Christmas Eve, 2005
I first read something by Peggy Noonan in an article she wrote for Forbes Magazine in the early '90s. I liked what she wrote and the way she wrote it. She now wirtes a column each Thursday for the Opinion Journal of the Wall Street Journal, and I read it each week.

Late last October (Oct. 27), I don't know if she had a bad day of if she was on to something profound. I haven't yet decided which it was. But in her article entitled "A Separate Peace," (www.opinionjournal.com/archives) she made a grocery list of concerns that she thinks many Americans have.

Her list identified the following worries: "cloning, nuts with nukes, epidemics; the growing knowledge that there's no such thing as homeland security; the fact that we're leaving our kids with a bill no one can pay. A sense of unreality in our courts so deep that they think they can seize grandma's house to build a strip mall; our media institutions imploding – the spectacle of a great American newspaper, the New York Times, hurtling off its own tracks, as did CBS. The fear of parents that their children will wind up disturbed, and their souls actually imperiled, by the popular culture in which we are raising them. Senators who seem owned by someone, actually owned, by an interest group or a financial entity. Great churches that have lost all sense of mission, and all authority. Do you have confidence in the CIA? The FBI? I don't think so."

Then she drew the conclusion whose value I have not yet been able to assess. She wrote: "But this recounting doesn't quite get me to what I mean. I mean, I believe there's a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming."

This from a woman whom I have found to be unfailingly realistic and positive in her writing. It was the dark mood in that article that caught my eye; that and my own sense of our vulnerability as a nation. 9/11 and Katrina revealed our vulnerability. And just one day in New York City like any day in Baghdad would precipitate a national crisis. If I can figure that out, al Qaeda must know it as well.

I don't know if this means things are broken, or if the nation simply has a long list of difficult issues to deal with. We charge those in government to deal with these issues. We try to stay informed at some level of understanding.

Now, I don't want to put my head in the sand, but I am sure that in the face of these overwhelming issues most of us have limited courses of action. I am also sure that these worries do not touch what most of us are responsible for day in and day out. They are worries in our heads; they are not items on our daily agendas. So, how do we cope?

We forget about them for long stretches at a time, a thoroughly healthy thing to do. We do small things as opportunity arises. We help our children make wise decision about the culture they live in. We clean out a flood-damaged house in MS. We get our news from more than one source. We support churches that remain true to historic, biblical Christianity. We get flu shots. But this list doesn't quite get me to what I think is fundamental to our lives.

I don't want my life defined by the daily diet of the bad news that is television news. As your pastor, I don't want that for you either. I want life to be defined by something the angel of the Lord said to wide-eyed, terrified shepherds on the first Christmas night. "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people," (Luke 2:10).

There was plenty then, and there is plenty now to make people afraid. The angel said, "Don't let the fear master you. Don't let it have the last word, because the things that make you afraid don't have the last word. Drive out the fear with good news of great joy that will be for all the people." That news will have the last word.

And what, O mighty angel, is this good news of great joy? "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Messiah the Lord," (Luke 2:11).

A Savior! Can He save us from "nuts with nukes" and from our toxic youth culture? Can He save us from our sins – our personal sins, our national sins, our global sins? Can He save us from being enslaved by them, overwhelmed by them, destroyed by them, condemned before God by them? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

That good news is going to define life for me, so help me, God. There we can find joy, rest, and hope. Without flinching before the grave realitites of our world, and engaging them where we can, let us not allow those realitites to have command of our hearts. Our hearts belong to another, to the Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

I came across a delicious image of this good news recently. It was a poem that accompanied a drawing. The drawing portrayed our first mother, Eve, in great distress over her sin, as Mary, the expecting Mother of Jesus comforted her with these words:

My mother, my daughter, life-giving Eve,
Do not be ashamed, do not grieve.
The former things have passed away,
Our God has brought us to a New Day.
See, I am with Child,
Through whom all will be reconciled.
O Eve! My sister, my friend,
We will rejoice together
Forever
Life without end. (Quoted in First Things, Dec. 2005, 79)

That simple poem captures the heart of the Christmas message: God is for us; and if God is for us, who can be against us? If God is for us, unimaginably good things become possible, and that gives us strength. We are bold to say, I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength.

What was born in that cowshed that may have been a cave was Mary's firstborn, who began a new creation right under the nose of the old creation. And if your heart belongs to the Savior, who is Christ the Lord, you've already been pulled into the orbit of this new creation. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.

The old is gone, not in the sense that it has disappeared – it is very much with us – but in the sense that it has been superceded. That makes me glad. It makes me want to say, "Lord, because your love is better than life, my lips will praise you."

It's easy to lose this perspective. The realities of the old creation, good and bad, press on us everyday. We dare not ignore them. We dare not allow them to define us. We should pray with the Psalmist, Give me an undivided heart so that I may fear you – you, not bin Laden or dishonesty in politics or the bais with which the bad news bears of TV journalism smite us daily. Like the shepherds, let us fear the Lord with joyful heart. Let our hearts belong to another, to the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. He is our peace.