This Christmas season, how do we contemplate and reconcile the tender mercies of God manifested in the birth of Jesus Christ along with the horrific natural disasters that killed so many innocent people in the Midwest?
In other words, how do we believe that God is good when bad things happen?
Let us consider the words of the Declaration of Independence, which speaks of the God of nature and nature’s God. Whereas, climate change activists would have us believe that the tornadoes (and nearly every other world event) is caused by their god, climate change, our founding fathers believed otherwise. They believed that nature as a whole is a reflection of God’s invisible attributes. We as a society no longer believe that as we have lost hold of what it means to be one nation under God.
Celebrating Christmas means pondering that Jesus Christ, the son of God, was born as God’s gift to save mankind from sin. Subsequently, we will celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus during the Easter holiday. Taken together, the message is Christ successfully paid the price for sin and conquered death, which was God’s judgment for sin.
The tantamount question is, “How then shall we live?”
What does it mean to believe a savior was born? What was He saving us from and what is He saving us unto?
The simple answer? Jesus came to save us from ourselves, including what is known as the Western Civilization Rational Mind Set, which eschews faith!
In an age and culture of deep-seated narcissism, nihilism and hedonism, this particular meaning of Christmas is not a big seller these days due to the implication of judgment for sin and the need to be saved from the same. This is because our society no longer believes in self-evident truths and divinely-inspired standards of good and evil have replaced the same with situational ethics and secular humanism.
This oxymoron, that accepting or agreeing with God’s judgment in our lives, his condemnation of sin, is that which saves us, is completely lost on a society that refuses to be judged: the “don’t judge me” generation on steroids of eternal consequence. Our society no longer lives as if we have a judge.
As a result, our society no longer appeals to God’s mercy. Instead we have a vague notion of divine tolerance, if we believe at all.
Nevertheless, Jesus can’t be our savior unless there is a judgment that he is saving us from.
California, in particular, needs to be saved from God’s judgment because we practically lead the nation in defying God.
Consider the most famous Christmas song in America, “Joy to the World,” which celebrates the God of nature and nature’s God, as He can bring both blessing (field) and trouble (floods and thorns), as nature is anything but benign.
In the days of old, before science and technology ruled the world and ostensibly answered the prayers of mankind, men of faith prayed and humbled themselves before God Almighty, who held their lives, their times and fortunes in His hand, for they believed that God judged both men and nations.
Today, we call all of the above a form of superstition, a product of our culture and society having declared that God is dead for all practical intents and purposes, as we have rejected the foundations of faith and reverence that made America sing: “Joy to the world, the Lord has come, Let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare Him room … Let heaven and nature sing … He comes to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found … He rules the world and makes the nations prove, The glory of His righteousness.”
Andy Caldwell is the COLAB executive director and host of “The Andy Caldwell Show,” airing 3 to 5 p.m. weekdays on KZSB AM 1290, the News-Press radio station.
