Christmas and Evil


God says, "For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me - the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!" Jeremiah 2:13

Can we just cut through the lies? We have lied to ourselves about our God. We have believed that God is loving, while disbelieving that God judges and punishes. This picture of God allows us to sin, and find joy in sinning. Do you think I'm too harsh? Have you read the lyrics of the most popular songs our students sing while riding down the road? Have you listened to the unholy things adults and students say? Have you noticed the cravings for sex and drunkenness and money at Christmas time, and how intently we seem to chase those cravings? This world is in worse trouble than some fiscal cliff might bring. Jeremiah points out two sins: turning our back on God and filling our lives with unfulfilling things. Both of these things leave us guilty. God is our only solution to the problems in our life. All other solutions (just a little more money, more fun, more things from Wal-Mart) are only band-aids, when we need a full-on heart transplant.

Stellar Kart has a song called "Shine Like The Stars" that includes the following lines:
I hear you say
You know the way
Still you live like you do
But compromise
Only satisfies
The dying part of you
I look around and see people who have checked off "Christian" under the Religion section of some survey, while not truly having decided to follow God with their lives. I see the seeds of such a lack of devotion in my own soul, too, and I cringe. And I will never truly find satisfaction in compromise. I need a Savior to rescue my dying soul.

If we understand the world around us from God's perspective, then we can see even more beauty in Christmas. The world is desparate for help, even while pushing away God's help (at least, on the surface). And God, in His infinite wisdom and His penchant for second chances, sends us a solution. He shows us what Perfection looks like in human form, and we see how far we have to go. We see at long last the Help we so desparately require, wrapped in blankets and lying in a feed trough, heralded from the sky by angelic beings. He can repair our cisterns (and change our perspective). He can flood our lives (and fulfill all our longings to overflowing, that we may spill to other broken cisterns around us). Thank you, God, for your gift of a fountain of living water, our Messiah. Thank you for a King to rule our hearts and repair our cisterns. 

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