Lift Up Your Heads

By Cal Cook

I went to see the movie 2012 recently with my wife. After having written about it a couple of weeks ago I felt a strange kind of need to see it…wait for the video. It was exciting with all of the special effects, yet how many near misses can you have until it’s just utterly ridiculous? I have to say the starting premise did intrigue me! After having just read about the Solar Maximum that was going to occur and the speculation that the Sun’s magnetic poles would actually switch in 2012! But it went downhill from there…really a flood again!

Well I don’t know why I hoped for anything better than that from Hollywood…silly me. As we read the scriptures for this first week of Advent we are again reminded of the coming King. The Lord our Righteousness Jeremiah calls Him. Praise God He is our Righteousness because we have none of our own today. My 19 year old son and I were just talking about how integrity seems to be completely missing from this world. I try not to discourage the boy too much, yet how can we not talk about the shameless lying and manipulation we see today. New evidence revealed through the Freedom of Information Act show e-mails going back as far as 1996 with evidence of manipulation of the data used to make the case for global warming. Lies and deceit used to manipulate people and governments to spend billions on their pet project, their get rich quick scheme, all the while crying the world would end if we didn’t do something!

Well news flash…the world will end! And not by a flood not again, but by the coming of the Lord, the Lord our Righteousness! Lift up your heads for your redemptions draws near Jesus tells us Luke 21:28b. Then after the parable of the fig tree He warns us!

Luke 21:34-35a

“Watch out! Don’t let your hearts be dulled by carousing and drunkenness, and by the worries of this life. Don’t let that day catch you unaware, like a trap.

Warning after warning scripture gives us, and promise after promise is made about the one who will come in righteousness. It’s a simple message…why do so many miss it? God is Holy there is no darkness in Him…only clean Holy beings can stand in His presence. We are not holy our righteousness is but filthy rags, but praise God for Jesus Christ who has paid the penalty for our sins and in faith we are made clean…granted to us as righteousness Romans 4:5. Maybe the message isn’t misunderstood, it’s rejected.

The idea that I’m not good enough on my own merit does rub many people the wrong way! It’s that battle that wages within each of us…we know we’re not perfect…yet if we fully come to grips just how wretched we really are, how can we look at ourselves in the mirror? So we justify ourselves to ourselves…and to anyone else we feel the need. And we think that if we say it often enough and boldly enough it might be true!

Isn’t that the way truth works these days? It’s not a matter of objective truth, but subjective…as long as you believe it that’s all that matters. Or does it?