Category: Pastor Tim’s Blog

It’s always interesting for me to see how children respond to department store Santas… especially the younger ones.  They respond sometimes with tears, other times with curiosity, and sometimes with terror in their faces!  The braver kids will still work the camera for Mom and Dad and smile, but many I think are put off by the large man in the red suit and the fuzzy white beard.

But what would happen, I wonder, if we could take off Santa’s cap; pull off the white beard… and underneath the Santa costume is THEIR DADDY?  The looks of terror would turn to squeals of joy; the feelings of angst would turn to comfort as they look into their father’s face; the strange man is now a familiar presence and not an alien one.

Something like that happens to us when we realize that, as “a child is born to us and a son is given, ” certain aspects of God that may be terrifying and off-putting and anxiety-producing now become familiar, peaceful, and joyful for us.   That is why God gave His Son.  That is why “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  That is why our Savior came… not in the terrifying garb of an angry God, but in the peaceful sounds of a newborn baby.

And that is why Emmanuel had to come.  We would never have understood God otherwise!  We would never have wanted to.  But now, we can draw near to Him.  Now, we can look into the face of our Savior and see the Father.  Now we can truly be in God’s presence without terror and cleansed from our guilt without shame.   Now we can come home.

And isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given….and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:16-17)

FOR REFLECTION:  When did God become a comforting Presence for you, and not a troubling one?

Years ago I heard a story about a man in Chicago who chose to stay home on Christmas Eve as his family went to church. It was a cold night, the fire was roaring in the fireplace of his home, and he saw no sense in going out on such a terrible night to sing to a God he didn’t believe in anyway.

His struggle, at least intellectually, had to do with his doubt that God even existed and that, if He did exist, why He would want to communicate to His creation? And why does He allow suffering to come if He is God? It just didn’t make sense to him on any level. And so, smug in his unbelief and snug in his place before the fire, he sat.

That’s when the snow began falling in earnest, and the windchill dropped, and in desperation, birds began flying at his window toward the fire inside. One after the other, the small birds would pound into his window and collapse to their death. His heart was breaking at the plight of the birds and so, throwing on boots and his winter coat he went outside and began to furiously wave his arms hoping to scare the birds away. He jumped and then began shouting but all in vain. The birds kept pelting against the window and dying.

It was in that moment that the thought crossed his mind: If for just a moment I could become a bird, I could tell them to turn away before they hit the window. If I could only become a bird….
And suddenly, the light dawned in his heart. That was why God became a man. We would never understand Him if He simply remained in Heaven. And so He stepped into the cold waters of this planet and became a baby. God in flesh. Emmanuel.

Hot tears coursed down his cheeks as the truth suddenly dawned. And he knew that, in his care of these random birds, God cares so much more for people made in His image and wants none to suffer and none to die.

And suddenly, Christmas made sense.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in a land of deep darkness the light has dawned. (Isaiah 9:2)

FOR REFLECTION: Who do you know today that is walking in darkness? How can you bring them to the light?

The Biblical doctrine of the incarnation (in-flesh-ing) of God requires us to accept two equal realities-that Jesus was FULLY God (Deity) and, at the same time, FULLY human. He was always and at all times 100% both. Now, like Mary, we try to grasp that reality and ask, “How can this be?” How can God come down to us in flesh? How can the same flesh we all wear bear within it “all the fullness of the Deity (godhead/Trinity) in bodily form? How can Trinity be contained in humanity? How can God come wrapped in the body of a baby?

And yet, that is precisely what the Bible teaches. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” This Word that was the creative energy that called creation into existence…that was the second Person of the Trinity….the Son of God….became flesh and “pitched His tent” (lived) among us.

I sometimes think we have less trouble thinking about God….the God Who is “out there,” the God Who is beyond us, the God Who is transcendent….than we do thinking about God coming near to us. But to use Mark Batterson’s descriptive phrase, we must accept that God is “high” and at the same time that God is “nigh.”

It’s the “nigh” part that bothers us. It is the nearness and humanity of Jesus that countless false teachers and cult religions have tried to explain away. It is the humanity of Jesus that we stumble over, that the religious scholars of Jesus’ day stumbled over….that we try to explain away. We don’t want a God Who is “nigh”; not really. Because if we can understand Him, we are responsible to obey Him. If we can know Him, we are challenged to live or die for Him. If we can begin to understand Him, then we can draw near to Him.

If the Word has become flesh and dwells among us, we can follow Him. And that is precisely what Christmas calls us to do.

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect…. (Hebrews 2:17a)

FOR REFLECTION: Do you sometimes find it difficult to think about Jesus as God with flesh and blood?

We have all done it.  Spoken in clichés, or in words designed to hide more than to reveal…to disguise rather than unveil.  Every relationship has the opportunity to remain on the surface of who you are or to go deep and reveal your heart.  Communication is the vehicle through which that can happen.  Relationships exist so this has a place to happen.

While some communication exists to transfer information, the process of communication is fundamentally about self-revelation or self-disclosure.  The most meaningful levels of communication are those in which we learn, not data, but who the person is we are communicating with.  Communication is about removing the mask of superficiality, of going below the surface of a relationship into the depths with another.

Adam and Eve began life in the Garden at a place of absolute transparency. (see Genesis 2:25) They were “not afraid” to let the other person see them as they were.  But when sin invaded, they hid from God and from each other.  We do the same.  Our communication becomes unclear, clouded with fear, half-truths, and superficiality.  To truly communicate strips all these things away… we can show the other person who we are without fear.  “There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear.”  (1 John 4:18)

Christmas was the ultimate step of God making the effort to self-reveal to us.  In the incarnation of Jesus, we see the Deity…the fullness of God indwelling Jesus bodily.   God is not hidden from us anymore… nor does He ever want to be.  We don’t have to wonder Who God is;  He came as a baby at Bethlehem.  “He who has seen Me has seen the Father,” Jesus later would say.  In Jesus, God is self-revealed!   “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  (John 1:1)  God perfectly revealed Himself in the vulnerability and weakness and sweetness of a human baby.

And with Christmas, we can celebrate the God Who came to show us Who He was!

   Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate Deity;
Born as man, with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel!

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all   things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”  (Colossians 1:19)

FOR REFLECTION:  How has God revealed Himself personally in your life?

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?