A Daring Raid
Well, now that the “glow” of the Christmas season is behind us, and the snow (if you have any) is turning a putrid grey — it’s time for some new snow, at least around here in Denver! Ah… but I digress. I have been left thinking a lot about the Christmas season and how easy it is to grow numb to the explosive meaning it has for me and other Christ-followers. Now, you might read that last sentence and say, “Explosive?” That’s a bit of an exaggeration isn’t it? Not really, but allow me to give you a somewhat scary look into the grinding of my mind lately.
In late January 1945, a group of over a hundred Rangers and Scouts and several hundred Philippino guerrillas traveled 30 miles (48 km) behind Japanese lines to reach a POW camp where 500 US soldiers had been imprisoned in the most horrifying physical and psychological conditions that was unrivaled in most of the war. Many of these soldiers had already survived the Bataan Death march
following the surrender of the Philippines to the Japanese not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In a nighttime raid, under the cover of darkness and a distraction by a P-61 Black Widow, the group surprised the Japanese forces in and around the camp. Hundreds of Japanese troops were killed in the 30-minute coordinated attack; the Americans suffered minimal casualties. The Rangers, Scouts, and guerrillas escorted the POWs back to
American lines. The rescue allowed the prisoners to tell of the death march and prison camp atrocities. This raid was considered the most dramatic of World War II.
Now, what does this have to do with Christmas? Well, here is where my mind has been swirling … Let me tell you the punchline first, and then we can develop it. Christmas, in so many ways, represents a parallel cosmic great raid that will, and does leave people shaking their heads incredulously at the craziness and paradoxical character of such a move if it were to be by any deity conceived by mens’ minds. On the other hand, it can only be a God as described in Scripture that would do something this upside down, this completely unexpected to accomplish his plan of reconciliation with us. What made the Great Raid
of the WWII dramatic, and incredibly “crazy” was the courage and confidence of the Army Rangers to go 30 miles behind enemy lines to rescue those who couldn’t rescue themselves. Where’s the parallel? It begins with the craziness of God’s love to first take on human form at all. It would be one thing to come crashing into the dark kingdom with guns(celestial, of course — do you ever wonder if there’s a “Rambo” amongst the angelic armies?) blazing, and take out all resistance and rescue those who “live in the shadow of the dark kingdom.” Certainly God could have done that, but instead He “sneaks” into the dark kingdom in the frailty, fragility, and vulnerability of a human baby. I can’t help but conclude that coming in this way was so completely intentional (gosh, where did you get that idea, right?) in order to not only save those who ultimately trust in His heart to save them, but also to communicate something to us. There is so much about how God conducted his daring raid that communicates something of what’s important to Him. Just as Raid at Carbanatuan was conducted completely in stealth, God “snuck” in behind enemy lines in order to become a prisoner with us. He became like us to suffer the same heartache, the same hunger, the same limitations in which we lived. It would have been similar if somehow the Allies had planted a POW in the camp to conduct the raid from the inside out. But, in Christmas we get
to see from an incredible depth a “daring” raid in order to free us.
If that doesn’t blow your mind, think with me for a second about what the chances would be that God would choose us. The series of pictures here are from progressively farther and farther out into space looking at the earth. The first one is looking at the milky way from about 1000 lightyears out in space (the bright dot in the middle is our galaxy). The next picture down is another look at the milky way. Now, let’s go out even further… the final picture on the right bottom is 100million lightyears out in space looking at our “neighborhood” in space. Hmmm… did you just get lost? Yet… yet… God picks out a speck the size of perhaps a mustard seed in the scope of the space into which to insert Himself. What are the odds? Some would say… it’s impossible, but yet spout a syrupy sweetness about love that anything is possible with love. What they don’t know is just how true they are. It was God’s
immense, crazy kind of love that would pursue us through the expanse of space to become one of us just to walk among us and give us the invitation to freedom.
Let’s descend back here to earth for a minute. So, the question has to be asked, “What’s the point besides the obvious part of saving us?’ Here’s where I believe it gets really quite remarkable, and even moving. Since God chose to come in the form of a human baby, could it be that He was saying something about the power of vulnerability and even the brokenness of humanity to grasp the full meaning
of His incarnation? There is a pattern that I see in myself as well as others. That pattern is to deny, denounce, and even distort the nature of our humanity. Either in attempting to create the picture of an invulnerable and perfect humanity, or throwing up our hands in futility concluding that why should on even attempt anything close to self-control. God took on human form to show us
what to do with our own humanity, and rejecting it isn’t the cure for our intransigent sinfulness. In actuality, it is in the full embrace of our humanity and its inherent brokenness (not only publicly but privately as well) that we will experience the freedom that Christ immersed Himself into our nature to allow us to find.
What does “full embrace” mean? I have seen over the years of talking to people that we tend to vacillate between the extremes I mentioned earlier (perfection or fatalism/debauchery). There is certainly a
brokenness that is inflicted upon us by a variety of forces of evil whether human, or nature/life. From this brokenness we have some difficult decisions to make regarding what we will do in response to such externally inflicted evil. There is also a brokenness that is self-inflicted brought on by our choices, and the conclusions we make about ourselves (sometimes because of the first kind of brokenness I described). Both are the focus of much of our efforts to recover. But, these two are not where most of us live, though. It is in the natural state of our humanity that we contend. We are limited, finite, and prone to live in the future rather than the present. We are driven by control rather than trust in order to secure our safety (both personal, emotional, and spiritual). While the aforementioned qualities of our humanity are not exhaustive, they are instructive. The degree of self-contempt, and_ self-rejection in which we engage regarding these qualities is directly proportional to the level of our intimacy not only with God, but with others. Yet, the solution is not “harder, faster, longer, higher, or even better.” In actuality, the journey lies before us to walk the journey of Christ while He was on the speck of cosmic dust we call earth. It is to live “fully” in our humanity not settling for what is, but striving to lock arms with others to discover all that we can be in the fullness of the life Christ promised if we lived fully in Him. Brokenness is not our enemy… it is a reality in which are to live, and discover the freedom of the love of a God who conducted a daring raid into enemy territory in order to journey with us home.
Francis Chan and the Awe Factor of God
