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Pastor · Sunday Schedule · FBC
News
2002
From the Pastor
I Know That My Redeemer Lives
To read the Book of Job is to inhabit a land of suffering. Everything was taken from Job. He was stripped of his wealth, his children died, his body wasted away to skin and bones, his wife was repulsed by him and his intimate friends abhorred him. The worse part was Job didn’t know why all this was happening to him.
At times he rages, and other times laments and other times despairs. He can’t figure it out and God wasn’t helping. There is no evidence of anything hopeful or promising. All is night, but out of this abyss, halfway through the book, Job speaks these words, “I know that my Redeemer lives and that at last he will stand upon the earth and I will see God.” (Job 19:25)
This is our Christmas. What Job could only see vaguely, we see clearly. Christ the Savior is born. Our Redeemer has come.
The celebration of Christmas is not tied to our wealth, our health, or our relationships. It is tied to something eternal. It is a celebration of what God has done to effect the salvation of humankind. It is significant for us that our celebration of Christmas comes when the days are the shortest and the nights the longest. Light has invaded the dark and no where is this more vividly portrayed than in our candlelight Christmas Eve service. Darkness cannot overcome what God has done for us.
You can’t stop Christmas. In times of uncertainty - economically, politically, and internationally - I think it is particularly important that Christians affirm their faith in Jesus Christ by embracing wholeheartedly the joy, wonder and splendor of the Advent and Christmas season.
Every time you light a candle you help to dispel some darkness. Every time you buy a Christmas present, sing a Christmas carol, participate in the programs at church, ring a bell for the Salvation Army, you are helping to push the darkness away.
You might say, “But, oh, my circumstances are so different this year.” “I am sick.” “I am grieving.” “I don’t have a job.” “My children can’t make it home.” “I am worried about the possibility of war.” “I don’t feel like celebrating.” It is then, like Job, you have to reach down inside yourself, and allow the true meaning of Christmas to rise up out of you.
You are anchored to something eternal, something that transcends your troubles, something that transforms your problems, something that will bring a depth of meaning to this Christmas that will make this Christmas more significant than any other Christmas you have ever celebrated.
God hasn’t abandoned you. God is with you (the very meaning of Emmanuel) and no where is this more profoundly revealed to you than when you need it most, you have a Redeemer. You have a Savior. You have a Comforter. Jesus is all this and more.
So, if all this is true, what does it mean we make of this season of the year in which Christ was born? We celebrate it! We embrace it. We enjoy it. Every day we light a candle and somewhere in our heart we sing, “I know that my Redeemer lives. . . and his name is Jesus.”
A joyous, blessed Advent and Christmas season.
Dr. David W. Andersen
            
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