GOD’S APPEARANCE BRINGS US LIGHT

I began my ministry in the 1970’s in youth ministry, and often took youth groups on trips to various conferences and events. On one such trip, we stopped in Missouri at Meramec Caverns and took a tour of the caverns. At the very deepest part of the caverns (at least that is the way I remember it), the guide turned out the lights. If you have ever had such an experience, you know that there is nothing as dark as a being in a cave with no lights. It can be unnerving.

One of the adult leaders of our group decided to have some fun with the experience and began to laugh – out loud. Soon some in our group were laughing along with him. The tour guide was not too happy with this turn of events and threatened to end the tour. Even though we were trying to be funny, I think we were all relieved when the lights were turned back on. You don’t want to be left in a cave with the lights off.

As we come into another Christmas season, we would do well to remind ourselves of what John’s Gospel teaches us about Jesus’ incarnation – his coming into the world. He tells us that Jesus is the light of men. In John 1:5, he says, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” Allow me in my column this month to meditate with you on this idea.

We live in a dark world. In many ways, the world is far darker than the darkest cave. Jesus comes into that darkness to give us the light we need to make it through life. You can face any number of dark circumstances in life, from family difficulties or dysfunction to financial difficulties to misunderstandings with a co-worker or boss or person who works for you to any of the great challenges of life. It makes no difference what it is; Jesus comes to shed light that will enable us to handle our circumstances.

Jesus brings us that light because of who he is. This is the great theme of the opening of John’s Gospel. John’s Gospel shows us the real greatness of the baby born in Bethlehem. John does not tell us the story of Mary and Joseph the way Matthew and Luke do. He tells us who the child in the manger is. That child can bring light into the darkness because of who he is. So, who is he? Here is some of what John tells us:

(1) He is the Word of God. People have constantly wondered whether God speaks to us. Ingmar Bergman, about fifty years ago, produced a movie titled The Silence that spoke to this issue. It portrays the plight of three characters who do not hear the voice of God and who believe that God is silent. John says about Jesus, “In the beginning was the Word…” John states this as a continuing action, not as a past tense like we read it in English, and he intends it to mean that Jesus was born to speak God’s words to us. Through a baby born in Bethlehem, God was speaking to our world.

(2) He is God. Surveys show that although the vast majority of Americans believe in God, they are confused about the nature of God. John shows us that we can understand the nature of God by knowing Jesus. He uses two complementary phrases to state this: ^“the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the first phrase, the idea is that Jesus is continually face to face with God. The second phrase directly states that the baby born in the manger is in his very essence God, just as he was human. It wasn’t just a baby sleeping in that manger – it was God. So if you want to know what God is like, if you want to teach people what God is like, show them Jesus.

(3) He is the Creator who gives us Life. The New Testament is clear that Jesus was present with God the Father in creating the world. He made it all so that we would have life (look at John 1:3-4). He gives us not just physical life, but a spiritual life with him – later in John’s Gospel, Jesus calls it abundant life – that leads to eternal life.

So meditate hard this Christmas season on who Jesus is, and show people the way to him. Someone wrote these lines about the light that comes into the world with the birth of Christ:

More light than we can learn,
More wealth than we can treasure,
More love than we can earn,
More peace than we can measure,
Because one Child is born.

Witnesses for Christ From Uganda

Last Sunday, I referred to an incident in Northern Uganda, a place Richard Stearns calls “the darkest place on the planet” that he has visited. Here is an abbreviated account of what he experienced there:

One day, Margaret, six months pregnant, was gardening with her friends. A group of boy soldiers – led by an adult commander – attacked Margaret’s friends and hacked them to death with machetes. The commander noticed Margaret was pregnant, so he chose not to kill her because he thought it would bring bad luck. Instead he told the boy soldiers to cut off her nose, ears, and lips, which they did.

Remarkably, she survived, and three months later gave birth to her son James. Margaret and James were brought to World Vision’s Child of War Center, where she received counseling and support to deal with her trauma and disfigurement.

Months after her son’s birth, Margaret saw the commander who ordered her mutilation come to the same rehabilitation center. Margaret was afraid for her life and also wanted to kill him. World Vision staff worked with this man to get him to confess to what he did. They also worked with Margaret to help her anxiety and explore the possibility of forgiveness. Weeks later the man asked Margaret to forgive him, and Margaret reached deeply to the source of all forgiveness – Jesus – and forgave.

This week I read about a group of children in Uganda who are shining into dark places and providing a witness for Christ. Chuck Colson tells about it:

“The children are members of the Mwamba Children's Choir of Uganda. Tragically, AIDS has taken the life of one or both of their parents. They grew up in an orphanage begun in 1998 by a Ugandan pastor. This pastor felt called to do something about the number of children being orphaned by the AIDS epidemic.

“Sadly, the pastor died a few years ago, putting the future of the orphanage in jeopardy. His son, Daniel Mugerwa, and Daniel's younger brother, were scarcely out of high school; they had no idea how they could keep the orphanage going. But as Daniel told my colleague Stephen Reed, a family friend who attended his father's funeral heard the orphans singing a tribute to their late founder.

"’If you can get more people to hear these children's voices,’ the friend said, ’that could help save the orphanage.’

“So that's what Daniel did. As Stephen Reed writes in the HuntingtonNews.net, the brightly-dressed children sing ‘with a sound and a beat that grabs the audience.’ The choreography comes directly out of Ugandan culture. In a song titled ‘You Are Everything,’ the children sing:

"’You are everything to me/ My soul rejoices in you/ Your goodness, mercy and joy / All the world's so in love with you!’

“The song expresses their joy for God's mercy in their lives: Mercy in the form of loving adults to care for them now that their own parents are gone. Unlike many American children's choirs, these kids don't have to be reminded to smile as they sing: Their faces and bodies are bursting with joy.

“Their music is indeed helping keep the orphanage open. The choir is currently touring the United States. They have made two CDs of their songs, and are about to release a third.”

These “children of Uganda have so much less” than we do “and they've endured great loss-and yet their lives are a musical praise to God for His blessings.”

Where there is darkness, where the holes in our world are deep, the love of Christ can still shine bright and often does. I hope the story of Mwamba Children’s Choir will encourage you to let your love for Christ shine bright in this Christmas season.

God Appears In Our World

I grew up loving Christmas and have never grown tired of it.

For most of my adult life, either we have traveled to be with family for Christmas or they have traveled to be with us. This year it will be no different. We will have family in our home this year for all but two days from December 14 through January 3.

While growing up, it wasn’t that way. We were always home at Christmas. We could not travel at Christmas, and our extended family lived away from us. So Christmas every year was celebrated with our immediate family: Mom and Dad, my two sisters and one brother, and my grandmother (Dad’s mother who lived with us in the winter). We opened presents around the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve and then awoke early on Christmas morning to check out our gifts from Santa Claus — often gifts that were too big to be easily wrapped.

After opening presents on Christmas Eve, though, we sat around the living room as Dad took Mom’s well-worn King James Version Bible and read us the Christmas story from Luke 2. That became the highlight of Christmas for me. I don’t know if Luke’s account of the birth of Christ is my favorite story in the Bible, but it certainly ranks right up there.

I don’t remember the gifts I opened through those years, but I remember “The Gift of Christmas.” The gift God gave to the world is still the most important part of Christmas for me. I hope it is for you too.

This year I want to help you understand “Christmas According to John.” He doesn’t tell us the stories of Christmas as Matthew and Luke do, but he tells us the meaning of Christmas. It can be summed up in the phrase I will use as a theme for my December messages: “God Appears in Our World.”

John calls Jesus the Word. He says in John 1:1 that from the very beginning “the Word was with God and the Word was God.” This One who came into our world, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is God himself coming to live among us.

John makes this clear in John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Make Christmas special this year. Let’s find out together how God made his appearance among us. John says about Christ: “In him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1:4). And he says so much more. You want to know that kind of person — and you can.

So, enjoy Christmas this year. I hope you enjoy everything about it, that you will meet the God who appears in our world, and that you will never grow tired of him.