I have grown up in the church and have heard nearly every theological debate human minds can devise. All through my growing-up years, the various branches of Christendom would have had it out at my parents’ dining room table, and ever since we’ve had a home of our own, Bill and I have witnessed our share of skirmishes, too. Calvinist, Armenian, Reformed, Covenant, Catholic, Pentecostal, pre-, past-, and a-millennial, dispensational…ad infinitum.
Personally, I think they are all true, but not exclusively so. With Milton, I tend to believe that God is paradox and we – finite minds that we are – can’t abide paradox. We won’t be happy until we shove the infinite I Am into some manageable and label-able box called “a systematic theology.”
Meanwhile, God manages to leak out through the cracks in our systems and show up in some denominationally mongrel neighborhood Bible study of young mothers driven together by their hearts, hungry for the Living Water. Oh, my!
One debate I’ve heard way more than is edifying is the “literal/symbolic” debate, especially about the prophetic books of the Bible. To this debate, I’m afraid I have to quote Jesus’ words roughly translated: “It’s not either/or; it’s both/and.” Most disputed issues are debated over the details of a truth so huge that it is able to embrace both of our puny human viewpoints and have plenty of room left to “confound the wise.” Children, of course, get this.
For example, I have heard otherwise intelligent people get really bent out of shape about whether, in heaven, lions, their natural ferocious and carnivorous natures tamed and muzzled by paradise, will actually lie down with lambs.
This miracle would be too small, I think. Unlike hard-headed people, animals already obey the laws of God in nature and God can change the rules if He wants to. But what a marvel if, here and now, instead of men and women whose strong wills and natures, lacking love, devour each other, we would be tamed by the coming of the Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven” as Jesus prayed.
What if the “meek lambs” among us could actually lie down in the same field as the aggressive lion-hearted among us? What if those of us who are vulnerable rams could eat (with a calm and trusting spirit) right next to the guy we know who is a sure-enough swift, lethal and destructive leopard, our “natural” enemy.
Could it be that Jesus came for that? Could it be the angels weren’t just humming a holiday tune that night on the Judean hillside when they predicted, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth – good will to all kinds of people.”
Could it be that this melodic prediction could apply to homes where it’s been more like the Third World War than a place of peace and balance? Could we all be remade by the Savior, this tender plant sprouting from the desert sands foretold by good old Isaiah, this Messiah who would not shout in the streets or break the bruised reeds among us? And aren’t we all on a given day bruised reeds who don’t need a theologian who clubs us with certainties nearly as much as we need a lover to hold us close?
This child. This Holy Child has come, I’m convinced, not to endorse all the humiliating things that have, sadly, been done in His name through the centuries, but to lead us from the war-torn battlefields of our own making. He has come to cover us with his atonement for all the sick, sad, pointless pain we have caused each other and to heal our land, one broken heart at a time.
And when we’re too betrayed and suspicious to trust each other, when utopians turn out to be a façade and politicians who promise solutions prove to be mostly self-serving, when religious institutions are so distracted by their own in-house debates to notice a child slipping off the precipice of society, maybe it will have to be, ironically, a child who will lead us – then grow up to bleed for us so that his immense wounds can, at last, heal us. This is Christmas…and Easter…and Valentine’s Day, too.
And A Child Shall Lead Them
Lions and lambs, leopards and rams feed together.
Gentle and wild, vicious and mild lie down.
Natures change there at the manger where hist’ry turns the page,
And God breathes the breath of a baby.
And a child shall lead them from their war-torn lands,
Yes, a child shall lead them; they shall go hand- in-hand.
And my holy mountain shall be filled with peace,
As water covers the ocean, and a child shall lead.
Broken and torn, in silence they mourn a fam’ly,
Shattered, a trust lies in the dust and dies.
Then in that place, wonder and grace, like a seed that sprouts from sand
Remakes a man and a woman.
And a chid shall lead them…
Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither and Doug Eltzroth
Copyright ©1989 Gaither Music Company
