Christmas 2014 – Songs in the Night 2. The Impossible Dream
Christmas 2014 – Songs in the Night 2. The Impossible Dream
Luke 2: 14 The End Of Innocence
December 7, 1941, a day when one world died and another world was born. It was the end of the Age of Innocence. The first bombs fell at 7:53 am Pearl Harbour time. The Japanese pilots left a sea of flaming wreckage - the death count would reach 2,403. On December 6, 1941, a committee met in Washington. Its subject: the construction of something called the atom bomb. What happened in a tiny 3 day window of time changed the balance of power and ultimately redirected the course of human history.
From Pearl Harbour To Baghdad
What happened at Pearl Harbour led directly to World War 2 - when some 25 million people would die. What happened at Pearl Harbour led eventually to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and set the stage for the Cold War, which led into the Korean War, and ultimately to the War in Vietnam and the crisis in the Middle East. There is a line that stretches from Pearl Harbour to Baghdad. What started 73 years ago has ramifications with us today.
Quicker, Faster, Cheaper
So we come to Christmastime, 2014, in what has been and continues to be a bloody and violent era. We talk about our technological progress, we brag about how far we've moved up the evolutionary ladder. But it's all just a pipe dream. We kill quicker now, with greater efficiency, with less mess, at a much lower cost. If we are advanced above preceding generations, it is mostly in the fact that we are better at doing each other in. That's a kind of progress, to be sure, but hardly the stuff of heroic legend.
Words We Barely Believe
The angels sang out on that night so long ago, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men." How many times have we heard those words? How many times have we seen them printed on Christmas cards? How many times have we ourselves repeated them? Hundreds, no, thousands of times. These are among the most familiar words in all the Bible. I have tried to look at these words with fresh eyes, as if I had never heard them before. My conclusion was: If I heard those words for the first time, they would strike as nice sentimentality that has nothing to do with the real world - they could not possibly be true. If anything seems obviously true, it is that we don't have peace on earth today and we don't have goodwill toward men. It doesn't seem as if we're getting any closer to peace or goodwill. Peace on earth - where is it? Goodwill toward men - I don't see it.
13 Years Of War - 1 Year Of Peace
In world history we have seen 13 years of war for every year of peace. "Peace on earth, goodwill toward men." Is it just an impossible dream? "Joy to the World, the Lord is Come." We are treated to the spectacles of rape trials. 55 000 reported cases of rape p.a. "Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the Newborn King." 500 000 cases of violent interpersonal crimes p.a. "Silent Night, Holy Night, All is Calm, All is Bright." 19 000 murders p.a. "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, Let Nothing You Dismay"
These words that we sing and repeat so glibly at Christmastime. Are they really true? Can we really believe them? Are they just religious doubletalk? Let me frame the question this way: 1. If Christ came to bring peace on earth, why is there so much hatred and so little peace? 2. If Christ came to bring goodwill toward men, why is the promise of Christmas unfulfilled after 2,000 years?
Two Possible Answers
1. Peace Does Not Come to the Earth Because of the Condition of the Human Heart.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17: 9) Left to ourselves will do the most terrible things imaginable. We will cheat, lie, steal, yes, we will murder. Often the only thing that holds us back is that we fear getting caught. It may be that we simply don't have the opportunity to commit every sin we dream about. We are all by nature materialistic, selfish and greedy and self-centered. All of us will say terrible things about other people if we are provoked in the right way. All of us will get physically violent if we are pushed over the edge. All of us will commit horrible crimes if we are put in the right set of circumstances. We're foolish if we think anything else is true. The real problem is the universal condition of the human heart. If you want to know what's wrong with the world today, look in the mirror! The problem is you, the problem is me, the problem is all of us together. We share the same basic human nature. There is no peace on earth because we are not peace-loving people. We are not peace-filled people. We are anger-filled, hate-filled, lust-filled and greed-filled. No wonder we have problems. No wonder we kill each other. No wonder there is no peace on earth.
The Way of Peace They Have Not Known
Romans 3: 10 – 17 - If there is no peace on earth today . . . the problem is not with Jesus. We are the reason there is no peace on earth. When his promises have been followed, they have been completely fulfilled. When his principles have been put into practice, there truly has been peace on earth. The problem is not with Jesus. The problem is with you and me.
2. Peace Comes to the Earth One Heart at a Time.
God's plan is to bring peace on earth by moving from heart to heart to heart. There is no such thing as national peace. There are only men and women who love peace, and men and women who love war. Unfortunately, there still seem to be a lot more people who love war than people who love peace. If you decide you want to be angry, God will let you stay angry. If you decide you want to be bitter, he'll let you stay bitter. If you decide you want to stay critical and judgmental, he'll let you stay that way. If you decide you want to stay prejudiced toward somebody, he'll let you stay that way. If you decide you want to be violent, he'll let you be violent. Song - "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me"? That's the way peace spreads. From your heart to my heart and from us to other people. "That's an awfully slow way to bring peace on earth. Isn't there a better plan?" It is a slow plan, but God's way is the only way that works.
Time shortly after Pearl Harbour. A daytime bombing raid is carried out over Tokyo. The bombers run out of fuel and are unable to make it back. Most of the pilots are forced to bail out over hostile Japanese territory. One of the men was Jake DeShazer. He was held in a POW camp for nearly 4 years. During that time he was beaten, mistreated and nearly starved to death. He hated the Japanese with a fierce hatred. When the Americans in the POW camp asked for some reading material, they were given an English Bible. For the first time in his life, Jake read the Bible. He read the story of Jesus, the message of forgiveness seemed to overwhelm him. There, in a Japanese POW camp, Jake DeShazer gave his heart to Jesus Christ. In that one transforming moment, all the anger was gone. All the hatred was gone. He started loving his Japanese guards. After the war, Jake DeShazer enrolled Bible College, and later returned to Japan as a missionary.
Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the a