There is still light and holiness and love and hope - but the darkness presses in and threatens to vanquish them. We hear John's Gospel every Christmas, "the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it." God promised He is going to return - no more darkness, death, sin or pain. But we wonder if that's true.

We light a candle each week - a little more light pushing back the darkness. We cling to the hope and tiny bits of flame radiating from the candles which seem so fragile. But the flickering candles are just a metaphor. Our real hope is in Jesus because candles are just not enough.

We watch and wait. For healing. For a brighter light. We hold fast hoping we won't be disappointed. Advent is like a child on Christmas Eve. The reason we can't sleep - that we lie awake staring at the clock wishing it to go faster because we think we know what is waiting for us on Christmas morn - and we can't wait to find out if it's true.

If all those books and videos are right and my only choices are: my faith isn't good enough to win the lottery, cure my cancer and deserve an ice cream cone OR my faith is so poor God has to punish me even if I'm just a five year old kid in Kindergarten - then I'm with Martin Luther who said, "if I...had seen such dolts and blockheads teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian."

Why THIS Faith? I wish we all had all the answers we wanted - answers that were so clear and so perfect we could accept them without any reservation. But such simple answers are exactly what get us into trouble in the first place.

Only one leper runs back to Jesus. He completely violates Jesus' personal space - falling at Jesus' feet. Social, religious and even personal boundaries go out the window. And all Jesus can say is, "where are the other nine?" Jesus wasn't worried they hadn't been healed - He knows they were. And it wasn't like my grandma who used to call and say, "I mailed your birthday card yesterday - did you get it?" so I'd say thank you. This is a "everyone pay attention - ten got healed, only one came back to say thank you - and the difference is the one isn't just healed - he is also whole." And there is the purpose of the story.

Jesus says, "your faith has made you well." This is very, very different than if He'd said, "Faith is the price you pay if you want to get well." God healed the ten lepers whether or not they gave Him credit. Whether they saw the connection or wrote a thank you card. God didn't require faith to heal them. Sometimes grace is like that.

I know what you're thinking - if God is so great and so powerful - why isn't He fixing everything? Turns out - God is asking us the same question. He says, "I have given you everything you need - everything - so why aren't you using it fix the world?" How should we answer Him?

To an anxious people wondering not just about the future - but even whether the world will survive today - Isaiah starts off his prophecy with a vision of God's power and glory. When I view this from the perspective of today's world - there is a problem. The people listening to Isaiah's prophecy might have been impressed by God's power and glory - but we've got more computing power in our phone than NASA had to get someone to the moon - some of our homes are bigger than David's palace - and we can get from Honolulu to London in 20 hours so who needs Elijah's Fiery Chariot. If Isaiah was impressed with God on his throne - he should see our Harley or Ford Raptor pickup.

If God walked into our church - would anyone recognize Him or bother to bow down before Him? What about if He showed them the nail holes in His hands and feet? We may be easily distracted by doom scrolling and watching endless YouTube shorts - but it takes a lot to impress us - and even more for us to render honor to someone.

On occasion, when I am meeting with the family of someone who died, they ask the unanswerable: "are they are in heaven?" The problem with the question is - I'm not God. I do not know the secret things or their last thoughts or if they just pretended to believe or if they were the "very model of a modern major believer." God has not let me look at the names in the Book of Life. All I have is what I saw in their life, what the family shared with me and the promises of Jesus. And so as I always do, I say, "I commend them into the hands of a loving and just God."

I cannot be certain of any other way to heaven than Jesus. Jesus never said, "I am one of the ways or a way." And this is where the dilemma and challenge gets very personal. It is not that those who are far away and who I will never meet on this earth aren't important. They are - to God and therefore to me. But when someone I love - or someone I respect - is following a different path and I cannot be certain it leads to heaven - I cannot just say, "oh well, good luck with that." If I truly love them - I will do my best to share the love of Jesus because love demands nothing less.

When someone says that all religions are the same and lead to the same place - that is like saying all drinks taste the same because they are all water based. To believe anyone can believe anything and wind up in the same place is illogical and dangerous. It does matter what you believe and why you believe it - not just because Jesus says, "no one comes to the Father except through Me" in John 14:6 - but because your soul cries out for a single truth that satisfies as nothing else can because it is THE truth.

To ask the question, "Why THIS Faith?" is to recognize there is a truth beyond all other truths. It is not enough to just hope and wish and follow the crowd. It matters what you believe and why you believe it.

Moses asked God, "what is Your Name? If I am going to go and do what you are asking me to do - then I must know your name so I can tell people Your name!" If you want a simple paraphrase - "I need to know You are who I have been looking for and who the world is looking for."

Frederick Buechner said, “their sainthood (and ours) consists less of what they have done than what God has for some reason chosen to do through them. When you consider that St Mary Magdalene was possessed by seven devils, that St Augustine prayed, "Give me chastity and self-control, but not now," that St Francis started out a high-living rebel in downtown Assisi, and St Simeon Stylites spent years on top of a sixty-foot pillar trying to get away from people - maybe there's nobody God can't use as a means of grace, including us.”

To fully understand what it means to be a saint - the first thing is to stop thinking it’s all about us. C.S. Lewis said, "humility is not thinking less about yourself, it's about thinking about yourself less." Apple trees, rose bushes, sunrises and ocean waves don’t sit around saying, “how can I do something great so I get noticed” - they just do what God called them to do - and all of us go "ooh and ahh.

The time to read God's Word - to let it dwell in your heart and soul and marinate - is not when the lightning is flashing and thunder is booming and the world is coming apart. The time to read God's Word is when all is well - or at least a few things are well with the world and we have five minutes every other day or so to spend with God. Then, when the lightning flashes and thunder booms and world comes apart - instead of running away to find a Bible and frantically thumb through it hoping to find some good news - we run toward the lightning and the thunder as the world comes apart because we know "nothing can separate us from the love of God we have in Christ Jesus, our Lord." It doesn't mean we have all the answers - it means we know who does and He is holding us in His hands.

God does not give answers - He gives Himself. He is the answer. He is the Word we seek, the One that will fell satan.