Glancing around my office while sitting here, if you were to ever stop by for a visit, apart from the books on my shelves, you’d also discover a strange variety of things scattered across the space, eye-candy type things I keep on display that make me smile.
Of course, I have things you’d expect—crucifixes and various Christian images, both on the walls and on the shelves. But I also have a few full-sized Star Wars helmets. These are accompanied by statuettes of Winston Churchill, the Ark of the Covenant, R2D2, and other things sharing space with matryoshka dolls, wood carvings, and Russian military hats. I have a replica of a 9th century Teutonic knight’s helmet serving as a bookend to my books on the liturgy. A few paces away and perched beside my computer printer is a Yautja’s bio mask from the film “Predator.” A few feet from that is a disposable M72 shoulder-fired rocket launcher from the Vietnam era—no longer usable, of course. Strewn among all these things are watercolor portraits my wife has painted, pictures of my family, photos with friends, and greeting cards from so many people I cherish.
Let it be said, there’s a lot in my office besides books to explore and enjoy. And while it might all appear somewhat out of place and weirdly disconnected, together it forms a comfortable matrix for me—a peaceful asylum, of sorts—a physical context apart from the world’s swirling spaces where it so often feels like everything is coming undone. It’s a place where I can settle in and get my bearings for keeping my head about me.
Amusingly, it was Jean Kerr who wrote in her splendid little book Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s possible you haven’t grasped the situation.” I find Kerr’s words so funny because in their context, they’re spoken by someone who just can’t understand how certain people can be so calm during times of crisis. Her satirical answer: They must not fully comprehend what’s going on around them. Her words are even funnier when you realize their broader insinuation, which is that unless you have a frantically unsettled mind like everyone else, you’re weird.
By this definition, Christians are noticeably weird. At least we’re supposed to be. On one hand, God calls for us to be fully aware of the world’s treacheries—to be actively engaged, and in some circumstances, found steering right into the heart of its tempests. We are not to be ignorant of the seriousness of it all. And yet at the same time, God promises we will know and exhibit a peace that surpasses all understanding, no matter what we are facing or what our mortal futures may hold.
Saint Paul says the axis of this peace is Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7). But that’s just one item among many on the Biblical shelf.
Looking around, we see it was Jesus who so gently encouraged believers not to be anxious about life in this world (Matthew 6:25; John 16:33). He did this by reminding us of the Heavenly Father’s careful concern for those who are His by faith in the life, death, and resurrection of His Son on their behalf. With Jesus Himself not only being the actual embodiment of God’s Word, but also its absolute centerpiece, it makes sense, then, that we’d continue to find this same comforting reminder taking various shapes and sizes, and being scattered across the bookshelves of the entire Bible. Every single book of the Bible, though each may be unique in its details and style, will at some point along the way bring the light of divine encouragement to the darkness of concern. Together, these reassurances make a space for us to settle in, get the proper bearings, and keep our heads about us.
If I could be certain that you’d take time to read a longer than usual note from me, I’d provide an illustration from every single book. That being said, I can at least provide a few samples.
Starting with Genesis, we’re barely into the Bible before the comforting promise of a Savior is given (Genesis 3:15). Further in, Moses records God’s heart-strengthening pledge that He will not abandon His people (Deuteronomy 31:8). Randomly glancing from shelf to shelf, we see Isaiah proclaiming peace to all whose minds are fixed on the Lord (Isaiah 26:3). Jeremiah delivers the promise that, like a green leaf in the middle of drought, God will calm the anxious hearts of His believers (Jeremiah 17:7-8). The Book of Proverbs is absolutely brimming with the same assurances (Proverbs 3:5-6; 29:25). The Psalms are, too, with so many of them being in place to lift and sustain the fearful (Psalm 23, 27, 34, 46, 56, and others). Of course, the Gospel writers never fail to keep this same comfort before us (Matthew 11:28-30; Mark 13:11; Luke 10:41-42; John 14:27). How could they not, since they bring to us the very narrative of salvation through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Saint Paul continues this powerful cadence by his epistles (Romans 8:38-39; Hebrews 13:6; Colossians 3:15; 1 Corinthians 10:13; 2 Thessalonians 3:16). Saint Peter and Saint John do the same (1 Peter 5:7; 1 John 4:18; Revelation 21 and 22).
As I said, I could list countless more, venturing from cover to cover, but I think you get the idea.
In the end, and I suppose as it was sparked by observing the various smile-inducing knick-knacks I keep in my office, the promises of God’s ever-present care given in various circumstances throughout His Word join to form the only sure place we can go to truly get our bearings and keep our wits about us in this world’s turbulence. Without God’s Word of comfort in Christ, we would be without hope.
But we’re not without hope. For Christians, hope is the key ingredient for keeping a level head in any situation of concern. It’s something that will forever be a species of divine confidence that can exist in any environment, no matter the climate or terrain. My prayer for you today is that this same hope born from faith in Christ will be yours in the days ahead.
Believe it or not, even though I typically write and send these notes very early in the morning, I’m not necessarily a morning person. It’s just that putting my thoughts into words best happens in the morning. I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing it may have something to do with the effects of light and darkness on me as an individual.
There’s a whole different feeling to being “up and doing” (as Longfellow described it) at 5:30am in the summer sun, especially in comparison to the winter months when, at this same hour, the sun is still laboring on the other side of the world. In the sunshine, there’s a sense of eager vibrancy that mutes any sense of isolating dreariness, especially here in the church facility. By dreariness, I really mean loneliness, because by the time I usually arrive here any given morning, it’s likely I won’t see another person for several more hours. During the summer, the absence of people—of life-filled motion—seems less arresting, less empty. I can go from room to room doing what I need to do without even turning on lights. There’s no need for artificial illumination. The windows throughout become light bulbs, each with the sun itself serving as the incandescent filament. The loneliness dissipates even more so when, through those same windows, I see the trees, the birds on their branches, the two resident rabbits I’ve affectionately named Frank and Betty scurrying through the yard, and so many other life-filled happenings.
The 5:30am hour during winter is something altogether different. It promises darkness.
For the most part, what’s happening outside remains invisible, and the inner spaces of the facility feel a bit more cavernous. Turning on the artificial halogen lights doesn’t seem to help all that much, and what little I may have been able to see of the outside’s darkened landscape becomes lost in their cold cathode reflection. Even worse, the unnatural light glaring throughout the enormous building carries a feeling of staleness—of dreadful isolation—that only comes unraveled when the sun finally rises and life begins arriving through the visiting people.
I suppose I don’t want to be too allegorical with this stuff. Nevertheless, I think summer and winter both communicate truths about light and darkness. Speaking of truth, I think the deeper we dig into the imagery, the more we get a sense of the differences between truth and falsehood, too.
The Bible is fluent in its comparisons of light and darkness. Of course our Lord refers to Himself as “the light of the world,” reminding His listeners that whoever would follow Him “will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Saint Peter refers to Christians as a chosen people called “out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Saint Paul reminds his readers on countless occasions regarding their former status as people born of darkness (Ephesians 5:8), but then he is sure to encourage us to know our new identity as “children of light” by faith, no longer “of the night or of the darkness” (1 Thessalonians 5:5). He so joyfully announces that God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). From such grace-filled announcements, Paul can ask rhetorically regarding the Christian life, “For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14). He asks this aware of what—or even better who—most prefers the darkness: Sin, Death, and the devil. They are the ones he’s identifying when he speaks of the “cosmic powers over this present darkness” with which we wrestle each day as Christians (Ephesians 6:12). These are the ones who labor to impose the pitch blackness of unbelief that “blinds the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). These are the ones born from lies, who have “nothing to do with the truth” (John 8:44). But these are also the ones who, by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, have already been judged, convicted, sentenced, and will eventually be brought to nothing (John 12:31; 16:11).
These biblical texts alone help interpret the uneasy feelings that often come with actual darkness. But they also interpret by comparison the comforting warmth we feel in the sunlight. Even better, as these words arise from the source of real light—the Holy Scriptures—they relay the genuine sense of wellbeing we get from the sun in comparison to artificial lighting. I think that’s the connection to be made in relation to truth and falsehood.
There are plenty of halogen-like lights in our world promising peace from various artificial sources. We all know how companies try to assure our happiness if only we’ll buy their product. But the idea goes deeper still. I read an article already this morning about how the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Biden Administration, Xavier Becerra, believes that if children are troubled in their sexuality, they should be allowed to transition to their preferred gender. Even worse, he thinks our tax dollars should pay for it. Becerra believes it’s the duty of all Americans to help these kids embrace and follow through with the desired change in order to find the peace of mind every human deserves. First of all, we Christians know better than to think humans deserve anything. It was human sinfulness that made this world what it is. It’s only by God’s grace that He offers His care, allowing the sun to shine, the rain to fall, and the world to continue spinning. Secondly, and unfortunately for Mr. Becerra, the statistics are against him. Suicide rates are already high among youth struggling with gender dysphoria, but they only get higher among the groups that actually follow through on the transition. Why? Because most end up regretting the change and all of the physiological complications that come with it.
Gender reassignment surgery is a false promise born from counterfeit light. In short, what Becerra is proposing is the devil’s business, and Satan certainly loves to masquerade as bogus light (2 Corinthians 11:14).
Christians know what they know because God’s Word is real light providing real truth. As the Psalmist declares, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). He speaks this way already knowing that God—the One who desires that all would be saved and brought to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4)—is the source of its light, and so the Psalmist says as much when he joyfully scribes, “For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness” (Psalm 18:28).
I was visiting with our congregation president, Jeff Hoppe, by phone in the parking lot this past week regarding our employee policy handbook when a quotation from Lyndon Johnson came to mind. Johnson said something about how the hardest task is not necessarily doing what’s right, but rather knowing what’s right. Johnson was talking about his role as president, but I think the wisdom applies in this circumstance, too. Christians are bombarded with right and wrong scenarios every day. In the category of what seems to be “right” there is the avalanche of sensible opinion after sensible opinion that ultimately forms practices. Much of it seems virtuous on the surface, but only through the lighted lens of God’s Word do we see the pocked surfaces and realize some have been misidentified as “good.”
Take for example Critical Race Theory (CRT), which is a hot topic these days.
CRT claims so virtuously to stand against racism, having birthed the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Standing against racism sounds great. I mean, who wouldn’t want to do that? Better yet, who could legitimately defend the position that black lives don’t matter? Of course they matter! Still, in the spotlight of God’s Word, the claims of CRT and its subsequent branches prove to be false narratives traveling a one way street.
The Bible teaches that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). No human being is untouched by Sin’s curse. With the same conclusiveness, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross met the curse and its cost. By faith in Jesus, a believer stands forgiven and free to live according to this forgiveness. In contrast, one of the fundamental teachings of CRT is that redemption from inherent racist tendencies isn’t possible. It teaches that while every race may be capable of discriminatory thoughts or actions, primarily only whites (of European and Asian descent), Christians, most males, and anyone who holds to traditional western values cannot escape it. They are, by default, unforgivably and immutably racist. Everyone else, by default, is morally innocent in this regard. For Christians who have a handle on God’s Word, it’s not hard to see how a position like this betrays an influence of devilish darkness.
Christians who regularly rest in the Word of God are also more likely to be able to predict the outcomes of such ideologies. The devil has always been the one at the wheel of such militant Marxist dogmas. And he’s always ready to drive the machine to its extreme—which is why I’d say that CRT’s only logical endgame is the same as the Nazis of the early twentieth century. Anyone who has ever taken aim at a utopian society has always been found in need of a “final solution” to its ungovernable problems. This should sound terrifyingly familiar when considering Nazi Germany, because it means eliminating the problem and its influences by force, and ultimately, extermination.
Along these lines, Ibram X. Kendi, one of the foremost leaders in the Critical Race Theory arena, insists that “there is no such thing as a not-racist idea.” He goes on to say there are only “racist ideas and antiracist ideas” and that encouraging different groups to love each other accomplishes little to nothing. He’s even more adamant that while diversity education is good, it can’t solve what he claims is an inherent problem. From his perspective, the only real way to defeat racism is to completely destroy the Western capitalist system and to further the Marxist dogmas that employ more racism. His words precisely:
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” (How to Be an Antiracist, p. 287)
What he means is that those he believes are innately racist must be met by an equal force of racism (more virtuous, of course) in order to subdue their inclinations and bring society into balance.
Kendi’s light of truth is horribly halogened. It is a false light guiding toward a dreadful end. But people are buying into it because it’s being sold as righteous. Interestingly, President Joe Biden is fully behind it. This isn’t surprising since a recent poll showed that 85% of democrats favor CRT even as almost 60% of Americans see it as unfavorably dangerous. Still, Joe Bidenhas been very open about wanting CRT to be taught in our schools, governing our workplaces, and steering our military. I don’t mean to be cruel, only honest, which is why I’ll say I suspect this is only true of Biden because he lacks the cognitive abilities for actually sorting out CRT’s endgame as he’s led along by halogenic handlers. Unfortunately, as it is with the radical LGBTQ agenda, your kids are likely already incredibly immersed in this stuff at school, online, through the movies and TV shows they watch, and so many other avenues of influence in life.
This is all the more reason for staying connected to worship and Bible study! Equipped with God’s Word, Christians are clad in the “armor of light” (Romans 13:12), and as such, are made ready for marking, avoiding, and fighting against these dangerous untruths. Kept apart from God’s Word, we can only expect to walk in darkness.
Indeed, there’s light and darkness, and for the most part, neither are all that difficult to discern. But within the category of “light,” there’s the need to distinguish between real light and fake light. That’s a little harder. With that, look to the Word of God. It’s there you’ll be equipped for discerning such things. It’s there you’ll realize that fake light doesn’t belong in the category of light at all, but rather it belongs to darkness. It’s by the real light—the Word of God—that you’ll be better equipped for measuring anything and everything according to the revealed will of God. It’s there you’ll meet the One who is the Light of the world—the embodied fulfillment of God’s will for Man—the One who is for us the precise emanation of “the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78-79). Summarizing this beautiful little text, it’s God’s will that we would know our Sin, believe in the One who delivered us from Sin, and walk in faithfulness to Him. This is the real sunlight of truth. Only by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel for faith in Jesus Christ given by the verbal and visible Word of God (Word and Sacrament ministry) will you “know the truth,” and that truth “will set you free” (John 8:32).
I’m reminded of something my daughter, Evelyn, said to me on our way to the school this past Thursday morning.
Folks in Michigan will recall that Thursday was quite the sunny day. Even at 6:45am, which is when Evelyn and I set out for the day, the sun was already well above the horizon. Turning east out of our subdivision, the sun’s beams poured through the windshield, filling the car with its glory. It felt good—the warmth on my face in crisp distinction from the chill just outside my window. Even as it was somewhat blinding, before feeling the need to adjust the sun visor, its first stirring was that of happiness.
Surprisingly, Evelyn grumbled.
“I don’t like the sun in my eyes,” she said, scooting up in her seat and reaching to adjust her visor.
“I love it,” I replied, my visor still tucked neatly above the windshield. “It feels good.”
“I don’t,” she countered. “It’s too bright.”
“Well,” I added, “we probably shouldn’t complain about it, especially since we’ve been longing for days like this all winter.”
Evelyn didn’t respond, but I could tell she was reconsidering her position.
Certainly, I understood her frustration in the moment, especially since I was piloting the vehicle. For as much as I enjoyed the sun’s resplendence, I needed to be able to see, and the sun was making that a little more difficult. Still, the last thing I ever want to do is lie to myself, expressing any dismay at all for something I’ve been waiting more than a half-year of mornings to enjoy. In my eyes, or wherever, the sunshine was a welcomed guest to a long-suffered winter.
Tapping away at the keyboard while recalling this circumstance, I suppose there are plenty of lessons within it to be learned by it. Although, I can’t think of one in particular.
Okay, how about this…
Looking back at what I just wrote, the lesson that seems most prominent is the foolishness found in lying to oneself.
One of the worst things that anyone can do is to lie to his or herself. And it’s not necessarily the lie itself that holds all the danger, but rather the potential for becoming so convinced by your own deception that you willingly exchange truth for untruth. This reminds me of a video of Joe Biden from 2015 I watched this past week. It was a quasi-interesting twenty minutes of Joe sitting before a fawning reporter and cameraman and doing what Joe does, which is to wear a triangular smile while rambling incoherently. And yet, during the purgatory-like segment of softball-question nonsense, there was something Joe spoke about with relative unequivocalness. I ended up posting something about it on Facebook. Here’s what I wrote:
“I just watched a portion of a video of Joe Biden from September of 2015 in which he attempted to describe the authenticity of his Catholic faith. Barely a few minutes into his plastic words I had a thought. To be a liar is one thing. To be a sincere liar is something altogether worse. Or as Shakespeare mused through the character of Hamlet, ‘One may smile and smile, and be a villain.’”
The point behind this comment relates to ongoing news of several Roman Catholic bishops around the country and overseas pushing for Joe Biden to be excommunicated. They’re doing this because Joe claims that one can be a Catholic and be pro-choice—and not just the “safe but rare” kind that the Democrats proffered back in the 80s, but rather the kind that goes right over the cliff into believing abortion (in all of its grisly forms) is a gift from God, and even worse, that full-term abortion is something upon which God dotes with an similarly triangular smile.
Do you know what full-term abortion is? If you guessed a full-term newborn child being killed immediately after delivery, then you guessed rightly. The President of the United States—your president—believes such a thing is holy.
Of course, I expect the nominal Christians to come out of the shadows to say I’m misconstruing his position, that he only supports it in this or that special circumstance. These folks will say this because, well, they voted for him, and like him, they aren’t necessarily using the lens of God’s Word for discerning these things. Well, whatever. Use whichever intellectual dance moves you prefer for avoiding the visceral fact that the President of the United States has given a thumbs-up to doctors delivering and then murdering newborn children if in such a moment a mother decides she doesn’t want her child.
But let me take a brief step backward to where this started.
As a Christian, the only way to arrive at an acceptance of the pro-choice position, no matter the justification, is to lie to yourself about a great many things. It is to lie about what life is and means. It is to lie about life’s Author. It is to lie about what that Author said with regard to human dignity and the truest definition of personhood. It is to wield the Word of God in deceptive ways, and ultimately by such handling, to summarily reject it, whether the one wielding it realizes it or not. Lastly, it is to be caught in the dilemma that to reject the Word of God, by default, is to reject the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.
You cannot stake a claim in Christianity and reject the Savior who sits at its heart. It just doesn’t work. Thankfully, there remain plenty of Bishops in the Roman Catholic Church who are willing to enforce this basic doctrinal premise.
I wrote and posted something else this past week that comes to mind, too. It had to do with an article from The Federalist entitled “Lockdown Mongers Can Point Fingers, But The Science Is In: They’re To Blame.” By the way, one of the two senior editors at The Federalist is a biblically astute LCMS Lutheran, Mollie Hemingway, whose father is a Confessional Lutheran pastor. I should add that The Federalist has several LCMS writers on its roster of contributors, and in my opinion, that alone makes it one of the few political/cultural news sources out there to be trusted. Anyway, here’s what I wrote when I posted the article:
“The devil has plenty of instruments in his bag, but deception is the glove he wears for wielding each one.”
Again, the point here was to say that there are plenty of tools in the devil’s toolbox for drawing us into Sin, things he uses for convincing us to believe and do the wrong things. But before he goes about his darkly deeds, his grip on each instance begins with deceptively enticing half-truths.
“Sure, I know it’s against God’s Word for me and my girlfriend to live together before marriage,” the young man says, “but it makes good financial and logistical sense to do so. I figure that as long as we have the intention of getting married, God will let this one slide.”
Don’t lie to yourself. Repent.
“It makes perfect sense that the churches are closed,” the husband and wife contemplate over Sunday morning coffee. “The science says that mass gatherings for worship are sure to be super spreaders of the virus. The Church can ‘love thy neighbor’ a lot better by masking up and staying home.”
Don’t lie to yourself. Repent.
“Certainly I’m justified in speaking poorly about that person to others,” she muses. “How could I be wrong in doing so? My friend hurt me, and I need the emotional support from other friends who understand. The only way to get the support is to tell others about what happened.”
Don’t lie to yourself. Repent.
To knowingly persist in such behaviors unrepentantly, having exchanged the truth of God’s Word for lies, won’t end well. Still, the devil will work to convince you that it will. He may even do it in ways that sound pious, kind of like Adlai Stevenson’s infamous words given in jest: “A lie is an abomination to the Lord, and a very present help in trouble.”
Again, I don’t want to lie about the sunshine and say I don’t like it. I love it, even when it’s uncomfortably shining in my eyes. It’s the same here. Don’t be fooled. Stick to the truth of God’s Word, even when it’s uncomfortable to do so. No matter what happens, you’ll have the certainty of real truth. You’ll be traveling along the stepping stones of faith cut from God’s reliable quarry. Along the way, you’ll know and understand the gravity of your Sin—your very REAL Sin—and you’ll know the One who came to forgive you of that Sin, to recreate you by His wonderful love, and to send you out as someone capable of beaming the refreshing and face-warming sunlight of His love in a wintry world of Sin longing for the rescue of a divine summer.
Cruciform Stuff 