heaven's anthem

Of the things I treasure most about the Christmas season, few surpass its music. Perhaps the songs are special because they are heard only for a short time each year. Or maybe they hold sentimental connections to a simpler time when I was a child and all was well with the world. Yet, while these explanations own a measure of truth, the melodies pervade upon me more deeply than occasion or memory ever could.

 

The carols of Christmas speak of hope and truth that awaken something slumbering within the soul.

 

Among my favorites is It Came upon the Midnight Clear. Its haunting, ethereal melody stirs my heart, and its words are just as poignant:

 

Above its sad and lowly plains,

They bend on hovering wing.

And ever o’er its Babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

 

A heavenly anthem is sung over our world, a prophetic tune of hope and redemption and restoration. It is relentless in its insistence that even the most sorrowful notes of our saddest dirges may yet compose a movement within the divine symphony. It whispers to us that dissonance punctuates the masterpiece. And all the while, heaven harmonizes its golden tones with those darker strains of our existence. Our bleakest valley cannot conceal it; our loudest Babel noises cannot drown it out. With this melody, eternity pierces the human condition.

 

See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The Lord God

is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation (Isaiah 12:2, NLT)

 

So we are invited to lay down the burden of being a fallen creature, the weight of our inadequacies and failings to be enough. We are welcomed to rest, to cease our strivings, that we may be renewed. If we will but listen, if we will but believe, our salvation is at hand:

 

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow,

Look now! for glad and golden hours

Come swiftly on the wing.

O rest beside the weary road,

And hear the angels sing!

 

This season, may we listen intently to hear the angelic refrain. May its lovely sound stir our hearts and rouse our souls to look heavenward. May it remind us of the gift that is Christmas, wrapped in skin and swaddling cloth, and placed lovingly beneath the shadow of a tree.

why the church can't survive without youth

Why does the church need youth? Recent circumstances prompted me to consider this question in greater depth than day-to-day ministry normally requires. Churches everywhere expend thousands of dollars annually to build and sustain student ministries. But why? Is it truly worth the cost? Here are the top reasons why young people are indispensable to the church’s existence:

1. They are the future of the church. This is obvious nearly to the point of being trite. But it cannot go without being said because it is easily forgotten. Deuteronomy 4:9 tells us, “Be careful never to forget what you have seen the Lord do for you. Do not let these things escape your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren” (NLT, emphasis mine). This directive to give a spiritual inheritance to succeeding generations through instruction is repeated at least 4 times in the Old Testament, and this repetition serves to underscore its importance. The point is that successive generations are spiritual heirs who must be trained to take up the mantle of leadership. And this applies not only to our biological descendants, but to adopted spiritual heirs as well. In the New Testament, Paul writes at length about adoption into the family of God, and calls himself a spiritual father to many.
2. They perpetuate the faith. Where there are generational gaps, there is discontinuity in the succession of faith. Scripture highlights the importance of teaching our inheritors while they are young, before the cynicism of secular (read “godless) thought has its say. As Proverbs has it, “Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it” (22:6, NLT). It certainly is not coincidental that Jesus taught on the importance of childlike faith. Indeed, the Old Testament, particularly the chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah, provides sober accounts of the enormity of damage that can be done in a single generation’s time.
3. They are the here-and-now of the church. It is all-too easy to consign youth to a future tense as leaders-in-training whose voices are not yet developed. But this attitude ignores Biblical reality. Broadly speaking, all of us – veteran saint and sage included – are works in progress. If we waited until we were “ready” for leadership, the church would be perpetually leaderless. True, we are instructed to carefully select our leaders and avoid hastily thrusting untried individuals into such positions (1 Timothy 3:10, 5:22). Yet the fact remains that the perfect and fully-prepared leader is nothing more than a pleasant fiction. In particular, young people are a vital element of church dynamics; their as-of-yet unfettered zeal lends an energy and drive that pushes us toward the fulfillment of our lofty calling, and it complements the time-tempered experience of seasoned believers.
4. They are powerful examples of the faith. So much of secular culture focuses upon the young. So when they rise as champions of the cross, they send a compelling message, both to those outside the church and those within it. Paul understood this quite clearly, reminding his young protégé, Timothy: “Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you teach, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity” (1 Timothy 4:12, NLT). One needs only to consider the many heroes of faith who were “underage” when God used them: Samuel, David, Josiah, Esther, Mary. And we cannot forget Jesus in that list: “And a little child will lead them all” (Isaiah 11:6, NLT). Without question, the church would be a different place had these individuals waited until an “appropriate” age to do God’s work.

 

Young people are prone to being rambunctious, rash, ill-mannered, and self-centered. But we need them, just as they need us. We all wore their shoes once, and we are where we are because caring elders took the time to lovingly, graciously, and patiently instruct us through our own unloveliness, gracelessness, and impatience. None of us arrived at our present spiritual state independently. We, then, owe it to our forebears – and to our own successors – to do likewise.