Creativity

Love’s Pure Light

Standard

StarsDarkness.

I noticed darkness more this year. The world seemed dimmer and more unfriendly. This Christmas, the most glaring effects of that darkness are the gloom hovering over the world economic situation and the lack of Christmas lights.

A couple weeks ago I noticed the dearth of Christmas lights compared with last year. People just didn’t put them up. Electrical bills are too high, I guess. Or folks suffered from the fatigue that comes when times are bad, so the lights became just another thing to do that took too much effort.

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 were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The babe in the manger outshone the star that signaled His birth. He wasn’t just a source of light, He WAS Light.

And when that tiny child became a man, He said something radical to all who love Him and honor Him as Lord:

“You are the light of the world.”

Light gives birth to lights, and those lights will send the darkness fleeing.

If the Lord would have us honor Him as did all those who came to His cradle in those first days of His birth, He would say that He has lit the flame in us with His own lifelight, now we are to be the light in the darkness.

At this blessed Christmastime, People of God, show this dark world the light.

And Maranatha.

They’re Taking Over!

Standard

Classic AM radio (photo by Vic Brincat)This last weekend saw me riding the driver’s seat of our Corolla for long stretches of time as I cruised north and back. Searching for some music to imbibe, I cruised the dial, the seek feature on our car’s radio stopping every 0.3 MHz to land on a different station.

Here’s what I discovered: about a hundred Christian radio stations, each and every last one playing “i Can Only Imagine” at the same exact time.

Okay, so maybe the “I Can Only Imagine” comment is an exaggeration—though not by much.

And each of those stations is “kid-safe” or “family-friendly.”

A decade or two ago, I would have welcomed those stations gladly. Now I wonder if all they’re producing is milquetoast believers whose idea of a spiritual challenge is choosing the right two-tone cover for their TNIV.

Worse, all these stations seem to be owned by the same conglomerate, so it’s not unusual to find two or three stations on the dial playing “I Can Only Imagine” at the same exact time because some “DJ” is sitting in a booth in San Antonio spinning that disc, pumping it out to thousands of subscriber stations across the country. Why? Because a lot of local stations obsessed over demographic figures, switched their programming to be mostly (bad) music, gave up their distinctive voice, and saw their audiences shrivel up. Or the stalwart audience went elsewhere, leaving the station to the new masses, masses who had no intention of financially supporting that station. Big conglomerate swoops in and the next thing you know, new ownership, and a DJ who sounds suspiciously like Ryan Seacrest.

I used to listen to Christian radio primarily for the teaching. I suspect that most Christian radio stations don’t even have teaching anymore. And what teaching remains seems about as stale as year-old bread.

There’s something tremendously sad about witnessing the dynamic Christian radio I knew in my youth distill down into this lowest-common-denominator slop we have today.

I find it disheartening, too, that the most challenging teachers out there are either gone from the airwaves or have dumbed-down their messages to be more appealing and easily grasped by an audience with an attention span of a paramecium.

I also find it discouraging that an artist like Derek Webb, one of  the few contemporary musicians I listen to, can’t get airplay. Then again, a line like “I am a whore, I must confess…” ain’t all that family-friendly, now is it?

So instead of dancing a jig over the juggernaut of contemporary Christian radio stations taking over the radio dial, I’m nostalgic for what once was.

Are you?


A Holy Desire to Aspire

Standard

In the pantheon of Christian greats, one will find Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, but it’s doubtful that any bust of Christopher Columbus will adorn the hall.

Yet a quick read of Columbus’s journals reveals a highly devout man who genuinely wanted to reach the lost on the far side of the world with the message of Christ. The history books continue to sully the explorer’s name or finagle his importance, but after reading the words from his own hand, I have a much higher view of the man.

What truly grips me about long-dead Christian men like Columbus is that something in them burned. They had a vision, a dream that held them. They saw Christ high and lifted up and that revelation enthralled them, captivating their vision and capturing their hearts.

When we read biographies of great people of long ago, more often than not they had an encounter with Jesus that changed their direction and gave them new direction. In many cases, that pursuit was science. Scratch a well-known scientist from long ago and catch the aroma of Christ. These men aspired to something beyond the boundaries of what was known and explored because they knew Jesus.

God, how we need Christian men who aspire to something more than owning the latest muscle car or climbing to the top of the corporate ladder. Where are the Christian men out there who dream big dreams and won’t take no for an answer?

And I’m not just talking about ministry. That’s the ghetto we’ve fallen into. No one considers Columbus an evangelist. Dreamers minister to us today because they stand for the godly desire never to settle, never to make do. These men possessed a keen eye for what lies beyond, a godly desire to know, no matter what that aspiration might be.

So how is it that so few of us reach beyond our grasp? How can it be that Christians today are content to make do with okay? At what point did we make peace with the world of Harrison Bergeron?

There’s more than a whiff of sulfurous stench around “Well, this looks like a nice place to relax,” isn’t there?

To what purpose did God redeem us? Better yet, to what purpose did He make Man at all if not that we should do great things and honor Him in their doing?

I get sick of all the small vision. I’m fed up with can’t. I wish there were some way to rid can’t, but, won’t, and never from the Christian lexicon. We’ll do anything possible to protect our kids from filth, but who out there is protecting our kids from having their every aspiration hammered to pieces by naysayers, most of those hammerers from within the four walls of your church and mine? Who out there is punishing the millstoners, who see an aspiration and rush in to weigh it down with a slab of granite?

Dear God, send us men and women who take your upward call seriously. who stop their ears against the siren call of mediocrity! Raise up an army of people who look in faith only to you and not to the left or two the right, people with vision inspired by your Holy Spirit. Unleash them, Lord Jesus. We need them more than ever in these difficult times. Amen.