It's a Mad, Mad World

By Brenda Black

Around the world, people are raging and innocent lives are lost and destroyed. Not just in remote, desert wastelands with cave-dwelling insurgents or in war shattered regions. Cultural hubs and Wall Street districts are overrun with thuggery and vexation.

While news of the tragic losses of American servicemen grieve our nation at large, British families hide behind locked doors in posh neighborhoods where streets below blaze in fire. Riots in England spawned by angry youth mutated to sport when young people joined the wave of

violence all in the name of evil entertainment. "'Come join the fun!'" shouted one youth in the east London suburb of Hackney, where shops were attacked and cars torched,” reports the Associated Press. Some of the rebels are mad; others plain crazy.

This side of the big pond, forked tongues spit flames across party lines as raging politicians point fingers of blame for the economic fiasco we're facing. One magazine editor strategically demonizes a conservative presidential candidate in a cover shot while the current and failing president daily plummets in polls of public opinion. Jokes abound about kicking him out of a plane window. Some folks are desperately crazy and others are fed up and angry!

Headlines across the globe plaster repeated stories where minor conflicts escalate to deadly assaults. Take for instance a disgruntled woman on a bus who calls for open fire from a gang as her resolution for a difference of opinion. It's a mad, mad world where if someone doesn't agree, a gun is immediately used to settle the argument.

Why are people so angry? What made the world go insane? The answer is simple; the fix

attainable. Pride and selfishness, greed and hate are the sinful culprits behind the rage. Only one solution will ever temper the out-of-control tempers flaring in the hearts and minds of men. Jesus is the answer.

You may think that trite or flippant or even stupid, but the reality is it is truth. This mad, mad world is in need of a Savior!

A strong rebound in the world of finance won't squelch the greedy grab of humanity. A social system steeped in egalitarian gobbledygook won't work where selfish people who refuse to get a job think they can have the same level of wealth as those who work their entire lives. Arrogance and indifference from the top down won't heal the heartache of a weary working class nor motivate patriotism. And I'm not so sure that even an awe-inspiring leader could truly rally real hope in our nation. This mad, mad world needs a Savior!

Francis Bacon, English philosopher, essayist and statesman of four centuries ago, wrote, “Knowledge is power.” So I ask: Just who do you know? There's supernatural power in the right answer and it comes covered in love, not in hateful violence. Until Christ is preached and souls repentant, the world will continue to spiral downward, grasping for false saviors and fighting mad. 1 Corinthians 2 paints a picture of contrasts between such a mad world and this masterful Creator and Christ.

“When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

“We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God designed for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him'

“But God has revealed it to us by his spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because thy are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:

“'For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?'

“But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-16)

The answer to madness is this mind of Christ. The answer to violence, the love of Christ. The answer to economic crisis, Scriptural mathematics. Let's stop the insanity by choosing the Savior and pray not just for peace, but for divine wisdom and the supernatural power to be salt and light in a dark and angry world.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Savior

Yes, Virginia, There is a Savior
By Brenda Black

What would Christmas look like if The New York Sun editor, Francis P. Church, on September 21, 1897, had been asked whether Jesus Christ were real rather than Santa Clause? And how would thousands of childlike hearts have been changed had he told Virginia the whole truth – Yes, Virginia, there is a Savior.

Only the letters in brackets have been changed from the original text to help us grasp the significance that the son of a Baptist preacher could have had on generations if Jesus were the topic instead of St. Nick.

"Dear Editor--I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no [Savior]. Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.' Please tell me the truth, is there a [Savior]?” -- Virginia O'Hanlon, 115 West Ninety-fifth Street.

“Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a [Savior]. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no [Savior]! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in a [Savior]! You might as well not believe in [angels]! You might get your papa to hire men to watch ... on Christmas eve to [hear the angels singing], but even if you did not see [the Savior born or hear the proclamation], what would that prove? Nobody sees [Jesus], but that is no sign that there is no [Christ]. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see [angels] dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No [Savior]! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.”

The response to the editorial was sensational! It became one of the most famous opinion columns ever written and was reprinted annually in The New York Sun until the paper went out of business. Oh, that the information would have been truly Good News and not fanciful legend mixed with theology. Then Virginia and her little friends and every man, woman and child that read Church's exposition would be able to experience genuine Christmas cheer and learn of God's favor.

“But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

“Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.' (Luke 2:10-14)

Of course, there is room for fantasy and frivolity in the life of a child. Imagination is a gift not to be pilfered from the minds of young and young-at-heart. But, when the real story is better than fiction and has eternal rewards that outlast seasonal presents and traditions, aren't we giving them the very best Christmas when we keep Christ as the focus.

“Whatever else be lost among the years, Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing: Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears, Let us hold close one day, remembering its poignant meaning for the hearts of men. Let us get back our childlike faith again.” – Grace Noll Crowell

Now, more than ever the “skepticism of a skeptical age” threatens the reason for this season – Christ the Lord. Keep Christ in Christmas, build faith in the next generation and tell them honestly, yes, my child, there is a Savior.