At the heart of Christmas--

The heart of Christmas is about waiting.  Whether in the physical realm or the spiritual one, if Christmas teaches us anything, it is to wait.

Do you remember when you were a child?  The universal question: “Is it Christmas yet?” plagued our parents just as much as we’ve been plagued.  It gets asked ten times a day since the day after thanksgiving.  That’s roughly 27 days before it actually arrives.  That’s about 270 times each season.  Factoring in that a child begins speaking fluently around 3 and doesn’t lose the luster of Christmas about around 13, that’s 10 years of asking…or roughly an average of 2,700 times per child.

And how about those traffic jams caused by holiday shoppers?  Weren’t cars designed to move?  If I want to sit in one I’ll go to an antique car show.  We just don’t have a chance these days.  Either we’re cut off by some dare devil road hog who nearly smashes our front fender or we get behind the most cautious driver the roadways have ever known.  You know the kind—the one who backs off the accelerator two blocks from the stop sign coasting to a complete stop; allowing seconds to elapse; then turning with deliberate intent to the right, perusing oncoming traffic.  Seeing none, they gaze to the left, scoping out the statistical possibility of a traffic skirmish.  Seeing none, what do they do?  They turn back to the right to see if the situation has changed.  And suddenly they see it—an approaching car.  It’s one and a half miles away, but it’s approaching and they’re not about to interfere with oncoming traffic.  About that time I’m hoping, just hoping and praying that they are a Christian.  Because maybe, just maybe, if they’re a Christian, they’ll have a “Honk, if you love Jesus” bumper sticker and I’ll have an excuses for blasting down on my horn!

And speaking of holiday shopping, have you ever seen all 32 cashiers at Walmart working at the same time?  The customers don’t help matters any.   There’s the one who never starts unloading their cart until the person in front of them is totally done.  Then they roll up to the cashier and start unloading their 427 items.  Or the other kind of customer starts unloading their 427 items on 4 inches of conveyor belt space.  Their stuff flowing over the bar separator, covering my own merchandise.  And why don’t people sign their checks before the clerk tells them their cost?  Do they think they’re going to get it free?

Ah, yes, the angst of waiting!

Of course there are far more serious weights of waiting.  An out-of-work father waiting for a job offer.  Or a barren couple that have invested much in fertility drugs, waiting to have a baby.  Or a wife waiting to hear a word of praise, instead of foul criticism from her husband.  Some parents wait to hear from a wayward child—not even knowing if they are alive or healthy.  Some wait for a spouse—someone to call your own and to love on.  They’d probably even settle for a date but the phone never rings and the invitations never come. 

Oh!  The weight of waiting.  But that’s one of the many beautiful things about Christmas.  It teaches us about waiting and helps us handle the weight of it with more grace and trust.

King Ahaz of Judah had to wait.  Around 735 B.C. things weren’t going too well for him.  Assyria was the regional super-power and had subjugated area countries several years earlier.  But now, Assyria’s military attention was elsewhere and countries around Palestine started to form an alliance to rebel against Assyria.  The kings of Aram and Israel were pressuring Ahaz to join their alliance.  In fact, they threatened military invasion if he would not join them.  But Ahaz was inclined to keep paying tribute to Assyria and not rebel.  This did not endear him to the super-patriots of his country.  They were ready to be free and wanted war with Assyria; thus they were more than willing to see Ahaz ousted from power.  Faced with these pressures, God gave Ahaz a promise through his prophet Isaiah: “the virgin will conceive and bear a son and will call his name Immanuel, God with us.”

This promise really went beyond Ahaz.  God was speaking to him, but in a larger sense, God was speaking to all of Judah and, in fact, to all the world.  He was telling us that the day would come when we wouldn’t have to worry about this world’s pressures—that someday there would be a good ruler that we could completely trust.  Immanuel would come and God would be with us!

At that moment, God reaffirmed the promise He made thousands of years earlier in the garden of Eden.  God promised the Serpent, our adversary the Devil that:

·          One was coming who would crush his head. 
·          One was coming who would destroy his kingdom.
·          One would render evil powerless and sin ineffective.
·          One would help rulers make wise and good decisions.
·          One who become like we are so that we can become like He is.

So Ahaz, hang in there!  Face your pressures!  Wait and hold on.  Immanuel is coming!

·          God will not turn his back on our fickleness—He will be with us!
·          God will not ignore us—He will be with us!
·          God will not be standoffish or aloof—but with us!
·          God will not be callous to our pain—He’ll come and feel it with us!
·          God will not abandon us—He will save us!

And so the wait was on.  Messiah didn’t come after the eviction from Eden and Adam and Eve didn’t see deliverance from the curse.  He didn’t come Himself to pull Israel out of their bondage, hurts and oppressions from Egypt—but sent an ex-murderer prone often to lose his temper—to be His instrument.

And Ahaz himself, the one to whom this promise was given, died before seeing the virgin conceive.  In fact, God didn’t show up in the flesh until over 700 years later.  Now there’s a thought.  The problem ripping your heart and shredding your soul will get fixed 700 years from now.  Can you hold on?

The people who believed God’s promise waited and waited and waited.

One such man who waited was named Simeon.  He waited and hoped and trusted and believed and waited some more for God to show up on the scene of human history.  He waited as powerful Romans harassed his friends and perverted justice.  He waited as wealthy and disloyal countrymen exploited common, working-class families.  And one day, his wait was over.  A young couple named Mary and Joseph brought their newborn son into the Temple to be circumcised and the Holy Spirit revealed to Simeon exactly who he was holding.  “Now let me die in peace” he said, “for my eyes have seen Your salvation!”

That’s one message of Christmas!  That God makes good on His promise!  And while people had to wait—and wait and wait—for our Savior to come—come He did!  Through His cross, sin has been paid for and our enemy’s power broken.  I can now be the husband my wife deserves, and the father my children need and the pastor God intends me to be—not because I have achieved some degree of enlightenment; not because of my own effort—I am flawed and often selfish.  I can be those things because I am saved—because Immanuel has come and God is with me!

So hang on to your promise.  Hold on to that hope!  Lean on the God who always delivers on His promises.  Your arduous circumstances will soon change.  Your pain will soon be gone.  Not today, and probably not tomorrow; and maybe not even next week.  In the meantime, let Immanuel love on you.  Let Him embrace you.  Hear Him whisper in your ear, “It will be alright—let’s face it together.”  Let His strength sustain your weakness.  Hang on to that Christmas promise—He makes all things beautiful in His time.

And because God made good on His promise in sending His Son Jesus, I can wait for Him to make good on His promise that He’ll be back.  Don’t get me wrong.  I didn’t say I like waiting or that it’s easy, I just said I can do it.  With His help and by His strength I can wait.

What I want you to see today is that while life is pretty messed up, there is a God who isn’t.  While others hurt me, there’s a God who heals me.  Life can frustrate you—God can fulfill you.

I don’t like greedy, evil abortionists exploiting vulnerable young women and maiming and torturing and killing precious children.  I get tired of the setbacks and wacko judicial rulings. I’ll work hard against those evils but I’m waiting for my King to come back and make His ruling.  Oh, it’s hard to wait, but He’s coming and children will soon be safe!

 

 

The Postal Christmas Stamp

Having recently exhorted my son NOT to play some Christmas music he had recently checked out from the library and to wait until after Thanksgiving, I suppose I risk some degree of hypocrisy on this blog post. I believe we shouldn’t rush into the Christmas season just yet. Merchants go from orange and black to red and green overnight. And while I’m more than happy to see the witches and black cats disappear from the shelves, I wish we’d see more pilgrims and fewer Santas in November. I definitely think it wise to linger over Thanksgiving and give praise and thanks to God.

But upon opening my mail today, I noticed a flyer from the United States Postal Service advertising their domestic Priority Mail Flat Rate holiday delivery. Scanning through the little pamphlet, I noticed a section "Don’t forget your holiday stamps!" Yes, I caught the more benign "holiday" as opposed to "Christmas". But what really irked me was the picture of the three stamps they promoted.

With news of the recent Harry Potter stamps and the 2005 misunderstanding still in my mind (the USPS, for the first time in its history didn’t print a new ‘Madonna & Child’ design, but used the previous year’s design), I feared something amiss. Fortunately, a visit over to usps.com allayed my concerns. While there are more choices for non-Christian stamps than Christian ones, patrons can purchase ‘the Holy Family’ stamp or choose between two different designs of the ‘Mary & Child’ motif.

Still, that the Postal System promotes Hanukkah and Kwanzaa in their ‘holiday’ section of this pamphlet at the expense of Christmas was disturbing. My computer is running too slowly for me to research how many stamps of each the USPS sells; or how many Americans celebrate each of those holidays. But I think common sense tells us more Americans observe Christmas than the other two combined.

We are approaching Christmas. CHRISTmas. Yes, it’s all about Jesus. A Savior who was born, died and saved us from our sins. Perhaps my son can start playing his Christmas music after all.

Christmas Can Have Uncertainty

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me”
Psalm 23:4

No one goes to Colorado for the valleys. Vale and Aspen owe their wealth to mountains, not valleys. Tourists don’t pay exorbitant sums of money to ascend Pike’s Valley, it’s Pike’s Peak they want to scale. We all know the view from the mountains is spectacularly breath-taking.

And through the pathway of life, we like the mountains as well. When we can see clearly and the air is fresh and the wind is blowing and we sense refreshment, grandeur, calm, power—this is to what we aspire. But snaking our way through the dark valleys is a journey anyone would rather skip.

The Christmas cast of the New Testament gospels knew valleys well. Simeon the priest saw Roman guards on the street corners on his way to work at the Temple. Every day he kept hoping for the Messiah. Every night he went home disappointed. And the shepherds? No doubt they often heard music from the parties of Bethlehem, but society had taught them well their status in life. Ostracized and outcast, they watched others dance and heard about the great events in the cities, they trudged to their lonely hillsides to spend yet another night with sheep, while others in the world made merry with friends.

The wise men too, those magi from the East, were encumbered with a culture of political chaos. They grew tired and impatient with incompetent leaders who made promises they never kept. Joseph was a blue collar worker who struggled with making a living. After paying high taxes to Caesar Augustus, he tried to figure out how to set aside a little extra for his family. There never seemed to be enough money. And Mary? I’m sure the changes she was feeling inside her were very frightening. Even more frightening was the appearance of an angel who told her what she was feeling was pregnancy—via the Holy Spirit! Try telling that to a chauvinistic Jewish population. She was plummeted into a valley overnight.

But none of those folks stayed in the valley. Read just a couple of chapters of the gospels and you’ll quickly discover that an encounter with Jesus pulled these folks out of their valley and moved them to a mountaintop.

It’s the same today. Some of you are in a valley. Call it loneliness, hurt, disappointment, sin, financial uncertainty, job insecurity or whatever label you choose. Maybe you’re there. Smack dab in the middle of a valley. Some situation that stinks. Some event you’re not sure you can face another day. But do you remember the words of today’s Scripture reading “The Lord is my shepherd”? The baby in the manger became our Shepherd who is always with us, who will guide us through dark, uncertain valleys.

This Christmas remember His presence. There’s no need for fear, because He is with You. In crowded lines at Wal-mart and candlelight worship services, our Shepherd is with us!

Post-Christmas, Pre-New Year

God is glorious. While Christmas 2010 has passed without my adding any insights to cyberspace, I would want to offer this simple adage...God is glorious. If Christmas is about anything, it is that God makes all things right…in His time. Yes, Jesus was birthed into this world… “the Word became flesh” in the words of John. That’s why we’ve celebrated and continue to celebrate December 25th. Jesus, the Savior is born! But it would be some decades between His arrival and the moment His innocent blood would be shed, effectively reconciling sinful man to our holy God. His birth was only the beginning, the starting point of a life that would be offered. The message of “peace on earth” gloriously heralded by a “multitude of the heavenly host” could only be achieved at Golgotha, some thirty years later. But it was achieved…all in God’s timing. And there is much more that will be achieved…all in God’s timing.