10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God...
— John 1:10-12, NRSV
I haven't read any Kierkegaard in a long time. Søren Kierkegaard was a 19th century Danish theologian who once asked how we might present the Gospel to a world which believes it has already heard the Gospel — and yawns! And that is the question we face today. In what ways do we struggle within ourselves to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ as though it were the first time we ever heard it? How do we hear the Gospel with that same “slap in the face” freshness it had when we first believed?
Jesus tells us to be the salt of the earth. But if that salt has lost its freshness it is good for nothing (Matthew 5:13). When we allow ourselves to grow stale we are no good to ourselves or to others. That is true about us as individuals and as a community of faith.
A dear church member of a congregation I previously served visited his ancestral Danish home a few years ago. When he returned from the trip, he told me about so many exciting things. One thing he shared wasn't that exciting — indeed, it was quite frightening. He mentioned that the Danish churches are largely empty these days. Imagine a country that was once largely “Christian” now having a small single-digit percentage of its population in church today!
Are we heading that way? Do we not already find bored and yawning people in only half-filled churches?
Is our generation really any different from the one Kierkegaard faced? Can we honestly stand before God and proclaim “All is well with my soul!”? We can't. We cannot be content to continue with the things the way they have been going in our lives or in our churches. We are in need of help — desperate help. And help is given to us. That help is the power of God to become His children. We can experience the power of God's redemptive love in our lives. It is the power He gives us that we may stand as righteous before Him. It is the power that comes so we may learn to live lives of holiness. It is the power that came in the form of a child born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.
Lord,
forgive us when we yawn upon hearing Your Word.
Instead, may it break afresh into our lives.
Use it to cut away the callousness of our hearts
that we may be free once more.
— free to worship and praise Your Name.
— free to love others even as You love the world.
— free in Your power to become Your children!
In Christ's Holy Name we pray,
Amen.