What's the point if there is no point?

From Genesis to Revelation, it is all about Jesus and salvation. That's the point. When Christians begin pointing to Easter just once a year, that's when we get into trouble and start working on getting to heaven on our own steam or denying what we have to others.

Yesterday I "fanned" a site recommended by a member of my church. On the Facebook page I thought the "mission statement" sounded a bit academic, almost jargon of the type that often signals trouble ahead. My years as a liberal didn't fail me. I clicked over to the webpage of this group that attempts to save people from some of the horrors of this life--mostly political and material--evidence that we do indeed live in a fallen world. There was not a word about Jesus on any page I looked at. It was Christ-less, God-less and hope-less, and it quickly brought me back to 1974 when I looked out the dining room window of my nice home in the suburbs with adorable healthy children and happy marriage and realized I didn't know God and it meant nothing.

The Gospel is also for believers. It is by hearing it from our pulpits or in our small groups or in our mission work, even if some think it's too often and too much, that the good news takes us out of our own little séance of navel gazing, thinking it's all about us.

Too often organized Christianity uses the misfortunes of others either to whip themselves into guilt over material blessings or to elevate themselves by doing good works. The poor and hungry need the gospel just as much as the CEO out in the suburbs with the comfortable home and fat investment account, so let's not leave them without hope in the event we don't get the well dug or the school opened or the home built as we move on to the next crisis that hits the headlines.