Beware Of Christmas Idolatry

As I prepare for Christmas 2009, I feel the same disturbance in my soul that I felt last year and I want to get at its source. The reason I have put these thoughts down on paper is so they may have the ability to provoke thought in someone who is possibly feeling some of the same unease.

I try to sing Christmas anthems of “joy” and “celebration” with feeling, yet I know that my thoughts are far from jubilation. In fact they dwell in the realm of conviction, guilt and even sadness. I know that in order to fully and joyfully celebrate the incarnation, I can never lose sight of my lost and helpless state before it. In order to praise the value of the virgin’s birth, I must first contemplate the intensity of a wickedness that required the slaughter of the son of God to drag me from the precipice of hell.

Each year it’s getting easier to see, in the Christmas rush, a peculiar blend of self-approval and importance, self-deservedness, self-satisfaction and a good old hearty human ‘pat on the back’. Only now you can find that same attitude telegraphed from the pulpit. A Christmas 2007 address on national tv by Pastor Rick Warren included the idea “God is not mad at you....He is mad about you”. So, with that in mind, I can’t help but share a few reflections that I have had with regards to this Christmas, and the idea that we need to hold our heads high, because our Creator has tremendous faith in the human being.

There is a link between the manner in which mankind carries itself at Christmas, and the increasing idea that God had previously somehow placed enormous worth on sinful man, and I can never put my finger on it. It’s obvious that Christmas is the greatest time of idolatry on our calendar. You can sit at the carols with thousands of people, and most will have created a God in their own image to sing to. That’s why you can be promiscuous on stage and seductive while singing to Jesus. That’s why you can sing ‘O Holy Night’ while your molestation or assault charge is going through the courts.

But God doesn’t stop being God at Christmas and His standards don’t change because we wish to be merry. I never want to see myself as the ‘apple of His eye’. He doesn’t expect big things from me, nor does He need my help to make His message more relevant, and He’s not waiting to see what I can do for Him. He is waiting patiently, withholding Judgement, in order to receive maximum glory in every human life.

God knew that we were the only agents of His creation capable of coming up with such an exquisitely cruel method of putting to death our only Saviour, and the unimaginable daring to carry through with the ultimate betrayal. So, in a sense, I do agree that God did look down from Heaven and see such worth and value in the human being. But only in their worth to bring Him ultimate magnificence by committing the greatest crime of injustice of all time. The reality of the extent of our evil and self-justification vividly beams forth when we suggest that our Lord, the one Adam defied, pictured us with a doting adoration and preciousness, and incredible potential.

We underestimate our potential, but omniscient God certainly doesn’t. He understood the potential for evil for the Roman crucifiers to cast lots for the innocent Saviour’s clothing, while He screamed prayers for them. He understood the potential for one of the disciples to reject and betray his deliverer. He saw the potential of the miraculously rescued Israelite nation to turn their backs on Him during decades of supernatural provision.

No. I should not hold my head a little higher at Christmas. The truth is that while santa rewards people who think they have been nice, God’s righteous fury would boil at the idea of Jesus looking down from the bloodied cross at His murderers and seeing such worth and preciousness in the human “enemy of God”
soul.

Looking at the face that was “marred beyond description” were the agents of their master, the devil. Speaking blasphemies and ridicule against God were the same mouths that cried “Hosanna”.

Christmas is not Christmas without the cross of our Saviour. The incarnation of God Himself, and conception of the creator of the universe to a God hating and lawless human race, cannot be remembered without contemplating the slaying that the helpless babe in the manger would receive a few decades after that silent night in Bethlehem, to seal our redemption.

How can I be happy at Christmas? Not by feeling good about myself. The only way I can feel joy is to concentrate on the fact that Christ’s story was all brought about this way because it was precisely how God will receive His greatest honour. That’s the ‘joy’ that Christ felt as he ‘endured the cross, despising its shame’.

The following hymn reminds me to place complete faith in God the Creator, and brings the correct perspective of our human potential this Christmas:

My Song Is Love Unknown Hymn Samuel Crossman 1664

My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take, frail flesh and die?

He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
Who at my need His life did spend.

Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
And for His death they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight,
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
Themselves displease, and ’gainst Him rise.
With angry shouts they have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they saved,
The Prince of life they slay,
Yet cheerful He to suffering goes,
That He His foes from thence might free.
In life, no house, no home
My Lord on earth might have;
In death no friendly tomb
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heav’n was His home;
But mine the tomb wherein He lay.

Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence by Gerard Moultrie

1. Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded,
for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.

2. King of kings, yet born of Mary,
as of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
in the body and the blood;
he will give to all the faithful
his own self for heavenly food.

3. Rank on rank the host of heaven
spreads its vanguard on the way,
as the Light of light descendeth
from the realms of endless day,
that the powers of hell may vanish
as the darkness clears away.

4. At his feet the six-winged seraph,
cherubim, with sleepless eye,
veil their faces to the presence,
as with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

(Article courtesy of Nick Booth)

David Wilkerson: 19 May 1931 - 27 April 2011

Just two days ago my friend Nick Booth informed me of the tragic car accident that killed Pastor David Wilkerson and critically injured his wife Gwen.

By late Wednesday night, Times Square Church in New York City announced the death of its founding pastor in a statement from Senior Pastor Carter Conlon:

Pastor David Wilkerson’s was a life fully given for the glory of God and souls of men. He was greatly loved and he will be greatly missed. Our prayers are with the family and we as a church body are committed to standing with them at this time of sorrow.

The Wilkerson family issued a statement after midnight on the World Challenge web site:

We appreciate your prayers and our hearts are sorrowful, yet we rejoice at the joy of knowing David Wilkerson spent his life well. More information will be coming soon. Thank you for your prayers, the statement said.

Alongside founding and pastoring Times Square Church in New York City, Wilkerson also founded such influential ministries as Teen Challenge and World Challenge Ministries.

Though I wear different theological stripes to Wilkerson's charismatic heritage, and though I did shudder at some of his apocalyptic prophetic utterances in the past, David Wilkerson remains to this day as a man who I have deep respect and gratitude for. I am very grateful for some of his sermons that have inhabited my MP3 player in recent years and salute Pastor Wilkerson as an uncompromising voice for Gospel clarity in a wider charismatic movement that has begun to spiral into theological freefall. He was unyielding as an "old school bare knuckle pentecostal preacher" who was unrelenting in his scorching criticism of the entertainment circus that had engulfed the movement he was a part of. It was also David Wilkerson who gave Ray Comfort a platform to speak when he was largely unknown.

I am largely ignorant of the deeper machinations of Wilkerson's ministry, but to the best of my knowledge he remained a faithful preacher of the once for all delivered faith to the day of his departure. A stranger in a strange land who is now no longer in search of the city whose builder and maker is God. The death of David Wilkerson also reminds we strangers who remain, of the great blessing that audio recording is . . .

Lest We Forget

Lest We Forget - An Anzac Day Meditation by Nick Booth

Today Australia paused to reflect, in gratitude and honour, the enormous sacrifice of so many brave young men in the battlefields of the world. The day is predominantly concentrated on the tragedy of the Gallipoli campaign (ANZacs - Australia and New Zealand army corps) and the slaughters of the Western Front in World War I (WWI). The Australians, consisting of a fully volunteered force, rushed at the opportunity to make their mark as a new country and to forge a national identity, proudly unique among the British Empire. They did distinguish themselves as they had planned, but by a ‘baptism of fire’. Over 50% of their servicemen were killed or wounded (leaving a devastating hole in that generation of Australian men). They were well known and feared by enemy armies and their British high command, for their reckless daring, disdain for British superior officers, valiant mateship, and sense of humour in times of unspeakable adversity.

Christians should be able to see clear Biblical and Gospel footprints all over Anzac day or Remembrance Day. The whole subject becomes infiltrated with the glory of Jesus Christ. For those who cannot differentiate between the value of a human life and a tree, and have trouble recognizing how we differ from our "distant monkey cousins", it is worth remembering that so far there has never been any battle or campaign that involves multiple continents or tribes of chimpanzee’s, trying to rid the world of a dictatorial, ruthless Nazi-chimp emperor and his evil band of storm trooping spider monkeys.

Please consider these points:

1. PRAISE GOD THE CREATOR
For human beings created in the image of God.

2. PRAISE GOD FOR HIS MORAL CHARACTER AND HIS GREAT COMPASSION IN IMPLANTING IT WITHIN US
WWI highlights that there is a distinct moral code written into the heart of every human being created in the image of God that represents the character of their Creator.

3. PRAISE GOD FOR THE GOSPEL’S POWER TO DESTROY SIN
Wars, injustice, and tragedy should immediately remind us of SIN and it’s horrific pervasiveness, and the incomprehensible love and action of the Savior in providing the means to escape its grip.

4. PRAISE GOD FOR HIS JUSTICE
Wars remind us of the Biblical intentions of God to show His glory through the establishment of governments and authorities to establish and uphold JUSTICE. Governments may have abused this position, but clearly God’s justice is crystal clear in His instruction to minister justice in accordance with His character.

5. PRAISE GOD FOR HIS SUPREMACY
Despite how close the human race has come to obliterating itself in war, God’s grace is evident simply in the fact that we still manage to live through such enormous atrocities. The Christian has so much comfort in these times of devastating loss because of the promise of Jesus Christ:

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" Matthew 28:18.

6. PRAISE JESUS CHRIST FOR HIS CROSS
Wars should point us to the greatest atrocity ever committed - the slaughter of the Creator of the universe nailed to a wooden cross. We must remember that, as Martin Luther said, “we all carry in our pockets His very nails”. Men start wars, men fight them, men are responsible for inconceivable evils - both inside and outside of battle. If we start pointing our finger in atrocities, then we should be prepared to see it pointing straight back at us. Look carefully at the words of Jesus:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

I am often staggered at the response of Christian brethren who, while enjoying the luxury of being the beneficiaries of the freedom won with the blood of their ancestors, exercise that freedom to dismiss the chance of recognizing the sacrifice of people who lay down their lives for those they do not know.

Recognizing and remembering the valor of our brave soldiers, airmen, sailors, policemen, service volunteers etc.., is not an effort to compete with the memory of Christ - it’s meant to INVOKE the memory of the far greater sacrifice of Christ. It does not aim to achieve a glorification of war - it’s a chance to glorify Christ. These men were His instruments and, for many, it definitely was a “Purpose Driven Death”. Who can fathom how God spared so many nations in the outcomes of great wars.

Christians should be joining the crowds that line the streets surrounding cenotaphs and military monuments on these special days. Not to mock the commemorative practices of many, some of whom do not know Christ, but to see the value of human life and honor memories of those who shadow our Lord’s example. So today I will get up ridiculously early and stand side by side with many other Australians for the one day of the year that we reflect on the valor, tragedies, and memories of my countrymen in battle defending my freedom, and I’ll go even if I’m only standing there amongst people who do not know God.

It was an honor to stand there with you today Nick - Cameron