Christmas, Christ and New Creations
Christmas was a rescue mission.
I know what it feels like to be rescued. The world says that, because of the circumstances of my conception, I should've been aborted. My birthmom's courage enabled me to live, to be adopted, to flourish. Nine of my twelve siblings were also rescued, adopted and loved.
I know what it feels like to have someone step into your life, filled with compassion, and give everything they have to heal brokenness.
On Christmas, Love came down to restore what was broken. (See our new video.) Jesus came to rescue us from...yes, I will say it...sin.
But our culture is so uncomfortable with that concept. We've all sinned. Love illuminates that simple truth and offers Hope for being free from it: repentance leads to redemption. Tragically, when it comes to sin, too many Christians have confused capitulation for compassion. We've become so misguided by the beauty of grace and mercy that we've traded freedom for frailty.
God loved us enough to humble Himself to plead for us to know Him. Christ suffered one of the most unimaginable deaths, not so we would celebrate what separates us from our Creator, but so we would run from it to become a new creation.
The gift of eternal Life is unlike anything anyone else could ever possibly offer. It came with a painful price that we diminish every time we reduce Jesus down to a cultural cheerleader who'll root for us, no matter what. Loving every human being isn't the same as loving every human doing.
On today's most pivotal social issues (which are simply the result of sin), it's almost amusing when I hear secularists or religious leaders, who think of themselves more of an authority than Scripture, ask: "Well, what would Jesus do?"
According to religious "clergy" for Planned Parenthood, he would support the killing of innocent lives. I mean, the billion-dollar abortion chain claims its abortion facilities are "sacred ground" (just see here, here, and here).
Some think Jesus would defend the Second Amendment. I don't recall Jesus being a gun-slinger. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about our Second Amendment rights, but can we just let Jesus out of that debate?
The self-proclaimed Deities of Diversity are always talking about how Jesus wouldn't be "divisive". Truth is divisive. It delineates right from wrong, facts from fiction. Jesus claimed, in John 14:6, that He is "the way, the truth, and the life." He specifically declared that He came to "turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother..." knowing that the Gospel he conveyed would cause division on this earth. Some would accept Him. Many would reject Him. Yet we all need Him.
But it's much easier to accept the Messenger if we can just tweak the Message, right? Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Scripture doesn't need reassignment surgery. We need a Savior, not more sophists.
If Jesus were in human form on this earth today, He'd be called a "homophobe" and accused of hate speech for using the pronouns of the only two genders God created (you know, male and female). He'd be blamed for patriarchy for constantly referring to the Father. He'd be called a "misogynist" because He thinks women are stronger than their circumstances and don't need abortion to achieve great things. His blessed mother, Mary, was a teenage mom who married a man who chose adoption instead of abandonment, so Jesus would naturally be called "anti-choice" for believing that every human life has purpose. He'd be called a "Republican" because he doesn't believe that government is any kind of substitute for a dad. He'd be condemned for his hetero-normative language by speaking of marriage between one man and one woman. He'd be called "intolerant" because He tells us to hate—you know, the s-word—sin.
Recently, The View's Joy Behar declared, as if she were quoting from the book of Tolerance chapter 15 verse 10, that "Jesus would've baked that cake!"—referring to Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips' declining to make a custom cake for a same-sex wedding ceremony.
Let's look at it this way...Jesus was a carpenter. Do we think that if a homosexual couple came up to Him—if a sexually active, unmarried, heterosexual couple came up to him—and asked Him to build a bed for them, that He'd get to work on enabling the sin? As with anyone He'd encounter, He'd love them, speak the unchanging truth to their situation and tell them to "go and sin no more".
Freedom is more important than feelings.
So, no, Jesus would not create something that celebrated anything—any sin—that separates us from God. But our culture wants to separate Jesus from His purpose, which was and is to reconcile us to God.
What good is a Savior who cannot transform? What good is a Messiah that cannot deliver? What good is a Redeemer that has nothing to redeem? I don't want to serve that god. I want the One who so loved us that He gave his very life for ours.
This Christmas, may you know the Jesus that loves you no matter who you are, where you've been or what you've done. But He's a rescuer who never leaves you in your present condition and strengthens you to be the one He created you to be.
Ryan Bomberger is the Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of The Radiance Foundation. He is happily married to his best friend, Bethany, who is the Executive Director of Radiance. They are adoptive parents with four awesome munchkins. Ryan is a factivist, creative agitator, and international public speaker who loves illuminating that every human life has purpose.
Originally posted at The Radiance Foundation.
