservative West Michigan, it's taken me 23 years and the internet to actually understand the great Gift that inspired the biggest shopping day of the year, a whole month of weird music, and bringing trees into our homes. Ok, so I don't understand the last one, but, hey, it's still fun.

In a nutshell, the reason Christians should get excited is the gospel.

So, here it is – the gospel according to me.

It all starts in Genesis.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then we broke it.

I want to park here for a second, because I think this a part of the Bible that we tend to picture in flannel graphs, rather than as an actual point in history which people actually lived through and experienced.

When God created the world, it was perfect – literally, the sun shone everyday and the ground was irrigated at night; weeds, if they existed, pulled up easily; and mosquitoes gave kisses instead of sucking blood (not sure about this one). There was no death, there was no disease, and there was no decay. Everything was perfect.

God put deep thought into this world, he dreamt up atoms, and chemicals, and each of the plants and animals, and then he thought of how he would want them governed and taken care of and he came up with man – a miniature version of himself that would be fruitful and multiply and build cities and cultures which would govern God's perfect creation perfectly all to the glory of God Himself. He dreamt up all these things and then he spoke them very precisely into being so that they turned out exactly how he had imagined. It was the ultimate form of self-expression.

And His last creation was mankind, with whom he had a face-to-face, one-on-one relationship as they walked in the garden. The Bible doesn't say what they talked about when they walked together, but I like to imagine that God was showing off everything that His creation could do: telling Adam and Eve the secrets of the world – how to make fire, how to milk the cow, what kinds of fruits and vegetables tasted good together.

Adam and Eve were doing what they were made to do – glorifying God and enjoying Him.

Then, in the oldest of idolatries, our first parents tried to become gods themselves and in doing so, we shattered God's perfect piece of art.

Not-joy entered creation for the first time. All of a sudden, the world made for Adam and Eve to rule under God eternally turned against them and became unbearable.

Their relationship with their work – broken.

Their relationship with their subjects – broken.

Their relationship with each other – broken.

Their relationship with God – broken.

But God told them that He would fix it.

As man multiplied on the earth, our wickedness multiplied even faster. God hit the reset button, but we still didn't learn our lesson.

We filled the earth and subdued it, but for our own glory and not for God's. So, God set up a nation which he dedicated to Himself and gave them His laws to live by and honor Him.

After generations of Israel ignored and broke the law, they suffered the consequences and their nation was nearly destroyed, but God brought His remnant back from exile to the Promised Land. These generations, feeling that they had learned their lesson, took the law so seriously that they added hundreds of their own laws as padding around God's laws so that they couldn't possibly break them.

This is the context into which Jesus was born – a culture trying so hard to save themselves by their own rules, missing God's true message – that it was impossible for them to save themselves.

That's the same context we're in today. Everyone has rules for us to follow. Right?

Philosophers tell us that if we accept absolutely everyone's beliefs as equally valuable, there will be no conflict and everything will be perfect.

Liberals tell us that if we take from those with excess and give to those who lack, everyone will be provided for and everything will be perfect.

Conservatives tell us that if we just cut back government to where it was in 1776, everyone will be able to provide for themselves and everything will be perfect again.

Culture tells us that if we're skinny enough or ripped enough, everyone will think we're sexy and everything will be perfect again.

And too often, the church tells us that if we try harder, have more faith, donate more money, break down that stronghold, etc. then God will love us and everything will be perfect again.

We can be tempted to think that if we just end abortion, or same sex marriage, or fight back the Muslim Brotherhood, or stop the Common Core Curriculum or whatever our cause is, things will be perfect again.

Those are battles that should be fought out of love for our neighbors and to the glory of God, but even if we won them all tomorrow, it would not heal creation. It wouldn't fix the damage caused by the fall.

That's what Jesus came to save us from. He came and lived and died for us because He loves us with an everlasting love.   He knows that in and of ourselves – we do not have the  power to make anything perfect.

Christ alone can make all things new!   

We broke his masterpiece.  He stepped off His throne, humbling Himself – dwelling among us.  He lived a perfect life, suffering and dying so  that we would be set free from the bondage of sin

That is the Reason for the Season.

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