Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
For as long as we know, all of us players, all people and cultures have had a profound sense of right and wrong.
We know what we ought to do, but often don’t do it. And this gives us a sense of regret and unease, or even guilt. Some of us try harder, but all of us fail. We bestow medals upon some and call them heroes. Others we call villains and put to death.
Moreover, we have a strong sense that the world has gone terribly wrong. And it should be righted. So we build nations and blueprints for better societies, but eventually they all fail. So we invent grand new plans and policies, which 100 years later are ridiculed by our grandchildren. The cycle continues, as it has for all recorded history. 1
But here, I think, is the most important question: how would I know a line is crooked unless I know a straight one?
These are clues to the meaning of the universe. 2 And we’re reminded of them daily.
“To be or not to be” is the most famous line in Hamlet. But Shakespeare begins Hamlet with an even better question, “Who’s there?” It’s the question all people groups have asked throughout history.
About 1600 years before Shakespeare, another author, John begins his gospel with an answer, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1).
Now, how could Hamlet know who Shakespeare is?
A friend of ours is taking a class in college called simply “Words”. Words can be powerful. In the Bible, God reveals Himself in words. But with The Incarnation, God has not just written about Himself, He has written Himself into our play, and joined us onstage. 3
But more than that, He has come to rescue us, to right the world, to heal the broken-hearted, to punish 4 all who stand against Him, and to offer us eternal life with Him.
Jesus is the only one of us who ever knew what he ought to do and actually did it. Some call him a hero and worship him. Others call him a villain and put him to death. He calls himself the Son of God. He is the straight line. 5
John continues, “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
The Word 6 became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:12-14)
Merry Christmas!
Footnotes:
1. People tend to think their historical and cultural moment is superior to all others. I certainly did when I was in college; and I lacked the humility to apply it to myself. “Many of the beliefs of our grandparents and great-grandparents seem silly and even embarrassing to us. That process is not going to stop now. Our grandchildren will find many of our views outmoded as well.” – Tim Keller, “The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism” (2009).
“I urge people to consider that their problem with some [biblical] texts might be based on an unexamined belief in the superiority of their historical moment over all others. We must not universalize our time any more than we should universalize our culture. Think of the implication of the very term “regressive.” To reject the Bible as regressive is to assume that you have now arrived at the ultimate historic moment, from which all that is regressive and progressive can be discerned. That belief is surely as narrow and exclusive as the views in the Bible you regard as offensive.” – Tim Keller, “The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism” (2009).
2. C.S. Lewis was an atheist who came to Christ as an adult in his 30’s. In “Mere Christianity” he introduces and develops a concept he calls the “Law of Human Nature” in the first section entitled “Book One: Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe.” He argues that this Law seems to be put inside us from a “mind” separate from our world and imbued with absolute goodness, as opposed to being an evolved instinct, or a learned behavior, or a social adaptation. For example, when presented with a selfish or unselfish course of action, we are nudged to pursue the unselfish, just and righteous path, even in the face of great personal danger or loss. But if you are a materialist, you only got here because your ancestors ate their weaker contemporaries, not because they sacrificed for them. And where did human rights come from? Certainly not Aristotle. Even Nietzsche chided his fellow atheists that if they adopted humanistic values, then they were totally inconsistent with their worldview, and de facto Christian – as such values were bequeathed by Jesus (read, for example, the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ found in Matthew chapters 5-7).
Lewis uses Book One as a foundation to build a case in “Book Two: What Christians Believe” that amongst all of the world’s systems of thought, Christianity maps best by far on to what we observe. I have read Books One and Two several times, with care, and cannot find a flaw in his argument. Can you? Please take the time to read these (only 27 pages in this online version). Lewis writes, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?” – C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” (1952).
3. Lewis was asked to comment on the statement by Nikita Khrushchev in 1961 that his cosmonaut returned from space and “saw no God”, implying that none exists.
Lewis wrote in an essay, “If there were an idiot who thought plays exist on their own, without an author…, our belief in Shakespeare would not be much affected by his saying, quite truly, that he had studied all the plays and never found Shakespeare in them…To some, God is discoverable everywhere; to others, nowhere. Those who do not find him on earth are unlikely to find him in space. (Hang it all, we’re in space already; every year we go a huge circular tour in space.)…How, then, it may be asked, can we either reach or avoid Him? The avoiding, in many times and places, has proved so difficult that a very large part of the human race failed to achieve it. But in our own time and place it is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you’d be safer to stick to the papers. You’ll find the advertisements helpful; especially those with a sexy or a snobbish appeal.” – C.S. Lewis, “The Seeing Eye” (1963).
4. Many bristle at the notion of a God who punishes, but don’t we all want justice, and shouldn’t lawbreakers be punished? This is part and parcel of making the world right. Jesus talks quite a bit about judgment – one of many examples is found in John: “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.” (John 5:22-23)
“Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. Very well then, atheism is too simple. And I will tell you another view that is also too simple. It is the view I call Christianity-and-water, the view which simply says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right—leaving out all the difficult and terrible doctrines about sin and hell and the devil, and the redemption. Both these are boys’ philosophies.” – C.S Lewis, “Mere Christianity” (1952).
5. Lewis writes in Book Two: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool; you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.” – C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” (1952).
6. “The plainest reason why the Son of God is called the Word, seems to be, that as our words explain our minds to others, so was the Son of God sent in order to reveal his Father’s mind to the world. What the evangelist says of Christ proves that he is God. He asserts, His existence in the beginning; His coexistence with the Father. The Word was with God. All things were made by him, and not as an instrument. Without him was not any thing made that was made, from the highest angel to the meanest worm. This shows how well qualified he was for the work of our redemption and salvation. The light of reason, as well as the life of sense, is derived from him, and depends upon him. This eternal Word, this true Light shines, but the darkness comprehends it not. Let us pray without ceasing, that our eyes may be opened to behold this Light, that we may walk in it; and thus be made wise unto salvation, by faith in Jesus Christ.” – Matthew Henry’s Commentary on John 1:1-5