By the Way: The Equalizer

By Shane Hein on December 21, 2024.

5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways.

– Luke 3:5 [ESV]

I would imagine that all of you have seen The Equalizer, starring Denzel Washington. The plot is not terribly complicated: Denzel’s character is a highly trained ex-solider of some kind who works at a Home Depot type store by day, while defending the defenceless at night. The movie is quite violent, to be sure, but it is also quite inspiring to watch someone level out the playing field as our hero deals with these evil gangsters terrorizing his neighbourhood.

Of course, we all understand that this is all fantasy. Not only is vigilantism illegal, but it will also not, in the end, solve the problem of evil in the world. It’s just really fun to watch on screen and imagine what it would be like to a have a real-life Equalizer cleaning house everywhere average, hard-working citizens are being terrorized by gangsters.

As Christians, though, we don’t really need to imagine this. We have been given an Equalizer as a Christmas gift; a tiny Equalizer wrapped in swaddling and laying in a manger. One of the wonderful things about the Newborn King of the Jews is that he has not come into the world for only one people. He has come into the world for all of mankind.

Every single human being who has ever lived, or who will ever live, has access to this Equalizer if they want it. Every man, woman, and child have the right, by virtue of the mighty works of this Equalizer, to stand before God as equals in His eyes.

What we celebrate at Christmas is not just the birth of a Saviour, but the birth of a Saviour who makes all things new. He is the Saviour who will, on the last day, judge the living and the dead. He is the Saviour that will, on the last day, take up into his mighty arms the ignored, the oppressed, the belittled, and the disadvantaged and bring them all into his eternal Kingdom as equals.

Merry Christmas!

Blessings,

Rev. Shane Hein is pastor at St. Peter Lutheran Church

11
-10