Merry Christmas 2017

What does it take for you to really feel that it is Christmas? I came home yesterday after four Children’s Christmas Eve services to find the AC cranked down low and the fireplace in our living room full a blaze! But at the end of the day, that’s not what makes me feel it is Christmas. What really makes me feel that it is Christmas is that I know I personally need help from the outside to be rescued, and Christmas decorations, presents, parties, and good cheer don’t help.

Why were the shepherds so excited? Why did they want to tell people about Jesus? Was it the miracle of the angels? Perhaps, but I think it is because they knew they needed to be rescued. Have you ever been rescued before?

Do you remember the Chilean miners, the 33, who were trapped underground in a collapsed mine shaft for 67 days? Those who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them light shone. Like the shepherds, these miners knew they needed help from the outside to rescue them.

I don’t think we can ever really know and appreciate Jesus until we understand the place we are in: we are in darkness and need someone from the outside to rescue us.

The foolish saying, “God helps those who help themselves,” is the total antithesis of this.

Let me tell a story from my friend Ted Schroder, who writes of a man who was in darkness and need to be rescued from the outside:

On March 7, 1984, Jerry Levin, director of the CNN Middle East Bureau was walking from his Beirut, Lebanon apartment to his office when he was kidnapped by the terrorist group Hezbollah. He was placed in solitary confinement, chained to a radiator that didn't work, with a chain so short that he couldn't stand up, blindfolded, and taken to the bathroom once a day. This is a story of a man living in darkness who needs help from the outside.

Up to the time of his captivity he described himself as materialistic, mindlessly ambitious and unphilosophic, an emotional cynic who considered himself an atheist.

He wrote of himself: "In fact, I was an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth very unforgiving, too often vindictive Jewish-American atheist addicted to petulant, selfish, bullying rages, and a tendency to shut out other people's clearly visible pain.” Something happened to him in his dark captivity. He began to think about himself in relation to the universe, eternity, and his fellow man in ways he never had before. He pondered his way to a respect for faith, belief in God, and to think about Jesus. He had had a problem with Christians who had perverted all that Jesus stood for and had persecuted the Jews.

Then he realized that he should not blame Christ for the way some Christians had acted. That would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

After a month, Jerry said his first prayer. He thanked God for Jesus and asked him to watch over his wife and their children. He also found it necessary to ask God to forgive his captors because they had been responsible in part for bringing him to faith. Nine months passed in his dark solitary confinement. On Christmas Eve 1984, one of his captors paid an unexpected late night visit to his freezing cell. He wished Jerry a merry Christmas and asked if there was a gift he would like. Without thinking he replied, "A Bible. That'll do." Two nights later his captor returned and gave him a red pocket-sized Gideon's New Testament. With excitement he read it quickly, making notes in the margins. He wrote, "I cannot emphasize strongly enough the role that Jesus, his beliefs and his vision spelled out in the four Gospels played and are playing in my transformation from skeptical reticence to reverential obedience."

He read about the shepherds in Luke: "When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them." When he read that, his late night encounter with his captor just three days before came flooding back. "It began when I heard footsteps in the hall outside my pitch-dark, crypt-like room. That sound was the signal to me to pull the blindfold down over my eyes, which I did. Then there was the click of a latch, the sound of the door opening to my cell, soft footsteps approaching my pallet, and the sound of something being placed gently on the floor next to it. After the man left, I pushed the blindfold above my eyes and beheld perhaps the most astonishing sight of my captivity. On the floor, anchored in a puddle of melting wax was a flickering candle.

Next to it was a heaping bowl of fruit. And next to the bowl was a big platter and on it a large 'log' type chocolate cake. In front of the cake was an intricate and beautiful manger scene. Intricately carved pines stood guarding a tiny wooden barn, open to view at one end. Inside was a minuscule manger. Sitting before it was Mary holding Jesus with Joseph standing by. There were several shepherds looking on, plus cows, horses, and sheep. I recalled that this was happening to me not too many miles to the north of Bethlehem in a frigid room that I imagined was not any colder or less comfortable than the one where Jesus had been born. Already psyched up because I was on the brink of experiencing my first Christmas as a follower of Jesus, I focused my gaze on the little baby. He appeared to be looking steadily at some of the shepherds who had been positioned in his line of sight.

In the shadowy light of the flickering candle, the moment—like the original moment one thousand, nine hundred and eighty four years earlier—was so dramatic and moving for me that I began to feel that I was really there. I was in good company. The longer this went on, the less isolated, the less constrained I felt. That mystical moment has stayed with me and continues to influence my life."

On Valentine's Day, 1985, Jerry Levin was allowed to escape, the only one of the American hostages who was able to do so. Since then he has devoted his life to trying to follow in the shepherd's footsteps and do as they did: testify with his life (as the shepherds testified promptly with theirs) about the significance of the great event in which they played a small part and which he was privileged to play a small part on Christmas Eve 1984.

It took the darkness of a kidnapping and solitary confinement for Jerry Levin to experience his need to be rescued, believe, and to devote his life to follow in the shepherd's footsteps. What about you? Have you been rescued by Jesus? Do you understand the bad news of darkness and captivity? Do you understand that you too need a Savior? "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Merry Christmas.