The 2016 LITD Christmas Eve post

There was one last sticking point for me on my journey to a walk with Jesus Christ.

It wasn't overcoming the all-is-one view of God's nature that for decades made me bristle at the notion of His sovereignty and our existence on our own as His creatures. I finally was able to see that Love is necessarily relational, and involves at least two beings by definition.

It wasn't the relation between man and woman. I came to see that the broad sweep of human history makes clear the essential nature of each gender, feminism notwithstanding. It's just a fact that most leaders of empires, kingdoms and nation-states, all generals, most inventors, even most artists of note, and, for that matter, the founders of the world's great religions have been men.

It wasn't the business about bad things happening to good people. I came to understand that tornadoes, earthquakes and floods, and, for that matter, car and train wrecks, are just dramatic manifestations of the laws of physics and chemistry.

One thing about that last point, though: One has to account for situations in which one becomes a victim of evil.

And that leads us to what my final sticking point was.

To become a Christian, you have to accept the premise that the human being is sullied by sin from the get-go. Everyone is in need of grace.

And that struck me as a rigged game.  Almighty God gives us our second most precious gift, after our very lives: free will. But we are destined to use it to violate His laws, and thereby incur His wrath, and the only way out is to declare that one particular person, whose 33-year earthly existence transpired over 2,000 years ago, died to spare us that wrath.

For a long time, the primary aspect of this scenario that made me bristle was how it set God up as an absolutist. My stance was along the lines of, "I'm an alright guy. Maybe I mess up or cut little moral corners here and there, but I generally strive to be a person of virtue and good will. So off my case!"

But the more I thought about it, I wound up having to ask myself, would I really want a God that was anything less than an absolutist?

Think about it this way: Say you'd been raised by parents with impeccable standards. In your early childhood, they stressed virtuous living over and over: don't lie or steal, be generous and thoughtful, cultivate a sound mind and body. They set a great example in their own conduct. And then, suddenly, when you are, say, fourteen or fifteen, they start cutting corners, slacking morally. Not only that, but they start telling you, "Hey, don't sweat little violations. It happens. Don't let it keep you from having fun and gaining advantage in life."

Would you not lose respect swiftly and massively for such parents?

And here's the thing: God is the author of the standards those parents championed until they didn't anymore.

Any God worthy of the title is not going to set up an imperfect universe on purpose.

He could, though. He's God, after all. But, he didn't get the idea of creating it to be perfect from somewhere else. It's perfect because he decreed it that way.

Now, I'm no creationist. I agree with C.S. Lewis that the Adam and Eve story is an allegory. But what an exquisite allegory it is!

They knew nothing but perfection as they wandered that garden. Completely innocent. But God had told them one tree in the whole place was off-limits, because if you eat its fruit, you will acquire the knowledge of good and evil.

The story has its parallels, most notably the Greek myth of Pandora's box. It's the idea that curiosity morphs into temptation, and then into a willful violation of something the Most High specifically told you was verboten.

I rather think the serpent's spiel to Eve went something like this: "Oh, come on now. Do you see any difference between that tree and all the others around here? Anything different about the trunk, the leaves, the apples? Of course not. Plus, it's been a while since he has checked in with you. Aren't you the least bit curious as to whether there's really anything special about that one tree?"

Thus was planted in the human being's mind the notion that everything is ordinary, that nothing is sacred.

Which is why we're cool with the little sins we all commit daily. They don't amount to anything egregious in the overall scheme of things, we tell ourselves.

But then why is the world so broken?

Newspapers and history books exist because of sin. They are the record of what people have done to see to it that misery and chaos persist in this world. They are the story of what happens when we see the whole universe - without exception - as ordinary, lacking any sacred element.

So, in a sense, it is a rigged game, and now I'm cool with that.

Yes, we are bound to use our free will to violate God's absolute standards.

So we needed something to blow our minds, to jolt us back into an understanding that there is a sacred foundation to the created realm.

Hence Jesus.

There's a certain view of his life - the view that mainly focuses on his humanness - that could lead one to say, "He tried. He gave us sermons, parables and warnings for three years, but it brought up people's stuff, so they had to shut him up, and it required a humiliating, agonizing death."

But there's the little matter of his knowing all along how it was going to turn out. Digest that, and you can no longer see his ministry as merely trying to get us on a Godly path.

No, he was here to restore our spotlessness.

How does he do that? By extending an invitation to partake of his body and blood. By inviting us to live for Him, to be endlessly intrigued by Him, to study His words, to make room in our hearts for him.

I am now convinced it is the only hope for me and indeed for anyone who yearns to heal that brokenness - and let's knock off any attempt to intellectually deflect from it. You know you are broken and in need of His grace.

God truly doesn't accept just-alright souls into His kingdom. He insists that we be restored to - well, our factory settings, to use a modern characterization.

There is no way for that to happen unless and until we use our free will to turn and look full into His wonderful face.

God grant me the courage to overcome my inclination to kick and scream and resist.

Turn my heart of stone into one that is filled with love for Your only begotten Son.

In His name I pray.

Amen.