Dear Friends:
We are merely human beings– just like you! We have come to bring you the Good News.
Acts 14:15, NLT
“I am only human.” Is there anyone of us who hasn’t said this a thousand times?
It is our most profound confession of inadequacy and limitation. It admits that we lack something necessary and have great need. “Human error” is a byword for the truth that the best efforts of humans and their machines can always be undone by our imperfection.
“Then who can be saved?” we ask. The answer comes from Christ: “What is impossible for humans is possible for God” (Lk 18:26-27).
That’s what we need–a Savior! Nothing tells us this like our broken, inadequate humanity.
Most of us spend our lives in the vain effort to defeat the law of gravity that will bind us to earth for eternity absent a Divine intervention. We commit to move faster, climb higher, think smarter, work harder, live better –and “be like God” (Gen 3:5).
Adam and Eve fell for this lie. They weren’t bad people, as we would commonly define “bad.” They were human beings like us with a proud desire to equal and even better their Creator in knowledge and judgment. They wanted to be good in their own strength and wisdom.
Who can argue with such an ambition? Would not our earth be a better place if we could be like God who alone is whole and complete, lacking nothing? This is the siren song of humanism given post-modern lyrics in John Lennon’s 1971 pop ballad, “Imagine.”
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Lennon’s vision is wonderfully attractive and speaks to the need for a new earth, even as he denies a heaven and a hell. In consequence, Lennon denies the Creator and Savior who is the entire difference between those places.
Can humans pull it off? Can we yield our nationalities, religion, possessions, greed, hunger, and share the world as one in brotherhood by thinking our best thoughts if there is “above us only sky”? Even if we can, will we?
What is the verdict of history on this prospect? What is the “innocent” toddler telling us when she screams “mine” and grabs for the toy in the hands of a playmate?
The creature, insisting on its own way, cannot replicate the Creator’s power. Competition becomes the desperate substitute for the lack of Providence. Self-preservation becomes our occupation and it brings with it the cold shadows of fear and mistrust.
When we cannot see a future and a hope beyond ourselves, we acquire what we can, but it is never enough. We hoard, but still feel empty. We dominate, but still feel vulnerable. We subjugate, but worry about our weakness. We envy those with more, but deny the cries of those with less.
Even our toleration of others inherently carries the destructive seeds of judgment and discrimination. Our anxiety about our competition inevitably leads us to want to eliminate our competitors. Violence, the antithesis of Creation, becomes our means to achieve the security we crave. The only real unity we achieve is the silence of the graveyard.
The gap between God and us does not close. The Psalmist writes, “I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad” (Ps 119:96).
Perfection will never be the achievement of creatures. We work, but cannot be completely satisfied with the result. We break, but we cannot fix. We acquire, but we cannot hold. We lose, and can only grieve.
Yet, in the very realization of our inadequacy and brokenness that is the unexceptional human condition, we find our opportunity for eternal life. The painful grace of dependency expresses our need for a Savior. The Good News is that we have a Savior.
This becomes most obvious when our illusions are irreparably smashed and our dreams die. We beg for healing. We seek repairs and restoration. Sentiment and nostalgia bathe our prayers with tears. Yet, at the foot of the Cross of Christ we face the truth that when it was finished for him it was finished for we who believe (Jn 19:30; Rom 6:4-11).
We find out that Christ is interested in new construction, not historic preservation (1 Cor 15:17). His passion is focused on bringing his children to the place he has prepared for them (Jn 14:1-3).
The new heaven and a new earth are a renewed creation, freed from the imperfection of sin, and transformed by God. They are a home for God’s children to live in with him, not a museum to indulge our longing for the past “for the old things have passed away” (Rev 21:5). Jesus, after all, came to “save his people from their sins,” not to make a collection of our peccadillos (Mt 1:21).
Remember that God came to us in Jesus Christ as one of us. He did not do this to make us gods, but to help us understand that to be fully human is to be loved by our Creator (Jn 3:16).
“No one,” Jesus said, “has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father” (Jn 15:13-15).
Christ then laid down his life for you and me by submitting to the cruelty of crucifixion to remove the penalty of death that our sins warranted. We are truly and most human when we accept that gift from his bleeding hands.
Yes, we are prone to the frailties of flesh and spirit, errors of judgment and proud hubris that mark the identity of mere human beings. Rejoice, we are proving the need for the Good News that we carry. It doesn’t have to be and won’t stay this way because we have a Savior.
“You are what you eat” is a spiritual truth. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Ps 34:8).
Under the mercy of Christ,
Kent
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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.
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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.
Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.
Kent and his beloved Patricia are enjoying their 31st year of marriage. They are the proud parents of Andrew, a college student.