Month: December 2015

Communicating on any level is difficult.  Some experts in the area claim that, in any spoken statement, there are six possible ways to interpret what was said.  That means there are five possible ways to misunderstand any spoken statement!  Communication can get blurry.  Calls can get “dropped” in our conversations with each other.  Interpretation can make words fuzzy.  And then there’s the age -old question of communication:  If the person you intended to receive the question didn’t understand or receive your message, did communication truly happen?

The incarnation of Jesus was the ultimate act of communication.  We read in Hebrews 1 that “God… in these last days has spoken to us by His Son.”  Literally it says, “in son-ness.”  In other words, to make certain that what He was saying got through to us in a way we could receive it, He wrapped His message, His greatest communication, in His Son.  “And the Word (Divine communication) was made (became) flesh and dwelt among us.”  (John 1:14)

Max DuPress writes about the birth of his first grandchild.  Zoe was born months prematurely and for some time the family’s ability to touch and hold Zoe was severely restricted.  One day, some of the restrictions were lifted.   The NICU nurse came and told the family that it was vitally important for them now to touch Zoe gently, rubbing her arms while speaking to her so that she would begin to associate their voice with their touch.  That’s what God did in the incarnation.  In Christ, the Voice of God was associated with the Touch of God in Jesus Who was “the Word made flesh.”

Christmas is that time we celebrate “receiving” the communication of God, wrapped in swaddling clothes in Bethlehem’s manger.  We “hear” God speaking there, through the infant coos of a baby’s voice.  We “hear” God telling us He loves us.  We “hear” God’s heartbeat in the lowly infant born to Mary.  The Word became flesh… a baby’s flesh… and grew to communicate God’s greatest message of love at the cross.

How this Word of the Father is received, however, is up to you.  Just like some people are guilty of having “selective hearing,” so humanity has selective hearing when it comes to God’s communication.  We may be guilty of “dropping the call” so to speak, misunderstanding or muting God’s voice altogether.  Not wise, but we do it.

The important question is:  Can you hear Him now?

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (Hebrews 1:1-2)

FOR REFLECTION:  What can you do this Christmas season to clearly hear God’s voice to you?

One of the greatest gifts we receive with Christ’s incarnation is peace with God.  Knowing that God is no longer angry with us allows us to work toward reconciliation with others.  Every conflict, every offense, every broken relationship is traced back to the breakdown of our relationship with God.  At its core, every conflict begins as a conflict with God!

Sometimes we wonder at how people (or, if we’re honest, even we ourselves) can blow up relational bridges with each other.  The familiar  Christmas carol “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was taken from a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1863.  Penned while his son was away serving in the Union Army without his father’s blessing,  Wadsworth lamented:

And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong that mocks the song
Of peace on earth goodwill to men

Civil war still rages, not just among nations but between races, and ethnic groups, and churches and families and even within households.  There seem to be some people who cannot get along for anything and we are mystified by the depth of this conflict.  But it’s no mystery.  At the core of their being, they are in conflict with God.

People at peace with God learn how to live at peace with each other.  They learn how to dial back the temperature in moments of anger, and how to hold back rhetoric that inflames an already fragile situation.  They are at peace with God.  They do not delight in striking back, but can forgive.

God sent Christ with this promise, that now there can be “peace on earth, good will toward men.”  Perhaps the greatest gift that Christ’s coming brings us is that peace.  And maybe, when we can learn to get along with each other in the peace that God provides, we can truly together sing the song “of peace on earth good will toward men.”

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  (Romans 5:1)

FOR REFLECTION:  What do you need to do today that would move a relationship toward peace?

Today is our first Sunday of worship in December.  Things change at Christmas… decorations cover the walls and hallways; trees line our homes and neighborhoods.; wonderful sights and smells greet us everywhere we go.  Christmas changes things.  And it should change our worship, too.  I pray that the power of Christmas will cause us to look up and long for a transformation in our own hearts.  That the joy of Christmas will emerge from our lips in praise.  And that the peace of Christmas will fill our hearts to overflowing.  Christmas changes things.

When Christ came, everything changed.  It was some time before we saw it, but one- by- one people started to receive the truth that God had indeed become man and now walked… among us!  We were “Emmanuel-ed!”  God is now with us.  First, a young Jewish girl named Mary received it.  Then her betrothed husband Joseph got it.  Then, shepherds watching their sheep got it.  We read about men from the Orient, wise men who came to worship, understood and bowed before Emmanuel.

They understood that God had not only sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law (Galatians 4:4) but that God had sent His Son with a mission… not just to live among us but also to die for us! “ He redeemed those who were under law (held in slavery to it) that we might received adoption as sons.”  Not only were we Emmanuel-ed; not only were we redeemed and set free from a cruel slave master that is the Law, but we were cleaned up, taken home and made part of the family of God as an adopted child! (Galatians 4:6)

No wonder the “herald angels sing!”  No wonder the Heavens bow in wonder at the birth of the King.  No wonder we rejoice at Christmas!  No wonder there is joy!  We have been RECONCILED to God!

GOD IS WITH US!  THE LORD HAS COME!

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s   go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” (Luke 2:15)

FOR REFLECTION:  Does Christmas change the way you worship?

Timing, they say, is everything.   Whether it is timing how long to bake the cake or casserole in the oven for Christmas dinner, or what time it is when the kids wake you up to open their presents on Christmas morning.  Timing has its place at Christmas.

But the coming of Jesus…the birth of Jesus also is about timing.  “In the fullness of time,” Galatians 4:4 tells us, “God sent forth His Son…”  The phrase “fullness of time” deserves some attention to understand what this verse is actually saying.  The word  “fullness” is a word that means “to bring to completion, to make something whole.”  It can be used to mean the act of filling a basket or patching a hole.  But here it is best understood to say that the time was complete.

That means that the birth of Jesus, nor the birth of any child, is a random act.  Children do not just happen.  God carefully orchestrated the birth of Jesus and the surrounding circumstances.  He put people, governments, soldiers, shepherds, and even a king in place.  And when the time was completed, THEN and ONLY THEN God “sent forth His Son (that’s DEITY), born of a woman (that’s HUMANITY), born under the Law (that’s HUMILITY).”

His Divine mission, His human transmission, and His physical flesh (born under Law as a Jew) were all placed together in a massive accomplishment of Divine intervention… of a miraculous spiritual interposition… and Christ was born.

A more perfect time, a more perfect moment, a more perfect Christmas could not have existed.  The Holy Child, born to a virgin mother, in a Jewish family, under Roman occupation, during Herod’s rule, with a carpenter for a stepfather.  All in the timing of God.

And, though it may seem long in coming, God’s timing is ALWAYS best!

“When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman; born under  the Law,   in order that He might redeem those under Law, that we might receive adoption.”   (Galatians 4:4-5)

FOR REFLECTION:  How has the timing of God proven best in your life?

Sadly for some Christmas can prove to be quite difficult.  I am not talking about the extra load the Moms or wives have to bear in preparing meals, wrapping presents, and shopping (not to mention cleaning up, returning gifts, etc.) I know, I know… you get tired just reading this!  I am not even talking about the frustration of young parents assembling some of their first real Christmas toys….little knowing that they had been recruited as “Santa’s helpers!”  These things can be wearying, but Christmas is hard for some.

• It’s tough for those going through their first Christmas without their spouse.
• It’s tough for those coming into the season without a job.
• It’s tough for the single adult who so longs to be part of their own family.
• It’s tough for the missionary family on the field living in a culture where Christmas is not celebrated…as they miss their family celebration at home.
• It’s tough for the wife of the deployed soldier; the mother of a chronically ill child; the parents of a depressed adolescent or a child in prison…the family spending Christmas in the hospital.

And let’s not forget that Christmas also was tough on Mary and Joseph.

It’s hard to imagine the difficulty of that first Christmas…a young mother bearing her first child without her own mother or a midwife present.  Unthinkable!  A father who had to come to grips with the assignment of raising….God’s Son.  Impossible! An overpressed village with no place to find privacy or rest.  A birthplace that had first been occupied by animals.  The first blanket wrapping their Christ child a burial cloth.

We wipe the reality and truth off of Christmas when we think of it only as a time of rejoicing with great joy.  We think this season of the homeless on our streets and the refugees from other lands.  We think of the abused child or the abandoned orphan.

And we remember that Jesus came for them as well.  The One who was born to peasant parents in a third world county who later themselves became refugees in Egypt understands our plight.  He gets it.  He stands with the lonely, counsels the fearful, meets the abandoned….and never leaves us.

He is Christ, the Lord.

“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes because there was no room for them in the inn.”  (Luke 2:7)

REFLECTION:  How can we make room for the hurting this Christmas season?

There is no holiday on Earth that gets celebrated like Christmas.  Most holidays get a day…maybe two as celebration.  Christmas gets a month!  Or by one commentator’s observation this year, Halloween is now the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season!  They may be right.  How can the celebration of the simple birth of a peasant child in the Middle East…and not in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv but in Bethlehem….shut down traffic in Tokyo, Japan in 2015?  And yet each year it does.

That in itself is enough reason to ponder the “why” of Christ’s coming.  Surely we cannot convince ourselves that Christmas is about getting a great deal on an iPad on Black Friday or a two-for-one special at the local department store doorbuster?  And surely it’s not just about another chance to get the family home around the dinner table or to roast chestnuts on an open fire.

If we get this right, we have to admit that remembering the day that God invaded earth deserves a bit of celebration.  I mean, how often is it that we have an event on our calendar that we can point back to and said “This day changed the world!”  And yet it did.  You can’t even tell your age today without referencing Christmas.  I personally was born 1,954 years after Jesus was born!

But maybe the celebration is so great because of what we lack, not because of our abundance.  Maybe we sing so loudly at Christmas, even if out of key, because we need to remind ourselves that joy does exist in the world; that hope can come to the hopeless, that peace is a possibility even if it’s not presently a reality to many.

Christmas is a party!  It’s a celebration!  It is Heaven singing in harmony with earth….with sinners reconciled by their Creator….it is joy rolling over our sorrows….hope reigning over our despair….peace reigning in the chaos of our hearts and the brokenness of our world.

And the good news is:  The party never has to end!

“Do not be afraid, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy….for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior Who is Christ the Lord.”  (Luke 2:11)

REFLECTION:  As the world’s celebration of Christmas begins, how will our celebration of Christmas as a Christian stand in contrast?

Any number of things may light up that part of our brains that stores memories of Christmas past.  For some it may be the taste of a special recipe cookie.  Others may lean toward that first aroma of a special blend of coffee.  Some memories are triggered by sight.  Seeing Christmas décor, stockings, or even ugly sweaters can throw our minds into a whirlwind of remembrance.

While all of those things have ability to remind us, nothing does so for me more powefully than music.  Hearing familiar strains of Christmas songs that speak of our Savior’s coming…. “What Child is This,” or “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” ….can sometimes bring me to tears.  And listening to the opening refrain and overture of Handel’s majestic and inspired oratorio “Messiah” transports me to one of the gifts my father left me- a love for this Biblically-grounded masterpiece.

These memories are not without importance.  They connect us to a past that, while idealized, still lives within us.  We need to be able to answer two important questions in life:  Where we came from, and where we are going. We are looking for the answer to the first when we revisit the past.

Interestingly, Christmas answers both.  We find our Creator at the beginning of the Christmas story.  He was the One Who made us, and the One Who came personally to redeem and restore us…”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God!”    And we find our future on the other side of the empty tomb.  Because of the babe Who came at Christmas to reconcile God and sinner, we have a future that is secure and a past that is redeemed.

Charles Wesley has contributed much to our understanding of Christmas through the familiar words of “Hark, the Herald Angel Sings.”  The first stanza captures for us the why of Christmas:

God and sinners…. reconciled.

In another hymn found in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul wrote;

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man,

the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5)

Our Redeemer has come.  Our Savior is born.  And now, we can have peace with God as we are reconciled…. made one…with Him.

No wonder the angels sang!

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.” (Luke 2:12)

REFLECTION:  Which memory of Christmas is most important to you?  Why?

With the ending of the Thanksgiving holiday and before the leftover turkey has a chance to spoil, we are off and running into Christmas 2015! Black Friday (which started last Monday), Cyber Monday (which started on Saturday), and all the other oddly-named days between tell us that commercially at least, the countdown to Christmas day has begun.

Maybe for you Christmas begins with a groan as you crawled into your attic or waded through your garage to locate boxes of decorations put away last year. Already for some the battle to untangle Christmas lights or the struggle to reassemble the artificial tree or to stabilize the fresh pine tree or the effort to locate the leak in your gigantic 12- foot- tall blowup snowman signal Christmas has begun in your house!

We all have a memory, a song, a scent, a taste that signals the onset of Christmas season. It may be a pleasant time for some, and a painful time for others. Sometimes Christmas tightens the family bonds loosened by neglect throughout the year and sometimes Christmas accentuates our loneliness or the pain of a fractured relationship.

But however it comes, and whatever it brings, Christmas is upon us. This year I hope we can walk through Christmas with purpose, and not miss the richness of what the season really represents. I know we hear cries of “Keep Christmas in Christmas” each year. We reply to store clerks who benignly wish us “Happy Holiday” with “Merry Christmas!” Already this year we’ve gone to war over Starbucks cups leaving Christmas symbols off their cups.

And yet if we’re honest, we must confess our own guilt as believers by leaving Jesus out of the celebration of His coming to the earth which is far, far worse than the world doing it. How can we truly keep Christ as the center, Christ as the reason, Christ as the purpose of Christmas in our celebrations this year?

Maybe before we go much further into the season, that thought deserves our attention.

“All this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, ‘Behold the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which translated means, ‘God with us.’”   (Matthew 1:22-23)

FOR REFLECTION:

Think of one way that you, as a Christ-follower, or your family, can bring Christ to your neighborhood or your workplace this year?