Those with the Advent Virus Become Mothers of God

by Ken Kelley

I don’t have any idea who wrote the email that follows or know anything about their theological credentials, but they cleverly describe some of the ways God with us changes our lives If we allow God to live in us and work through us.

“Be on the alert for symptoms of inner Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to this virus, and it is possible that people everywhere could come down with it in epidemic proportions. This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now, been a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world.

Some signs and symptoms of The Advent Virus:

• A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experiences.

• An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

• A loss of interest in judging other people.

• A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

• A loss of interest in conflict.

• A loss of the ability to worry. (This is a very serious symptom.)

• Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

• Contented feelings of connectedness with God, other people, and nature.

• Frequent attacks of smiling.

• An increased susceptibility to the love extended by God and other people as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.

Please send this warning out to all your friends. This virus can and has affected many systems. Some systems have been completely cleaned out because of it.”

We can all catch this virus, and our actions could make it very contagious. God sent this plague intending for us to spread it to all the earth. Many of those we encounter have received vaccinations to limit the spread of this life-giving malady, but the antidote to these vaccinations miraculously appeared in the womb of a woman named Mary over 2000 years ago.

In interpreting the ensuing events, Meister Eckhart, a theologian of the 13th and 14th centuries, wrote,

“What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.”

Meister Eckhart continues by asking these questions:

“I believe in God, but do I believe in God-in-me? “
“I believe in God in heaven, but do I believe in God-on-earth?” “I believe in God out there, but do I believe in God-with-us?”

Modern writers have often paraphrased Eckhart by stating,
“What good is it that Christ was born 2,000 years ago if he is not born now in your heart?’

I, like Eckhart, will close with his prayer,
"Lord, be born in my heart. Come alive in me this Christmas! Amen."

I, like Eckhart, will close with his prayer,
"Lord, be born in my heart. Come alive in me this Christmas! Amen."

Christmas on Mars

Last week, NASA successfully landed a probe on the surface of Mars. I know it would have been easy to miss in the flood of White-House-scandal-news, but this was BIG NEWS. This was potentially game-changing, reality-altering news.

Think about it — one day, there will likely be humans on Mars, first to explore it, then possibly to live on it! That’s a pretty astounding thought. For a species which evolved on one planet to eventually find itself inhabiting a completely different planet that is, on average, 140 million miles away is mind-boggling.

I’m a strange person, though, and one of the first thoughts that occurred to me was, “Imagine what it would be like to celebrate Christmas on Mars …” 

And then it hit me like a ton of Mars bricks — What would we SING at Christmas? 

That’s a serious question! Have you noticed how many Christmas carols would need significant revision were we to sing them on Mars?

Exhibit A is the Yuletide favorite, “Joy to the World.” Notice that the joy is for the WORLD, not for other assorted planets. But if you’re celebrating somewhere NOT not on this world, what would you sing? You can’t sing, “Let earth receive her king” lest Mars feel left out of all the joy.

Exhibit B comes from our own Charles Wesley’s pen. He wrote, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” which includes the line, “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.” Wouldn’t you feel a little left out of all the peace and mercy if you were on Mars? 

Then there’s Exhibit C, the song, “Angels From the Realm of Glory,” which opens with the words, “Angels from the realms of glory, Wing your flight o’er all the earth; Ye who sang creation’s story; Now proclaim Messiah’s birth.” So are the angels going to make the flight out to Mars to sing the story there, too? 

Why are all the good Christmas carols so EARTH-centric?

Advent songs aren’t any better. Charles Wesley’s hymn, “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” sings of Jesus, “Hope of all the earth thou art.” And one of the verses of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” which we typically use as a song to sing during the lighting of the Advent candle, includes the line, “Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.”

This also raises some interesting theological questions, though. For example, did Jesus come to save ONLY the people of earth? Would intelligent life on other planets require their own Jesus-figure? Or is Jesus a truly universal being?

What if life evolved differently on another planet? Would their “intelligent life forms” also be born with “original sin”?  Would the song, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” be true for their world, too? “Yet with the woes of sin and strife / The world has suffered long; Beneath the angel-strain have rolled / Two thousand years of wrong.”

I don’t have any really good answers to any of these questions, mind you. I’ll wait until the seminaries start opening degree programs in Interplanetary Theology, but until then, I’m still very concerned about the lack of quality Christmas carols to sing in space.

Well, at least Santa Claus visits all the planets … right? I mean, that’s true, isn’t it? Wait … WHAT???!!!

Reflections on a Tragic Missionary Story

I’ve been thinking about John Allen Chau a lot lately.

He was the missionary who was recently killed on the shore of a remote island called North Sentinel by a tribe which intentionally remains isolated from modern civilization.

Media coverage has mostly focused on two questions: first, was Chau a courageous martyr or a misguided fool; and second, what is the best way to evangelize anyway; isn’t missionary sending a thing of the past?

I don’t know if I’m really qualified to answer the first question. Obviously, it took courage to travel to North Sentinel; that was bravery, but I also think it was entirely inappropriate. For one, there was a very real danger that Chau would bring communicable diseases to people who had no natural resistance to them. Furthermore, he didn’t know their language, so he had no quick way to let them know why he was there. And they didn’t invite him to their island!

I seem to recall that just a few weeks ago, I led my Sunday School class through a lesson that included a quote from Jesus in which he clearly said to his disciples, “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town” (Matthew 10:14). Apparently, even Jesus thought it was a waste of time to go where you were not wanted!

In all seriousness, however, I want to move on to the second question, which has to do with the nature of evangelism itself. Put simply, does God want us to attempt to proselytize people, to convert them into believers in Jesus Christ?

It would appear so from the closing words of the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus tells his disciples, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (28:19-20).

This was obviously the impetus behind Chau’s evangelism efforts. He was trained and sent by an organization called All Nations, based in Kansas City, Missouri. According to their website, their vision is “to see Jesus worshiped by all the peoples of the earth,” and their mission is “to make disciples and train leaders to ignite church planting movements among the neglected peoples of the earth.”

Why is this the vision of All Nations? What drives them to make this their particular mission? According to their Statement of Faith, “We believe that when a follower of Jesus dies, he/she passes immediately into the presence of Christ, there to enjoy conscious fellowship with God until the day of the resurrection and transformation of the body. The saved will then forever dwell in fellowship with their great God. We also believe that when the unbeliever dies he/she is consigned to hell, there to await the day of judgment when he/she shall be punished with eternal, conscious separation from the presence of God.”

In this way of thinking, missionaries have the ultimate task of saving people from hell — literally! That’s why Chau felt driven to risk his life on a far off island. That’s why he believed his act of self-sacrifice might ultimately be worth it. If the North Sentinelese are eventually introduced to Jesus someday, they might be saved to go to heaven. That’s a bargain Chau would accept, because he knew he would be in heaven himself.

This logic is flawed to me, to be honest. I simply don’t believe that people who don’t have faith in Jesus Christ will spend the afterlife in perpetual torture, much less people who have never even heard of Jesus.

In fact, the story of Chau’s demise reminds me of a story I heard once about a missionary priest who traveled to a remote tribe in a far-off land. When he got there, he learned the language as quickly as he could, and then began teaching them the precepts of Christianity.

Finally, one of the tribesmen asked the priest, “Are you saying that we will go to hell if we don’t accept your Jesus?”

The priest said, “Yes, that is what I am saying.”

The tribesman asked, “But what if we never had heard of this Jesus? Would we still go to hell?”

The priest replied, “Well, no, not in that case. Because God would show you mercy.”

The tribesman then said, “Why did you come and preach to us then? We would all be going to heaven! Now some of us are doomed!”

Chau either believed a) that all people who don’t believe in Jesus are going to hell regardless of whether they had heard of him or not, or b) that only people who have heard about Jesus will be judged on the basis of whether they have believed in him; the rest will be judged on a different basis. If he believed option a, then I understand his urgent mission but pity his belief in an unmerciful and horrible God; if he believed in option b, then he was simply foolish — far better to leave them alone and let them go to heaven out of ignorance!

Frankly, I find both options to be equally problematic, but that’s a subject for a different column.

For now, let me simply close with this thought: the Gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to be good news to people, a liberating word, a fresh and transformative thing. Jesus himself once said, “I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.”

Anything that doesn’t bring abundant life is not from God. Even if it comes from a so-called missionary.