I just want to take a moment to remind you that you are a child of God. You were born, not of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God. You are God’s child and you have always been God’s child.
I want you to grasp onto that truth like you would grasp onto a rope as you slip from the edge of a cliff. Grasp onto that truth like your life depends on it, like your life depends on someone pulling up that rope. After-all, we need that reminder in a world that we cannot control.
And, there are a lot of things out of our control right now. We cannot control the end of this pandemic in anything that looks like a timely fashion, though we desperately want to. There is just too much illness, too much death, and too many struggles associated with this little virus that wreaks havoc on our lives and on our mental health.
In addition, as a pastor, I cannot control the willingness of people to come and worship the Lord, though I would certainly like to. I would love that people would readily open the door of their hearts to the opportunity to allow the Lord to touch their lives. Churches would not be struggling if this were the case. But, it is not the case. Though our churches have some ability to control this, I would be a fool if I did not acknowledge that our control is very, very limited.
As if those two items were not enough, the darkness of this time of year added on top of our inability to visit with family and friends and to provide the hugs that we all need is getting to be just too much. And, I cannot control any of it. I am limited in my ability to make any of it better.
Heck, I cannot even make sure my kids get all of their assignments turned in on time…and I am right with them as they study on their screens from home!
Some parents cannot even be certain their teens remain safely in the house throughout the night. The teens sneak out into the dark. I cannot even imagine the stress of that. Keeping children safe is not as easy as we all imagined when we were younger and idealistic. Talk about feeling helpless!
Kids are no different. They too are ready to just be done with all of it and to be with their friends, and to do the things that kids do and go the places that kids go and have fun the way that kids have fun.
We were all so ready for 2020 to be over, but it is not. 2021 is shaping to be 2020s poorly written sequel. We secretly suspected this was going to be the case, but we did not want to believe it. After-all, dates written on a piece of paper hung on the wall mean nothing when it comes to the uncontrollable nature of reality.
I deeply wish that there was a lot more that I could control. And, I would venture to guess that you are in the same boat, or at least can empathize with those who are.
So, since the Bible is our window into the heart and mind of God, does it help you to know that this helplessness is something that the Bible does talk about?
Does it help you to know that this helplessness is something that God can understand completely?
You can find it right in the start of John’s gospel. It talks about how God chooses to speak words of light and life into the world. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
You were brought into being through the Word of God. That means that you were not brought here by mistake.
As you know, when we speak, we intentionally choose the words we use. And, God chose to speak words that brought you into existence, because the Lord thought that the world would be a better place with you in it. You were born out of an intentional act of love, and we are not simply talking about the love of your parents. You were born because God desired you to be here and desired to fill you with grace.
And, that love is what makes the next part of this story all the more tragic. The Bible says that you were born through God’s Word, but after the Word of God took on flesh and walked around, teaching and healing and loving; those whom God lovingly created “did not know him.” God came to us, whom he loves, in the person of Jesus, yet “his own people did not accept him.”
That is where the tragedy of it all can be found. Like a parent who has lost their beloved child out the window in the middle of the night, God created people out of pure love and his own children jumped out of the window and did not accept him. Instead, of looking to their heavenly parent, the light and life of the world, they took the light and the life of the world and nailed it to a cross. Humanity tried to snuff out the life and the light.
That is stabbing a parent in the heart. That is darkness. Like I said, God completely understands.
Somehow, in some way, the people that God created out of love and light, as John says in John 3:13, “loved the darkness rather than the Light.”
And, that is where we find ourselves. Not that we want to be in the darkness, not that we would hope for such darkness upon someone else, but the darkness is, unfortunately, becoming all too familiar. We hear of death and we shrug; too stuck in the statistics of the darkness to care. We hear of lies and resign ourselves to the ways of the world, which we cannot change. We hear of struggle and we fail to help; unable to find our way out of our own dark tomb.
You do not have to desire darkness to love it…to be bonded to it. It is a bad relationship out of which we cannot find a way to leave. And, like all bad relationships, it causes us to ponder leaving even our good relationships.
You know that the Bible is right. You know that all of this is true.
But, there is another truth that you need to know. There is another truth that you need to clearly hear. And, it is preaching to you right out of John 1:12-13. Now, hear the word of the Lord:
“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
“The Message” translation of the Bible puts it this way:
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true
selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.
The Bible invites you over and over again to remember that you are a child of God. You were born, not of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God. You are God’s child and you have always been God’s child. This is the truth.
We tend to think that darkness is the truth. “Welcome to the real world,” we say. We tend to focus too much on the darkness. But, remember that a single candle flame can dispel the darkness for one and a half miles. That is right. You can see a candle flame from over a mile away. Now that is power. And, it is in that kind of power in which we put our trust.
Jesus Christ is our light and our life. He dispels the darkness of the world. He is the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. He is the one who burst forth from the darkness of the tomb. He is the one who pulls us up from the darkness with him. He is the way, the truth, and the life. And, Jesus Christ is the one who had the power to make you children of God. And, that truth has not changed.
I just want to take a moment to remind you that you are a child of God. You were born, not of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God. You are God’s child and you have always been God’s child.
I want you to grasp onto that truth like you would grasp onto a rope as you slip from the edge of a cliff. Grasp onto that truth like your life depends on it; like your life depends on Jesus Christ pulling up that rope.
After-all, we have a God who created us despite the darkness. We have a God who saved us from the dark tomb. And, we have God to whom we cling even in these dark days.
You are a child of God who has been given the gift of grace upon grace.
In other words, Jesus always pulls up the rope and saves.
Hold onto Jesus in the dark. Hold onto Jesus when all else is out of your control. Hold on, because Jesus is your life and your light, O child of God.
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