An atheist contact whom I´m praying for wished me ”a merry solstice” which is really the original pagan feast our Nordic forefathers celebrated prior to the so called “Christmas”  which in our culture is just as pagan. 

We just had another atheist friend for Christmas lunch together with other good friends.  When the guests finally left, he wanted to sit down to have some questions answered.  The issue is not so much whether he  has done wrong things, but rather whether it´s a matter between him and God.  Who is God?  And yet why does he want to sit down with me? Is God moving “in a mysterious way His wonders to perform”? 

In Martin Luther´s time the relevant question was “How do I find a gracious God?” Now it´s rather “Who or where is God?”

“Where is your God?” .  The psalmist in Ps. 42:10 didn´t arrogantly ignore that question.  Do we?  It was rather “as a sword in my bones”, he said, and it brought him before his God whom he was panting for on behalf of the ungodly he cared for and to whom there is no God.

If I remember right it was this question that at one crucial time in his life made Francis Schaeffer struggle in no uncertain times.  Out of this struggle came his challenging book “The God Who is There” and he was later known as “the missionary to the intellectuals”.

That challenge hits me.  Church music and ecstasies or religious stagey performances don´t satisfy me or drown out the cry before “The God Who is There”  whose business is the urgency of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in everyday clothes and everyday language at eye level.

Dec. 27, 2013 - jn