This New Life

The expression “messiah complex” is not a clinical diagnosis, but its symptoms closely resemble those found in individuals suffering from delusions of grandeur. It’s a real and documented condition that many unfortunate individuals have endured over the years. But mentally healthy people can be just as delusional—foolishly living our lives as if we were God himself. We would never come right out and say that, but we sure do act it sometimes. And we do so by granting ourselves powers that only God himself has. According to James 4:11-17, we tend to play God by: (1) claiming to know what’s in other people’s hearts; and (2) claiming to know what’s in our own future.

Specifically, we recklessly slander and judge other people, says James, and we foolishly practice the illusion of “life control” for ourselves. But James reminds us—and the whole world learned firsthand in the chaotic year that was 2020—that we do not know the future. Rather, we are called to live life and make decisions in line with God’s will. Indeed, James warns us here that playing God is a dangerous game that nobody wins. The idea of “giving God control” of our lives is little more than a delusion. We do well to remember that we never actually had control in the first place. The only thing we can do, then, is give God our fear of his control over our lives.

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December is a time when many believers remind others that we need to put Christ back into Christmas. O.k., but why stop there? We also need to put Satan back into Christmas. If we take the biblical account seriously, he’s the reason for the mess we’re in today. Things like greed, selfishness, violence, injustice, abuse, alienation, and death can all be laid at his doorstep. That’s why 1 John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” One of our Christmas carols contains the same idea: “To save us all from Satan’s power when we have gone astray.” Yes, Satan is real and relentless, but ultimately ruined—precisely because Jesus came. In fact, on that first Christmas, Jesus began undoing what Satan did a long time ago: enticing the human race to walk away from God and his ways. The Lord’s great rescue effort began with a young Jewish virgin named Mary.

Gabriel gives the news of her mission from God in the famous “Annunciation” (Luke 1:26-38), a text loaded with insights about Mary, Mary’s Son, and Mary’s God. Moreover, it does not go unnoticed in Christian theology that Mary is a kind of new Eve. Indeed, the fall began through the false belief of one virgin (Gen 3:4-6), and the restoration began through the true belief of another virgin (Luke 1:38). Irenaeus (ca. 130-202 A.D.) wrote, “The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.” In one sense, then, our salvation hinges on Mary’s obedient response to God’s initiative.

All true, but what emerges from the biblical portrait of Mary is also her ordinariness. She was a normal young girl from a no-account town in Galilee. What made her extraordinary was the fact that she was a true servant of the Lord, totally surrendered to doing God’s will. In this regard, she’s still a model for believers today. It has always been the case that God has a plan to change the world, and ordinary people can be a part of it. That’s why Paul said to ordinary believers in Rome, “God will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20). We don’t have to be extraordinary people to engage in serpent crushing. We just have to be available to God.