Author: TimMaynard

“When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman…..”  (Galatians 4:4)

How is “the fullness of time” determined?  Ultimately we can never know the formula God used to determine when “the right time,” or “the fullness of time,” or “the perfect moment” came for Christ to be “sent forth.”  We can, however, discern some remarkable things that were happening in the hour of Christ’s birth:

• The Dispersion of the Jews.  The Jewish people by now had, due to persecution, military conflict, and an evangelistic zeal among some of them, moved to most parts of the known Roman world of that day.  The first thing they did when establishing a colony was to build a synagogue where Torah and Law could be taught.  These were the birthplaces of some of the earliest Christian teaching with ready-made public platforms.
• The Protection of the Jews.  For the first seventy years following the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the Christian faith (“The Way”) did not exist as a “stand alone” religion but instead was considered legally a sect of Judaism under Roman Law.  Because of their inability to break the Jews by making them worship Caesar as every other religion under Rome was forced to do, they granted an exemption to this idolatrous act.  Christianity was protected under that same principle of law.

  The Culture of the World.  The culture of that day had been overtaken by Greece.  While the Romans conquered the world militarily and enforced the rule of law of the people conquered, Greece captured the hearts and minds of the people.  Koine Greek was spoken almost everywhere by nearly every person.  It was in that common (koine) language that the New Testament was first written.

• The Peace of Rome.  Christ was born into a world no longer at war.  Rome had conquered the world.  This left thousands of unemployed soldiers looking for work….and they were hired by Rome as “security guards” to build and protect the intricate highway system that interconnected the empire.  Early Christians could travel safely on these roads and even the waterways courtesy of the “pax Romana…” The peace of Rome.

These factors alone made this “the right time;” the FULLNESS OF TIME for God to send forth His Son into the world….to redeem those who were under the law.  The early church thrived in this environment socially, culturally, politically, and philosophically.   It was, indeed, a time of the Father’s choosing.

The “fullness of time.”

It’s completely invisible.  Odorless.  Colorless.  Weightless.  And yet, it’s indispensable.  Without it, life becomes intolerable.  Relationships become impossible.  The future becomes unthinkable.  To live without it or to try and do so, is an exercise in doing the impossible.  Recovery for the cancer patient becomes unlikely…and the grieving find the path ahead impossible without it.

This indispensable reality, of course, is hope.  Four simple letters frame one of the most important realities for all of us…and in a special way for those who are Christians.  It is hope that helps us press on through difficulty, believing a better day is coming.  It is hope that moves us past the graveyard to life again.  It is hope that allows us to experience a new beginning for broken relationships and to focus on the dawning of a new tomorrow and not the death of dreams from yesterday.  It is hope that moves us beyond failure.

“Hope,” the Word of God assures us, “ does not make us ashamed.”

One day, our hope will be confirmed by what we can see, feel, hear, and touch.  Until that day, hope holds us tightly and keeps our eyes focused on that which is still to come.  And of course, we have the “blessed hope” of Christ returning.  We have much to be hopeful for and Christmas is an annual reminder of the hope which is ours through the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  My prayer for you is that, during this season, your hope will be strengthened and renewed, and that we will all experience a hope-full Christmas!

As I write this column, Ferguson, Missouri is in flames.  The anger, the shouts of injustice, and smoke from burning cars and buildings fill the air in this normally sedate Midwestern town.  Police and other law enforcement agencies seem helpless to quell the tension and to fully protect the property and citizenry.

I realize we can never fully enter into the decision that drove officer Wilson to fire on Michael Brown.  We cannot fully appreciate or understand the dynamics of that moment.

I realize that, as a conservative, white male in America I have never fully felt the sting of prejudice or the pain of injustice as many who have fought for civil rights in our nation have had to endure.   Clearly, the racial divide in America has not gone away.

And I realize that, as a father, I cannot walk deeply into the valley of the shadow of death as Michael Brown’s parents have been forced to do as they grapple with being the parents of a child taken from them by violence.

But as a believer in and follower of the Lamb of God I realize that, in this day of cultural change and ultimately cultural collapse, the urgency of our message has never been greater.  We have a message of peace that is the answer for the violence and chaos of Ferguson, Mo and every home, every workplace, every school and every streetcorner where violence and darkness seem to rule the day.  The Prince of Peace is the answer that we need. Ferguson, Missouri needs it.  So do Kabul and Jerusalem and Miami and Jacksonville.

Will we be carriers of the message….purveyors of Peace in a violent world?  Or will we shrink back from telling the Good News to those who need it most in these urgent and troubling times?

May the fires of Ferguson fuel a flame in each of us that moves us forward with THE message of Peace….the only answer.

“His name shall be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

Gratitude.  We all run low on gratitude.  Either we are low on RECEIVING gratitude that we may feel (sometimes grudgingly) is owed to us or we are low on the GIVING end (as Jesus found nine of the ten healed lepers being).

Gratitude.  There’s a shortage going round.  One of the key (overlooked) signs that we are in the last days is the sign of a shortage of gratitude!

Gratitude.  It’s not a take it or leave it commodity.  Our relationships grind to a halt, or at least to a friction-filled slowdown, without it.  Being thanked once in a while really is important.

Gratitude.  We have much to be grateful for.  On a recent return trip to our country, I found myself reflecting more than usual about how grateful I am for our freedoms, our privileges, our security, and our access to so many blessings.  I found myself overcome by gratitude.

Gratitude.  It’s one thing to feel it…another to express it.  If you are grateful, tell the person to who you are grateful.  If you appreciate what another does or says, let them know you really do appreciate them.

Gratitude.  The Son of God knew that He had done something that deserved appreciation, respect, gratitude and applause.  And maybe the nine lepers who walked away with newly regenerated skin were grateful.  They just didn’t say it.  Isn’t that just as bad?

Gratitude.  Teach your children to be thankful, parents.  Show them what it sounds like.  Expect them to EXPRESS it when you do something nice for them.  Maybe they’ll pass it on to others.

Gratitude.  Don’t leave home without it.  Someone is waiting on it…today.

“Give thanks to the Lord….for He is good.”

Does Brittany Maynard’s decision to die with dignity in Oregon really mean anything to you?  How can a young woman diagnosed with brain cancer on the other side of the country affect your life where you live and breathe today?  Should we care?  Do you?

The “death with dignity” debate has brought to the forefront disparate groups of people on both sides of the issue.  On one hand, there are those who see her decision to “die on her own terms” as brave, even heroic as a gesture. They would advocate the administration of drugs underwritten by government funds to “hasten the end” of a suffering person (insert “Alzheimer’s patient,” “baby with birth defect,” or “person averse to suffering”).  After all, no one has to suffer if they don’t want to, right?

On the other hand are those represented by the Vatican’s statement that Brittany’s actions were an “absurdity.”   But can we write her situation off and dismiss her as an anomaly, or are other people waiting to walk in her footsteps?  And after all, brain cancer is a horrific illness.  I watched my own father die with it.  “So what do we say to these things,” as Paul eloquently asked the Romans.  How do we respond to a situation that falls somewhere between absurd and logical?

Let me be personal.  Was there a value in my father’s dying?  I watched day by day, sometimes up close and sometimes at a distance as the man I knew and loved gradually slipped away in confusion, and perhaps in pain.  We really couldn’t tell, because my Dad was the kind of guy that wouldn’t have admitted it had he felt it.  I watched the loving sacrifice of his wife, my Mom, as she walked with him through the toughest miles of their marriage.  She would sit for hours holding his head on her lap in the nursing home where he spent his last weeks on earth.  She would slip headphones on him so he could listen to tapes of Bill Gaither’s Homecoming and block out the cries and chaos of that place.  Would my Mom trade those last days with my Dad?  Would she wish them to be hastened along by a “merciful” intervention from a doctor who has rejected the Hippocratic Oath? She never said. But I think not. Because love doesn’t walk away in the midst of the fire.

It stays.

“What can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord?”  Absolutely nothing.  So what do we say to those who are standing in the midst of the fiery trial of suffering with an invasion of cancer or the robbery of Alzheimer’s?  Do we tell them to walk away?  That God doesn’t believe in His Creation suffering?  That pain has no purpose and no place in His plan?  “No, in all these things we are super conquerers” through Jesus Christ.  But the conquerer doesn’t leave until the battle has ended.  Deserters are never given medals.  Neither do they know the joy of conquest.  The overcomer doesn’t walk away from the fight.   And neither should we.

In his book THE FIGHT, John White says, “Tough times will either make you or break you.  If you are not utterly crushed by them, you will be enlarged by them.  The pain will make you live more deeply and expand your consciousness of God.”

There are two ways to go through life.  We can go through life like a snorkeler, living on the surface and seeing some things at a distance, or we can live like a diver, swimming beneath the waves and experiencing life in a way the snorkeler never does.

Living deeply is our desire. Living deeply means we live more and more in reliance upon God. (Romans 5:3-5)

But living deeply comes with a cost.  Avoiding pain and difficult leads us to a shallow life, a shallow character, a shallow faith.  We aspire to have the character of Christ  formed in us but for that character to be fully formed God must chip away those things in our lives that don’t look like Jesus.  The “chipping away” is painful.

Christ taught us how to live deeply in the times of testing.  As He hung upon the cross, dying for our sins, the book of Hebrews said “For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame…”

Our focus must be on the end result of our struggle, not on the pain itself.  It is Christ’s desire to bring us “life, and that more abundantly.”  That’s living more deeply.  That’s walking with Christ in the fellowship of His suffering.  And that’s where we meet Jesus most powerfully.

Most normal people like Krispy Kreme donuts (in my opinion).  Some of us like them TOO much!  No one, however, would enjoy eating a cold ball of fat and dough which is what a Krispy Kreme really is….before the fire.

These tasteless little dough-balls are placed through an intricate process of preparation which begins by creating a hole in the center with a blast of air.  The now circular dough is then placed in a proof box and through the application of heat and humidity made to rise.  After the dough has risen, it is then dumped unceremoniously into a vat of boiling oil.  When it is cooked through, the newly created doughnut is run through a cascading waterfall of sweet icing.  Voila!  A Krispy Kreme doughnut is born.

The New Testament books and letters compiled from Hebrews to Revelation are directed to Christians going through the fire. Sometimes we wonder why we’re being blasted, boiled, and “proven.”  It is, as Peter said, “… so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”   (1 Peter 1:7)

As with our little doughball, the result of the fire always brings about a sweeter outcome than we began with.  There are things that God can only do with us as He places us in “the proof box” and turns up the heat.  We have a choice.  We can resent the process and fight it every step of the way, or we can surrender to the greater will of the Father and accept it “with joy.”  (James 1:3)

God promises the sweetness will come as He finishes what He started in your life and mine. Hang in there. Don’t give up.  The best is yet to be.