I know I know I know. You’re saying “Keith,
where’s the Christmas devotional?!” Well, I don’t have anything against Christmas,
although quite frankly it’s not my favorite holiday. The problem is that I’ve really said all
I need to say concerning it. If you want a Christmas devotional, you can read here, here,
and here if you’re so inclined. The last one in particular is my favorite, since it has
a video clip from my favorite Christmas movie of all time.
I guess in a way, today’s devotional
and reading kinda sorta relates to Christmas in the only way that matters. In my
opinion, we tend to sentimentalize Christmas way too much. He came as a cute
little baby, but he didn’t stay that way. As long as we visualize him as a
little baby, we can avoid thinking about the less politically-correct reason as
to why he came. He didn’t come primarily to teach or provide us a good example
to follow, although he did those things. He came to die a horrible death and
have the Father place upon his back our sins and the punishment due them. But
even that doesn’t go back far enough
as the primary motivation as to why he came. The hint of it—the absolute
rock-bottom reason as to why he came—is found in today’s passage.
If you’re waiting for me to get into
a deep discussion about where this scene fits into my personal interpretation of
Revelation and the End Times, you'll have to keep waiting. I think most Christians agree
that this is still future, and it’s a view of Heaven. Other than that, I’m not going
to get into the details about it.
Some
biblical scholars of a certain stripe claim that the Church will escape the
Great Tribulation, while others say that they’ll go through it, while still
others teach that the “Great Tribulation” isn’t a particular period of time but
the Church’s history since Jesus left: We’ve always been going through a time of testing and persecution to some
degree. I have a particular view on it, but to go into it would be completely
irrelevant to the point I want to make.
What’s
especially important to me here, however, is John’s immediate description of
this crowd. What does he say about it in the first verse? It was “a great
multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and
language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing
white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”
This
means at some point in the future there’ll be an uncountable multitude before the
throne and the Lamb, and there’ll be representatives there from every
nation, tribe, people, and language. Does this mean that every individual will
eventually be saved? I wish I could say that, but no.
What
does it mean?
·
It means that the Great
Commission will be fulfilled someday. There will come a day in which there will be
followers of Jesus from every “nation.”
BTW, the word “nation” in the Matthew passage and today’s reading doesn’t mean “nation”
as a geopolitical structure like America or Russia or China or Brazil. The word
is ethne, from which we get the word “ethnic.”
It’s a people-group, defined among missionaries as “An ethno-linguistic group with a
common self-identity that is shared by the various members. For strategic
purposes it is the largest group within which the Gospel can spread without
encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance.” If you study church
history from a missiological standpoint, it’s pretty depressing at times.
Missiologists refer to what happened after the Protestant Reformation as the “Great
Omission,” when we—for reasons which varied in legitimacy—failed to reach out to
the unreached people groups, those who’d never had the opportunity to hear the
Good News in a way they could understand and relate to.
But there will come a day when it’s fulfilled. John saw it. This in no way excuses our laziness or disobedience, but it should spur us on to working together towards its completion.
But there will come a day when it’s fulfilled. John saw it. This in no way excuses our laziness or disobedience, but it should spur us on to working together towards its completion.
·
When the angel announced
that the arrival of that Baby would be “good news” for all people, he meant it. Of course the
shepherds probably knew a lot less details than we do today about God’s plan to redeem people
from all ethne, but
that doesn’t change this glorious truth. What was announced in those fields on the
first Christmas is fulfilled in today’s passage. So I guess I can
relate it to Christmas after all!
·
I
wish this could go without saying, but I think we need a reminder here: This
of course completely repudiates any feelings of ethnocentrism as far as the
Good News of Christ is concerned. God loves all ethne equally, and he won’t rest until the last person who’s going
to be saved gets saved. I count it as a definite “plus”—to put it extremely
mildly—that the church I’m attending is multiethnic, that we have folks from
various ethnic backgrounds, skin pigmentations, and national backgrounds in our
church, and we’ve made a strong effort to continue to reach out to all sorts of
people. When such people from different backgrounds congregate to worship as a
group, it’s literally a foretaste of Heaven. I don’t just mean that it’s a
wonderful experience. I mean that it’s a preview of what Heaven will be like, based on today’s reading.
·
The world can talk all it wants about unity, but the
only lasting, genuine, and positive unity is based on unity in worshiping our
Savior God. As
we’ve seen in the past with the Tower
of Babel, and as you can read about later in the book
of Revelation, there’s such a thing as “bad” unity. A lynch mob can be
unified. Germany was mostly unified under Hitler at one point. But when people
of different ethne can join together
as one and sing
“Salvation
belongs to our God,
who
sits on the throne,
and
to the Lamb”
.
. . it’s pure beauty.
Let’s get back to his ultimate purpose
for coming. Yes, in a sense he came to die in our place. But even that’s not
the rock-bottom purpose. His rock-bottom purpose is what we’re seeing here. He
came to establish his Kingdom and glorify his name by redeeming sinners from
all people-groups and bringing worshipers into it. As John Piper put
it, “Missions exist because worship doesn’t.” In other words, missionaries and
evangelists are worship recruiters. They’re there to add to the uncountable numbers
you see in today’s passage.
So what’s your part in all this? I
don’t think that God has called everyone to be “professional” evangelists or
missionaries. But I believe with all my heart that every redeemed child of God
is called to contribute to what we read here. You can take part by praying. You
can take part by contributing financially. You can take part in being informed
so that your prayers can be more effective. You can take part by asking him to use you to reach those around you, by having a "Here am I, send me" type of attitude. So what are you going to do in the
coming year?
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