The Person of Every Year

TIME magazine recently announced its annual “Person of the Year,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The European head of state was selected over seven other final candidates, but for many of us, we’re poised to celebrate the One who could rightly be called “The Person of Every Year.”

We would be hard-pressed to identify anyone that’s ever walked the earth who has had greater impact than Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate each Christmas. For those of us who identify ourselves as followers of Christ, or “Christians,” He is our leader, teacher, example, inspiration, and guide. The Bible describes Jesus as Savior, Lord, the Good Shepherd, the True Vine, the Great Physician, and many other names. Perhaps I’ve left out one of your favorites.

But even for those who don’t profess faith in Christ, even those who vehemently reject Him and His claims to be the Son of God, God incarnate, Jesus’ influence in all of our lives remains unmistakable.

Consider: From time to time the secular media refer to someone who willingly volunteers to help a stranger, even at personal peril, as a “good Samaritan.” In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan to illustrate what He meant when commanding His followers to “love your neighbor as yourself.” That phrase itself has become a virtual cliché, regularly used by people of many faiths – and no faith – to assert our obligation to show compassion, mercy and generosity to those less fortunate than ourselves.

The so-called “Golden Rule,” which admonishes us to “do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12), is another of Jesus’ declarations – downright revolutionary for His time. It’s employed with abandon by those who insist on tolerance for all people, except perhaps for those who believe in and follow the One who said it first.

From time to time we’ll hear about a “prodigal son” who returns to a family, a company, even a political party, after a time of “going astray.” Jesus didn’t use the term “prodigal,” but it comes from another of His parables, also referred to as the parable of the lost son or the two sons, found in Luke 15:11-32.

Jesus was unparalleled in His ability to use what writers call “verbal imagery,” communicating a truth through a vivid oral account. A picture on which to hang a principle. Perhaps this is why so many people remember His stories, even if they don’t understand or dismiss His theology.

Sometimes we hear people being described disparagingly as thinking too much of themselves – “she must think she walks on water.” Jesus did this literally, as recounted in Matthew 14:22-33. And more than one business executive has declared, “I sweat blood to get that account,” a phenomenon Jesus experienced the night before His crucifixion: “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

Of course, Jesus’ uniqueness goes far beyond the words He spoke and His activities on earth. He is the only leader of any religion or belief system reported to have died and then be resurrected. Mohammad, Buddha, Moses, Confucius and others don’t and can’t make that claim.

He boldly declared, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father (God) except through me” (John 14:6), and also stated, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). As C.S. Lewis stated, making such statements would mean Jesus either was a liar, a lunatic, or who He said He was – God in the flesh.

And to those who would accept His gift of forgiveness for their sins, possible only by His atoning death on the cross, Jesus made this promise: "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2-3).

So as we gather this Christmas with family, friends and loved ones, along with the familiar traditions we have adopted through the years, let’s not stop at reflecting on the pastoral scene of a young mother and father, and a baby in a crude feeding trough – hardly fitting accommodations for the One who would become known as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Let’s remember that Jesus Christ truly was – and is – like no other. He’s not the person of the year; for many of us, He’s the person of every year.

One Life for Another

What would it take for you to give up your life for someone else?

If you’re a parent, you probably would do anything necessary to save the life of a child, even at the risk of your own. A husband or wife might also perform a heroic deed if their spouse were in dire straits.

We have heard stories of soldiers undertaking extraordinary steps of courage to protect or save fallen comrades. Police officers and firefighters frequently are called to put their lives on the line for the sake of others.

But what would it take for you to offer your life on behalf of a stranger?

Occasionally we hear a news account of a individual putting their own life in harm’s way to assist someone they’ve never met – perhaps a person drowning, in a car accident, or similar calamity. But more often we hear about people choosing to stand passively by, watching while a person’s life is in jeopardy, perhaps being beaten or attacked. “Why get involved? It’s none of my business.”

That by far is the more common course.

Perhaps this is one reason Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Self-sacrifice is not the natural order of things. Rather, we ask, “What’s in it for me?” and if the answer is not enough, we defer.

But that’s not what Jesus did. His great love, far beyond anything we can comprehend, motivated Him to carry out the greatest act of self-sacrifice ever recorded . As the apostle Paul wrote, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Jesus’ death on the cross was not because we deserved it, as if we were worthy of His atonement. He did it out of love, offering His mercy and grace. By definition, mercy means not receiving what we do deserve, and grace means receiving what we do not deserve.

Thankfully, as we will observe this Friday, He gave His life for each of us, rag-tag sinners and self-absorbed hypocrites, so that we might receive forgiveness, new life, and the promise of life after death.

If it were not for what we call Good Friday, there would have been no Easter. And without Easter, there would be no cause for celebrating Christmas.

But this weekend we do mark both Good Friday and Easter, all because Jesus chose to give His life for someone else – for you and for me. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Happy Easter!

GODISNOWHERE

What does the heading above say? Nonbelievers and skeptics might see, GOD IS NOWHERE. But those who believe in God, especially followers of Jesus Christ, will probably find, GOD IS NOW HERE.

God is there if you look for Him. Many claiming they can’t find God really aren’t looking for Him – we usually can’t locate what we’re not actively seeking. As Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you…he who seeks finds…” (Luke 11:9-10).

This week we affirm anew, God is now here. Amid the cacophony of carols, shopping mall madness, and politically correct “happy holidays,” the timeless truth remains: “‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ – which means ‘God with us’” (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23).

One of the Christmas verities is that God is neither distant nor inscrutable nor unknowable, as some religions assert. He deigned to live among His creation, becoming one of us for a time. As John 1:14 declares, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

But the Christmas story does not stop at a tiny stable in an obscure village called Bethlehem. It continues to the very crossroads of salvation. Philippians 2:6-8 describes Jesus, “Who, being in very nature God…made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and become obedient to death – even death on a cross.”

And because of that cross, many centuries later we look back with joy and wonder at the unique family: A virgin mother, Mary; her husband Joseph, and a baby named Jesus – in Hebrew, “Y’shua,” – Christ the Lord.

Merry Christmas!

How Do You ‘Live the Christian Life’?

I just realized today marks the 25th anniversary of a very significant spiritual milestone in my life.

For Buckeye fans (of which I am one), Oct. 12, 1984 will be remembered for one of the all-time greatest Ohio State football victories. OSU had fallen behind visiting Illinois, 24-0, but staged a fierce comeback to win, 45-38. Star running back Keith Byars ran for a then-school record 274 yards and tied OSU’s mark in rushing for five touchdowns, including a 67-yarder wearing only one shoe.

However, what I remember most about that day did not concern sports, but spirituality. I was in Minneapolis, Minn. and watched much of the game on TV, but was troubled about why the so-called “Christian life” didn’t seem to work for me.

I had learned verses like Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,” and 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” The problem was, although I was a believer in Jesus Christ, I still felt like nothing had changed; I was still struggling with the same weaknesses. “If I’m a ‘new creation,’” I thought to myself, “why do I act like the same old guy?”

That weekend I was staying in the home of a man named Loren Helling and his wife, Betty, and we spent many hours talking about what he called “the real you from God’s perspective,” looking primarily at the book of Romans. We discussed what it means to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4) and the reality that apart from Christ, the Christian life is not difficult to live – it’s impossible to live.

This is why Jesus told His followers, “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and the apostle Paul wrote, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). The secret is not what I can do for God, but what He can do in me – and through me as what Romans 6:13 calls an “instrument of righteousness.”

Over that weekend I recalled meeting in 1981 with a man who had asked, “Bob, how do you live the Christian life?” At first I hesitated, then started listing “to-do’s” – things like prayer, attending church, reading the Bible, etc. In response, the man just shook his head and replied, “You can’t live the Christian life. Only one person has successfully lived the Christian life, and that’s Jesus.”

Three years later I was finally grasping the magnitude of his question and his answer.

As I think about the state of Christianity in America today, it seems we’re not doing very well. The reason, I believe, is not because we don’t have enough churches, or Bibles, or Christian books, or programs. We have more than enough of all of those. The problem, I believe, is we are determined to do for God, in our own strength – “pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps,” so to speak – instead of relying on the power, wisdom and guidance of Jesus through His Spirit that lives in each of us that have trusted in Him.

That’s not to say I have it all figured out. Not hardly. But 25 years later I believe I’m closer to what God calls me to be as a husband, father, grandfather, friend, writer, editor, and mentor. The challenge, one day at a time, is to reflect the truth of John the Baptist who declared, “I must decrease so that He (Jesus) might increase” (John 3:30).