The Light of Christ vs. the Darkness of Man's Heart

Here I was spending my day doing Mustard Seed Missions work, trying to help those in need; polishing up my sermon for Sunday on the birth of John the Baptist; real salt and light kind of things; looking forward to the Hobbit tonight...in other words, a good day...then I see that yet another school shooting has happened; the numbers, horrific even when 1 are much higher than you could imagine...is it any wonder that I spend my life trying to help people find there way out of the darkness that envelops our world and into the light of Christ?  Can anybody really say that this world is fine without God, mankind's hopeless situation on his own, sadly on display again today.

Sermon Video: "Nothing new under the sun" - Ecclesiastes 1:4-11

We live in a world of fast paced change.  It seems that something new appears almost every day.  Yet is any of it really new?  Solomon realized 3,000 years ago that human existence was simply repetition of the ideas and efforts of previous generations.  The earth remains, we are here for but a moment.  How can we find purpose and meaning if human existence never really improves?  It is only through God's effort that we are able to accept the sacrifice of Jesus which will begin the process of transforming our human nature and removing the sin which dooms human attempts at self improvement.  In the end, without God's help, there will be nothing new under the sun.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

"there is nothing new under the sun" - Ecclesiastes 1:9b

It wouldn't help sell newspapers or magazines, nor would it help TV news ratings if those producing the news admitted that there isn't anything new to report today.  About 3,000 years ago Solomon realized that whatever news a person might hear that it wasn't really new, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again" (Ecc 1:9a).  The reason why there never is really any "new" news is because human nature doesn't change.  We may consider ourselves to be enlightened modern human beings who are far superior to our ancient ancestors, but that's just our hubris talking.  In reality, we're not any better than they are, nor are we any worse.  Man is incapable of changing his state.  Education won't do it, training won't do it, nor can a benevolent government either laize-faire or nanny-state change us.
The only thing that can, and will, bring about real change in individuals, communities, and nations, is a relationship with God through the saving power of the sacrifice of Jesus.  Why is this?  Because God has undertaken to transform us; we couldn't do it ourselves, but he can.  This is where faith begins, the realization that nothing will ever be new under the sun until we let God make it happen.

"the world was not worthy of them" - Hebrews 11:38a

That was the conclusion of the writer of the book of Hebrews after listing all of the persecution faced by the servants of God.  It raises an interesting point.  We know that this world remains very much in God's interest, he created it, he sent his Son to redeem humanity, and he intends to renew this world (Rev. 21:1) at the culmination of history.  Certainly, God has gone to a lot of trouble for this world despite the clear fact that the people who inhabit it have often proven themselves to be anything but God-like.  There have been times when optimism for our civilization has overshadowed the darkness lying underneath, but just as it does in Lord of the Flies the Beast within always rises up with another massacre in mockery.
Does this world deserve the saints who have bled and wept for it?  The writer of Hebrews is correct that it does not.  Just as we were in no way deserving of the blood that Jesus Christ poured out for us at Calvary, so too the mercy and love shown by those who follow him.  Then why does God commend it, encourage us to give more to this world?  For the same reason that God rescued Noah despite the utter evil of the world in his day, the same reason that God sent Jonah to Ninevah, the same reason that God saved a murderous Saul on the road to Damascus or John Newton after a life of slave running:  In Newton's own words, Amazing Grace.  Grace, undeserved mercy and love, is the basis for our relationship with God.  If not for God's willingness to stoop down and rescue humanity, the darkness that threatens our world each day would reign supreme.  You see, the world may not be worthy of them, but it still needs them desperately.

Sermon Video: "the peace of Christ" Colossians 3:15

Mankind has never known real peace.  We are always at war with each other, at war with our God, and at war within ourselves.  Jesus Christ offers a solution: Peace with God through his shed blood.  Peace within through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, and peace among men through the shared purpose and calling of his Church.  The world seeks contentment through hedonism and immorality, but only finds despair.  Jesus offers to use peace, freely.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

Sermon Video: "your earthly nature" - Colossians 3:5-10

What is the Christian to do with all of the bad habits and vices that plagued us before we accepted Jesus?  Paul explains that the only solution to our former sin addiction is to put those very sinful tendancies to "death".  They cannot be managed, they must not be kept around for later, they need to be removed.  We have been given a clean slate by Christ, it's time we put the past in the past and begin to walk in the light.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

A Lesson from my dog...

One of our dogs hasn't been feeling very well of late.  Not eating, stomach problems, lethargic, that sort of thing.  The problem is that we can't ask her what is wrong.  Was it something she ate, is she in pain, is she sad that she misplace her favorite bone?  Who knows.
The thought occured to me that many people act the same way.  They go through struggles, difficulties, and troubles without ever letting those who care about them know it.  Why do people hid their pain?  Usually it is some mixture of shame, fear, pride, or stubborness.  What will people say if they know what I've done?  What will people think if they know what I'm afraid of?  How will people look at me when they know how much I've let them down?  I don't care how much it hurts, I'm going to fix this myself.
Maybe you've had some of those thoughts, maybe you're saying something like that right now.  There are two very good reasons why you should let other people help you through tough times in your life.  The first is that we're not meant to fight those battles alone.  God created us to be social, to lean on each other, to offer mutal support.  We're designed this way.  When we try to do everything on our own, we make things much more difficult and miss out on the love that our friends, family, and church would offer if only we would let them.  The second reason why we should ask for help is because we deny those same friends, family members, and church members the chance to be Christ-like when we don't go to them for help.  As believers in Jesus Christ, we have an obligation to support and help those in need.  The only way that we will grow as Christians is by serving others.  If we all try to solve everything on our own, none of us will grow to be the mature Christians that God wants us to be.
The next time you face something difficult in life, rather than digging a moat around yourself so that nobody can get in, try instead to build a bridge so that someone can show you how much they love you.  As God's Word reminds us, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." (I Peter 5:7)  Go to God, go to his people; we are his hands, his feet, here to serve each other, here to carries the burdens of those in need.

Herman Wouk and the Holocaust

I've been rereading Herman Wouk's WWII novels this spring, Winds of War and War and Remembrance, and coupled together with teaching Lord of the Flies this spring (and watching Schindler's List with that class), I've spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of humanity.  Questions such as: Why were people blind to the Final Solution while it was happening?  Herman's novel, and Spielberg's movie make it clear that most of the Jews of Europe couldn't imagine that the Nazi intended to murder all of them.  I pointed out to my class each time a character in the movie says, "this is the worst"; sadly, it happens over and over until the train mistakenly rolls into Auschwitz.  Throughout the novels, various characters try to understand how such evil could take hold in Germany, but each theory falls flat because the Holocaust wasn't the only example of hatred and persecution of the Jewish people; until the mass killings began, it wasn't even the worst example (the Inquisition leads the list, but also episodes during the Crusades and Black Plague, among others).
So how could this happen and how could people have been so blind to it?
The short answer is: human nature
We are capable of unspeakable evil because humanity is rotten to the core.  The few examples of "good" people who have done the right thing in history cannot blot out the casual evil that exists each and every day in our world.
We are also at times blind to that evil because humanity, as a whole, isn't interested in facing the truth.  We'd much rather believe that we're civilized, that we've risen above the primitive nature of our ancestors and somehow fixed the problems of the ancients through education, psychology, or laws.  We haven't, the only thing that modern man has achieved is to convince ourselves that our problems can be fixed, despite the vast evidence to the contrary.  Not convinced?  Consider the vast amounts spent on education in the world today (certainly a higher percentage of people in the world today can read/write, etc. than ever before), and yet the genocides continue despite 24/7 coverage on CNN.  Psychologists and Sociologists can diagnose mental issues, can help some people to overcome their problems, and yet the world's prisons are full (and then some) of men and women guilty of every type of inhumanity.  America is the most prosperous nation in the history of the world, and yet our teens flee to drug use and reckless sexual behavior to escape their hollow existence.  (I could continue, but the point is made)
Where is the hope, where is the peace??
The Gospel is humanity's only hope, and transformation of individuals by the power of the Holy Spirit is the only solution.  We will never fix the problems in our society until we begin to transform lives one at a time.  The Holocaust happened because mankind IS that depraved.  After WWII the slogan was, "never again", but that didn't last very long. {see Pol Pot in Cambodia, the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, the Sudan, Somalia, 9/11 etc.}
Is remembrance important?  Very much so, but it won't stop us from walking down the path to another Holocaust.  Humanity doesn't need a make-over, it needs an overhaul.  Only Christ has the power to save us from ourselves.

Osama Bin Laden and the Lord of the Flies

One of the world's most famous villians, a man who cared nothing for the murders of innocents and celebrated their deaths in his twisted vision of the future, is dead.  Will terrorism die with him?  Could the death of this one man put a stop to the global Jihad that has been declared against the West and Christianity?

The short answer is no.  That isn't what everyone wants to hear, but it's the sad truth.  There are still plenty of evil men (and some women) in our world eager to commit similar acts of sin against their fellow man.  When Hitler envisioned the destruction of the Jewish people he would have been just another racist if there weren't millions of "good" Germans willingly joining in the killing.  Remember, Hitler was elected by popular vote before he took power in Germany.  Osama Bin Laden too was very popular among the millions of young Muslims who share his hatred.

How does any of this relate to William Golding's novel, Lord of the Flies?  In the book, the character Simon seeks to explain to the boys who have been stranded on the Pacific island with him that "mankind's essential illness" is what they have to fear.  The boys on the island have been growing increasingly afraid of an imaginary "beast" whose existence they have tried to deny, but the fear of which continues to grow just the same.  Simon explains that there is no external beast to fear, but rather "the beast is us".  The only evil they have to fear is the evil within themselves.  Humanity's essential flaw is that we are depraved.  We are mired in sin and unable to live together in peace. 

As shocking as it may sound, the evil in men like Osama Bin Laden and Adolf Hitler is not different in kind from the evil that resides in humanity as a whole.  It is certainly different in degree; most people never approach such scale in the evil that they do, but as Romans reminds us, "all have sinned".  We have all fallen short of perfection, we have all commited sins against ourselves, our neighbors, and our God.  We have all taken steps down the path that leads to Hell.

Is it a good thing that Osama Bin Laden is dead?  Certainly.  Did he deserve to die because of his crimes?  Absolutely.  Will terrorism cease now or in the future?  Sadly, no, this form of evil may be new, but the depravity that spawned it is not.  So what should we do if the battle that we're fighting cannot be won?  Even if we cannot win a battle against evil in our world, we must still support and honor those who try to protect the innocent and administer justice.  We must all strive to instill virtue in the next generation, work to protect the innocent as best we can, and tell the world that the only cure for our self-destruction is the saving grace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Lord of the Flies and Schindler's List

In a few day my students will begin writing an essay on the nature of humanity.  They've been reading through William Golding's excellent "Lord of the Flies" in which he seeks to show through the total breakdown of the society of a couple of dozen boys stranded on a small island that the evil that mankind confronts comes from within.  We can't hide from it on a island because we brought it with us when we came there.  Despite the best efforts of some of the book's characters, a meltdown into violence and chaos follows...Last year I used the heart-wrenching true story contained in "Schindler's List" as a way to further the theme and allow my students to write about human nature.  After watching the unspeakable inhumanity of the Holocaust, is it possible to still see good in man?  Can the redemptive acts of Oskar Schindler and Itzhak Stern stand up against the casual evil of Amon Goeth and the countless "good Germans" who didn't give a second thought to the massacre of innocents in their midst?
This is no small question, and one that occupies the minds of many Christians as well.  The level of evil in our world should, at the least, give us pause and send us back to Scripture seeking answers.  With Easter just ending, we are all aware of the injustice and inhumanity displayed when Christ was crucified.  This is nothing new.  God was disgusted with humanity in the day of Noah.  We haven't changed much.  The absolute reality of evil requires us to throw ourselves on the mercy of God and trust wholly in the Blood of the Lamb to save us from ourselves. 
In the end, this is why the Love of God isn't enough.  {Sorry, but it's the truth.  Love alone fails, without Christ we would all be doomed despite God's unchangeable love for us}To simply say that God loves us and it'll be ok doesn't cut it.  God cannot have any part in the evil that engulfs our world.  Holiness and sin do NOT mix.  There is no remedy for our desperate situation apart from Christ.
What will my students write?  How many of them will choose to see the courage of Oskar and the crazy Hope of Itzhak as proof that there is hope in humanity?  How many will recoil at the evil of children murdered simply because they were Jewish and conclude that humanity is beyond hope?
Is humanity evil?  Yes, none of us are free of guilt.
Are we beyond hope?  On our own, yes.
Thanks be to God for the nail-pierced hands that gave us hope.