Bible sales rose 22% through October of this year compared to the same period last year.  This is from data released by Circana Bookscan. This surge in Bible sales, happened while the total U.S. print book sales was up only by 1 %.  Print Bible sales hit a five-year low of just under 8.9 million in 2020,  But sales began to tick upward again.  Sales surpassed 13.7 million in the first 10 months of this year.  

This increase in Bible sales has happened even as polls show a decline in religiosity across the country. The number of Americans who identified with a Christian religion hit a low of 68% last year,  according to Gallup.  A half a century ago, 87 adults in the U. S. identified as Christian, according the the polling of Gallup.  According to Pew Research, 28% of American adults are now religiously unaffiliated.

In the opinion of Bishop Robert Barron, bible sales is evidence of “a renewed search for meaning, purpose and value.” He points out the Bible in Western civilization has been, “the main source of meaning, purpose and value.”  He goes on to say, “I think people are turning back to the Bible in greater numbers” because they’re looking for meaning, purpose and value and they sense they will find it in the Bible.  Barron added that he hasn’t been surprised by rising rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation among young people.  “That’s what happens,” observes the Bishop, “when you say there’s no meaning or purpose.”

The Bible surge could be a natural consequence of a general feeling of anxiety in our world, since our foundations as a nation are based on Scriptural principles.  Could we be living in the days when  Amos prophesied,  “The day are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11).  He portrays people desperately searching for the word of the Lord. “Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, search for the word of the Lord but they will not find it” (Amos 8:12).  Jesus reminds us, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God'” (Matt. 4:4).  

As I look back over my life as a follower of Jesus, I am very thankful for God’s grace  experienced in my journey, enabling me to be a faithful workman who is not ashamed.  I identify with Paul’s exhortation to young Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15).   I have always believed in the efficiency of God’s Word to inspire and do the work of formation in the lives of those who hear and respond to Scripture.  “All scripture, breathed as it is by God, is useful for teaching, for rebuke, for improvement, for training in righteousness, so that people who belong to God may be complete, fitted out and ready for every good work” (II Tim. 3:16-17 Wright). 

Scripture can be seen as God’s “love letter.”  Our culture is desperate to hear some “Good News.”  God tells us that he loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die for us (John 3:16).  Scripture tells us of being made in God’s image.  He has created us uniquely to serve him (Eph. 2:10).  His love letter tells us all he has done for us,  while carrying us to the end (Is. 46:4).  He is preparing a homecoming for us (John 14:1-4).  

During this Christmas season, we are celebrating the Incarnation.  In Hebrews 1: 2-3, we read, “And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son.  God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe.  The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.”  In our day of social chaos and ideological conflict, I am stuck by the fact of Jesus, “sustaining” everything by the word of his command.  Col. 1:17 declares, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Imagine this marvelous reality: The one who hold and sustains all of creation together, came into this world to live among us.  This is “Good News” in a world where we feel disconnected from reality. The disciples of Jesus were earnest in  wanting us to know their first hand account of the incarnation.  “From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in  – we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands.  The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes: we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The Infinite Life of God himself took shape before us” (I John 1:1-3 – Message).

There were no cameras to document the appearance of the Son of God.  The disciples preserved the incarnation  in “sober prose.”  “We heard him, we saw him, we even live close enough to touch him.  It actually happened!  We are witnesses of this fact! The incarnation took place right before our very eyes.”  Leanne Payne exhorts 21st century believers to have faith in “the incarnational reality.”

C. S. Lewis believed that the Incarnation is at the very center of God’s redemptive plan for the world: “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation.  They say that God became Man.  Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.”

Lewis goes on to maintain that without  the incarnation, there would be no Jesus story: “Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation.  There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about.  It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the steps of a strategically coherent invasion – an invasion which intends complete conquest and ‘occupation.'” 

I suggest that we use the word “occupation” in visualizing God invading “enemy” territory here on earth as the Son of God.  Let us celebrate anew the Christmas story as in invasion.  Breakpoint observes, “It’s a mystery…..but as humanity journeys further into this digital age, the idea of incarnation will only become increasingly strange.  This virtual world of high-speed internet, social media, smartphones, and the cloud is increasingly disembodied…….It is essential to dive as deeply as possible into all of the implications of the Incarnation, not just in making sense of Christmas, but also responding to the challenges of our disembodied age.”

Jesus became a man and lived among us.  When I feel detached and separated from the reality of my life, I can gaze on Jesus, knowing he has gone before me and faced all of my obstacles and struggles.  “We must look ahead, to Jesus.  He is the one who carved out the path for faith, and he’s the one who brought it to completion” (Heb. 12:2 – Wright).