Light and Life Has Come
This post originally appeared on Robert Mayer’s person blog - onlyvisitingthisplanetsite.com.
Thirty years ago, Hurricane Hugo unexpectedly roared into Charlotte, and with it a number of things we assumed were true were turned on their ears. We thought that a hurricane could never strike a major American city 200 miles inland. Even if it did, it would not be strong enough to damage our power, water, and transportation. Those of us who lived in and around Charlotte thought we were essentially safe from the tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, floods, and earthquakes that ravaged other parts of the country, and outside of the occasional nuisance from a line of thunderstorms, we would be fine.
When Charlotteans woke up that following morning, our lives had been seriously disrupted. Personally, what was supposed to be a normal work day in a normal week turned into several days with no power and no gas in the tank. Combined with fifteen trees down in the backyard, it became rather grim. But, I was much better off that many of my neighbors who had homes and cars smashed by falling trees. This was no mere thunderstorm. Recovery would take weeks and months.
We woke up to the reality that what we had assumed would never happen, happened! A hurricane had just hit a city 200 miles inland, and it was us. We had no power. Many of us had no water. The streets were blocked with falling tree limbs. We had to figure out how to do essential things like eat, clean our clothes and ourselves, and care for our children.
Even more unsettling, we woke up and discovered that we were not as safe as we originally thought. There is a provisional nature to our lives, and we live amidst a world with far less ability to control our circumstances than we would like to admit. Our illusions of security and safety are just that–illusions! We’re reminded of that every once in awhile–events like 9/11, the Great Recession of 2008-9, the Japanese earthquake and subsequent meltdown of nuclear reactors, and the myriad of school and workplace shootings of the past several years.
Disruption and uncertainty become personal
Times of disruption and uncertainty often lead us toward deeper questions about our lives–questions that we normally do not ponder but that are always there. We can hold those at bay when the tragedy happens to someone else or happens in another part of the country or world. But, when it affects us (and none of us goes through life immune to personal and societal tragedy), the questions about who we are and why do we find ourselves here in this place and at this time can easily come front and center in our thinking and our feelings.
Those of you who have lived in and around Charlotte for many years may remember the life of Sandy Ford. Sandy, the son of evangelist Leighton Ford, died at age 21 after heart surgery at Duke Medical Center in 1981 (the year before my wife, Renee, and I moved to Charlotte). He graduated from Myers Park High School, was a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill, and a leader among the many Christian students on that campus.
In his just released memoir A Life of Listening: Discerning God’s Voice and Discovering Our Own (InterVarsity, 2019), Leighton remembers the long night drive home with his wife Jean to Charlotte from Duke. And he remembers what went through his mind the following morning: “When we woke up the next morning to the realization that our lives had changed forever, we were at first numb, unbelieving. And then grief’s nuclear reactor set in. He is gone. He will not be back. Why had the doctors failed to get Sandy’s heart started again?” (114, italics mine).
It may not be the death of a child, but every person, every human being, you and I included will face things that stop us cold in our tracks. You’ve been there. I’ve been there. More than once, I’m sure. And when those times come, we struggle with emotions, feelings, and questions beyond our ability to name, let alone struggle with. The questions look something like these:
Who am I, especially in light of this deep tragedy or loss?
Why has this happened?
Where have I come from and where am I going in light of this?
To whom do I belong?
Where can I go to be safe?
Light out of darkness
Advent and Christmas are seasons where Christians focus on what we call the “Incarnation”–that specific moment in human history when God became a human being in Jesus Christ. At the beginning of the fourth gospel in the New Testament, the gospel of John, we read that Jesus, the very Word of God, has come to earth to live among us. I think that our responses to those questions just posed begin to find their shape in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We see in Jesus someone who can care for us in the midst of tragedy, suffering, and pain. We see how in the midst of uncertainty, death, fear, and hopelessness, he offers light and life.
The opening section of John’s gospel describes the Incarnation of Jesus Christ in several vital ways. First, John tells us that Jesus was with God at the very beginning of creation and that with his Father, he participated in the very creation of the heavens and the earth. Compare the first five verses of John’s Gospel with the first five verses of Genesis in the Old Testament and you will see how John uses the Incarnation of Jesus Christ to explain God’s creative activity in all of the heavens and on earth.
We then read in verses six through nine that God is light, and that he sends his Son Jesus Christ to be the light of the world. In an uncertain, at times brutal and cold existence characterized by darkness–God is light and that light is most clearly seen in His Son.
This past Friday, we had our annual Gordon-Conwell Christmas gathering and worship. It is a joyous time when staff and faculty, along with a number of students and alums gather to celebrate Advent and Christmas. The campus is decorated with festive trees and wreaths, and this year we added a beautiful Advent wreath to our chapel display. When I walked in, I immediately knew that we are at this special time in the Christian calendar.
One of our alums, Melanie Spinks, is an artist by profession who also teaches art at Wingate University. Melanie showed us a copy of a beautiful painting by the renown Dutch painter Rembrandt. His Christian faith was integral to his work, and Melanie showed us a key to understanding this particular Rembrandt painting. “Look for the light, and notice the contrast between light and darkness.” Sure enough, there it was for all to see if you knew what to look for.
In the same way, Jesus Christ shines light on our darkness, wherever we find ourselves in our journey on earth. What does that mean? We live in a tragic world–a world fraught with struggle, difficulty, and complexity; where our responses to the questions posed above are not necessarily apparent. But, over time if we follow Jesus Christ our responses begin to be shaped by him and by the reality that the Triune God is unchanging in the midst of lives and a world that never stops changing. All of life is temporal. The Triune God alone is permanent.
Note verse nine of the first chapter of John’s gospel–“The true light that gives light and life to everyone in the world was coming into the world.”
Our oneness with the Triune God
In taking on human form, John tells us that Jesus makes his dwelling among us. I like how Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase of the New Testament titled The Message translates this. The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. That says it so well. Through Jesus, we see what God is like as he lives among us. Jesus is the fullness of God lived out in the world through his life, death, and resurrection–visible for all of us to see.
One more important thing that John tells us about the incarnation is this: Even though none of us has actually seen God the Father, Jesus has, because he “is himself God and in the closest relationship with the Father” (1:18). One of the primary themes found here and throughout John gospel is the oneness of Jesus with his Father. This is an essential building block for Christian teaching concerning the Trinity. And, I want to suggest one idea that I think grows out of this theme, an idea important for following Jesus today.
Paul teaches in the sixth chapter of Romans that the goal of the Christian life is that we learn to live “in Christ.” When we follow Jesus, we become united with Christ. Union with Christ then works it way out in our everyday lives. Then, John takes us a further step on this pilgrimage of faith. As we are united with Christ, and as Jesus is one with this Father, so we as his adopted sons and daughters learn to actually participate in the very Triune life of God. Living “in Christ” means that as we travel the journey of faith, we learn to to live in fellowship with and dependence upon the Triune God.
It is easy to think of Christian faith is completely transactional. Many times, our evangelical language communicates exactly that. But, if Christian faith is primarily relational (which I think it is), then conversion is a declaration of allegiance–a time when we declare our loyalty to Jesus Christ, when we trust him not only for salvation but our very lives. Conversion is not a mere transaction, but entry into ongoing relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
My Gordon-Conwell colleague, Don Fairbairn, has helped me see that not only is this idea of our participation in the Triune life of God a deeply biblical theme but that it also is found in the writings of patristic Christian writers–folks like St. Athanasius and St. Augustine. Moreover, if conversion is a declaration of allegiance, then the Christian life means a journey of faith where we are drawn into deeper relationship with our creator. As I suggested above, our responses to the questions about our own existence and human existence become shaped by Jesus Christ.
I don’t have to tell you that American evangelicalism has become impotent. We’re bound by so many temporal loyalties that our allegiance to Christ has become questionable. We’re in danger of becoming like the Deutschechristen, the so-called “German Christians” who surrendered their identity as the people of God for Hitler’s satanic dream of a world driven by his dictatorial madness. A half-century ago, the 20th century prophets Francis Schaeffer and Jacques Ellul warned us of what would happen if we abandoned our Lord and Savior for a technological society of personal peace and affluence.
So, where is your allegiance? Where is my allegiance? To declare allegiance to the Triune God, the one God who alone is eternal, is to reject unfettered allegiance to temporal loyalties. Lord, may we be truly converted. May we walk the journey of faith in allegiance to God participating in his very Triune life as we travel to the celestial city.
This post is based on a talk that I shared with folks in the Faith-builders adult life group at Calvary Church on Saturday, December 7, 2019 as we gathered for our annual Christmas party at the Charlotte campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. I’m grateful to the class for the opportunity to share these words with them.