Real Life Matters

What if we did something revolutionary this year? What if, instead of Christmas being a time of hurrying and worrying, what if we made this season a time of restoring our sense of wonder and awe? After all, our theology, like our cosmology, could best be defined as primitive. In both cases, there’s always more to explore. In both cases, we “see through a glass darkly.” Yet, the World of God and the Word of God give us a window. And there we learn that the same Christ who was born in a pool of blood just like you, created the vast, incomprehensible cosmos.

For instance, the earth alone-weighs 6.6 sextillion tons. Not trillion, not quadrillion, not quintillion, but 6.6 sextillion tons! That’s the “illion” with the 21 zeros behind it. And all of that weight is traveling through space at 72,600 mph. And the Bible says that the universe is God’s “finger work.” It’s like flicking a switch for God to create and sustain your world. So I think He can handle your mortgage payment.

Genesis 1:16 briefly describes the creation of the stars: “And He made the stars.” That’s it. It’s almost parenthetical; it’s an “oh by the way…” Why so short and simple? It’s too elaborate to elaborate. Psalm 19 tells us that the cosmos is God’s way of getting our attention: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.” God is not silent; we are not listening. Just our star, the sun, is 93 million miles away from here. And just to give you an idea of the size of things, you could fit Planet Earth inside the sun a million times like a gumball machine. But there are stars out there much bigger than our sun. One star called Antares could hold 64 million suns the size of our sun. There is another sun out there in the constellation Hercules that could contain 100 million suns the size of Antares. “And He made the stars.” Our galaxy alone is over six hundred trillion miles across. But our galaxy is only one of some hundred-thousand-million galaxies that can be seen using modern telescopes. And each one of those galaxies contains some hundred-thousand-million stars.

Stunning, isn’t it, that the creator of the vast cosmos bounced around in a belly, on a donkey ride into Bethlehem, was born in a pool of blood, in a cave, in a dirty feeding trough? And from the cradle to the cross, Jesus had one all-consuming drive and passion: You. And your eternal well-being. I think a great gift idea for Christmas would be a theology of wonder, a theology that’s never quite complete, a theology that keeps seeking, keeps asking, keeps knocking. Merry Christmas.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—

I know that most of us are cynical about anything “free” these days. Seriously, what’s the catch? We’ve been told all our lives that there’s no free lunch and that we need to work our way to the top in this meritocracy called life. So anything free seems cheap. I was watching TV the other day and caught this eBay commercial. Their slogan is “shop victoriously; don’t just buy it… win it!” eBay kicks meritocracy up a notch. And I have to be honest, I love it. I love meritocracy. It seems right. And because I can be competitive, it’s just plain funner.

But there is something that I’ve come to realize in my 44 short years of life. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to shake this thing called sin. I know that it sounds like some archaic backwoods preacher-word, but the word sin simply means to miss the mark—it’s an old archery term. If an archer missed the target, he was called a “sinner.” The Bible says that “we all have sinned and all fall short [miss the mark] of the glory of God.” And we don’t like that, so we don’t like to admit it. We all want to be able to split the uprights; we want all of life’s baskets to go swish, and sometimes they do. But not always.

I was telling some friends this the other day: Everywhere I go, there my self is—and my self, like your self, doesn’t always choose the right things. And God is a perfect God with a perfect standard that we are just not capable of living up to. And that’s why we need what the Bible calls a free gift. And receiving it simply means admitting our need and taking this gracious handout from God. Until then, we’ll keep trying the same things over and over again expecting different results—Einstein called that insanity.

Around 20-some years ago, someone gave me a Bible and wrote on the inside cover Mark 8:36, where Jesus said, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul?” I couldn’t shake those words. They were all over me like a cheap suit with static cling. What are you toiling for in life? And what if you actually achieve it? Then what? What if you hit the lottery? I know—the lottery is basically a tax on people who are really bad at math. The chances that you will win the Lottery: 1 in 4 million. The chances that you will eventually die in a car crash are actually a lot better: 1 in 125. But the most staggering statistic of all: 10 out of every 10 people will eventually die. What you and I need is God’s free gift.