I was
listening to someone on the radio being asked what he thought Christmas was all
about. He paused for a moment and then said,’ Well, you know - ‘Peace on earth;
good will towards men’. His interviewer, not wanting to let him off the hook,
then asked, ’Which means what exactly?’
There was an embarrassed silence for a moment or two and then the man
said, ‘Well, of course it’s just a lot of wishful thinking and pretending,
isn’t it: the real world’s not like that.’ And then he added, ‘Shame though.’
‘Shame
though.’ It really is, isn’t it, when you think about it: a tragedy really. But
the very fact that the man said ‘shame though’ suggests that he is aware that
the world ought to be a better place than it is. We ought to be able to live in
peace and we ought to be able to act with good will towards each other: but the
reality is that we so often don’t; and not just towards those we might consider
to be our enemies. If we are honest, there is something inside each one of us
that needs curing or healing if ever there is going to be ‘peace on earth; good
will towards men’: and not just between countries or classes but within
communities and families. Of course it is easy to point to others worse than
ourselves or to blame others or circumstances or our genes for our lack of
peace or goodwill: but isn’t there something in each one of us we must recognise
that is not as we would want it to be? And yet, try as we might to cure it,
experience shouts out at us that it is deeply ingrained.
It was to solve
this ingrained problem that God, in one of His forms of being God, came into
the world in human form because at the heart of the human problem is the
problem of the human heart; a problem neither we nor any psychology nor
medicine nor science can solve but only God Himself. The truth is that there
never can be peace on earth and there never will be enough good will between
people until people first make peace
with God and until we begin to see our fellow human beings as, just like us,
made in the image of God and in need of peace with Him. But the place to start
has to be with ourselves. Now you can
say that that is nonsense or otherworldly naivety.
How can my getting right
with God and looking at my fellow human beings in the same way as I look at
myself solve the world’s problems? But look at the alternative.
Are you going
to put your faith, yet again, in worldly institutions and principles that let
you down time and time again – unless you happen to be one of the lucky ones
who got their money out in the nick of time? I remember talking to someone who
lost nearly everything after the last stock market crash. ‘It shouldn’t have
happened’, he said; ‘I put my faith in that fund – it was broad based - and
I’ve lost everything.’
Again, you could say that’s not going to win you the
success you want in life, or the big contract and the bigger bonus, or the
social acceptance you crave. And you would probably be right: making our peace
with God does rather tend to turn a person’s world upside down. But if we understood what those two
phrases actually mean, then they can prompt us to think again about our
priorities, our perspectives, and our principles for life. You see, none of
those things – success, riches, social status – can we take with us when we
die; and even whilst we are alive these things tend, and tend very strongly in
my experience, to bring out not the best but actually the worst, not just in us
but in those around us. So Jesus comes to make peace between us and God by
inviting us to put our faith humbly and genuinely in Him as the one who, in
some mysterious yet real and necessary way, pays the sacrifice for the sins and
for the pride which create those things we crave and which make us less human,
not more.
Moreover He offers us a new relationship with Him; a relationship
that enables us – when we take Him seriously and spend time with Him - to
become more like Him, not only for our own benefit but for the benefit of
others. He enables us to see how life ought to be led. The phrase ‘Goodwill to
men’ is not actually some wishful thinking platitude or comforting pat on the
head from a God who turns a blind eye to the sin and the pride and the
injustices and the evil we are made increasingly aware of day by day, and in
which, sadly, we play our part too. No, the ‘goodwill’ is His offer of mercy,
of forgiveness to all who will receive his Son and put their faith in Him; it
is His gift of GRACE, of forgiveness to those who do not deserve it yet who can
receive it if not too spiritually proud, too blinded, or too deaf to do so. At
the end of the day we all of us have to make a choice, a choice that has both
present and eternal consequences. ‘God so loved the world that He gave his only
Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.’
But it is a gift – not something to be forced upon us; it must be received. The
Christmas narrative challenges us deep within our souls and asks us to choose.
When you examine the evidence available – I mean look honestly, and with an
open mind, and with a humble heart at Jesus - why, frankly, it’s a no-brainer.
May God graciously grant to you a saving
knowledge of His truth and of His love for you this Christmas.
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