This post is the Christmas letter my wife and I have just sent out to our friends and financial partners in our ministry.  Suspecting that a few of the regular visitors to Our Father’s World might not be on our distribution list, here are our thoughts this Christmas season.  Note that the first half is a devotional – we’ve been doing this in our letters for at least 15 years – and the second contains brief news about our family.  You are welcome to read both – we’d love to have you meet our family in this way, if not in person!  And feel free to contact me directly if you’d like to be added to the direct distribution list or click here if you would like to partner with us by donating to our ministry.  Our work is mostly provided for my small-ish gifts from ordinary people. –End of Commercial– !

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Dear Friends,

Of all the common Christmas carols echoing in shopping malls, elevators and on the radio – not to mention in churches and on our music players – surely the most interesting and subversive is “Joy to the World.”

You’re not in the habit of thinking of Christmas carols as subversive?  Take another look at this carol:

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Have you noticed that this carol is not about Christmas at all?  We are not singing here about what is commonly called Christ’s first advent – angels, shepherds, manger, magi.  No, this song is a look into the future – when Jesus returns to establish his kingdom of righteousness and justice on the earth.  Far from being sweetness and light and romance, this is a song of triumph and of victory over evil.  Its message should make the powers that rule this world quake with fear!  And – not coincidentally –  it is perhaps one of the best expositions of a major theme in my own teaching, that redemption is more than salvation!  “Heaven and nature” are singing.  “Fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains” are echoing the sound.  Thorns will no longer “infest the ground”.  He – Jesus – will be present and will “rule the world with truth and grace”.  All of this is profoundly biblical (check out Romans 8:21, Psalm 148 to start with).

So why do we sing this at Christmas?  Because Christmas is only one chapter in the long story of God’s work in human history. The first Advent and the second Advent are two parts of one great plan.  As beautiful and romantic as the Christmas story is, it only becomes meaningful when we see the connections.  The baby is Savior.  The Savior is King.  The King is coming to restore his Kingdom.  And we, his subjects, demonstrate that by preparing for his coming by allowing him to rule our lives now.

We give meaning to Christmas and we prepare for the coming of our King by bringing his rule into our present in anticipation of this great future.  We learn to love the King and to accept his love.  We allow his Spirit to work in our lives to be more like him.  We practice our love for him by loving each other in family and in community and reflecting that love to all those in need around us.  We learn to live in God’s creation in a way that the “rocks, hills and plains” will rejoice and “heaven and nature” will sing, not just because King is coming, but because we, his people are already here, preparing the way for Him!

That, in a nutshell, is why this interesting and subversive Christmas carol is and should remain part of the standard list of carols we sing.

It’s also why we do what we do with Care of Creation!

And we thank you for your interest, partnership in and support of our life and ministry.  It is now almost 5 years since we sent out our “Sometimes you have to leap, and build your wings on the way down” letter marking the beginning of this adventure.  We now see a genuine movement beginning in the evangelical community – in the US and abroad – and we find ourselves right in the middle of it:

• Urbana09 – in St Louis right after Christmas –will feature an evening focusing on environment as an issue and no less than 9 seminars (workshops) on creation care, half of which will be taught by Care of Creation staff or our close ministry partners, Renewal and Eden Vigil.
• A new Zondervan book release – Zealous Love – features a chapter by me and Susanna on our call to the ministry of creation care, and Our Father’s World continues to sell moderately well.
• We are involved directly or in partnership with the Creation Care Consultation, a fellowship of like-minded organizations; with the National Association of Evangelicals, the Evangelical Environmental Network, the Evangelical Press Association, the US Committee of the Micah Challenge, and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES).
• Our recent experience of bringing the Our Father’s World seminar to the Philippines and Japan is opening doors to many other countries.  It is our goal, everywhere we go, to seek to lay the foundation for a self-sustaining, biblical creation care movement.  This is already happening in the Philippines.

[But we’re still building the wings to sustain all of this.  Our current financial situation is precarious – personally and organizationally.  We anticipate losing our largest supporting church in February due to their own budget difficulties.  We need you!  Thanks for taking a look at the enclosed response form…]

Family wise, it’s been a good year.  We had the whole family together in June for a few brief days at a cousin’s wedding.  Tim even came from the Dominican Republic, where he is well into his second year with the Peace Corps, along with his lovely girlfriend Kim Dykwell.  He will end that service in May, and has been heavily engaged in submitting graduate school applications.  Other members of the family will also be transitioning in the coming year: Katrina graduates from University of Wisconsin in May, is also looking at grad schools and would like to do her Masters degree in China.  Amy will graduate from the University of Minnesota the same weekend and is still deciding what God has in store for her next year. She’s loved being a Nanny this year.  Melanie changed her position at Cornerstone Christian Academy in Philadelphia where she’s been for a number of years.  She’s now working in Administration, which she seems to be enjoying, and has been active with some significant leadership positions in her church.

And the parents are hanging on to the empty nest with glee.  (Most of the bedrooms have been repurposed so it stays that way.)  Susanna came through knee replacement surgery in April better than expected, and is now more mobile than in many years.  With improved health she has steadily added activities, including a bible study for three young(er) women, and involvement with some of the needy people on our street.  And I (Ed) keep on keeping on, grateful for good friends, health and strength sufficient (usually) for the demands of the day.

Thank you again for your love, prayers, and partnership.  We appreciate every one of you.

Ed and Susanna Brown

Two brief items that deserve to be noted:

Mountain top removal is finally being reviewed by the EPA, with a strong hope and prayer by many that this horrendous practice of blowing up entire mountains for the sake of the coal that lies within them will be stopped.  New York times coverage is here; one of the heroes of the anti-MTR campaign is my friend Al Johnson whose organization, Christians for the Mountains, can be found here.

And this weekend is “Earth Hour” – Saturday at 8:30 pm (your local time whereever you are), turn off the lights for an hour.  It’s small, it’s symbolic – it not make a lot of difference by itself, but I think it’s probably worth participating in.  Its one more small way to say that we’re in this together…

I’m writing this in – actually near – Washington DC, arguably the most “powerful” city in our contemporary world.  It is both the seat of government of what is, for now, the lone superpower on earth.  The city and its surrounding communities are therefore inhabited by people who are powerful because their hands are on the levers of government.  And by many more who influence, or at least who are seeking to influence the former group.

Watching this city go through a power-transition, I’ve made several observations:

Power is temporary…

This weekend, as I watch, one of the great dramas of American politics is taking place:  Power is changing hands.  And not just at the top.  While President Bush and Vice-president Cheney prepare to depart, in every Federal office building in the city desks are being cleared as the old guard departs to make way for a new group of power-holders.  Lobbyists are discovering that the relationships they have cultivated so carefully for so long are suddenly useless – their contacts are leaving town.  They will have to start all over again, or in some cases, leave town themselves, to make room for others who already have the requisite relationships in place.

This happens every four to eight years here.  We expect it.  Some people win elections, others lose – and the losers depart, gracefully handing over their power to others with whom they have strong and ongoing disagreements.  Those of us who have grown up within this system sometimes don’t realize how unique this event is in the long history of human government.  “Power corrupts” – no kidding! – and everywhere and in almost every age, the very ida that a powerful person would aside his authority voluntarily would be inconceiveable.   It is only right that we recognize that with all the flaws in our system of government – and there are many – at least this transition of power seems to be something that we do well.  We’ve trained ourselves to let go of power when our time is up, and that is good.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, one time President of Pakistan

But we should recognize that even in countries where this kind of peaceful transition doesn’t happen, power still changes hands.  In a museum garden in at an archeological site in southern Pakistan called Moenjodaro there is a rather symbolic monument.  It was erected in, I think, the late 1960′s, by the then President of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in honor of his great friend, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, the then Shah of Iran.  Two powerful men honored each other.  The monument still stands.  The men have both disappeared, with their power, the Shah deposed in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the President hanged the same year by his successor in Pakistan.  Power is temporary, no matter who holds it.

Power has its limits…

On the other hand, living for a short time in this city has showed me the limits of power as well.  This most powerful city in the world has one of the worst school systems in our entire country.  It has a poverty and crime rate that is shameful.  It has streets that are in disrepair.  True, it also has a world-class public transport system as well – but there are parts of this powerful capital that seem to have been lifted from another, much less powerful and affluent country.   It is not just the city that shows the limits of power.  Every newspaper that arrives carries the same message about the problems facing those in power.  Whether the challenges are the economic crisis, the war on terror, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the environmental crisis, the conclusion is the same:  Our leaders don’t know what to do. All the power in the world is useless if you don’t know what to do with it.

Power isn’t always where you expect it to be…

I have a good friend who happens to be staying with us for a few weeks.  He works in one of the larger government departments, and has been called in to Washington to assist in the transition.  He isn’t losing power because he isn’t powerful enough to be at the top – he is one of the professionals who keep things running smoothly in the lower levels while the powerful at the top make speeches.

It has been fascinating to me to look over his shoulders this week as he has described what’s happening in his deparment.  The powerful people at the top are leaving, to be replaced by a new powerful elite that has not yet been named.  But the work of the department goes on.  How? By whom?  By the legions of ‘little people’ whose power doesn’t register on the meters of the media.

So let’s look at a question begging to be asked:  Who really has the power?  Is it the high and mighty who are on their way out of town, passing on the road the new high and mighty on their way back into town?  Or maybe the real power is elsewhere – in the small offices and cubicles where the work really gets done.

It reminds me of a verse from the Apostle Paul:

...not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.(I Corinthians 1:26-29)

This is how the Kingdom of God works.  This is really how the world works.  Let’s not be fooled into thinking that because we are little people living our lives in a limited circle of influence that we don’t have power.  We may be holding the keys to the kind of power that really matters.

Do something with it.