Recent article from the bulletin at church…

You know those words that hit hard and cut deep? The kind that you sense the world needs more of?

Kaj Munk spoke such words.

Born in Denmark in 1898, he went on to become a playwright and pastor. During World War II, his intense and outright criticisms of the Nazi movement led to his arrest and execution. Sometime prior to his death, he spoke these words:

“What is, therefore, our task today? Shall I answer: “Faith, hope, and love”? That sounds beautiful. But I would say—courage. No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth.

Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature… we lack a holy rage—the recklessness that comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.

The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth… a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God’s earth, and the destruction of God’s world. To rage when little children must die of hunger, when the tables of the rich are sagging with food. To rage at the senseless killing of so many, and against the madness of militaries. To rage at the lie that calls the threat to death and the strategy of destruction peace. To rage against complacency. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God.

And remember the signs of the Christian Church have been the Lion, the Dove, and the Fish… but never the chameleon.”

Christmas season is a time of merriment, joy, peace, and more. Somehow the word “rage” hardly seems appropriate. Yet the coming of Christ signifies an act of God driven by dissatisfaction with a current state of affairs. His children dead in their sins, destroying themselves and each other—something needed to be done.

And so the greatest “invasion” of all time was set into motion, one in which we are redeemed and then recruited.

Ready?