So this year I've taken it upon myself to use the Christmas season to present the Gospel as it appears in the Bible. I don't intend for this post to be a public discussion, but more of a chance for personal examination. I'm not out to prove anything or argue the scientific feasibility of miracles. I don't care about Creationism or Evolution or any other sort of social issue at hand between Christianity and the rest of the world. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns that you would like answered feel free to send me a message and I will take the time to answer it to the best of my ability (because I have lots of time.....maybe not so much ability). I'm not looking for anything from anybody in posting this, I'm more trying to inaugurate a personal tradition (which means you can expect this every year), because it seems like Christmas involves everything except the in depth presentation of what traditional Christianity holds to be true regarding the birth of Jesus. ~Regarding Sin and our Need of Rescue.~
Most of us know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. So I'm just going to highlight the fall of man here for the purpose of making this all relevant. An important, and often missed, detail concerns the fruit that Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan to eat. Was the fruit important? Probably, but we can gain more significance from the act of eating. Looking at the dialog between Adam, Eve, and the serpent we see that Adam and Eve, though tempted, made an active decision to disobey God (Genesis 3). It's true that they were tempted, and they couldn't so much control what was being said to them, but they intellectually submitted their personal authority to the idea that was presented to them. Adam and Eve, having received the information about the fruit, evaluated it and decided to go with the Serpent. Now the fruit of the tree was the knowledge of good and evil. This is important because God had plans for Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had the opportunity to learn this concept from God himself, but they chose to understand it in their own limited capacity.
So that was Adam, and Eve...what about me? For the most part, we're all making our own decisions in the same exact way that they did. Filtering our own input of information, and relying on our own interpretation of world events. We're exactly the same as Adam and Eve. But we're not just victims of an inherited condition (even though it is inherited in a way), we actively ignore outside input and rely on our own capabilities. Christian and non-Christian alike. This is the essence of sin. Now when talking about sin we could easily get on a moral superiority kick, and I really don't want that to happen. Morality is a human response to a deep seated, and spiritual problem. Sin isn't just lying, or stealing. It's the feeling of shame, the concept of failure and guilt. It's the root of fear and helplessness. Sin is the chain that holds you down. We address these things on a solely moral level because we feel like it gives us power but it really does nothing. It's just like Adam and Eve covering their nakedness with leaves, and hiding from God. Do the leaves adequately cover their nakedness, or address the guilt that they felt? Did hiding provide them any sort of comfort? No, the guilt of their nakedness remained (leaves or no leaves), and even though they hid in shame they were found out, revealed. You could say that morality, for the most part, is a sinful way of responding to sin. Here's what I mean: The whole concept of morality is like putting a band-aid on a severed limb. Not nearly enough to staunch the flow of blood. In addition to the band-aid/dismemberment illustration imagine that you're traveling somewhere and need to climb a ledge get a better vantage point to see the road ahead. But the ledge is too high and the rock surface surrounding it gives no hand hold. So you just stand there, grab a fist full of hair and try to pull yourself up. We are, all of us, trying to do that very thing, pull ourselves up by our own hair. You can take a moment and see the issues in your life where you try to do this, be it your struggling marriage, some sort of addiction, some primal and crippling fear, depression and anxiety. In all these things humanity is helpless, because no man can make it to that ledge on his own. We're all a bunch of gory one armed people pulling out our own hair. Even if we looked to the needs of each other, would couldn't possibly address them. We need somebody that can preform surgery for the missing limb, and stretch a hand down to help us up. But looking around we just see a bunch of armless and hairless people struggling in the same way we are. God's incarnation in Jesus Christ presents us with that surgeon, and is the hand stretching down from the ledge.
Jesus and the Incarnation
What we have in Jesus is the perfect remedy for our existing situation. His presence in the world is akin to a military medic wading through our dismemberment to heal and dress our wounds. Those things that we are afraid, and ashamed of. Those hopeless failures in our lives, the racking guilt of past decisions. These are the present concerns of Jesus. The important and central truth in Christianity is that God, in his fullness, became a man. That he might walk through our world with us, being subject just like we are to hunger, sadness, grief, and anxiety; yet at the same time possessing in himself an ultimate, divine solution. He is the only man on that ledge. In order for mankind to be free from our own morality, for us to stop trying to pull ourselves up by our own hair God himself became one of us, that he would be a new kind of Adam. A man that depended solely upon divine input for his life. It all comes down to the matter of birth, death and rebirth (or resurrection). God became Man so that man would be recreated. The only way for us to be free from this world is death. Jesus came that he might die for us, and being the only one who has been truly obedient, his death is the only thing that can reverse the death we have through Adam (and ourselves). Which is the death of failure, and shame. Through his sacrifice on the cross he not only dresses our wounds, but replaces what was missing, and in his resurrection he stands on the ledge, not to pull us up, but from there to guide us through the remainder of our lives. To replace our input with his, which is in effect to free us from our own personal tyranny and helpless effort. The rest of life as a Christian then consists of living in the presence of spiritually replaced values, and convictions. It is to live in the world as if we were not living in it at all. To depend on God's miraculous input above all else. We believe that Jesus will return and when that happens, our sources of input will become permanent.
Merry Christmas
~For to us a child has been born~
(Isaiah. 9:6)
