I have seen many attempts to explain away the significance
of Jesus: that he was a prophet, as was Abraham and Mohammed; that he was an
altruist, as was Gandhi; that he articulated a paradigm-shifting philosophy of
loving one’s neighbor, putting him in the ranks of the world’s great thinkers;
that the “Jesus of history” and the “Christ” of faith are different – the
former being a historical figure, the latter being an invention of the church which bore his name after his death.
Some of this I even accept as the product of curiosity; so,
Jesus becomes like Gandhi because he’s not like Hitler. I get that. But what’s
troubling is when I hear language that downplays the importance of Christ from Christians.
It’s happened right under our noses the last several years
with Christmas. I couldn’t care less whether Target wants to wish me “Merry
Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. What I care about is the narrative that
accompanies the Christmas season, which has become nearly entirely secularized
despite borrowing heavily from traditional Christian songs and symbols. And
we’ve bought it. Christmas, the prevailing storyline goes, is about goodwill
toward others. Cunning marketers will even throw in a reference to “Peace on
earth, goodwill to men” despite the fact that those words were not spoken by the
angels to the shepherds as a command. They’re not another version of “Love your neighbor as
yourself.” They were heralded in response to the
angel’s pronouncement that a Savior had been born, that the awaited Messiah had
come, and they tell about what God did –
he brought peace between us and Him.
Yet the retailers who invoke “Merry
Christmas” are the good guys and those who don’t are the bad guys? It’s as
simple as that? Uh-huh.
Christianity is losing its predominance in America, and that
makes some believers feel insecure. I get that. But have we really become so
desperate for affirmation that we’ll embrace any bland, civic, watered-down
appeal to religion of whatever kind because “at least they mentioned God"?
There’s now a holiday called
“World Kindness Day” (this year November 13). So from September-on, kids are
hit with almost four months solid of messages urging them to “be good” and
“make good choices.” Think about it. The school year begins with pep talks
about cooperation and the importance of good character, followed not long after
by Red Ribbon Week (don’t use drugs, in October), followed by World Kindness
Day, followed by the Thanksgiving-Christmas-Happiness-for-all season. Forget
the ever-expanding Christmas shopping season. Pretty soon, the entire year will
be one, continuous feel-good and do-good fest, a marketing triumph and a
retailer’s boon.
And you ask, “What, Scrooge, is
wrong with that? The whole world is ‘celebrating’ Christmas!”
Quite simply, that Jesus didn’t
live and die for commerce. He died for salvation, which is not a tweak to the
human condition, it’s an upheaval. But when we settle for “whatever works”-style
religion, his sacrifice – his whole existence
– becomes a detail.
We live in a world that is trying desperately to flatten the
landscape of religion. The result is that rather than defining ourselves, Christianity
gets defined by cultural wishes. That’s how demonstrably untrue statements like
“all religions are basically the same” have taken hold. In that equation, Jesus
is quaint – kind of like how your
grandparents grew up listening to the radio, your parents were raised on TV,
but your kids watch their iPads. Different mediums, same objective.
Well, Jesus is not Gandhi. He is not Buddha. He is not
Muhammed. Sorry, but I can’t accept that. I can’t accept that God allowed the
murder of his one-and-only son for the redemption of the world if hopeful
thinking, “sending positive energy” and random acts of kindness could have
achieved the same thing.
Jesus did not come that he might leave behind “Christian
principles”, nor did he die so that we would “live by the Bible” or “love one
another” or “forgive” or be nice or smile more or try harder or save ourselves!
No, Jesus came “that we may have life – and that life is in his Son.” (1 John
5:11) You know, all that “Apart from me, you can do nothing” stuff that Jesus
hammered home the night before he died (John 15)? And all of those benefits – love,
forgiveness, the healing of relationships, etc. – flow as byproducts of the
life of Christ, in and among us.
So I think we need to insist upon, highlight, reaffirm, and
celebrate the centrality of Christ in Christianity. Not Christian principles, but Christ. In the days
before pluralism, we didn’t pay attention to this as we should have. Jesus was
the only game in town. If people made an appeal to religious ideals, they were
Christian (or at least, Judeo-Christian) ones. So the essential nature of Christ (“without Christ, there is no Christianity”) got
muddled.
We need to make kids rich in Christ, and we do this by challenging
them not just to think about their faith from the inside-out, but from the
outside-in. So instead of merely asking them, “Why did Jesus die?” (something
everyone inside of Christianity ought
to know), we need to also pose the question, “Can sin be forgiven apart from Jesus?
If not, why not?” Because those are the questions people outside of Christianity (in other words, more and more of our
friends and neighbors) are asking, or would ask if you entered into a dialogue
with them about religion.
If we don’t insist upon the centrality of Christ, the power
of the cross gets neutered, because Jesus died for no reason. Paul says so in
Galatians 2 – if we are going to take our salvation into our own hands, trying
to accomplish it by our own actions, then we are “setting aside” the grace of
God. Jesus was God, expressing his grace – so to claim Jesus for anything less
than he was is to remove grace from the Christian equation. What you have then
is an entire world under condemnation. Not good.
So have a meaningful Christmas. But let’s not leave Christ there. Let’s take
him into the rest of the year, too.
Here are four ways, besides challenging kids to think about their
faith from the outside-in, that we can make kids rich in Christ:
1. We must teach (and believe
ourselves) that Jesus=God. Sometimes it’s more helpful with kids to use the
phrase “God in human form”, or “When God came to earth, he was called Jesus”.
“Son of God” means he came from God, but can also imply to a kid that he was
created. And if he was created, he isn’t God. (Incidentally, here’s how I
explain the Trinity to kids: I am an uncle. And I am a pastor. And, until
recently, I was a seminary student. Then I ask kids, when I’m working at the
church, what am I? Do I stop being an uncle or a student? No, it’s just that
the primary expression of me at that
time is as a pastor. When I’m with my nieces and nephews, do I stop being a
pastor or a student? And so on. Skip the apple or egg metaphors – they imply
that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are different parts of the same thing – each one-third
of God, if you will. That’s wrong.)
2. We must believe and teach that
the Christian life is supernatural. Humans are natural. We can try hard to be
good. But that’s not Christianity. That’s still of ourselves. God is supernatural
– outside of ourselves. We need to bring him inside.
3. We need to be surrendered to
him and teach surrender. Not verbal assent to facts about Jesus or the
Christian religion or the importance of kindness. Surrender.
4. We also make kids rich in
Christ by doing what he did. No, we
can’t become a sacrifice for their sins. But Jesus didn’t only die. He also lived, and where he went, he ministered – he met
people’s needs. Needs like relationship and identity – which are the first two
legs of making kids R.I.C.H.
Read more about the "Making Kids R.I.C.H." strategy here
Read more about making kids rich in Relationships here
Read more about making kids rich in Identity here
Read more about making kids rich in Relationships here
Read more about making kids rich in Identity here
