I saw another Darlene just yesterday. This one was riding in a crude handmade wooden cart full of various flattened soda bottles and smashed, used cardboard boxes for recycling. Like most Darlenes, she had a plaid shirt that was too short, unmatching pants with an imitation design of some Disney princess, and her hair uncombed. Unaware of her vast disadvantages in life, she was cheerfully playing with the items in the bumping cart while her mother walked the streets of our Asian city, scouring garbage piles.

I remember the first time I laid eyes on the original Darlene. She had blended into the crowd of children coming to our Sunday school that morning. With their chairs crammed together, Darlene’s peanut size kept her as invisible as possible. During the Sunday morning routine, I brought out an animal puppet, which never fails to delight the children. After saying its piece to advertise the Bible story, the puppet usually enjoys being petted. “Would Charles like to pet the dog? How about Annabelle? And what is YOUR name, little girl?” I asked, as her wide brown eyes stared up at me. She didn’t move or say anything. As the other children chimed in on her name, I kept wondering why she had a dark bruise on her forehead, and why was a child so young sent to Sunday school without a parent to watch over her? She was surely not more than three years old. 

Darlene returned the next week, and the next. Each week it seemed she had a scab on her cheek in a different place, or sores on her legs where she evidently had a skin condition. I remember well my first visit to Darlene’s home one extremely hot Sunday afternoon. We asked one of her siblings playing on the street where we could find their family. We stepped over wet garbage, shards of glass, and splintered boards to get to the metal ladder, rungs far apart, to climb to their second-floor home. Could this explain some of the bruises and cuts on Darlene? We climbed over a large, unexplained rock that guarded their front door threshold, and we sat on the floor since there were no chairs. We had a Bible study with Darlene’s aunt, who had just finished hanging the hand-washed laundry—inside. We listened to the drips of water falling from the clothes while my eyes strayed to the wide bed, hidden partly by hanging clothes. Three pairs of feet indicated three sleeping family members snoozing in the steamy heat while we talked.

Was there any hope for a family like this? Darlene’s father had left them, and her mother worked six days a week to try to keep food on the table. Although my heart melted for Darlene, I soon found out that she was unfamiliar with how to show and receive love. So, I started by remembering her name. When she entered the church in a crowd of noisy children flowing up the stairs, I called out her name and touched her head. At first, she was just confused by this. But after a few weeks, she met my eyes and reached out her hand although she didn’t smile at all. Our church ladies held a campaign to delouse the children, and when it was Darlene’s turn to have her head scrubbed, she enjoyed the attention. Surprisingly, her hair came out a dark shade of brown, rather than the black with which we were familiar. 

A few months after I met Darlene, we decided to start an official toddler Sunday school in our church. Every week we would sing a welcome song that included all the names of the children in our class. Darlene loved to hear her name and easily memorized all the songs we sang, especially if she could ring a little jingle bell along with the song. I soon found out how smart and observant her little mind was. When I told the story of Noah, she asked me why two monkeys got on the ark in one picture, but no monkeys got off after the flood? Of course, I never noticed that in the busy zoo-like picture of animals! When we sang about God’s attributes, we would point to our heads, “God knows, God knows, all the time.” But Darlene was confused and pointing to her nose asked, “Teacher? Why do we point to our heads and say, ‘God nose,’ when our noses are right here?”

When Darlene learned color names, she was eager to point out that the daughter of Pharaoh was wearing a bright pink dress. This was Darlene’s favorite color, and so it 2/3 was quite distracting to her in the story of baby Moses. 

A tough lesson for Darlene to learn was about herself. Like every human, Darlene wanted her own way. If I did not allow her to hold the song chart or pet the puppet first, she would bend over and hide her face in her legs, refusing to participate in Sunday school. We had to explain that she could not enjoy Sunday school while she had a bad attitude, so she would need to sit aside until she could obey. She did not like this ultimatum at all, and it took her several weeks to learn how to make good decisions about her behavior. 

Once Darlene reached the age of four, I began including simple explanations of the Gospel each week. When the children lost interest and couldn’t answer the questions, I became discouraged. There are too many abstract ideas in the Gospel, I decided. 

One week, Darlene came to Sunday school and gave me her customary bear hug around my knees, “Hello Darlene!” I said, beaming, just like I do every week. We sang our same songs, we had our Bible story and rang our bells, said the memory verse, and petted the puppet. But when I got to the gospel explanation, I showed the picture of the heart with tears on it. “What does this picture remind us of?” I asked again. This time Darlene turned smartly to her classmate, and with a know-it-all, big-sister attitude, she declared firmly, “Aidon, YOU are a sinner! I am a sinner, and even Teacher is a sinner, because we are ALL sinners!” Aidon didn’t look very happy about this accusation, but inside my heart I was thinking that there is certainly hope for Darlene. There is hope for all who will recognize their guilt before God and repent, knowing Christ is their only hope of a Savior. 

I pray for Darlene every single day. I am trying to do what I can to bring Darlene to Christ. However, as I go about my weekly routines, walking in our neighborhood in a city of two million clustered with cities that equal 14 million residents, I see Darlenes everywhere. They are ignorant of their physical disadvantages and ignorant of their spiritual trajectory, and the question goes through my mind, “Lord, who will reach THAT Darlene? Please send someone to her.” 

8/13/2020

Rather than being a ministry of BJU, BJMBC is actually a ministry of Gospel Fellowship Association. Understanding where GFA stands will help you understand where we stand. The following excerpt from the GFA website explains their stand on "fellowship." ​

​Whatever else we would say about Luke’s story of the angels and the shepherds, it’s definitely memorable. But less clear is the point. Why did it happen? What does it mean?

I’m going to argue that there’s something huge going on here. I’m going to argue that this event was a teaser—a short preview of what the Messiah would do. It’s proof that someday people and angels will worship side by side, giving glory to this newborn child. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start by turning the camera around from how we normally view the scene. Why do we always see it completely from the viewpoint of the humans—the shepherds? Look at it not from the view of the men on the ground, but the angels in front of them. Several things come to mind:
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• Angels are not omniscient. They learn.
• Angels are not passionless. They have emotions (Luke 15:10).

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Now put that into the grid of what happened here. Angels were there when Satan fell. Angels saw the good creation and man’s subsequent fall into sin. For thousands of years they watched people wallow in the filth and horror of sin.

And yet they were also sent to deliver promises—the hope of a redeemer who would finally deliver mankind from death and sin (Gen 18:1–15; Heb 2:2). They worshipped the Son in heaven’s throne room for thousands of years (Dan 7:10). Then, one day, the glorious Son takes flesh and is conceived in the body of a Jewish woman. An angel delivers the news to Mary (Luke 1:26–38). Nine months later, angels are commissioned to share the grand announcement. After millennia of waiting, hoping and watching, the horror of this wicked world will come to an end. The promise has arrived. The Messiah is here.

Are these angels dispassionately relaying information like heavenly robots? Or should we not remember Peter’s words that the angels also longed to look into God’s masterful plan? They also marveled and wondered at the Old Testament prophecies about “Christ’s sufferings and the glory to follow” (1 Pet 1:10–12). Take even a cursory look at their words, and you’ll discover that the announcement comes straight from the Old Testament!

​What are these angels doing? They’re worshipping! They themselves are in awe at what God has starting doing and they can’t help crying out with joy.

Now consider the shepherds. Classic art, Sunday school papers, and scenic calendars all get it wrong:
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• The angel is not far away. The wording is that the angel stood beside them or right with them, implying that they are actually quite close.
• The light is shining “all around them.” On a dark hillside, in a day without artificial light, shepherd and angel stand in blazing light.
• After the initial announcement, an entire multitude appears. We don’t know how many, of course, but Jesus talked about twelve legions or 72,000 angels. That could qualify. Whatever the case, it’s a whole crowd, praising, singing, rejoicing—a small teaser of what these angels have been doing in heaven since the beginning.

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To this point in the story we can be shocked by the contrast. A throng of heavenly beings before a few shepherds? A dark, quiet hillside suddenly transformed by blazing light? The angels have come from the grand splendor of heaven and now they stand in the squalor of a sin-sick earth.

​And yet this contrast—heaven vs. earth—stands at the center of the story. It’s in the poetry that the angels sing.

​Heaven has been full of glory for thousands of years. Earth has been a horror of sin and its consequences. Until now. Because through the Messiah, at last, peace has come.

We discover that this brief interchange on a hillside in Galilee had much more significance than we might think. The angels shared the news, but just as important they also worshipped together with the shepherds.

Remember the glory that shone around them? That glory didn’t come from the angels like we assume. Read closer—“the glory of the Lord shone round about them.” For a few minutes, that Galilean hillside became a foretaste of great things to come. For a few minutes, angels and men stood together in awe at the miraculous thing God was doing for planet earth.

​One more response awaits. We can notice a pattern in how both the angels and the shepherds responded.

Not only did shepherds worship with the angels, but they even responded the same way.
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1. Those who receive the good news…
2. Must go and tell others.
3. Then return yourself and worship.

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And this pattern becomes an imperative to every reader. You’ve received the message. You’ve heard the good news. The hope of planet earth has finally come. This Christmas season, rejoice in awe together with the angels at what God has done. Tell anyone you can about this salvation that He has sent. And then fall before Him yourself and worship.