Old Zechariah leans over his son John’s crib and prophesies. John will go before the Lord to prepare for him. And that Lord comes, he says in Luke 1:71 – that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us…
Why did Jesus come into the world? That we should be saved from our enemies. But this statement, like other statements about Jesus, from Jesus, is an example of ‘more than meets the eye.’ When we hear it, we know that we’re hearing something positive: salvation from our enemies sounds better than being crushed or humiliated by our enemies.
But beyond that general positive impression things turn kind of muddy. Who exactly are these enemies that Jesus saves us from? We’ll answer that question this week. And how is it we’re saved from them? That’s next week’s sermon.
Let’s think about who these enemies might be. Who are our enemies? Most people identify their enemies as those whom they’ve always heard are the bad guys or someone who is currently or has in the past hurt us, made our life difficult, worked against our interests. If you ask an Iranian who the enemy is, you might hear: a) the Israelis – – whom they and their ancestors have been hating for millennia; b) the West – – who off and on for several years have imposed trade sanctions that are stifling their economy; The enemies are those we can see are hurting us.
And ask various Americans about who their enemies are? The list of answers would be long and sundry. The Chinese. The Russians. Democrats. Republicans. Presbyterians. The police. The liberals. The fusty conservatives. My boss. My neighbor who built a fence without asking my permission. Mothers-in-law. The wealthy. The elites. Donald Trump.
You immediately see the problem with a list like this. It’s all so relative. Each party considers the other to be the enemy, and so if Jesus came to rid people of their enemies, eventually there won’t be many people left.
You’ve probably heard about the Baptist guy who was stranded on a remote island for 20 years. When rescuers finally got to him, they found he had built three structures. When they asked him about them, the man pointed to one building and said, “That’s my house.” “And over there?” the rescuers asked. “That’s my church…I’m Baptist and take my faith quite seriously.” “And over there? What is the third building?” the rescuers asked. “Oh,” said the man. “That’s where I used to go to church before the church split.”
Point being: no matter what, humans find way to make enemies, to take sides. But then we can’t assume that God always shares our point of view about who the good guys and who the bad guys are.
That’s the point Abe Lincoln made in his second inaugural address as the Civil War entered its fourth year:
Neither party [north or south] expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained…Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other…The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.
Discovering who the real bad guys are turns out to be a little complicated. But then again… for many people in the west the term enemy seems a little severe. I didn’t like what he did to me, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call him an enemy. If you ask your average Joe living in the west who or what is his biggest problem, he’d probably go impersonal. Chances are his mind is going to go away from a certain person or persons and go to what he considers his main problem: finances. I just could use some more money.
What is limiting me? Or, if he’s especially thoughtful: what is keeping me from flourishing and being the best version of humanity I could be? Answer: I’m constantly short on funds.
Now, I think we’re on to something here. From that perspective of feeling poor I think we can trace a trail to our real enemies.
Why does average Joe feel poor? Let’s just think about Joe’s education. Perhaps he grew up in a place where the local politicians were lining their own pockets instead of funding the schools. And so, Joe grew up with no real education and thus no real skills and he had nothing to bring into the marketplace. Moreover, as part of their selfishness, these community leaders were short-sighted and gave no thought to infrastructure and development. And so while the local government grew fat and sleek, it came at the expense of education and opportunities for Joe.
Or…perhaps Joe’s school was well funded but was directed by a nincompoop who had been trained by other nincompoops. And so, the education was misleading and focused on everything but math and science and literature: social justice, equality, community instead. And so Joe leaves twelfth grade with a lot of warm feelings and good intentions, but his talents are undeveloped and his head confused.
See if you can follow me here: Behind plant life is photosynthesis, and behind that is the light of the sun. But what’s behind the light of the sun? There is the Creator’s word that calls sunlight and then life into being. Jesus is the Light of the world. Meaning, it is He that sources biological life, all development. From Him is illumination and then vision, then clarity, then progress.
Ok. Education etymologically means to draw out of darkness. But here’s the cardinal rule of modern western education: in drawing our students out of darkness, make sure not to reference the Light of the world. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge…but don’t bring him up while preparing students to make decisions in the created world. In Christ all things consist… but spend 40 hours a week for 16 years explaining how things work without ever seriously alluding to him. In guiding humans into human flourishing, don’t breathe a word about the Man in Full, the Son of Man. No wonder Joe is poor in several ways.
Maybe Joe is poor because Joe’s parents never taught him the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom – so he grew up as a laze, or a loudmouth, or a lover of pleasure, or all about making an impression, unfocused, undisciplined in his anger – all this bad behavior with no teaching of God in the background. And so Joe never learns to put in a day’s work; his mouth constantly gets him in trouble; his pleasure-seeking leaves him distracted. And poor.
What’s happening? Joe is impoverished by the world around him. Those that were supposed to support and lead and defend him have done that poorly, and their neglect and selfishness have held him back. Not that those people – the world about him – necessarily actively or consciously hated him, but often they made choices for their own gain or comfort that ended up hurting Joe, taking him further away from God, further away from flourishing. In many many ways, the world is Joe’s enemy.
Joe’s a victim. Now, it’s true that everyone wants to play the victim today and this victimizationis a bad thing in our society. But think about it: ever since Adam bit into that fruit, it’s been true that the many have been paying the price for the bad decisions…selfishness of the few. So, it’s not inaccurate for one to claim that he’s a victim, it’s wrong only when you think that’s a special status you have.
Look around the room and realize: everyone has been harmed by the selfishness and impatience and sloth of the culturally powerful, governments, family leaders, managers. You didn’t choose to grow up in a world ruled from the grave by malignant beings like Darwin, Freud, Marx, Jon Dewey, Foucault, Rousseau, Sartre…but you’re paying the steep price.
So, the world, those persons carrying the strain of thinking that runs through so many people, that current of rebellion against Christ… is an enemy.
Let’s keep going in tracing out our enemies by inquiring why Joe might be poor:
Joe could be poor because he is weak before a lot of strong messages: he watches tv and is bombarded by many masterfully crafted appeals for him to be discontent with what he has. And so now much of his thinking is taken up with ‘how can I get that new kitchen?’ Or ‘I could see myself making my own furniture but I’ll need to buy these three $449 dollar tools.’ And so Joe is divided, fragmented… is constantly scanning and pursuing and spending on certain looks and certain luxuries – once I get that I’ll stop spending.
Joe could be poor since he is paying exorbitant interest rates on his credit cards. He might be shelling out money for alimony and child support. In short, he could be at a loss because of bad decisions – big and small.
Maybe Joe is poor only because he thinks he’s poor. He actually has enough to live and to be happy. Yet he constantly lives in a state of covetousness and discontent.
Or maybe Joe stops being poor and finds a great swelling income. He can get into that house and buy Coach wallets and the best entertainment systems and the coolest trucks and doesn’t have to fret over funding for his kids’ braces or college. But the enemy is still around, isn’t he?
Remember that great prayer of Proverbs. ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches. Lest I be forced to steal. Or lest I be full and hate thee.’ Poverty is no good, but then also wealth is dangerous. Abundance sometimes…often encumbers the soul, so that what is important isn’t obvious anymore. But here’s the main threat of having plenty: material abundance regularly covers over the fact that we are poor in so many other ways: we can exit our BMW and enter our kitchen with quartz countertops and still be intellectually poor, poor in discernment, poor in concentration, poor in imagination, poor in self-control.
Summary: we can look around and see the destructiveness in the world. But we shouldn’t miss the fact that that evil that calls out to us from outside finds an answering signal from within us. The problem is not simply political systems or environment… but the various and commonplace evil that has come up out of the human heart. And not just other’s hearts, but our own hearts!
The Cold War was a good example of what we talked about at the beginning of the sermon: it featured a seemingly clear-cut good guy (the West and specifically America) and bad guy (Communism and the Soviet Union). There was a Russian man, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who spoke out against Joseph Stalin and who was imprisoned in the Gulag for it. He later fled Russia and came to the west. Anyway, his time in prison with guards and prisoners taught him something about human nature – there’s not simply a good team and bad team: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”
This echoes what the prophet Jeremiah had said 2500 years previously: The heart of human – the center of their reasoning and instinct and discernment and loyalties and resolution and courage – is deceitful above all things and is desperately wicked. And who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9
Which rhymes with what Jesus said: “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these things come from within, and they defile [stain, impoverish] a person.” Mark 7:20ff You can’t leave yourself behind when you move. You can’t shake off the stain by education or bury it in accumulation.
Not only are we carrying around in our bodies this propensity for deceit, destructiveness, God-hating, ruthlessness …in a way our bodies themselves become the opposition. I could go on at length mentioning how dopamine, our own dopamine lets us down. How our appetites mislead us. How our senses trick us. How our synapses constantly misfire and impel us into bad judgments.
But more fundamentally, our bodies let us down by betraying us: no matter how well we might treat them they finally open the door to let in death. And our bodies will let in death covertly – hey liver, you didn’t tell me that you had cancer visiting and you took him around to visit the pancreas and the kidney and the lymph nodes. And now it’s too late….I’m a goner.
Our own bodies are taking us to a conclusion that is – if not sudden and shocking – is almost always pathetic, gross, unhappy.
All this human condition is what Paul calls flesh: that which is impermanent, prone to mistake and destruction…especially self destruction…and – most importantly – out of sorts with God.
Did you hear that last bit: out of sorts with God. This is second level enemy stuff! Not only have we done evil, thought and acted destructively. That’s been despite the fact that we specifically are intended to image God into the world. All that trespassing in the face of the expressed commandments of God, shutting up the conscience and the advisors he sent to us, refusing to ask for and then act on the wisdom that he has promised to provide. So we’ve not just done foolishly, we’ve wronged and are guilty before a personal God. So, if nothing changes, who is naturally our enemy? God!
Psalm 5:3-6
For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.
The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
You destroy those who speak lies;
the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
Now, in the wake of that, hear two things. God abhors the deceitful man, and also so loveshim. He can hate and love at once. And what draws out God’s enmity is not his churlish, hateful nature, but because in our bodily, “real lives” we have kept setting ourselves against God. How stupid of us.
If you wanted to boil down the question to one main answer: Who are our enemies? Well, like Dr Frankenstein, we’ve created our own monster. We have met the enemy, and he is us.
So what enemies do we have so far? The world. The flesh.
One more answer to why Joe is impoverished, and you probably know where I’m going with this. I learned something from reading Jack London and watching wolf videos. Sometimes when I’m walking by our dogs I’ll remind them who’s the alpha by baring my teeth and them and growling. I’m sure that doesn’t look pretty.
So let me set fear into you by – as it were – growling and baring teeth. Let me quickly remind you that there’s a Devil. That the Devil is real. And he hates you. And he’s a murderer. And a liar.
He hates you and hates your children. And he isn’t stuck in some cave so that if you happen upon him, too bad. No, he’s out, seeking. Murderous. He’s on the move, plotting your destruction. He wants you intellectually stymied. Spiritually lost. Marriages to be hateful. Children exasperated and resentful. Churches suspicious. Work shoddy.
And a liar! When things are urgent and it’s time to get serious, he’ll send you island noises – twang, twang – to disarm you and relax you. When there’s opportunity for peace he’ll suggest discontentment and stress. He lies and father forths lies. Vagueness. Entrapment. Manipulation. Puffery. Cockiness.
We’re thinking about pretend Santa coming down the chimney and we’re forgetting the real Devil stealing into houses and heading for the dictionaries…he’ll alter the definition of justice little by little, until it becomes totally distorted. Let’s do it that with peace too. And how about love. A Mastermind of deception and propaganda.
How could Joe possibly be wealthy in any way that matters when this Devil is at liberty to walk through the earth?
This morning, let’s find our way to the Christmas spirit by remembering the world, the flesh, and the Devil. You don’t get to Christmas by thinking about department stores and hot cocoa and chestnuts roasting. Christmas is a time to raise the specter of real enemies. Brothers and sisters, there’s a destructive current in the world. There’s a liar and traitor inside of us. And there’s a Devil skilled at manipulating the world and us and making the path to God and life and peace well nigh impossible to find. Christmas is a time to remember that we’re in big trouble because we have big-time enemies.
On Friday, our son, Kai, finished Small Unit Tactics training for the Army’s Special Forces, the Green Berets. He Face Timed us that night and he had a bad cough…the same cough he had at Thanksgiving. The reason why he hadn’t shaken it is that for the past weeks he and his platoon had been sleeping two hours/night. They had been living outside in the wilderness… without tents. He described nights when the wind was blowing, it was raining cats and dogs, and the next morning it’s 28 degrees. And you’re just in it. Taking it. Working in it.
Why all that hardship? Because there are powerful enemies afoot.
Related: Notice something about the life of Jesus. God designed it, presented it to us, as rugged. The birth of Jesus and he’s placed in a feeding trough. When he’s an infant many babies are killed around him. We have one scene from his childhood, and it’s a episode where he gets separated from his parents and over days they’re frantically looking for him. The start of his public ministry is triggered by the imprisonment of his cousin. He touches lepers. He confronts demons. He says hard things to powerful people…and to those that loved him. I remember Andrew Klavan remarking that that was his impression when first reading the gospels: Jesus is a hard man. Anyway, you know the end: naked and suffocating and shouting for God is the end. Neither pillows or island breezes bookended Jesus’ life, but a manger and cross. Hard wood. Hard times. Tough guy.
Why? Because our enemies are real and powerful. And Jesus came to go after enemies, to destroy the Devil’s operation. There’s a strange line in the so-called song of Moses in Exodus 15, a line I think that only makes sense with Jesus’ arrival:
“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider[a] he has thrown into the sea.
2 The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
3 The Lord is a man of war;
the Lord is his name.
Thanks be to God for the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Next week we’ll talk about how this man of war destroyed our enemies, all who hate us.
The only application I have for you this morning: if you feel yourself defeated, deceived, confused, harried: “Call on the name of the strong Lord, and you will be saved.”