The next Christmas Song Story features another song I wrote for the new record.  It’s called “End of Exile”.  The verse lyrics are a slight reworking of an old Christmas hymn entitled “The Maker of the Sun and Moon”.  Yep, I had never heard of it either.  I googled “Christmas hymns” and found the old stanzas… and loved them.  I still don’t even know the original melody.  I actually kept myself from hearing it altogether so that I would be fully freed up in my head to write a fresh one that I felt fit the grandeur of the theme.

Then I created the chorus:

Glorious miracle
Here is the end of exile
God the invisible
Is flooding the world with light

The concept of God rescuing His people from exile is a constant thread that weaves throughout the Scriptures.   The Bible is full of stories of how God, time and again, brought Israel back from various forms of slavery, captivity, and exile.  It is as if the entire ebb and flow of the Old Testament narrative is working toward a much greater rescue.

Through human sin, death has held humanity captive.  And not only humanity.  The bitter roots of exilic decay snaked their way through human hearts, across ocean floors, up mountains, past the sun, beyond constellations and nebulae, and into every part of God’s good creation.  At the arrival of the God-Man to Earth, the exile of the universe met its end.  The darkness has finally seen a great light.  Glorious miracle!

“Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up a Prophet like me from your brothers.  You shall listen to Him in whatever He tells you.’” - Acts 3:22

(CLICK HERE to grab the new record)

I’m sitting in my studio reading Isaiah.  This past weekend is a blur in my brain.  I saw the Lord work powerfully in his church.  I saw Japan.  I had an important meeting on Saturday.  The whole world is mourning now.  I feel heavy and urgent and kind of sick.  I’m praying a lot.  I just hit the end of Isaiah 39 and almost cried.

Isaiah tells King Hezekiah that a disaster is going to happen.  The enemy will ransack his palace, plunder the temple, and haul away every last national treasure.  To top it off, Hezekiah’s future sons will be castrated and made into slaves in the palace of his enemy.  If I were the king at that moment, I doubt you’d blame me if I relinquished command of my bowels on the spot.

Hezekiah’s actual response is even nastier.

“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good!” Wait.  What?  Hold on, it gets worse:  ”At least there will be peace and security in my days.”  Unreal.

Hezekiah is heartless.  God gives him a heads up about a coming disaster, and all the guy can do is be relieved that it’s not going to happen in his lifetime.  He’s the exact opposite of an others-centered person.  He’s almost totally self-centered.  His personal comfort and success is all he cares about.

Hezekiah started out great.  His reign was marked by godliness and widespread peace.  Just one chapter earlier, God blessed him with 15 years of bonus life.

But in the end, Hezekiah is all about Hezekiah.

I wonder, is it possible for the human soul to be over-blessed?  I’m not implying that God’s blessings are to blame for Hezekiah’s gross narcissism.  God is love on a throne of grace.  Blessing is God’s business.

It seems like Hezekiah’s transition from being others-centered to being self-centered is the direct result of his conversion to materialism.  (Check out the beginning of the chapter where he shows off everything he has to the bad guys!)

Randy Alcorn put it this way: “Christ’s disciples love people and use things. Materialists love things and use people.”

Let’s be real, all of us deal with self-centeredness in some form.  It can be as loud and obnoxious as road rage, and it can be as subtle and easy as thinking this thought:

“The devastation in Japan is crazy!  It makes me feel sad.  Theoretically, it could have been the San Andreas fault and Los Angeles instead.  But it wasn’t, praise God.”

Did you catch the Hezekiah-like thinking?  Makes me want to throw up in my mouth.  But to be honest, this is often the way I think.  Even though I’m a Christian, my eyes don’t see past my comfy bubble of stuff automatically.  It takes effort.  It’s intentional.

The question isn’t whether or not I am capable of self-centered thinking.  We all are.  It’s called failure to love.  Everyone is guilty of this kind of failure.  The real question I have to ask myself is, have I positioned my life in such a way that I can no longer see when and how I am failing?

Why not position your materials around others in desperate need?  Text REDCROSS to 90999 right now and $10 will go to the relief effort in Japan.  It’ll just hit your phone bill and you probably won’t even feel it.

 

LovingForKeeps by Evan Wickham

I love being a dad.  Might be the best thing ever and the hardest thing ever at the same time.

I have three sons. ¬†Tomorrow, my oldest starts third grade and my second starts kindergarten. ¬†That’s my third son in the picture. ¬†He’s got a few years yet. ¬†My boys are the apple of my eye. ¬†Each of these guys is a deep ocean of personality. ¬†Their waters, brimming with life, are filled by the Creator Himself. ¬†Their waves of words and creativity wash over my wife and I from dawn till dusk like warm breakers on a weathered shore.

But that’s the hard thing too. ¬†These deep oceans of personality are mine to travel, mine to discover. ¬†I set sail and then I dive. ¬†I decipher their currents, and I direct their courses. ¬†This is the wildest and most demanding expedition on earth. ¬†Even their sweet little waves that break against my shore are constantly taking pieces of me with them wherever they go. ¬†This is the real deal. ¬†This is fatherhood. ¬†And it could be the best thing and the hardest thing ever at the same time.

I think God likes it that way.  I think He wants us to remember that all of human history, and all of space and time, is centered around a Father-Son relationship.

Sadly, not everyone likes to see things that way though. ¬†I recently read a blog post in which a new book was being promoted. ¬†The book is about the fatherless crisis in our culture and how to bring the hope of the Heavenly Father to a generation that has been let down by no-show dads. ¬†Sounds awesome. ¬†So I pre-ordered the book. ¬†Then I scrolled down to read what people were saying in their responses to the post. ¬†So many heartbreaking stories. ¬†I couldn’t stop thinking of Psalm 27:10 – “For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.”

Suddenly one response caught my eye. ¬†I instantly felt a different kind of heartbreak. ¬†Someone by the name of “Xtine” was actually trying to dismantle the reality and value of biblical fatherhood. ¬†She didn’t like fatherlessness being called a crisis. ¬†She felt like one mom or two dads are just as fine. ¬†She even went so far as to say, “I would suggest that fathers, scientifically speaking, are not necessary beyond the initial inception.” ¬†I had to chime in. ¬†Not because I am one. ¬†But because a Father gave up His beloved Son to rescue humanity and rise from the dead so that the Son would ultimately return to the Father’s right hand and reign over all the cosmos in submission to His Father forever. ¬†You can read the full post in context¬†here if you like.

Of course, we all know there are tons of single parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends out there victoriously raising future US presidential candidates. ¬†We wholeheartedly applaud their labors of love. ¬†Parenting is a tough job, and somebody’s gotta do it. ¬†Obviously, this isn’t about single parenthood. ¬†This is about humanity upholding a biblical worldview. ¬†The only real worldview. ¬†So to Xtine and others who share her fairly new perspective, something needs to be said.

I‚Äôm convinced that Xtine‚Äôs suggestion that fathers are unnecessary beyond inception stands in hollow defiance against… (1) the real-life situations of many we personally know and love, (2) the big picture reality of the historic human demographic, and not to mention (3) the culturally-transcendant, millenia-tested biblical model of fatherhood spelled out for us by Jesus Himself in the eyewitness accounts about his relationship with his own Father.

I suppose, “scientifically speaking”, no one needs anything from a father other than his sperm (or, for that matter, anything from a mother other than her egg and abdomen for 40 weeks) in order to be alive and grow and become somebody someday. ¬†But to stand on such low ground and try to shout up into higher conversations about human relationship, stewardship, and worship is, simply put, to chase the wind. ¬†Thankfully for us all, being human is more than a scientific progression. ¬†It is the divine project. ¬†Created in the image of deity. ¬†Called to fill creation with divine relationship and expression. ¬†Having been granted the divine image, it’s now our unique privilege to express divine relation and exchange.

It’s amazing to me – out of the countless perspectives on humanity, the highest perspective of them all ends up being the reality. ¬†God will heal and renew the whole universe in order to provide a massive framework in which He will heal and renew humanity for Himself, starting with His Son and ending with sons and daughters from every tribe and tongue. ¬†This is a completely relationally-driven cosmos-wide redemption. ¬†And the best part for us now (this is serious reason for celebration!) is that we are called by the Redeemer Himself to reflect His massive redemptive story into our homes, through our own stories. ¬†Neither fatherhood, motherhood, heterosexual parenthood, nor biological or adopted sonhood or daughterhood are mere incidental or interchangeable cultural suggestions. ¬†They are earthly orders of heavenly realities. ¬†Humanity finds its niche within the framework of God’s Word. ¬†When fathers love their children, a flash of heaven’s light hits planet earth. ¬†It’s probably the best thing ever and the hardest thing ever at the same time. ¬†I love being a dad.