Christmas, the climax of Advent

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And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Luke 2:7

Christmas – “For unto us a child is born…” Can you imagine what Mary was thinking that night as she cradled her newborn baby?  It had been a whirlwind of events since she first heard the angel Gabriel say, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you…Now listen: You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.” On that dark, still night, she was holding her baby but instead of sitting in a palace where kings were normally born, she was laying her baby in a feed trough where the animals ate.

You might think obedience would take you on paved roads leading to the palace door instead of walking on a dusty, bumpy path leading to a barn. Yet when God asks you to do something even if it doesn’t make sense, you simply trust Him. Faith is more often found sitting on a hay bale in a stable than in a comfortable palace chair.

The advent season is a time of waiting, watching, and desiring. Christmas is the powerful climax of Advent as the waiting is over and Jesus the Messiah is celebrated. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.” –Rev 11:15 (NIV)

“Advent is a season of waiting and desiring and of hope-filled longing as I invite Christ to come again into my life and into our beautiful but broken world. I pause now to listen once again to that voice from heaven saying: “I am making everything new!” –Reading from Lectio365

This was an inconceivable, incredible, amazing story of Christmas when the Creator of all the universe, who knew no beginning nor end would come into the world as a baby. On Christmas morning, Mary would sing softly to comfort his sweet cry until the day would come when he would cry out in anguish, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” On Christmas morning, Mary would gently rub the smooth, soft skin until that day came when his skin would grow strong and tough to hold the nails of sin, injustice, and rejection as he cried out “It is completed!”

In the least likely place, with the least likely couple and the least likely circumstances, a story is told of the Savior who is making everything new. Christmas is the life-changing story of a Savior who broke the chain of death to give us salvation.

Joseph and Mary’s ordinary, day-to-day life may not have changed but their world was never the same. “So when Joseph and Mary had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and become strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.” –Luke 2:39-40

 

All who are weary

 All who are weak

All those who come with no words left to speak

Come let the Son wash the dust from your feet

Come into the light

All who are mourning

All who have pain.

All those who come who are burdened with shame

Come let the Son take the weight of your chains

Come into the light

Ours is the God of the lost and the broken

His is the home with doors flung wide open

Ours is the Savior who welcomes us in.

Come into the light (words from the song, Into the Light, Emmaus Rd Church, Surrey, UK)

 

I wish you a blessed and wonderful Christmas as you enjoy the hope and life that Jesus brings daily. Christmas, as a day on the calendar may be over, but not the life-changing coming of Jesus. The best is yet to come!

Come Lord Jesus, enter our broken world ravaged by sin, selfishness, and turning our backs on you. Forgive us. Restore us. Renew us. Only you can change the face of this brokenness to reflect the beauty of your creation again. Fall fresh on us this Christmas and each day after. Give us ears to hear you say, “I am making everything new!” Yes, come Lord Jesus come.

God is great!

Peace, Week Four of Advent

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For a child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 (NASB)

As we enter the fourth week of Advent, I am sure the exchange between world-renowned philosophers and social influencers Charlie Brown and Lucy may resonate with some folks. Lucy says to Charlie Brown, “I hate everything. I hate everybody. I hate the whole wide world!” Charlie Brown in his most thoughtful response said, “but I thought you had inner peace.” Lucy replies, “I do have inner peace. But I still have outer obnoxiousness.”

Unlike Lucy, many people during Christmas will put on a mask of outer peace yet will harbor inner obnoxiousness. Unfortunately, this supposedly joyous time of celebration with family and friends will be filled with anxiety and stress for way too many people. According to the American Psychological Association, 44% of women and 31% of men report increased stress around the holidays.

Just as inner peace is challenging, so is global peace. Chris Hedges writes “Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.” I am not sure if the 268 years could be classified as peace since he defined war as an active conflict that claimed more than 1,000 lives. Since Cain picked up a rock against Abel, war and conflict have been a staple of human history.

Peace, whether inner or global, seems to be a fleeting hope. Yet Advent moves us to the hope we have in the fulfillment of Isaiah when the Messiah will come as Prince of Peace. This week, Advent calls us to focus on peace as we join with “the heavenly army of angels praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased.” –Luke 2:13b-14 (NASB)

The English word peace that is used to translate the Hebrew word shalom is good but it lacks the depth and wholeness of shalom. Carolyn Arends writes of shalom “It’s a beautiful word that conveys wholeness, harmony, and health. Where we might settle for uneasy truces and Band-Aid fixes as proxies for peace, shalom represents something much more robust. Beyond the cessation of war, shalom is a transformation of the conditions that lead to war in the first place. When there is shalom, everything gets to function the way it was created to.”

Eugene Peterson wrote, “Shalom, “peace,” is one of the richest words in the Bible. You can no more define it by looking in the dictionary than you can define a person by his or her social security number. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God’s will being completed in us. It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Every time Jesus healed, forgave, or called someone, we have a demonstration of shalom.” (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society)

Jesus understood that if we looked to the world for peace, we would quickly drown in despair. History is filled with brokered peace agreements that only temporarily stopped conflict. Doctors try to give peace by prescribing medications that only mask the pain and hopelessness. People turn to alcohol and drugs seeking to find inner peace only to be pulled deeper into addiction and problems.

During this week’s Advent focus on peace, meditate on Jesus’ words as the true Prince of Peace. “Peace I leave with you; My (own) peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed, and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.) –John 14:27 (Amplified)

I like what Mark Buchanan, pastor and author said about the Advent season. “Advent was my least favorite season for preaching. Then it became my favorite. And here’s why “I abandoned creativity.” Buchanan writes that he came to understand the Christmas story is alive and real without trying to make it more than it is. He goes on to say, “It turns out, I don’t need to make the story, any of it, snazzier, sexier, funkier. I just need to recapture its aliveness and realness. I don’t need to make it more relevant or interesting. I just have to let it dwell richly within me, and to dwell richly in it, and then bear witness to what I had seen and heard and touched.”

This year has been chaotic in so many ways: political turmoil in Washington D.C, Russia invading Ukraine, hyperinflation, stock market volatility and the list goes on. We don’t have to make Christmas more than it is, it is already everything the world needs. Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor for those struggling with life issues. Jesus is the Mighty God who is fully aware of global conflicts and is fully in control. Jesus is the Eternal Father that is interceding for us daily. Jesus is the Prince of Peace who brings shalom to every aspect of our lives.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all people. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” –Philippians 4:4-7 (NASB)

Shalom.  Jesus brought the word to life and He is the best gift that anyone can receive!

Merry Christmas, God is great!

Week Three of Advent – Joy – The Shepherd’s Candle

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When the angels left them and went back to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, that the Lord has made known to us. So they hurried off and located Mary and Joseph, and found the baby lying in a manger. When they saw him, they related what they had been told about this child, and all who heard it were astonished at what the shepherds said. But Mary treasured up all these words, pondering in her heart what they might mean. So the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen; everything was just as they had been told. –Luke 2:15-20 (NET)

We are getting closer to Christmas! Store owners have their count-down clocks going, only 13 more shopping days till Christmas (as of today). Hallmark Christmas movies are in full swing with their feel-good predictable outcome. Houses are decorated inside and out. We focus on joy as the third week of Advent begins.

Anticipation! Merriam-Webster defines it as “a prior action that takes into account or forestalls a later action, the act of looking forward, visualization of a future event or state.” As an 8-year-old boy, I knew I needed to act to “forestall” a potential problem. The problem: there was no present under the Christmas tree for me. Granted it was probably two or three weeks until Christmas, but in case my parents had forgotten, I took matters into my own hands. I had a little money saved up, so the first time we drove into town, I went directly (yes, an 8-year-old could go by himself) to the Five & Dime store in our little town and bought myself a Christmas present, a Tiddlywinks game. Mrs. Skaggs wrapped it up and I took it home and put it under the tree. Problem solved! Now I had a present under the Christmas tree!

In a couple of weeks, homes around the world will find children and adults excitedly unwrapping gifts. You will get to open the brightly wrapped presents that have been tempting you for weeks – the gifts that you secretly picked up, turned over and over, maybe giving a gentle shake trying to see if you could guess what’s in the box. Finally, the moment arrives for you to rip off the paper and open the box. Now just imagine though that one after another of the brightly covered packages contained nothing but empty boxes. Your excitement would quickly give way to despair, maybe a little anger, and definitely a lot of disappointment.

I just imagine this is how the people of Israel must have felt. They have been opening empty boxes for almost 400 years since Malachi’s final words to wait. “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” Malachi 4:5-6 (NIV). Generation after generation would hold these verses close to their hearts waiting for the coming Messiah. Finally, the day arrives with the words, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” –Luke 2:10b-11 (NIV) This angelic birth announcement ends the 400 years of empty boxes for all who have been waiting for the Messiah’s coming.

Mark’s Christmas story is brief and to the point, “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” Peter Adams writes, “Like the people in Malachi’s day, we are called to look back and look forward. We look back to the coming of Christ, and to his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension; and we look forward to the coming of Christ in glory, when he will save his people, judge all people, and restore all things.”

God could have sent ten thousand angels to restore His creation and destroy the sinfulness of the world. God had the right as Creator and this would have made political and strategic sense, yet He chose the strategy of love. God came into the world as a baby. Holding my newest granddaughter and looking at her vulnerability, tenderness, and dependence, I marvel at the power of a baby to bring such joy and hope.

God’s incarnation as a baby allows us to touch and hold the sacred and it was in the gentleness of Jesus’ cry that night that a hurting, hopeless, and rejected world could again have hope and life. In that tender cry, we hear the life-giving words “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” –John 3:16 (NIV)

Hebrews 4:14-16 is not a classic Christmas verse but it is worth reading and reflecting upon during this Advent season.  This passage allows us to wait and live with hope, encouragement, courage, and confidence.  “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Christmas is the amazing story of a Savior; wrapped in ordinary clothes, born in humble circumstances, and marked with a destiny that will change lives forever. Jesus broke the silence of 400 years and is still breaking the silence of brokenness today! Paul David Tripp says it well, “No one knows you more deeply and fully than your Savior, so no one offers you help form fitted for your deepest needs like he does.”

Christmas is coming!

God is great!

Faith, Week Two of Advent

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This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: “Look!” The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us. –Matthew 1:22-23 (NET)

Gaslighting!  This is Merriam-Webster’s 2022 annual word of the year. It is probably a very good choice considering 2022 was the mid-term elections in the United States and gaslighting has been rampant. According to the Newport Institute, “gaslighting is a form of manipulation where the manipulator attempts to make their victim believe what’s happening to them isn’t actually happening and their reality is untrue.” The term comes from the 1938 play “Angel Street.” Alfred Hitchcock then turned the play into the 1944 film “Gaslight.” The story goes that the husband attempts to convince his wife she is crazy so he can steal from her. According to the Newport Institute, “when he turns on the lights in the attic to look for his wife’s jewels, the gas light downstairs starts to dim. He tells his wife it’s all in her imagination, gaslighting her into believing the lights were not dimming.” (USA Today)

Examples of Gaslighting given by the Newport Institute include:

  • Lying about or denying something and refusing to admit the lie even when you show them proof
  • Insisting that an event or behavior you witnessed never happened
  • Spreading rumors and gossip about you, or telling you that other people are gossiping about you
  • Telling you that you’re overreacting when you call them out

Gaslighting may be Merriam-Webster’s word of the year but the concept is as old as time. The Servant gaslighted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” –Gen 3:4 (NIV)

As we enter week two of the advent season, what does gaslighting have to do with Advent?  Just like the husband in Hitchcock’s movie tries to convince his wife the lie is the truth, the same has been done with Satan throughout human history. He seeks to manipulate and convince the world that God’s truth and love are not true. Paul wrote “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4 NIV)

Since the first deception, humans have been deceived into believing what wasn’t true. Advent is a time of waiting and reflecting on the promised coming of the Messiah. What makes waiting bearable is the fact we are waiting based on the rock-solid promises given by God.  Over the years much of our culture has been gaslighted into believing another story and only seeing the glitter and glamour of a holiday instead of the true meaning of Christmas. Advent is a time when we wait in faith for the coming Messiah simply because God is faithful to His word and has never broken a promise.

Luke records the incredible faith in Simeon’s story as he waited a lifetime for the coming Messiah. “Now there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon who was righteous and devout, looking for the restoration of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. So Simeon, directed by the Spirit, came into the temple courts, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was customary according to the law, Simeon took him in his arms and blessed God.” (2:25-28 NET)

Simeon was able to wait because he knew God would be faithful in his promise to send a Savior. “For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples: a light, for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” –Luke 2:30-32 (NET)

“Unfulfilled and fulfilled promise are related to each other, as are dawn and sunrise. Both promise and in fact the same promise. If anywhere at all, then it is precisely in the light of the coming of Christ that faith has become Advent faith, the expectation of future revelation. But faith knows for whom and for what it is waiting. It is fulfilled faith because it lays hold on the fulfilled promise.” – Karl Barth

December is probably the busiest month of the year. We struggle with questions about what to buy the children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and everyone else. We are trying to schedule all the parties, church events, and shopping until we realize we forgot Christmas. It is quite possible the Advent season can work much like a check engine light in our car, alerting us that something needs our attention.

Advent beautifully reminds us that God doesn’t have a word of the year, He has a Word for eternity.

“A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level,” the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together.

                               For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” –Isaiah 40:3-5

God is great!