A Mythbuster Look at the Christmas Carols

Why Did They Burn That Poor Mule?

I remember when I was little hearing people sing the third stanza of Deck the Halls: “See the blazing Yule before us.” Afterwards I wondered to myself, why did they burn that poor mule?

You may have heard the one about the kid who made a drawing of the Nativity scene for Sunday school. Everyone looked familiar except for a fat guy standing in the corner. “Who’s that?” asked his teacher. “That’s Round John Virgin,” said the kid. “You know, Round John Virgin, mother, and child.” And before you classify that story as myth, remember: I really did think they were roasting a mule…

Many of you have seen the Discovery Channel’s popular series, Mythbusters. Each week Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman attempt to prove or disprove all kinds of popular myths and urban legends. What would the Mythbusters do with the theological assumptions and the level of historical accuracy behind our beloved Christmas carols? Since Savage and Hyneman are both outspoken atheists, I decided that I was much better qualified to either confirm or refute the popular beliefs about the first Christmas found in the carols.

I’m betting that much of what you think you know about Christmas is based on those carols you learned as a child. It may come as a shock that these are not an entirely reliable source of information. And I’m not even talking about some of the more absurd notions like that presented in The Little Drummer Boy:

Shall I play for you, on my drum?

Mary nodded, the ox and lamb kept time,

I played my drum for Him,

I played my best for Him,

Then He smiled at me,

Me and my drum.

Oh course we all know that pounding on a drum has long been a favorite method of shepherds and cowboys to calm restless flocks and herds, so we’d naturally expect one of the shepherd boys to be packing his trusty bongo. And no first-time mother would ever object to some strange kid banging away on a drum just a few hours after she endured a difficult birth in a barn. And don’t even get me started about the ox and lamb rhythm section…

Actually myths about miraculous animal activity associated with the birth of Christ regularly appear in medieval times. So it should not be surprising to see the line in the first stanza of Good Christian Men, Rejoice, “Man and beast before Him bow…” since this ancient carol dates back to the 14^th Century in its original Latin version. Luke 2 makes no mention of any animals at all except for the flocks of sheep out in the fields. While it is reasonable to assume that there would have been animals in that stable, there is no reason to believe that they acted in any way out of the ordinary—unless they may have been a bit uneasy at having unexpected human company sharing their humble accommodations. You can bet they weren’t talking, bowing down, or beating time to music.

Away in a Manger

Away in a Manger was probably the very first Christmas carol that I learned to sing. Remember those words in the second stanza, “But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes…”? The writer is anonymous but I have to believe he was a father who’d lost sleep due to a crying baby. I’m reminded of the words of one of my Old Testament professors, a man who was a practicing pediatrician when God called him into the ministry. Having already earned one doctorate, he headed off to seminary and earned first a Master of Divinity and then a Ph.D. His comment? “A baby that doesn’t cry is sick.”

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (or did they?)

Perhaps the most prevalent theme in our Christmas music is the image of heavenly choirs of angels singing to celebrate the birth of our Lord:

Ø  Hark! the herald angels sing…

Ø  Angels we have heard on high, Sweetly singing o’re the plains…

Ø  With the angels let us sing…

Ø  Sing choirs of angels, sing in exultation…

Ø  Whom angels greet with anthems sweet…

I could go on.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear adds the idea of angels playing harps:

Ø  From angels bending near the earth, To touch their harps of gold…

Angels We Have Heard on High has the shepherds joining the chorus.

The only problem with all this is nowhere in scripture does it once mention angels singing.

What does Luke’s gospel actually say?

¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

¹⁴“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

In the New Testament singing is always mentioned in the context of praise to God. There are several different Greek words that are used to convey the idea. But the word translated praising in Luke 2:13 is not the word usually used for singing.

But let’s face it. We are talking about angelic voices here. And somehow I suspect that prose from the lips of an angel would sound like music to a human ear. So I’m willing to give Charles Wesley and Joseph Mohr and all those other great hymn writers a pass on this one.

But lose the golden harps.

Perhaps the biggest misinformation about that first Christmas that song writers have contributed to has to do with the star and the wise men; confusion that is compounded by how little we actually know about this most mysterious aspect of the nativity stories.

We Three Kings of Orient

They adorn countless Christmas cards.  They’re the most exotic figurines in a traditional nativity crèche.  They’re the little boys wearing the paper crowns in the Christmas play.  They are the subject of song, and myth and legend.  They are the wise men—those mysterious figures from the East who came to worship and honor the infant Jesus.

Just who were the wise men?  Were they, as the song says, three kings of the orient?

The wise men are more accurately called the magi from the Greek word mágoi.  From that same Greek root we get the words magic and magician.  The term first referred to members of the shaman chaste of the ancient Medes, a tribe in what is now western Iran.  To the magi was ascribed the power to interpret dreams.  The Greek philosophers regarded the magi not only as priests, but as teachers and philosophers as well.

Long before the 1^st Century magi had assumed a much broader meaning.  The magi were thought to possess supernatural knowledge and ability.  They were interpreters of dreams, soothsayers, astrologers, scientists, magicians, and counselors to those in power.   By Jesus’ day the magi were no longer exclusively Persians.  There were Babylonian magi, Arabian magi and even Jewish magi such as the sorcerer Bar-Jesus in Acts 13.  They ranged from charlatans like Bar-Jesus to some of the most learned men in the ancient world.  The magi in Matthew 2 are pictured has wholly admirable characters, magi at their best.

Where were the magi from? The Gospel simply says that they were “from the East”. Beyond that, there are three locations that are usually suggested: Parthia, Babylon, and the deserts of Arabia or Syria. Strong arguments can be made for each. Parthia is the location most favored by the history of the term mágoi. The Babylonians had a long and highly developed interest in astronomy and astrology. And camel caravans had long been bringing gold, frankincense, and myrrh north from the southern end of the Arabian Desert—the region of modern day Yemen.

If the magi were from Parthia, then their dress—belted tunics with full sleeves, flowing trousers, and conical-shaped caps—would have looked very much like the genie from Aladdin’s lamp!

Then there’s the theory that the magi came from multiple locations, an idea closely associated with several other legends, none of which have any basis in history. Like the belief that there were three magi. The Bible doesn’t say how many there were. Three are assumed because three kinds of gifts are listed. Or the notion that the magi were kings. (Again, the Bible is silent on this point.) Various names have been given them. Best known are: Balthasar, Melchior and Gaspar which first show up in the 3^rd Century. By the 9th Century the tradition was established that they represent three races. Balthasar was Asian; Gaspar a white European; and Melchior was a black African.

The confusion continues to this day. Bob Yarbrough, a dear friend of mine, now teaches seminary in St. Louis but years ago he was as a logger in Montana. He told me about Steve Spooner, a wild Montana man he sawed with over 35 years ago. Bob was trying to lead Steve to faith in Christ. It was around Christmas. The discussion veered off to the birth narratives. To illustrate how improbable the Bible is, Steve said, “We know the wise men were from China.” That was news to Bob. So he asked, “Steve, how do we know the wise men were from China?” Steve’s answer? “Because it says, ‘We three kings of ORIENT are.’” Hard to argue with that kind of logic.

We don’t know precisely where the magi were from, only that they were “from the East.”  So what do we know?

·         We know there were at least two, since mágoi is a plural.

·         We know they were men, since these words have masculine endings.

·         We can assume that they were men of some financial means.  Their gifts were valuable.  In the First Century frankincense and myrrh were worth more than their weight in gold.  They had the leisure and financial means to make a long journey.  Given the dangers of travel in the border regions on the eastern end of the Roman Empire and the value of their goods, they were probably accompanied by a large contingent of armed guards.

·         We can assume they were men of some stature and influence, since they were quickly granted a private audience with King Herod.

·         We can assume that they traveled some distance to get to Jerusalem.  If they came from the closest possible location, the western edge of the Syrian Desert, then they traveled at least a couple hundred miles—a good ten-day trip.  However, if they journeyed from southern Arabia or from Parthia, which is located well to the northeast of Babylon, then conceivably they traveled as far as 2,000 miles, much of it through empty desert, and most likely on camels.  Such a trip would have taken at least four to six months and possibly much longer.

·         We know that they were regarded as wise and learned men in their day and that a part of their learning included a study of the stars.  Their statements to Herod’s court were regarded as quite credible and were taken with utter seriousness.

Were the Magi present on Christmas night? – The third stanza of The First Noel suggests as much.

We get a clue to the truth from Matthew 2:7 which reads, “Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.” Herod did some quick math. He assumed that the star appeared at the moment the Messiah was born. We have no way of knowing if that assumption was correct. Did the star appear when Christ was born, or did it appear to the Magi in advance, so as to put their arrival on the scene near the time of the birth? There is simply no way for us to know. Luke’s account of the birth makes no mention of the star at all. The shepherds saw a host of angels, but they said nothing about a star. And being familiar with the night sky, we have to believe that they would have noticed.

In Matthew 2:16 Herod ordered his swordsmen to kill all male children in Bethlehem two years old and under. Many argue from this that Jesus was two when the magi arrived. If so, why kill the newborns? The obvious answer is that Herod wasn’t being all that discriminating—he just wanted to make sure he got the right baby. But that makes as much or more sense if when Herod issued his execution order he included children older than the age ascertained from the Magi just to make certain that he found his target. If we know anything at all about Herod the Great, we know that he never shied from shedding innocent blood.

What we can conclude from the text is that the Magi did not arrive the actual night that Jesus was born, for it says in verse 11 that they found the family in a house not a stable. But that’s not much help. I think it safe to assume that the morning after the birth Joseph’s #1 priority was to get his young family out that stable and into a house. Given the realities of Middle Eastern hospitality, it is unthinkable that some family in Bethlehem would not have opened their home to a young mother with a newborn baby. So for all we know, the magi may have arrived the next night.

Why did the magi come? Why would important and wealthy men journey great distances at considerable cost and risk with no apparent prospect for personal gain? What drew the magi to Bethlehem? Well, the Star drew them. It’s hard for a modern Western mind to understand the way the ancients looked at reality. Let me illustrate with a couple events from the night of November 5, 2001. I was in suburban Milwaukee when I learned that a longtime friend and co-worker had just died.  Moments later I noticed something odd about the sky. It was a display of the northern lights and with a degree of clarity and brilliance unusual for those latitudes. Bright reds and greens danced across the autumn sky. It was the most dazzling aurora borealis that I’ve ever seen. In fact, if you go to www.spaceweather.com and search that date you will see a picture of that same aurora taken in Roanoke, Virginia!

Now all that this meant to me was that an unusually large solar flare a few days earlier had sent a mass of energized particles hurtling through space and those particles were now colliding with earth’s ionosphere, resulting in an aurora. But had I been a magus in the ancient Near East, I’d have interpreted those events very differently. I’d have seen an important connection between my co-worker’s death and that atmospheric disturbance. The aurora would have been interpreted as a sign with symbolic meaning.

Perhaps this helps us understand how seeing an unusual star in the night sky would take on special meaning to those sages of old. It was a sign, a portent of some important event that was happening or was about to happen. It had meaning to the world at large and to them personally. They would have gleaned clues to what nation was involved from the specific area of the sky where the star appeared. Perhaps the star was in the constellation Leo. They may have associated Leo with the Lion of Judah, the symbol of the royal house of David. Some such reasoning process led them to conclude that the event involved Israel. We do know that they were not led to Jerusalem by literally following the star. That is common misconception. In verse two the magi told Herod that they saw the star in the east. Later in verse nine we are told that the star reappeared to them as they were leaving Jerusalem and led them to Bethlehem—directly to the place where the child was located.

So what was this star? Was it some natural phenomenon that was interpreted symbolically? Many theories over the years have been offered with just such an explanation in mind. A supernova, a comet, or an unusual planetary conjunction are among the better-known ideas. In 1975 Arthur C. Clarke actually wrote a sci-fi short story, The Star, based on the supernova theory. All of these suggestions raise interesting points and all have both strengths and weaknesses.

But I’m not convinced that any of these theories adequately address the events recorded in Matthew. The first appearance of the star might be explained as a primitive culture’s interpretation of an unusual natural event. But the actions of the star in Matthew 2:9 defy any such naturalistic explanation: “And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.” The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem—where tradition says the stable was located—is just over five miles SSW of site of Herod’s palace in Jerusalem. For a light in the heavens to guide travelers from Herod’s palace to a specific spot in Bethlehem means that this light must have been very low in the sky and had to have been moving very slowly.

Imagine the difficulty of following a hot air balloon from the ground. If it’s at 30,000 feet and caught up in the jet stream it’d be impossible to keep up with and impossible to estimate when you were directly under it. On the other hand, if that balloon were only a hundred feet off the ground and drifting slowly, you could easily keep up with it in open country and would know with confidence when it was directly overhead. Movement of this nature could not be attributed to a comet or a supernova or a planetary conjunction or any known atmospheric disturbance, nor could such phenomena begin to provide the kind of precise direction needed to locate one specific person on the ground. And specific direction, after all, was the whole point of the exercise! Whatever that star was, it was no thing of nature.

What we think of as an event limited to one night was actually a series of events spread out over weeks or months:

First, the command of Caesar Augustus compelled Mary and Joseph to make the difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Whether they arrived on the night of Jesus’ birth or a day or two earlier we don’t know, but given their living arrangements they couldn’t have been there long.

Second, the nighttime announcement of an angelic messenger inspired the shepherds to leave their flocks and investigate.

Finally, on a night long ago a group of pagan scholars studying the stars saw something totally unexpected. They concluded, for reasons no long clear to us, that this unusual star signified the birth of a new King of the Jews. So they headed for the logical place to look for a new Jewish king, the palace of the current Jewish king, Herod the Great in Jerusalem. As they left Herod’s court on their way to Bethlehem, that mysterious star reappeared and led them with precision to the very house where Jesus lay.

These diverse moving parts were under the direct control of God: Roman imperial tax policies, the superstitious beliefs of pagan astrologers, the natural curiosity of lowly shepherds, the fear and hostility of a cruel despot, the seemly inconsequential travels of a poor peasant couple, and the announcement of an angelic messenger… all skillfully combined, like threads in a heavenly tapestry, to set the stage for the birth of the Son of God.

No one is suggesting that a song or carol must be correct in every detail before you can sing it. So feel free to enjoy your favorites (unless your favorite happens to be Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer which ought to be banned by law). But for a reliable source of Advent season theology, stick with Matthew and Luke.

Merry Christmas!

The Righteous Shall Live By Faith

First Message in the Series

Romans – The Road to Righteousness

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church

Glen A. Land, Senior Pastor

INTRODUCTION

Guilt, fear, and shame—the sources of a debilitating state of mind that robs our days of joy and our nights of peace.

Guilt, fear, and shame—feelings that haunt the lives of people everywhere, regardless of race, nationality, language, culture, educational level, or economic status.

Guilt, fear, and shame— emotions that have bedeviled us from that day when we each first grasped the meaning of “bad.”

Guilt, fear, and shame—since the first Sumerian scribe more than 5,000 years ago pressed a sharpened stick into soft clay tablets to fashion the earliest written words, human history has been the dreary record of the ruinous consequences of this terrible triad of despair.

But guilt, fear, and shame are far older than Sumer—far older than any written history. Their story actually begins in a garden of delights—the Garden of Eden. You know the story…

Genesis 3:4-11

⁴But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. ⁷Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

⁸And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” ¹¹He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

So what exactly were the consequences of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge? What did Adam and Eve actually learn from their misadventure?

• Because they broke God’s command, they learned about guilt. It was guilt that caused Adam to blame Eve and Eve to blame the serpent.
• Because they broke God’s trust, they learned about fear. When God drew near, instead of greeting Him with gladness, they hid in the bushes.
• Because they broke God’s relationship with them, they learned about shame. Their response? A pathetic attempt to cover their nakedness with fig leaves.

Guilt, fear, and shame—the three-fold emotions of sin. This was the immediate consequence of their disobedience.

• Guilt: that sense of having done something wrong. You see that flashing blue light in your rearview mirror and it hits you. I was speeding. I broke the law.
• Fear: the distress felt when faced with the consequences of your actions. The IRS is auditing your taxes. You suddenly realize that when they uncover the deduction you claimed for that “business trip” to Vegas, you’re going to be facing a big fine.
• Shame: the embarrassment or sense of unworthiness that we feel in the presence of someone better than us. That feeling you had when a parent or spouse caught you looking at an inappropriate website—a feeling sometimes expressed by the phrase, “I wanted to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after me.”

If guilt, fear, and shame are the immediate consequences of our sin, then the long-term consequence is death—the physical death of our bodies and the eternity in hell separated from God that Revelation 20:14 calls the Second Death.

But there is also an intermediate consequence of our sin. Between the sinner’s sense of grief caused by guilt, fear, and shame; and the threat of death that hangs like a shroud over our futures; there is a lifetime spent in exile. Adam and Eve lived out their days as exiles, cast out of Eden with the way back blocked by a cherubim wielding a flaming sword, while forever haunted by the memory of what they’d lost.

Exile… the Bible is filled with stories of people living in exile, cut off from home, cut off from where they belong. Exile is an integral part of Judeo-Christian theology. Adam, Moses, Hagar, Jacob, Daniel, Isaiah, Jonah—all lived as exiles. Paul spent much of his life as a displaced person. The last book of the Bible, The Revelation, was penned by the Apostle John in exile on the island of Patmos. All of these men and women and more lived—and sometimes died—cut off from family, from friends, from home.

It is the plaintive cry of the exile that we hear in the words of Psalm 137:

¹By the waters of Babylon,
    there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion.
²On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
³For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴How shall we sing the Lord's song
    in a foreign land?

The theme of exile runs through Scripture because sin makes exiles of us all. Our heart’s home is with God. But because of our sin, we are cut off. The way back is barred. There is no going home again.

It was exile in this sense that David feared in Psalm 51, his powerful prayer of repentance after his sin with Bathsheba:

¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right spirit within me.
¹¹Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Cast me not away from your presence… don’t make an exile of me again.

One of the worst punishments that a prisoner can face is solitary confinement—deeper exile for one already in exile. To be cut off, to be banished, to be shunned… To be forced into exile is to become a pariah to those whose love and respect we crave. Just ask Ryan Lochte. Sin has made him an exile within the international swimming fraternity, just as sin has made us all exiles from the presence of God.

Ever since The Fall, we’ve sought relief from guilt, fear, and shame.

We all experience each of the three emotions of sin, but some cultures tend to emphasize one more than the others.

• Western cultures tend to focus on guilt. Catholic parochial school guilt has even become a mainstay of stand-up comedians.
• The tribal cultures in the jungles of Africa and South America are fear based.
• Muslim and oriental cultures are shame focused societies where appearances—hiding one’s guilt and saving face—are more important than one’s actions.

But in every culture underlying all of these anxieties is the ever-present fear of death and punishment.

To rid ourselves of guilt, fear, and shame, we sometimes resort to bizarre, even silly remedies. One website I checked out offered some “Emotional Healing Exercises.” A couple of their “exercises” such as, “Write a Letter to someone who hurt you, Read It Aloud, Then Burn It” or “Beat Up a Pillow with a Tennis Racket” are pretty standard stuff in the emotional health self-help world. But some were pretty weird, such as:

The Staircase to Your Inner Sanctuary Exercise

Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Relax. Now imagine that you’re at the top of a tiny staircase that begins… right behind your eyes. This staircase spirals downwards to the centre of your being. Visualize yourself as a little doll, at the top the staircase. Let yourself wander down the stairs to the core of your being, a place of great serenity. Let your dolly freely wander about the place. What do you see? What do you feel? Embrace your emotions. Don’t hold back. Let it flow. Whatever happens happens. Be the little doll within your sanctuary for as long as you like. Whatever happens will be beneficial.

The Pink Bubble of Light Exercise

This one has you visualizing yourself totally surrounded by glistening white light that comes down from the universe, filled with sparkling little silver stars. The light and the stars surround your entire body, swirling gently around you. Then you breathe in the white light. The white light will help you. (Exactly how this helps was not made clear.)

And if the exercises alone don’t hack it for you, the website will be happy to sell you some wonderful flower essences…

As ridiculous and useless as these so-called “exercises” are, at least they recognize our feelings of guilt, fear, and shame as real issues that need to be squarely faced and addressed. In the last half of Romans Chapter 1 Paul describes another approach, one that denies the factual basis of these emotions. And here there is nothing in the least bit humorous:

¹⁸For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

²⁴Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

²⁶For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; ²⁷and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³²Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Look at this passage in its entirety, and you’ll see that it’s the depiction of a culture—a whole value system if you will—that stands under God’s judgment. For the Bible tells us that it is not merely individuals whom God will judge. He is also the judge of nations and of cultures. And the culture Paul describes is one embraced by people…

• Who refuse to acknowledge God’s truth.
• Who actively suppress that truth.
• Who are futile in their thinking.
• People who are fools.
• Who worship the creation—not the Creator.
• Who are filled with lust and perversion.
• And people who actively affirm and celebrate rebellion against God and all he represents.

Paul spent his entire ministry working to undermine the power and influence of this world view. This culture has a name. The name is paganism. As characterized by the early church, paganism is a worldview in which hedonism reigns supreme. It is the “religion” if we can even properly call it a religion, of people who are sensual, materialistic, self-indulgent, and who have rejected the Christian basis for morality. In describing paganism Paul speaks of the thought process of a people who have lost touch with ultimate reality. They have ceased to be truly rational beings. Their thoughts have become complete nonsense—that’s how the Good News translation renders “futile in their thinking.” It suffers from a fatal flaw, the basic disconnect from reality that stems from their failure to recognize and glorify the true God. What God did in confusing the speech of the arrogant and proud builders of the Tower of Babel, he has allowed to happen to the very thought process of the pagans. This was the dominant culture of the Roman Empire—the culture that many of the Christians in Rome were a part of before they came to Christ—the culture that they were saved out of.

What, you may ask, has 1^st Century paganism to do with a 21^st Century world? In a word, everything. Paganism is having a great revival—a Satanic aping of spiritual awakening if you would. It comes in many forms. It’s adherents run the gamut from atheistic secular humanists like Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie, and George Clooney to an increasingly creepy 90-year-old Hugh Heffner lounging about the Playboy mansion in those signature silk pajamas of his to gay anarchists running amok in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park to some Wiccan priestess chanting to the rising sun at Stonehenge on the dawn of the summer solstice.

What all these people have in common is their denial of the moral basis for guilt, fear, and shame. Shaking their fists at their empty heaven, they declare themselves free from the constraints of conventional morality. Those in the vanguard of this philosophy—the really radical true believers—have not merely stretched the boundaries of moral propriety, they have blown them away. And they revile any who do not endorse and support their moral lawlessness. Who among us has not heard the latest outrage in the news without shaking our heads and muttering, “These people just aren’t thinking straight!” In truth, that is precisely their problem. Their thoughts, especially about God and his commands about right and wrong, are complete nonsense. And like arguing with a drunk, you cannot reason with them. They suffer from Babel of the Brain.

And what is heaven’s answer to this mockery of all that’s holy? “…God gave them up… God gave them up… God gave them up…”  Three times that bleak phrase is repeated like the slow echoing cadence of a sounding gong. It is the pronouncement of doom. Paul’s scathing account of the moral emptiness of paganism’s followers reveals its disastrous end; an end where God gives them up to the impurity of their lusts. He gives them up to their dishonorable passions. He gives them up to follow the sinful impulses of their debased minds. The apostle is absolutely unrelenting in his condemnation of a world view that is utterly opposed to Christ’s teachings

Pity the foolish pagans! Paul’s account reaches its nadir in verse 32, “Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Willful rejection of divine revelation hardens the heart to the point where the rebel takes delight in the sinfulness of others. At this point wickedness has sunk to its lowest level.

But lest we too quickly thank heaven that we are not pagans, we need to ponder the fuller meaning of this text. For while Paul is certainly describing the plight of the pagan, when we look at the broader context of his epistle these words describe the state of all us apart from the saving blood of Jesus Christ. This is the inner reality of the human race—a reality that traces all the way back to Eden. These verses are a revelation of the gospel’s judgment on us all. They lay bare the rotten heart of the human race. And they warn that our sin has invited the wrath of God upon us.

Some cringe and back away from talk about God’s Wrath as if it were some holdover from a less enlightened age. They equate it with irrational passion. Yet we recognize that even for humans not all anger is irrational rage. Righteous indignation against moral evil is not only possible; it is a necessary component of goodness. To not be outraged by, say, the premeditated murder of a child, would indicate an alarming lack of love.

Certainly for fallen humanity we can seldom if ever separate sinful passion from righteous wrath. But that is not a problem for God. His wrath is as holy as his love. And it is just as much an essential aspect of his divine character. They are two sides of the same coin in the same way that his mercy and his justice are both divine attributes.

And so we come, finally, to the heart of this message and the theme of Romans, Romans 1:16-17:

¹⁶For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

¹⁷For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

The preaching of Christ crucified, risen, ascended, and coming again reveals to us both God’s loving mercy to the sinner and his righteous wrath toward sin. Don’t you see? It is the gospel that reveals both. In the gospel divine mercy and divine judgment are inseparable. God offers us forgiveness but he never offers to condone our sin. He doesn’t smile and wink at our misdeeds like an overindulgent grandparent. Through Christ God welcomes us into his family as our Father—but never as our grandpa.

What does Paul say? “For in it [“it” being the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed…” And the gospel is more than just the wonderful news that if we will confess our sinfulness, repent of our sin, believe in the Jesus Christ as our Savior and commit our lives to him as Lord he will save us. It is also the terrible wonderful incredible story of what he did to make this possible. And it is also the story of why he did it, a story that began back in the garden. It is ALL the gospel we must accept—or reject. We cannot cherry pick the nice parts.

It has often been observed that gospel literally means good news. And so it does. And so it is. But the road to the good news must pass through some very bad news: That guilt, fear, and shame you feel? You deserve it. You are guilty. You have reason to be afraid. And you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Until you face that awful truth not even God can help you. You’ve got to ‘fess up. You’ve got to come clean with yourself and with your God. Every AA member introduces himself or herself with the phrase, “I’m an alcoholic.” Well my name is Glen, and I’m a sinner.” We’d do well as Christians if we were to routinely greet one another in this manner. We call it confession and it’s the first step toward salvation. God already knows we’re sinners. We’re just agreeing with him.

So you know you’re a sinner. That guilt, fear, and shame you carry around is baggage you’ve earned—like those heavy chains dragged about by Marley’s ghost in A Christmas Carol. What are you going to do about it? The Bible teaches us that the next step is an act of will—you determine in your heart and mind to live differently, to turn around and go the other way. We call this repentance. I know. You’re already shaking your heads. You’ve been down that road before and it was a dead end. You’ve tried to change before and you’ve failed every time. And you’re right. All the heartfelt resolutions, all the good intentions, all the tearful pleading will get you nowhere because sin has you in a death grip. You’re not man enough, you’re not woman enough, you’re not strong enough, you’re not good enough to crawl out of the hole you’re in.

This is where the good news part of the gospel comes into play. Help is available. “…the gospel . . . . is the power of God for salvation…” The gospel—not the message we preach but the historical reality behind it—that act of divine redemption that began with a message from an angel to a maiden in Galilee and ended with a brutal execution on a cross, a glorious resurrection, an ascension into heaven, and a future return in glory and power—from this comes the power you need to change your life forever.

You’re guilty. You broke God’s command. On the cross Jesus took your guilt upon himself. He took it all.

You’re afraid. You’ve been running from God all your life. The thought of dying terrifies you. When Jesus was nailed to that cross he took your punishment upon himself. Hundreds of years before his birth in Bethlehem the prophet Isaiah foresaw the sacrifice that Christ would one day make for you and me:

“But he was pierced for our transgressions;

    he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

    and with his wounds we are healed.”

You’re ashamed. The things you’ve done haunt your dreams. You’ve made such a mess of things. You can’t forgive yourself. There are people you can’t look in the eye, much less God. How could God forgive you?  For the answer we have to jump ahead to Romans 5:8-11:

⁸but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

The glorious message of Romans 1:17 is simply this. In the gospel, seen in all its fullness, a righteous status which is God’s grace gift to the human race is revealed and freely offered. God’s saving grace means that…

• Christ has redeemed us. God’s justice is answered. Our debt is paid. Our guilt removed.
• Christ shed his blood on the cross for our sin. God’s wrath was satisfied. We obtain his mercy which frees us from the fear of punishment.
• Christ reconciled us with God and brings us into a right relationship with him. He intercedes with the Father on our behalf. God’s honor is preserved and our shame, removed.

All of this is received—and can only be received—by faith. This kind of faith, this saving faith, is best described as believing obedience. It is confidence that what Christ has done for us is sufficient to remove forever our guilt, our fear, and our shame. It is the obedience born of faith that the way of salvation opened to us in Christ is all we need. It is the faith needed to turn from sin and follow the savior. We are saved by grace. But faith opens the door.

Saved—by grace, through faith: No more guilt. No more fear. No more shame. And as the children of God we are no longer exiles. We have come home at last.

No more guilt, no more fear, no more shame—just grace. @RomansTheRoadToRighteousness

Orlando and Social Media

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…” And to think that Charles Dickens published those famous words 145 years before the founding of Facebook.

Social media is at its best—and its worst—in the aftermath of some horrific event such as the Orlando shootings. At its best, it provides a way for loosely connected individuals to openly express grief and sympathy in a fast and convenient way. At its worst, it is a vehicle for spreading misinformation (if not outright lies) with no accountability, as well as being an easily accessible public forum for propagating hate, bigotry, and ignorance with impunity. It reinforces stereotypes and preconceived ideas and tends to generate far more heat than light when hard facts are not readily available.

A part of the problem is the speed with which fragmentary information about a fast-breaking news story is shared in a 24-hour news cycle. The pressure is to get the story out first. Speed is too often viewed as more important than accuracy. How many times have we seen the first details reported about a breaking story later retracted? This is how the pros operate; people with at least a theoretical commitment to a professional code of conduct that supposedly obligates them to check out a story before reporting it. What few constraints reporters live with are completely absent on Facebook and Twitter where people can and do say anything they please.

A second issue is the ease with which we can wrap ourselves in a comfortable and protective information “bubble” that guards us from contact with any ideas that conflict with our own views, opinions, values, prejudices, etc. Make sure you only go to news sites that correspond with your political, social, and religious views. “Defriend” people who post ideas you dislike. Always repost stories, however absurd they may be, if they support your way of thinking, but never check to see if the story is accurate. You don’t want facts that you dislike cluttering up your thinking.

And then there is the relative anonymity of internet communications. Heated words typed by the glow of a computer screen by somebody in their bathrobe at 1:00 AM seldom correspond with what that person would tell another face-to-face in broad daylight. The effect of this anonymity is like that of alcohol—it loosens inhibitions. And as many a deflowered virgin has regretfully learned after a night of drinking, some inhibitions are good.

As the details of this horrific massacre unfold, the story becomes more, not less, complex. That is to be expected. Life is complex. People are incredibly complex. The mind of a mass murderer is always a tangled labyrinth. It now appears that Omar Mateen’s motivation was likely a lethal combination of perverted and distorted religious belief and his own disordered sexuality. The extent to which he was aided in his crime by others will hopefully become clear in the weeks to come. At this early date, less than four full days after the attack, it seems that at least his wife may prove to be an accessory before the fact. Beyond that we are merely speculating.

As Christians we are by definition witnesses of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The love and mercies of God should be demonstrated in us and through us. Truth and truth telling should be revered by us above all people. May your social media presence be consistent with that high calling.

The Grownup in the Room

It’s been one very weird election cycle, and it’s still eight long months until Election Day. On the left side of the aisle what seemed destined to be an easy stroll to a Democratic convention coronation for Hillary Clinton has turned out to be a hotly contested campaign, with opposition coming from a most unlikely corner—self-described democratic socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders.

In a normal year that unanticipated turn of events would easily be the recurring lead story on the op-ed pages of the big city dailies. But this is anything but a normal year. For on the other side of the aisle we have witnessed a snarling, growling, vicious dog fight for the Republican nomination unlike anything seen in living memory. There have been the usual dirty little tricks that are all too typical—the kind of stuff we’ve sadly grown to expect in our beleaguered democracy. There have been the misleading claims and quotes taken out of context. We have seen the personal attacks and the all too familiar negative ads. And then there were the debates…

I remember studying the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates back in school. Abraham Lincoln was challenging incumbent Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas for his seat in the U.S. Senate. In a series of seven debates conducted across the state over a period of two months, each candidate made lengthy presentations regarding his positions on a variety of important issues, with the question of slavery topping the list. Then they took turns carefully rebutting their opponent’s arguments. These arguments were often finely nuanced. The tone was respectful and gentlemanly. That was 1858.

Over a century and a half later, the presidential debates we have been watching this election year have had little in common with the lofty contest of ideas waged across the Illinois prairie long ago. This is the age of the soundbite—the snappy comeback, the clever putdown. The quality of ideas and general tone of presidential debates has been deteriorating for years. But we have hit some shocking new lows this time around, where some of the candidates’ rebuttals have stooped to the level of, “…and you’re ugly, too!” It has been presidential politics as reality TV. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich seem like little more than the surviving cast members of Amazing Race or Survivors as the season finale draws near.

In a perverse sort of way it HAS been entertaining. But it is the kind of entertainment that Christians should be embarrassed by—like admitting you enjoy the humor of a particularly vulgar comedian. And vulgar seems to be a particularly apt descriptor for the 2016 presidential election season.

It is not my job as a pastor to advise you on whom you should support for elective office. The issues by and large do not offer clearly defined “Christian” positions. But when it comes to helping define Christian conduct and behavior, well, that IS a part of my job. So when the mud (and various other substances) is flung about the room, it is important that we, who are Christ followers, set an example of godliness, even when all about us are behaving in a distinctly ungodly way. We have to be the grownups in the room, even if those who would like our votes act like unruly children.

Thankfully, the state of the candidates’ souls is not my responsibility. I am not their pastor. My approval or disapproval of how they manage their respective campaigns in my personal business. Your opinions may differ. But crass, boorish behavior has a way of encouraging crass, boorish behavior in others. And as Christians we must answer to a higher standard. So put on your big boy pants and model maturity. Who knows? Maybe we can start a trend!

The God in the Breaker Box

The evening of January 9, 2016 started out as just another quiet and relaxing Saturday night for Joyce and me at our home in Lynchburg, Virginia. After a holiday season marked by a house filled with kids and grandkids, it was good to enjoy some down time. Our guests were long gone. The decorations were all boxed up for another 11 months. Most of the Christmas goodies had been consumed and the inevitable resulting diets loomed large in the near future. But not that night. The diets could wait a few more days. It was a chilly, wet, rainy night. A night for comfort and comfort food. I built a cozy fire in the fireplace and we relaxed in our preferred way: enjoying some DVDs of old BBC dramas: Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot were the night’s double feature.

Everything was, if not exactly idyllic, at least very homey and comfortable until around 9:00 PM. It was then that I went upstairs to the spare bedroom opposite our master bedroom on the far end of the house where I had my laptop plugged in. I wanted to check email. When I got up there I found that the power was out in both spare bedrooms and in the hall bathroom. That’s strange, I thought. The electrical draw on the circuit that the three rooms shared was negligible: one bedside alarm clock, my computer, and a desk lamp with a rather low wattage bulb. This was getting annoying. It was the third time in two weeks that a breaker had inexplicably tripped—three different breakers, in fact. Additionally, we had had a rash of light bulbs burn out all over the house.

I tried to reset the breaker only to be surprised when it would not reset. Stranger still. I unplugged the few things plugged in and made sure all the light switches were turned off. I checked to make sure none of the outlets or switches were hot. I didn’t smell anything burning. Well, sometimes breakers do go bad. It doesn’t happen often but it does happen. I speculated that perhaps the breaker was hot. Maybe if I waited an hour it would cool off and reset. I went back to enjoying the crackling fire and our British murder mystery du jour.

One hour later I again tried to reset the breaker. No dice. At this moment I made my best decision of the still young new year and maybe one of my best decisions ever. Instead of just shrugging my shoulders and resolving to call an electrician Monday morning, I went back upstairs and checked around one more time.

When I entered that spare bedroom three things had changed.

First, I smelled something odd. It was the very faint smell of something burning. I thought at first it might just be the smell of the fireplace. With rain falling, the draft of the flue can do funny things, but you wouldn’t normally smell it upstairs even then. Besides, the odor wasn’t quite right. It was a little too acrid. It smelled, I realized upon later reflection, like an overheated electrical wire.

Second, I heard something odd. Again, my first instinct was to dismiss it. It was just the sound of the rain outside. A soft popping sound—rain hitting a window. But a quick check of the weather revealed that the rain outside was not coming down very hard and there was no wind. Walking back into the room what should have been obvious immediately suddenly hit me like a cold slap in the face. The sound wasn’t coming from the window. It was coming from the ceiling and the wall. And on the other side of that wall was the chimney flue.

Third, I felt something odd. No, odd isn’t the right word. What I felt was alarming. I put my hand on the wall where the sound was coming from. It was warm.

I walked to the head of the stairs and calmly told Joyce that I was pretty sure that the house was on fire and that I was calling 911. I made the call. I told Joyce to get in the van. I grabbed my laptop, i-Pad, cell phone, chargers, wallet, and car keys. Joyce got her i-Pad, cell phone, purse, and the cat. She waited in the van with the cat while I stood under the front porch light and waited for the Boonsboro Squad of the Bedford County Fire and Rescue to arrive.

For a few minutes there was no sound but that of the rain gently falling and the low hum of the engine of our Dodge Caravan around the corner of the house. It was almost 10:00 PM. Saturday nights are quiet in our community. Our neighborhood has no street lights and our house is a couple hundred feet off the road, so it was dark except for the lights of our neighbors in the distance. Then I heard it. A faint siren soon echoed by others. As the clamor grew louder I could begin to see in the distance red lights reflecting off of my neighbors’ houses. Then I saw the lights themselves. Fire trucks. Rescue vehicles. Red cars and pickups sporting lights to match and bearing the logo of the fire department on their doors. It seemed like every vehicle owned by the Bedford County fire department was coming to our rescue.

One of the firefighters approached me. “Is everyone out of the house? Are there any pets inside?” Negative on both counts. “Are there any gas lines in the house?” Again, no. I then recounted the events that led to the call. I explained the layout of the house. I made sure all the doors were unlocked. Then I got out of the way and let the men (and at least one woman I saw) do their jobs.

Freed of anything else to do I took the time to make a couple phone calls. I needed my church family informed. I needed them praying. I called the chair of our diaconate, who in turn contacted the rest of the deacons. And I called one other church member who I knew would willingly do anything he could to help. Plus he’s resourceful, one of those rare people who seems to know everybody. In his book, The Tipping Point, author Malcolm Gladwell terms such people “mavens”. And a maven can prove invaluable in a crisis. I told my friends that our house was on fire, we were safe, the fire department had responded, and to please pray for us. No, there was nothing else they could do just then. No, we couldn’t leave. Both of our vehicles by now were pinned in by fire trucks. Yes, we would keep them informed.

Now came what for me was the hardest part of the evening. I had worked the problem as best I could. That’s what I do. My instinctive response to any problem or crisis is to try to fix it. Solve the problem. Resolve the crisis. Now I had run out of useful things to do. Joyce was on her phone, talking to her twin sister—trying to drain off her own stress by sharing it. I attempted to do likewise by calling an old friend. No answer. I tried sitting in the van and found that quite impossible. I got out and stood in the cold rain in my shirtsleeves like a fool. But I guess the adrenalin kept me warm because I never felt chilled. But I was getting wet, so I finally put on my jacket and got out an umbrella. Umbrella in hand, I watched the efforts of others to save our house from ruin.

I never let myself believe that the fire would get completely out of hand. But I remember the precise point where doubt about the outcome briefly got a toehold in my mind. I looked up at the attic vent on the far side of the house from where the fire was burning and saw smoke billowing out of it. I never said a word to Joyce, but for a few minutes I wondered if my 911 call came too late. Thankfully, a short time later it became clear that the fire was under control. The house would not burn down.

It was well after midnight before I reentered our house in the company of a firefighter and the Bedford County Fire Marshal. Water was still dripping from the ceiling. Steam was still rising from charred framing members that now lay on the bedroom floor. And bits of insulation that should have been up in the attic were now all over the place. It was even on the front porch steps. Of course, the power was off. One of the very first things that the firefighters did was pull the meter to kill all power to the house. We proceeded by flashlight. The harsh contrasts created by the light beams just served to accentuate the starkness of the mess before us.

The damage to the house was most evident from the spare bedroom side. Where earlier I had placed my hand and felt disturbing warmth, there was now…nothing. That wall was gone, ripped away by fire fighters intent on getting at the fire. Above that nothingness was more nothingness. A big hole opened up into the attic. Charred framing members leaned at crazy angles. One of the roof trusses was burned through, a second was compromised. But thankfully the underside of the roof showed no sign of damage whatsoever.

It was on the master bedroom side that the damage to personal property was vividly revealed. The first thing I saw as I walked through the doorway was a big mound of clothing carelessly dumped on the bed. Flannel shirts, blue jeans, khakis, my suits, Joyce’s dresses and T-shirts… everything lumped together every which way in a random heap of fabric. Another pile was on the floor on the far side of the bed. To get at the fire the firefighters had to rip out the back wall of the master bedroom closet. The clothes blocked their access. I’m grateful that in those first precious minutes after they arrived on the scene the firefighters took a few seconds to get our clothing out of the way. We don’t yet know all the damages, but most of our garments seem to have been spared from ruin. Our shoes were not so lucky. Nearly every pair was buried in a mound of wet charcoal and slimy, broken, plaster board.

The cause of the fire was not immediately evident but from the beginning an electrical fire was suspected. It wasn’t until a few days later, when the fire marshal was joined by a building inspector and a professional fire investigator hired by the insurance company, that the final determination was made. The fire started in the chase that was built around the fireplace flue and was the direct result of at least two building code violations that dated back to the original construction of the house some 15 years ago.

To begin with, the clearance between the flue and the framing was only 3 scant inches, so there was little margin for error. And errors there were. The most egregious was the running of an electrical line inside the chase, an outrageous and dangerous code violation. In addition, insulation in the attic was placed in direct contact with the flue instead of set back away from it as required. It was also piled on top of the metal firestop plate that separated the main level from the attic.

As the fire investigator reconstructed the event, because of the insulation lying against the flue and on top of the metal firestop plate that separated the inside of the chase from the attic, the inside of the chase on the main level had no way for heat to properly dissipate. A second firestop plate separating the chase at the basement level from the chase at grade level further minimized the amount of air subject to excessive heating, concentrating a potential ignition source. The inside of the chase on the main level effectively became a superheated fire box. Of course, hot air is not an efficient way to ignite a 2x4, even one that is bone dry and extremely hot. This is where the wire comes in. Over time, repeated heating and cooling degraded the insulation on the Romex until it was completely eroded away. Now we have an explanation for the series of burned out light bulbs and blown breakers over the last couple weeks. It was that wire, briefly and repeatedly shorting out. On that fateful Saturday night I built a hot fire in the fireplace and continued to fuel it throughout the evening. The air inside the chase became superheated. Add a spark from the wire. Ignition. The investigator estimated that the fire had been quietly burning for at least 90 minutes before I called 911. He further estimated that in probably no more than another 20 minutes the fire would have been through the roof. It was a very near thing. Once a fire gets going in an attic you quickly reach the point where the house cannot be saved.

As I write this, ten days after the event, it is now evident that we were most fortunate. We lost very little personal property and nothing that cannot be replaced. Our house suffered extensive damage but it can be repaired. We will be in temporary quarters for a couple months. But inconvenience does not equal loss. I have been told that we were lucky.

I suppose “what if” questions are inevitable after such a disaster…

What if I had not made that second check on the spare bedroom and we had gone to bed not knowing that the house was on fire? Because the fire was contained in the walls and the attic, our smoke alarms never did go off. By the time they did, would we have been able to escape?

What if two weeks earlier when our children and grandchildren were all with us, we had seen a cold wave instead of enjoying record warmth? Normally during the Christmas holidays I would have had a fire in the fireplace almost continually. As it was I only built a fire one evening. It was just too warm. But if it had been cold… It doesn’t bear contemplation. For then that wire would have sparked far sooner. In that crowded house (three people slept on air mattresses that week), had the fire started in the middle of the night it’s conceivable that all of us could have died. My wife and I and every one of our descendants… gone. Or even worse, what if I had survived but lost them all? Dear God in heaven…

What if the fire started but that breaker never failed? More than one man has walked off a battlefield with the knowledge that a bullet had harmlessly grazed his helmet. The difference between life and death is sometimes a matter of inches; sometimes just millimeters. Had that misplaced wire been in ever so slightly a different spot it could have sparked without shorting out. Then the breaker would not have been tripped. And we would have gone to bed ignorant of the fact that our house was on fire. And it could very easily have been the last time we ever went to bed.

What some call luck I believe was divine providence. I have encountered God in church. I have seen Him on mountain tops. I have heard His voice in music. He has whispered words of comfort to me in the darkness of the night. But on the night of January 9, God spoke to me from a dusty breaker box in the corner of my basement. He said, “Get out.”