Last Thursday, my desk was littered more than usual. I felt like my mind was as disheveled as my desk. I just left the desk as it was for the weekend, but before I left the office, I took a closer look at what lay about the desk.

Over on this side was an article on Deliverance from Evil Spirits. Up there was another article on The Basics About Stem Cells. Piled on top of other papers was a Fortune Magazine article entitled "My Boss Asked Me to Lunch and Wanted Me for Dessert." Next to that was a copy of Vanity Fair, not the magazine but the novel by Thackeray. And near the edge of the desk was a book on small groups in the church.

That collection represents the range of issues that pull at me fairly routinely, and I have moments when I aboslutely have to find the center of life in order to regain perspective and see where all the particulars find meaning and coherence. Today, I want to take us back to the center of things.

This pulling of polarities takes place in our life together in this congregation. Any of us in positions of leadership feel it. When I talk about marriage, I never forget a large population of single men and women are listening in. When I talk about children, I never forget that a number of couples listen in who do not have children.

Christmas provides an especially challenging time. The season raises expectations dramatically, much higher than many people realize. The result is many people who find Christmas an especially difficult time of year. Some find it quite distressing. Again, it will help to go back to the center of things, where the disparate parts of our lives can find greater coherence.

When I put aside my anger at what Osama bin Laden did to New York and Washington and to our nation, it strikes me what a pathetic existence he leads. He, his closest associates and thousands of followers worldwide spend much of their waking existence plotting how to destroy. They need to be brought back to the center of things.

I think of Presiden Bush's horrendous schedule. He deals with Iraq in one segment and with Trent Lott in another, and he receives a party of people whom he honors in the next. You wonder how he keeps from being torn asunder. He and all leaders need to find the center of things where there is peace.

Going back to the center takes us back to one of the great texts in Romans, chapter 3:21-26. This text declares the righteousness of God. We know that in the Bible the righteousness of God means that God is right all the time. He also demands that we be right, and we aren't. We already knew that. That's not the good news. The good news emerges from a deeper understanding of the righteousness of God.

He not only demands that we be right; He also acts to make right what has gone wrong in the human family. That is the idea I hope you will allow to percolate down into your consciousness and reshape the way you read Romans and the way you think about life and the way you think about God.

Justification
Now, of course, we have to ask how God set about to make right what has gone terribly wrong in the human family. That brings us to verse 24 and another important truth. All who believe in Jesus Christ, says verse 24, are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Redemption means liberation.

God acted to make right what has gone wrong in the human family by liberating us from sin and its consequences. The death of Christ made that possible. Faith in Christ is how we participate in that liberation. But verse 24 tells us more about the righteousness of God. It tells us the first, decisive thing He does to liberate us from sin and its consequences. This decisive divine act is called justification. All who believe in Jesus Christ, says verse 24, are justified freely by his grace. What does God do, when He justifies those who believe in Jesus Christ?

I can answer that question two ways, and I will do both. First, to be justified by God means that God absolves us of guilt for our sins. That is God's decisive act in saving humanity from the power of sin that ensnares and mars us.

Now, look at the words that describe the way God does this. He justifies us freely, "as a gift, without payment," (Dunn, I, 168). He also justifies us by his grace. God sees unflinchingly all our actual and potential evil and by "sheer generosity," (ibid. 179) is not deterred but absolves us of guilt for our sins.

This, says the apostle, is the permanent disposition of God toward those who believe in Jesus Christ. That is what we believe. That is what we trust Him to do. That is where we stand. And, as a result, we are free, free indeed, free to face whatever life holds, free to be at home in the Father's house. But perhaps this way of putting it is too cerebral, too dispassionate. What does God do, when He justifies those who believe in Jesus Christ?

The second way to answer the question is to tell a story. It is to retell a story that Jesus told. It tells what God is like. It also captures the emotion of justification.

"There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.

"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth on wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

"When he came to his senses, he said: 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and againt you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' It is a beautiful speech, quite sincere, quite properly repentant and persuasive. After all, his father may need some persuading. He could not be happy with the behavior of his ne'er-do-well son. So he got up and went to his father and got the surprise of his life.

No doubt he was still rehearsing that fine speach of his, "but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him (do you think he was watching for him?) and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, thre his arms around him and kissed him. But the son hasn't yet made his properly repentant and persuasive speech. No, but he has turned toward home, and who better than the Father knows that.

That is what God our Father is like, who justifies sinners. He watches the road for His returning child, when there is no reasonable hope that His child will come home. He watches, not with hostility but with compassion. He is prepared to be misunderstood in His undifnified enthusiasm to embrace and kiss this wretched prodigal whose only motive, cynics will say, was to get good meals again.

This wayward son just has to get his speech in. His father does not seem to need much persuading, but appearances can be deceiving. Better to go ahead and make the speech, to cover his backside. "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'" He didn't even finish the speech, and it cut out such a fine line: make me like one of your hired men. He didn't finish it, because the father interrupted him.

"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate," (Luke 15:11-24).

That is what God our Father is like, who justifies sinners. He replaces the tattered clothing of our disgrace and bejewels with a ring the hand that once thumbed itself against the Father's house. He calls a feast and summons all to celebrate, "for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."

What ugly pictures of God we carry in our souls. We say He is out to get us, out to make us pay, when all the time He sees us swilling with swine and sets each of us a place at His table. "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest," He says to His returning prodigals, "I am He Whom thou seekest."

Let no one cloud your vision with weighty words about justification. Just tell them the story of the prodigal son and the more lavish Father, and tell them you are that son. Once you ate with pigs; now you dined at your Father's table, and good fare it is.

The Justice of God
The apostle had more to say about the righteousness of God. In verses 25-26 Paul says, God presented him (Jesus) as a sacrifice of atonement ... to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The apostle was remembering moments, when people did evil, perhaps horrible evil, and got away with it. Where was God then? Why did He let them get away with it?

Paul's first answer is God's forbearance: in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. The Father is more merciful than we are. But for people who suffer gross injustice, talk of God's forbearance seems empty and distant. They loudly demand God's justice here and now. The demand is understandable even to people who have not experienced great injustice.

Is the person who calls for such justich here and now himself innocent before God? THe justice of God will sooner or later deal with the terrible wrongs of human life, but beyond this or that terrible injustice to each other there is humanity's injustice against God Himself. We are all answerable for that, and we have no answer.

By giving up His Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice of atonement, God demonstrated that he was not indifferent to human evil, but as a way of dealing with it He has on offer an alternative to punishment. More precisely, He allowed the punishment due us to fall on Christ to show the absolute seriousness with which He takes sin, and to demonstrate His firm intention to show mercy to His prodigal children.

The Center of Gravity
I know this doesn't sound like a Christmas sermon. Give me a minute to explain why I think it is appropriate for the season. In the book The Truth About the Truth, Richard Schweder tells the story of "a visitor to Japan who wandered into a department store in Tokyo, at a time when the Japanses had begun to take a great interest in the symbolism of the Christmas season. And what symbol of the Christmas season did the visitor discover prominently on display in the Tokyo department store? Santa Claus nailed to a cross," (quoted in Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism, 12).

I do not believe that department store intended anything offensive by the display. Santa nailed to a cross is a more vivid but no more vicious than the seculr move to turn Christmas into nothing more than a make or break time for American capitalism.

The stewardship of the true meaning of Christmas rests with the Church. It rests with us. Christmas is about the descent of deity into its unlikely house of DNA and culturea nd limits and death. I say it with reverence and with thanks: the Father did not merely watch the road for His prodigal child to return, He went to the pigsty to find him. Long after the demise of Santa and capitalism, humanity will find hope in the picture of Almighty God preserved in Jesus' story of the prodigal son. He is the righteous God, the God who out of His unfailing love for mankind and at great cost to Himself makees right what has gone wrong with humanity. That is the gospel, and that is our joy and hope, and that is the meaning of Christmas. Believe it and be made whole. Believe it and find the center in which all the disparatepieces of your life can find coherence. Believe it, and you shall be saved from this present evil age.