The Way of Peace

All that men learned from sacred scrolls
was broken faith and twisted souls-
the heritage of noble halls
was broken swords and blackened walls-
So Love invaded guile and war,
          misery and unease;
into our darkness came a star,
          into our anger, peace.

But men forget that heavenly grace
makes every stall a princely place,
and trust to reap from iron force
joy, mercy, or remorse;
and so, good Christians, let us pray
          in thought and work and hymn:
“Lord, make each morn a Christmas day,
          each heart a Bethlehem.”

William R. Mitchell

It’s Christmas time, the time of celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Oh - yeah, except the merchants want to make it a “gift-giving” celebration to sell more stuff and many won’t even say “Merry Christmas” anymore for fear of possibly offending some potential customer. Huh? Why should someone be offended by that? Are they so caught up in their own anti-religious, self-serving attitudes that they can’t stand for someone else to have religious sentiment? It’s typical these days, I suppose…

Oh - yeah, except there are those Christians who say it is a “pagan holiday” and that Jesus wasn’t born in December. Well, maybe he was, and maybe he wasn’t, ‘cuz the Gospel stories don’t really say when it was. Oh sure, we can “infer” that maybe it was earlier in the year because shepherds don’t usually spend the night out in the field with the sheep in the middle of winter. (Well, maybe it was just a warm December like we are having in Dallas this week?) OK, but, the gospels still don’t say WHEN it was.

So, along the way Christians came up with some dates to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And why they chose some dates and not others is partly tradition, partly convenience, and partly a mystery. In the end, though, I just have to come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter all that much. I like the attitude in William Mitchell’s poem quoted above: make each morn a Christmas day…

But since speculation seems to be the rule regarding the origin of Christmas, I will throw out my own little bit of inference for your consideration:

Back in the day, before all our modern technology and convenience, the winter was a time of staying inside, trying to keep warm, doing things that didn’t require a lot of outside work and activities. Men looked out on a world that had the appearance of dying. The leaves were gone from the trees, the grass was brown and withered, snow and ice would come and cover everything from time to time. And the sun was receding, each day a little shorter than the previous. Yet, in the midst of all that, when you look across the winter landscape you see little spots of green. High among the dead branches of the oak there would be these little sprigs of green - mistletoe. And some trees weren’t dry and brown - evergreens. These things make a nice metaphor. In the midst of the “dying” land there was a sign that life would return in the spring. That greenery then becomes something symbolic and the basis of wintertime celebrations. It is a sign of hope. Likewise, the return of the sun at winter solstice is an indication that the world is not coming to an end, but will turn and begin anew.

Imagine a Christian teacher wanting to get across the message of hope in the Gospel story. All the signs of hope, of life returning, can be used as a metaphor of God’s grace to us through the birth of Jesus. His birth is our hope, the one “green” thing among all the “brown” stuff of life. God’s love “invades” the world through the birth of Jesus and brings to us the gift of hope of our own rebirth.

Whatever the actual date of Jesus’ birth, I think this time of year is a very appropriate time to celebrate that birth.

Voices of the Advent is a collection of Christmas poems by William R. Mitchell, each beautifully illustrated by William Brown. It is available from amazon.com and lulu.com. A special hardcover edition is available only at lulu.com.

Sampling

Here’s how we make a computer play sound. We take “samples” of a signal, store them in the computer, then play them back one at a time at a constant rate. If we take enough samples of the sound, when we connect the samples back together, the result is close enough to the original that our ears don’t detect the difference.

In this second version the number of samples for each period of the waveform have been reduced to one-third the original number and the waveform is now quite a bit different from the original. Interestingly, at high pitches, the ear will still hear the sound much the same as the original, but at lower pitches there will be quite a bit of difference in sound. Even so, the frequency of the two sounds is still the same and we hear the same pitch between the original and the sample sound. But look what happens if we continue to reduce the number of samples until we are taking less than two samples for each period of the waveform.

Ooops. At this point we have a serious problem (shown by the brackets above and below the figure). Not only did we lose the original wiggles in the waveform, the frequency of the waveform (where it crosses zero) is now less than the original. It won’t sound at the same pitch anymore! This is an interesting phenomenon called “foldover” and is a critical consideration when creating sounds with a computer. We have to take more than two samples per period of a sound if we want to accurately represent the pitch.

So, here’s the point. If you don’t have enough data samples you can seriously misrepresent something. Even people who are fairly intelligent and well-meaning can fall prey to this little factoid. It’s something that I have noticed in many areas of life (and have written about before). When we only have a small amount of information to go on, it is very easy to just “fill-in” the missing pieces based on some assumptions and presumptions and make it look like we know something important when we really don’t.

I see this problem show up in many places. One recent example is a book I have been reading by a well-known atheist who is very skeptical of religion. He gives numerous examples of how bad religion is, and someone reading only his book would easily get the idea that everyone who believes in God is some kind of nutcase. It’s a perfect example of sampling too-few data points to get any kind of a meaningful result. It looks impressive, but is actually just tedious and inane. Amazingly, the inside cover of the book is filled with accolades from reviewers. Apparently they aren’t too concerned with the truth; only with promoting an atheist agenda.

But I’m not trying to pick on the atheists here, because it’s not just some loudmouthed atheists that have this problem. You get the same problem with the nightly television news, Internet blogs, and gossip around the coffee machine at work. The really bad news is that a lot of Christian preachers don’t seem to understand either. They pick and choose a few verses of scripture and try and build a doctrine on those alone. The result is a distortion of what the Bible really says. In hermeneutics (i.e., Bible interpretation) we say that they didn’t take the context into account.

That’s what we mean by “context” in Bible interpretation and why it is so important. Trying to base some doctrine on a mere one or two verses will almost always result in error (aka heresy). We have to take into account the broader scope of the writings in the Bible and understand the language and historical period so we can recognize figures of speech.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the evildoer. But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well. (Mat 5:38-39)

So, what about that? Does that mean that Christians are to be punching bags for anyone who comes along? Or, does that mean that Jesus repudiated the law? No and no. Jesus had already said:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law until everything takes place. (Mat 5:17-18)

So, the “law” of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is not being abolished by what Jesus said. Instead, Jesus is taking it to a higher level. To make a comparison, Jesus is “up-sampling” the data - providing more data points so that we get an even better representation of what the law meant. The typical human response to assault is to return the assault to the other. That’s a very literal response to “an eye for an eye” and is probably how most people think of it. But if you take things to a higher level, “an eye for an eye” represents the principle of justice. Justice requires balance, and if something is taken from one place something has to taken from somewhere else to balance things out. Since someone harms me, it seems only just that a recompense is made. But what about all the unjust things I have done to others, even those done unintentionally? Well, if I demand retribution against others for their attack on me, then I automatically declare a willingness for retribution to be taken against me for any wrongs I have done. Ooops.

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive.” (Mat 7:1-2)

OK. There’s the point made in summary of the preceding verses, the full context in other words. If you judge that others are to be condemned you have judged yourself as well. If you forgive wrongs done to you, you have set the standard for yourself as well. That’s the way God does things. Most people want vengeance for the wrongs of others because they are ignorant of their own wrongs. God is not ignorant, however, and if you demand retribution for all wrongs, God will probably oblige you.

When you take a full sampling of the actions of human beings, you are going to find that “all have sinned” and all are judged guilty. It’s very easy to limit our samplings to the weakness of others; much more difficult to take a full measure of things and recognize our own weaknesses as well.

Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to you about our common salvation, I now feel compelled instead to write to encourage you to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. (Jud 1:3)

And so Jude begins his short letter to the Saints - those who follow Jesus in truth. It is easy to skip past this short introductory sentence and become fascinated with the images of corruption, deceit and destruction that follow, even to the point of obsession. I think it is prudent to stop and consider this verse alone, for there is something interesting here. The word “faith” is used in a different sense than normally used in the New Testament.

Here in Jude, “faith” seems to refer to religious doctrine. After all, you cannot literally deliver faith to someone else. Faith requires an action on the part of the hearer, not merely an intellectual comprehension of the ideas. Thus Jude is using the phrase “faith…entrusted to the saints” in a figurative sense to represent the body of teachings about faith that form the core of the Gospel. In order to understand the rest of Jude, we need to first remind ourselves of what that Gospel was and what it meant.

Generally speaking, faith simply means “a firm reliance” and, when applied specifically to Christian teachings, means to rely only on Jesus for our salvation. We do that by binding our heart, mind and soul to the Holy Spirit to the extent we become a “new creature,” no longer led by our carnal desires, but by a power and influence from God. It follows, then, that our own acts, as good as they may be, based on our will power are not the source of our salvation; neither is our salvation dependent on religious rituals and observances. The purpose of the Church, and it’s religious observances, is to provide a vehicle to carry the Gospel forward through time, teaching successive generations what was originally entrusted to the disciples of Jesus. Our faith is not in the Church, the leaders of the Church, or even in the doctrines of the Church, but only in the One the Church talks about - Jesus Christ. True faith in Jesus requires us to acknowledge our weakness and his power, and thus rely on him alone. Just as we must “die to self” we must “die” to anything that displaces the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is the message Paul repeatedly gives through his epistles, but the strongest and most direct statement is found in Galatians.

You foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell on you? Before your eyes Jesus Christ was vividly portrayed as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Although you began with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort? Have you suffered so many things for nothing?  if indeed it was for nothing. Does God then give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law or by your believing what you heard? (Gal 3:1-5)

It’s unfortunate that English lacks a verb form of “faith” because that is really what this passage means where the word “believing” is used. It would be awkward, but more correct, to translate as, “faithing what you heard.” The important thing to grasp is that Paul warns the Galatians against trusting in their own religious works (e.g., circumcision) as a condition of their salvation. They were to trust in the miraculous power of God, proven by the resurrection of Jesus, to work a renewal in them also.

For us today, this may seem banal and obvious, but it is something that must be repeated again and again. Every generation seems to forget this simple doctrine of Christianity, or at least fails to actually live by it. We are saved by grace, acquired by faith, and not by our observance of religious rituals or works of charity. The purpose of that grace is to transform our nature into the being that God desired when He created mankind. That transformation of man’s soul demonstrates not only God’s power but also His love - a love that caused Him to sacrifice His own Son because of our need. Man’s failure to completely trust in God generally leads to man’s reliance on religion as an easier and more demonstrable substitute. It is easy to show you how many times a man went to Church and how much money he gave to charity; it’s difficult to show you that there is an internal change of his nature. Thus men fall back into the error of relying on outward conformity and appearance as proof of their righteousness, and the Gospel gets misunderstood in the process.

The greater danger is that we misrepresent the Gospel to non-Christians. They perceive Christianity as a religious observance and set of moral behavior patterns, but fail to hear the underlying premise, and are then quick to point out the failings of those who call themselves Christian. We do not always live up to the standards that Jesus taught, and those against us will continuously berate and belittle those of faith for the apparent hypocrisy. Yet, to those who truly understand, we know that our weakness is God’s glory. We are going through a series of changes, not yet completed, and are judged by the improvement in our nature brought about by the Holy Spirit, not the temporal failings of the flesh.

But this understanding, true as it is, can lead to the corruption that Jude warns about. The error that Jude is warning against is licentiousness based on a misunderstanding of the nature of God’s grace. Just as man can fall back into reliance on religious ritual rather than faith in Jesus, man can also fall into an alternate deception, believing that our actions have no consequences. Since God saves by His power alone, and we can do nothing to earn the grace that saves, some will argue that we should not worry at all about what we do. That is the error that Jude is warning against.

For certain men have secretly slipped in among you - men who long ago were marked out for the condemnation I am about to describe - ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jud 1:4)

The problem Jude was aware of is spoken to by the other epistles in the New Testament. Paul makes explicit mention of this problem in Romans 6 and 1 Corinthians 5-6.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. (Rom 6:15-18)

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God. … Now God indeed raised the Lord and he will raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! … Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body. (1Co 6:9-20)

The epistles of James deals with this same attitude in a slightly different context. The often misunderstood remarks of James make perfect sense when we recognize it is a warning against licentiousness, the attitude that we don’t have to worry about how we live our lives.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it? So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself. (Jas 2:14-17)

James’ use of the word “works” seems to conflict with Paul, but that is only because each is speaking in a different context. In principle, they are exactly the same. Paul is using “works” in the sense of observance of religious rituals, not in the sense of moral action in general. Paul clearly encourages his readers to acts of charity, love, and avoidance of sin. James is warning his readers that their faith, if valid, will work a change in their attitudes and actions towards others, and the lack of that response indicates they are hypocrites. They do not have live faith, they only speak dead words.

The epistles of John warn about this also and remind the readers to hold fast to what they were taught in the beginning.

Now this is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him and yet keep on walking in the darkness, we are lying and not practicing the truth. (1Jn 1:5-6)

The point made in all of these passages should be clear if you understand the “faith once entrusted to the saints.” The power of Christ in us works a transformation. THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL CHANGE YOU. To keep going in the ways of the world, following the lusts of the flesh, is to rebel against the power of the Holy Spirit. That rebellion can show up in subtle ways, even in those who intend good. Recognizing our failings, we want to hurry things up, make ourselves look good, and think that we should do-this and do-that to make sure we put on a righteous appearance. It comes about, in part, because of impatience. We expect things to happen immediately, or at least according to a time schedule we have worked out. But, as James points out:

My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything. (Jas 1:2-4)

Faith takes patience. We must not only rely on God to work in us, but to do so at the time and pace of His choosing. That is not an excuse for apathy, or an excuse to just go along to get along. It simply means that we are in God’s hands and trust that He will work things into Good (Rom. 8:24-29). But a lack of patience, another form of lack of faith, leads eventually to the second part of Jude’s warning. When things don’t happen the way men expect them to, they start making up new “doctrines” that eventually will deny Jesus. This inventiveness is another perennial problem in the Church. Well meaning preachers and theologians have a tendency to add onto the Gospel, trying to extend it to justify why things have not worked out the way men think they should.

Above all, understand this: In the last days blatant scoffers will come, being propelled by their own evil urges and saying, “Where is his promised return? For ever since our ancestors died, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.” …The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. (2Pe 3:3-9)

The scoffers and mockers will come, denying that the Gospel has any relevance to us today. Corrupt men will always try and pervert the Gospel to make it fit men’s desires. They will promise a “heaven on earth” to those who turn from faith to self-willed action, or deny the divinity of Jesus. They will twist the words of Jesus into self-serving means to an end, usually setting themselves up as “prophets” who are revealing some novel and true interpretation of the scriptures that no one ever saw before. Some will be overly “religious” requiring strict obedience to some set of rules, giving a false image of righteousness. Others will promote a fake freedom, a do-what-you-want attitude based on a false representation of God’s grace. The so-called “New Agers” present a watered-down Jesus, only a moral teacher not the true power of God in human form. The secular scholars do likewise, seeking to “de-mystify” Jesus based on their materialistic world view. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who want to discard orthodox teachings of the Gospel in favor of some supposed “true” Christianity that was suppressed by the Church. Don’t believe any of it.

Hold to the faith once for all entrusted to the saints. God’s grace provides forgiveness for sin and a power to overcome sin. We are not free to sin; we are free from sin. We do not change ourselves, but work diligently towards good, relying on the Holy Spirit to empower us. We wait patiently for God to work out His plan when and where He sees fit. We live in a world that is in rebellion against God and surely trials and tribulations will come. It may seem that doing good in such a world is of no consequence. But our good works, no matter how insignificant, are a direct manifestation of that power working in us, and we boast of God’s power and love, not our own. Just remember that during the process of spiritual regeneration by the power of God, there will be failures, backsliding, and other such things. This is not to be taken lightly and brushed away as if it were nothing. We must never take the attitude that God doesn’t care about our sin, our corruption, our hypocrisies, our divisiveness, our quarrelling, and our lack of love towards others. He does care, and is doing something about it. He has given us the power to overcome these things, and we appropriate that power to overcome by faith in Jesus Christ.

I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage - I have conquered the world. (Joh 16:33)

All the things that may trouble us, from our own failings to the wickedness that is in the world, are subject to the power of Jesus Christ. Our solution to the problems we face has always been the same. No matter what political or economic distress may come, no matter what weakness we find in our own flesh, the solution is the one once entrusted to the saints: The just shall live by faith.

But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith, by praying in the Holy Spirit, maintain yourselves in the love of God, while anticipating the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that brings eternal life. And have mercy on those who waver; save others by snatching them out of the fire; have mercy on others, coupled with a fear of God, hating even the clothes stained by the flesh. Now to the one who is able to keep you from falling, and to cause you to stand, rejoicing, without blemish before his glorious presence, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time, and now, and for all eternity. Amen. (Jud 1:20-25)

Jude’s closing says it all. That is what we should be doing. We do not need to invent new, enticing, clever doctrines; the sayings of Jesus are sufficient. We do not need to destroy those who oppose us; we need to help them to repentance. We do not need to fix the world system; God will deal with it in due season. We need to hold on to the Gospel as it was given from the beginning.