Resolutions

I suppose it’s appropriate to post something about New Year’s resolutions since we are only a couple of days from the new year, but I have to admit I don’t do New Year’s resolutions.  I don’t like the whole concept.  We look back at the passing year with something like regret and convince ourselves we will do better next year, in spite of the evidence that we did this last New Year’s Eve and our resolve didn’t last past the end of January –  if we’re lucky.  I don’t know what it is about us that we think we can will ourselves into being better.  I know I sound a bit cranky right now, perhaps even downright crotchety, but my point here is that we need help.  I am all in favor of wanting change in our lives, of becoming better people, but it needs to be based on what is true.  And the truth is that making some noble sounding declarations on January 1^st about what we will do for the next 365 days just doesn’t work.  It misses the big picture.

 I want to be more Christ like.  I want my life to reflect the values that I claim to hold.  I want to show the “family resemblance” to my Father in the everyday goings-on of my life.  To do that, I need more than just will power, I need resurrection power.  I need the very life of Christ to course through my spiritual veins.   I recently read a sermon by the great 1800’s Scottish preacher Andrew Murray about the life of the vine based on John 15:5 – “I am the vine, you are the branches…apart from me you can do nothing”  Murray makes the point that the branch is totally dependent on the vine.  In order to grow, to thrive, to stay hydrated, to produce grapes, the branch must simply rest in the effectiveness and faithfulness of the vine to provide everything it needs.  The same is true for our lives – becoming totally dependent on Christ for all we need.  It is both a hard and simple concept to grasp.  We want to be self-reliant, but in order to truly change our lives we need to go to the One who has the power to change us.

 Murray writes, “The man who has got something is not absolutely dependent.  But the man who has got nothing is absolutely dependent… The branch has nothing but what it gets from the vine.  You and I have nothing but what we get from Jesus.”   As long as I hold on to the notion that I can change myself, that my self-effort can produce a better me, I will never be absolutely dependent.  I will always be fighting Him for control of my life, but, oh to be nothing, to bring nothing to the table but my desperate need, then I can receive from Him everything.

 Again Murray writes, “If I am something, then God is not everything, but when I become nothing, God can become all.”

 So the bottom line is this:  I won’t be making New Year’s resolutions, instead I will make daily declarations of my “nothingness” to Christ.  I desire to be a branch, a very dependent branch.  I want to be a branch every hour of every day of this year and every year.  And a year from now, I hope to be more nothing and Him be everything.  So instead of wishing you a Happy New Year, I wish you a Happy Nothing Year.

Christmas Musings – Herod and the Wise men

Christmas is only a few days away and as I considered the whole sweep of the great nativity story I saw something I hadn’t seen before.  We know the story of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem because Caesar had ordered a census and everyone was supposed to return to their hometown.  I realized for the first time the amount of turmoil and chaos that this would have caused with so many people on the move.  We know that once they reached Bethlehem, there was nowhere for Mary and Joseph to stay so they ended up in a stable, likely with other people.  It was in the midst of all this turmoil that Christ appeared.  Christ entered into the chaos that engulfed the world and brought something new.  He came into the chaos to give us peace and truth and light and life.  He came into the chaos to give us a relationship with God Himself – to give us everything that we cannot get for ourselves.

 So maybe we aren’t travelling in response to some government mandated census, but there is still plenty of turmoil in our lives.  It may take many forms – financial, emotional, relational, career, family, even spiritual, whatever it is it causes real turmoil.   How we respond will depend on who we think Christ is and His place in our lives.  There will be times of turmoil in our lives; chaos swirling around us.  In that case, I would suggest that you to let Christ enter into, be incarnated into, that world in order to show you how to live beyond the chaos and experience what only Christ can give.  Jesus once said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  That is quite the promise; I think we can take Him up on it.

 There is, however, a different kind of turmoil I want to consider.  A turmoil not due to external situations but due to the revelation of Christ in our lives.  When He shows up, He has a way of upsetting the status quo.  We seem to get all jumbled up because he challenges our neat little world that we have so carefully set up.  I began to think about how people respond to this turmoil and I looked at the story of the Wise Men, the magi, as a model for good and not so good responses.

 These wise men from the Persia area saw a star in the night sky and interpreted it as a sign of a great king being born.  They followed the heavenly sign post to Israel.  Arriving there they stopped in Jerusalem to consult with King Herod about the appearance of this star and its signaling of a new king of the Jews, the long promised Messiah.  The magi proceeded to Bethlehem to worship Christ.  In the meantime, Herod plotted to eliminate this threat to this kingship.

 In both cases the appearance of Christ, the revelation of the new king, caused some turmoil, it caused a shift in the lives of both the magi and Herod.  The magi had to decide how to respond to the news of a new king.  They could either ignore it and stay in the comfort of their homes in Persia, or they would have to go outside their comfort zone to seek the new king.  The magi represent for us the need to step outside our self-created box that dictates how we think God should work in our lives.  Stepping outside that box requires that we recognize His control – His Kingship – over our lives.  We speak of Jesus being “King” but what does that mean?  It means He has the say in how and when we spend our money and even how much we make.  It means He has the say in where we go.  It means He has the say in every aspect of our lives.  It means we do not have the right to make decisions without His approval.  Just as the magi did, we need to be willing to do whatever it takes to embrace the presence of Christ in our lives.

 The news of this newborn king also caused a crisis for Herod.   He also had to decide how to respond to the presence of Christ in his life.  For him it meant letting go of control of his kingdom.  It meant recognizing that he, Herod, was no longer the final authority.  But Herod couldn’t do that so he tried to kill Jesus; he tried to eliminate Christ from his life, get him out of his way.  Herod couldn’t allow anyone, much less God, upset his world.   Herod had to keep control and it cost many people’s lives.  Certainly, we aren’t going to order an execution of an entire village, but we are often like Herod in trying to keep God out of our lives.  We don’t want to give up control and we don’t want our lives to be challenged.  For us, Herod represents our attempts at keeping control of our lives at any cost.  The cost is usually a lot of hurt people – including ourselves.

 We need to understand that allowing Christ to enter into our lives may cause turmoil, when He challenges our values, our assumptions, our goals, our desires, and our control.  When the Word of God is revealed it causes shift and it demands recognition.  We can respond like Herod and try to maintain control of our lives and try to keep Him from upsetting our world or we can respond like the magi who sought to embrace the presence of Christ and let His Truth, His Life, his Light and His Peace guide us.

 The apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans said “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”   Here is another promise we can count on.  Trusting in him in the midst of or because of the turmoil in our lives will result in joy, peace and hope.  Have a very blessed Christmas season.

Christmas musings – the angels

The story of the angel’s appearance to the shepherds is probably one of the best known parts of the Christmas story – even the Peanuts character Linus quotes this passage in the Christmas special.  Who doesn’t love a good story about angels?  And what nativity scene would be complete without the angel hovering over the stable – even though that is not how the story goes.  Anyway, here is the story as told in the gospel of Luke.

That night some shepherds were in the fields outside the village, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terribly frightened, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news of great joy for everyone! The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David! And this is how you will recognize him: You will find a baby lying in a manger, wrapped snugly in strips of cloth!” Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God:  “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and peace on earth to all whom God favors.”

 When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Come on, let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this wonderful thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”  They ran to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. Then the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary quietly treasured these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their fields and flocks, glorifying and praising God for what the angels had told them, and because they had seen the child, just as the angel had said.

 The great thing about this story, besides the coolness factor of angels, is that it is actually an invitation from God to participate, to witness, the great things He is doing.  You see, the angels didn’t just announce the birth, they presumed a certain response from the shepherds – “this is how you will recognize him.”  The appearance of the angels was the Father’s way of sharing His will and His plans with us humans and wanting us to be a part of those plans.  But what is even more astounding is that for God it was not enough for the shepherds to see and hear angels, He wanted more.  He wanted them to see Christ – to see God in the flesh.  His goal in everything He does in our lives is to let us see Him – it is always an invitation for more and deeper relationship.

 The other thing I love about this story is the response of the shepherds to the invitation.  Sure, the angels assumed they would go, but they still had to make that decision.  I wonder how many of us would have sat back and basked in the glory of having seen angels without taking it any further?  How many of us are content with what God has done for us in the past, but not continue to go looking for Him or responding to His invitation for more?  The shepherds heard God’s call – through the angels – and ran, RAN, to see this wonderful thing.  We must run after God.  We must drop the mundane things of this world and run after God, because He has invited us to join Him.  He has already invited us to see His Son.  God is telling us what He has done and is doing and saying to us, “this is how you will recognize him.”

 I can assure you that the lives were changed that night – the shepherds, Mary and Joseph’s and everyone else that heard the shepherd’s story.  The shepherds went back to their daily lives, to their flocks, to their homes, but they went back glorifying and praising God.  They were not the same people.  You see, when we accept God’s invitation – when we have seen the Child – we will never again be the same.

Christmas musings – Joseph

I think Joseph has gotten a raw deal.  In the whole nativity story, he is mostly overlooked, ignored or simply pushed to the background.  The center of attention is – besides Jesus – Mary.  And that may be reasonable, but Joseph was a man that can serve as a great model and inspiration for us.

In general, Joseph is known as the guy who married Mary even after learning that she was pregnant.  Now not many of us would buy the whole Holy Spirit conception thing.  I can imagine the conversation something  like this.  “Really honey, I didn’t DO anything!  It was the Holy Spirit!”  “Really?  Really? Is that the best you can do?”  “Yes! It’s true. An angel told me this would happen.”   Where do you go from there?  Where would any reasonable man go from there?   And it wasn’t until God showed up in a dream and defended Mary’s story that Joseph believed her, obeyed God and married Mary.  Usually that is the end of the story for Joseph.  But that incident was only the start of what I think is a remarkable story that reveals Joseph as a godly man, listening to God’s voice, responsive to the Spirit’s direction, taking up his role as husband, father and provider.  Here is some of the Bible narrative about Joseph.

Now when they [the wise men] had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod.

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

So four times Joseph has a God-dream:  marry Mary, go to Egypt, leave Egypt, go to Galilee.  Each time Joseph not only believes it is a God-dream, but he immediately responds and does what God asks – without putting up a fuss. Joseph didn’t complain about having to leave Israel to go to Egypt and once established in Egypt didn’t complain that he had to pick up again and go back home.  But he couldn’t go home.  Joseph had to start over in Galilee.  Again sensitive to the Spirit’s voice and instantly responsive.

And while I agree that Mary’s submissive attitude towards God is rightfully commendable, Joseph is the one God uses to keep His son safe and fulfill prophecy.  God trusted Joseph enough to pick him as the one who would raise Jesus in a godly household, be wise enough to deal with this “unique” child, ensure Jesus got the proper Jewish education and teach Him a trade, all the time knowing that Jesus was also somehow divine.  What a tremendous honor!  Can you imagine what it would be like to be able to carry – literally – the Divine Image in your arms AND not freak out?  To me this speaks volumes of the kind of man Joseph was.

I have to admit, I wish I were more like Joseph.  I would very much like to be entrusted with God-dreams giving me direction for my life.  But even if I don’t get that, I still want to be as responsive, as open to God’s voice, as obedient as Joseph was to the leading that God has already given me.  There are plenty of areas where I already know what I should be doing and instead of obeying, I stall, postpone or ignore.  Joseph is the model for any of us who claim we want to be Christ-followers.  And, like Joseph, I want the wisdom to handle properly the Divine Image I carry in my heart.

Christmas musings – Zechariah

We are only four weeks away from Christmas and our thoughts naturally turn to shopping, cooking, family gatherings, traveling and cookies – especially the cookies.  Somewhere in the midst of all the holiday goings-on is that story about Jesus.  We know the general outline:  Angel, Mary, Bethlehem, no room in the inn, stable, birth, shepherds and wise men.  All the makings of a good nativity scene – however historically inaccurate they are.  But over the next several weeks I would like to explore some of the supporting characters to this great divine story.  Some we know well, or at least we think we know them well, and some we hardly think about, but each one still has an important message to us today about our relationship with Jesus. 

The first person I want to consider is Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father.  Here is a story of faithfulness and fear all working together to bring about a great blessing.  Here is part of his story.

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time”…  After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived,

 So here’s the first thing to keep in mind.  When an angel appears to you – don’t make him mad.  It’s just bad etiquette.

 OK, let’s get serious now and get to the main point.  Zechariah was a righteous, godly man who all his life remained faithful to God.  And God knew that.  Zechariah was also a man who prayed regularly and passionately for a son.  And God heard him.  The main problem was that God’s timing and Zechariah’s timing were not in synch.  Go figure.  I wonder if by this time in his life Zechariah was no longer sure God would come through with a son.  Perhaps after all these years and considering the circumstances it was time to rethink his plan or redirect his prayers.  Perhaps that is why he had such a hard time digesting and believing what Gabriel said to him.  I think most of us would have reacted the same way.  But I don’t believe Zechariah had given up.  I think in spite of Zechariah’s fumbling response and moment of incredulity, God still had a sweet spot for Zechariah.  He didn’t rescind His promise; He just let Zechariah sweat it out for another nine months.  He made Zechariah be silent in His presence and watch the Lord fulfill His promise.  The point here is that God’s promises depend on God’s character – not ours.  God does what He says He will do.   But I think He also responds to our faithfulness and dependence on Him.  We simply cannot give up, turn back or turn away.  Why?  Because God fulfills His promises.  We just don’t know when.

And that is the main point I want to take away from this story.  There are things I believe God promised me years ago – some of them as far back as 25-30 ago.  Some I’ve seen fulfilled and some I’m still waiting for.  But if I take anything away from Zechariah’s story is that remaining faithful, persevering, praying, trusting and waiting are all part  - a necessary part – of this Christian life.  And I hope this is an encouragement for others.  Those who are praying or have been praying for family or friends, relationships or circumstances, now is not the time to give up – no matter how long you’ve been praying.  God will respond, we just don’t know when, but usually it’s when we least expected it.

 Here’s the end of the story.  Once John was born to Elizabeth, Zechariah’s voice returned to him and he broke out into praise to God.  Zechariah’s faithfulness resulted in God receiving glory and the world receiving the herald of the Christ – God is coming among us!  May our faithfulness also result in many hearing that great news.