Go ahead, be countercultural! Wish someone a Merry Christmas and mean every bit of what that means for their lives. Merry Christmas runs counter to the broken world we experience every day, and while that may be offensive to some who don’t have spiritual life, it is the antidote for a struggling world.
After surveying the news headlines on social media earlier this week, I commented audibly, though no one was in the room, “What a mess”. The war in Ukraine was approaching the three years, with millions suffering and dislocated. Over a million killed or seriously injured. An unjust Syrian dictator culminated 15 years of crumbling rot in a spectacular 11-day collapse, leaving a former Islamic jihadist group is semi-control of the country. Messy world!
Domestically, prices continue climbing, our government quietly exceeded $36 TRILLION in debt this fall due to deficit spending, and yet the news was more about how various factions were going to get even with their opposition, rather than governing justly. I could fill a page with negative headlines I read that morning. E-mail informed me that a fire swept through a Muslim slum in the Philippines leaving 45 kids in the GlobalFingerprints ministry I work with homeless. Messy world!
Malachi was my selected Bible read for the morning. It’s just 4 chapters long. You can do it on one mug of coffee if you sip. This book is dated ~430 BC, preceding the 400 years of silence before the coming of the Messiah. Malachi read to me that morning like a dysfunctional family trying to get along but failing badly. The Israelites challenge God repeatedly. “How have you loved us”? (Mal 1:2) Or “When did we ever cheat you, God” (Mal 3:8) “How have we showed you contempt?” (Mal 1:6). On the topic of diseased offerings, God sounds like an exasperated parent trying hard to be patient with a rebellious teen, “Try giving gifts like that to your governor, and see how pleased he is”. Messy world!
Chapter 2 has God pretty much demanding that the priests “just do their jobs”. He then issues a call to righteousness and challenges everyone to start treating each other justly. Why? Well, Chapter 3 starts with a reminder that a righteous and holy God MUST winnow evil from good and so life choices have consequences. And yet, while Malachi reeks of relational conflict, God sprinkles little messages of hope amidst the messy dialogue. Malachi 4:2, finally bursts into THE Hope of the World: “But for you who fear my name, The Sun of Righteous will rise with healing in His wings. You will go free, leaping with joy, like calves let out to pasture”.
Have you ever watched animals let out to pasture? Once on the first nice spring day we were passing a farm that had just let a horse out of the barn. It ran, and leaped, and then flopped down on his back in a clump of fresh grass rubbing his back with pure abandon. Like the horse had been waiting in the barn all winter to do just that. That sheer delight we saw is like the sheer delight awaiting all of us. How powerful is this Sun of Righteousness? Malachi 4:6 cuts like a hot knife through the “relational mess” butter we all are: “His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers”.
That message, that Christmas message, is the only balm for this broken world. Wish people a Merry Christmas and mean it in the deepest sense. That they would experience complete relational healing and be restored to right relationship with their creator God. If they can only muster a “Happy Holidays”, that’s fine too! “Holiday” is derived from “Holy Day” in Old English. Christmas is a very holy day, so wish them a holy day in its deepest sense. Merry Christmas Messy world!
Give Hope! Give Life! Give Bibles!
Chuck Hayes