SPOILER ALERT:  A follower of Jesus said something that a bunch of people who aren’t following Jesus didn’t like.

In a recent interview with GQ (which is really good even if it is full of words that you don’t want to say even if it’s only in your head while you’re reading along silently), Phil Robertson of Duck Commander and Duck Dynasty fame, came right out and said a bunch of stuff that no one should be all that surprised about, because he’s been saying stuff like this ever since he became a follower of Jesus way back in 1972.  Things about sin and how “if the human race loved each other and they loved God, we would just be better off.  We ought to just be repentant, turn to God, and let’s get on with it, and everything will turn around.”

Of course, it was his more specific comments about what sins we should repent of that ignited the firestorm that by now you’ve all heard about, read about, and posted about.  In fact, the Twitterverse, Blogosphere and Facebook World are all covered in duck as everyone – and I do mean EVERYONE – weighs in on what he should or shouldn’t have said and what A&E should or shouldn’t have done.  And all this time, Phil is sitting at home wondering what all the fuss is about.  I mean, surely this stuff came up in the interviews with A&E execs before they ushered in the apocalypse by making the bearded wonders the biggest thing to hit television since color, right?

In other shocking news, Tim Tebow is a virgin and believes that sex before marriage is wrong (he’s right, of course, but that’s not the point).

The point here is that we probably shouldn’t be so up in arms about any of the following:

1. a devout Christian thinks homosexuality is a sin, or
2. a non-Christian network like A&E would respond in a politically correct way to limit the financial impact of #1, or
3. the apparent attack on free speech

This isn’t about free speech at all.  No one is telling Phil Robertson that he can’t say whatever he wants about body parts and other things that many may wish he wasn’t so free about.  What they are saying – and Jesus followers need to understand this – is that the message of the Gospel is offensive.

Why in the world this surprises us is pretty, well, surprising.

Jesus told us to expect it, not lobby to change it.  Here, in case we’ve all forgotten, is a sampling of the things Jesus said:

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. (John 15:18-19)

You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:22)

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. (Matthew 24:9)

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. (John 3:20)

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. (John 16:1)

So while everyone is up in arms over free speech, Jesus warned us that anytime we talk about the exclusivity of the Gospel, it would be offensive speech.  And make no mistake about it, it’s the exclusivity of the Gospel that rings in Phil’s words.  In fact, here’s the last thing that he said to the interviewer from GQ, right after he asked him if he believed the Bible:

If you simply put your faith in Jesus coming down in flesh, through a human being, God becoming flesh living on the earth, dying on the cross for the sins of the world, being buried, and being raised from the dead—yours and mine and everybody else’s problems will be solved. And the next time we see you, we will say: ‘You are now a brother. Our brother.’ So then we look at you totally different then. See what I’m saying?

The world loves Duck Dynasty because this family just seems real.  They would have loved Jesus, too, right up until the part when Jesus would have said one of those statements that got written down in a book far more important than GQ magazine.  And then, they would have killed Jesus.

Wait, they did.

The shocking part of all of this isn’t that a follower of Jesus actually believes and lives the same things that Jesus taught.  It isn’t even that A&E suspended Phil Robertson indefinitely from his own show or that Phil and his family are bold enough to say – to anyone who will listen – that Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to peace with God.

The shocking part is that so many other believers are surprised that the world didn’t like it.

Well, not really.  But this morning when I woke up and it was 28 degrees outside (with an F, not a C), I thought this would be the perfect day to try #24 on the list of 30 CrossFit exercises that can be done without equipment*.

*Translation: hard things you can do but not have to pay for at an expensive CrossFit box (which means “gym” in fancy “we’re cool CrossFitters and you’re not” language).

So, I went out the door to run ONE MILE.  That’s right, ONE.  Now, over the last 5 years of my running journey, I’ve run enough miles to go to California and back (I live in NC), and so one mile is pretty much the kind of distance I can do in my sleep.  (Wendy, my Better 99%, swears I do move a lot while sleeping, but I doubt I’m running a mile each night!)

The only difference was that the exercise calls for stopping every minute and doing 10 Air Squats.  I’ve yet to actually do an entire exercise on this list, and usually cut them in half (if not in fourth), but since I am actually a runner, I went with this one just as it’s written.

My time?  11:03, including the stops every minute to do 10 squats.  I ended up stopping 10 times, which means I totaled 100 air squats.  And the worst of all was having to stop the last time when I was at .97 miles, but hey, if you’re going to die, at least die with integrity, right?

Anybody else trying to do this CrossFit stuff without taking out a second mortgage?  Give this one a shot and post your time in the comments section.

John 1:5 is one of my favorite verses, and it becomes even more significant on these December days when EVERYONE loves light and light is EVERYWHERE.  In fact, our family can’t go anywhere after dark during the holiday season without playing the Christmas light game.  One side of the car counts the lights they see on their side, and the other side, vice versa.

This game is much more fun to play at night because light is harder to see in the, well, light.  This is something that seems so obvious, but we tend to forget it when we go through exceptionally dark times.  We begin to feel like the place we are is too far for even God’s light to find us.  But the fundamental truth about light is that it actually uses the darkness around it to draw our focus to it.

I learned this during one of the worst seasons of my life, and it was then that I think I really started to get to know Jesus.  He is the Light of the world, and even on our darkest days, the darkness CANNOT OVERCOME HIM.

I guess you could say that the day I met Jesus was the worst day of my life.

Here is another excerpt from the book that I know is beginning to well up from the deep places of my soul.  I pray that what I learned on my darkest days will shine light on you when you face your darkest days, too.

Light shines in darkness.  In fact, most of us wouldn’t know what light is if we hadn’t first been in some pretty dark places.  The beginning of all that we know was a place of darkness, and then God brought light.  When our ancestor, Adam, brought darkness back into the world by doing the unthinkable – choosing momentary pleasure over eternal peace – God brought light into the world again.  To be more specific, he sent light into the world, and John’s description of that act was that light shone in the darkness, and the darkness couldn’t overcome it.

Isn’t that how light is?  It is brighter and more brilliant when the setting is the darkest.  It is more appreciated, too.  How many times have we stumbled in the darkness at night, groping along the wall for the switch and been relieved to finally find it?  We hate darkness so much that we eventually memorize the steps necessary to get to the switch the next time.

And so it is with worst days. They are the backdrop to what can become our best days, because light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.  God intends to step into our worst days and bring light from them.  Understand this: God sent the light into the darkness because that’s where the light needs to shine the most.  It is on our worst days that we finally see the Light of the world.

The fact that he stays with us then and there – on our darkest and worst days – is what makes the gospel good news.