merry Christmas

A most blessed and merry Christmas to all! Blessings in Jesus on you; may your day be wrapped in God's love to us in Jesus.

prayer of the day: Christmas

O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, who have known the mystery of that Light on earth, may also enjoy him perfectly in heaven; where with you and the Holy Spirit he lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

from Book of Common Prayer

the cross and Christmas

The cross has been more on my mind I think than at any Advent season before. It's not hard to guess that this is indicative of God's work in me to change me. The cross in Jesus puts to death all that is not of God's creation and will, and resurrects- life out from death- what is in God's new creation and will in Jesus. This begins at baptism for the Christian (however you may interpret Romans 6, and I would say strictly speaking, it begins at faith which I believe is understood to underlie baptism), and is ongoing throughout one's life in Jesus. We're to live out daily the truth of our baptism. In other words this is from God, but we are active in it in faith, as well.

God in Christ became human, a little baby, for our salvation, for the world, and for all of creation. The scope of what happened is truly beyond us, as well as us really grasping the meaning of it, as one commenter said on this blog, yesterday. And all that Jesus is and does is the mirror image of God. So that his life, words, and works all reflect God. And no less his death for us on the cross. This all reflects who God is, the very heart of God. The saying is true: He was born to die, that we (men) might live.

So as we celebrate the wondrous coming of God in the flesh, the birth of Jesus, let's remember as well the shadow of the cross which hung over his birth, and over Jesus' entire life. A necessary climax and part of his work and the fulfillment of all that God had given his people in covenant love. And part of the true meaning of Christmas which is all but lost in so much of our culture and activity surrounding it.

What might you like to add to this?

into your hands

When we think of Jesus' coming and his self-emptying ("kenosis") in becoming human, we have to see in it a complete abandoning of his life to God. This is difficult to speak of and think through since we're speaking of the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. While it was God the Son who became flesh or human, the Son, Christ, did not for a moment fail to be be fully involved himself in an active way, in becoming one of us for our salvation. The Father, the Son and the Spirit, as in all activities of God were intricately involved in this great act and undertaking. The Son was not merely passive in this, but active.

Yet in becoming human (while not, of course, losing God-ness at all, a mystery): even as an embryo to begin with, then born as a helpless baby, the Son certainly in truth committed his life into the Father's hands, into God's hands, and this was played out throughout his life. No one took Jesus' life from him, he made clear. He had the power to lay it down for death, and the power to take it back up again in the resurrection, I take it. Yet this is a true case of becoming one of us to bring us a salvation which is for the forgiveness of our sins by his death, but also to give us a new life to live in him here and now, the same kind of life he lived in faith and obedience to God.

When we celebrate Christmas we need to worship Jesus as the One who though God became a little baby for us. This was an act of God, the Trinitarian God. But it does not diminish for a moment the greatness of this commitment of life made by Christ and then lived out fully in his life and death.

We are to so follow. For me this has taken on major proportions in that for many years I've been bound by fear over at least one issue, which I believe God has helped me to entrust to him now for some time, and concerning which by grace I have not looked back so as to take it back into my own hands, and relive that anxiety. Like Jesus we are given this life in him to live out, a life committing our lives into God's hands fully to the very end throughout all the life God gives us.

God is present with us- Emmanuel- to help us, just as Jesus was helped throughout his life from birth to death.

What might you like to add to these thoughts?

anticipation

For people like Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna and the Magi there was anticipation over someone special to be born. They were given enough details in prophecies and signs from God to know that this one to be born was extra special. But they did not know all the ways. Nor the way in which he would be special. Except as God gave it to them as it unfolded before their eyes.

We live as humans keen on anticipation. We're generally looking forward to something, or someone. We live with this sense, and when it is weak or gone it is not good, for this is part of our humanity, to look forward to something better, to live in hope, really a gift from God.

But what is our hope set on? Is it set on something or some things outside the boundary of God's revealed will? Is it set on things that are of less importance so that what is most important is no longer in sight (all things in their good place of course)? And what about this Christmas? How does our celebration of that reflect the anticipation that we actually do have?

Like those people of old, may we by grace have our hearts set in anticipation on the coming of our Lord Jesus. As we celebrate his special coming to earth as a little baby, God become human for our salvation and for the salvation of the world, may our hearts and minds be drawn out in anticipation of Jesus, and of God's good work through Jesus in the world, creation and in our own lives. And may we be open along the way to all that means as this salvation unfolds before us. That we may live in it, indeed in Jesus.

What would you like to add to this?

quote of the week: Irenaeus on the Incarnation

But following the only true and steadfast Teacher, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.

Irenaeus quoted by Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement, p. 54.

the hard places

What about those tired, hard places during which one has little or no sense of God's presence? We encounter this on certain days, and during certain times on most days. We find life has hit us with some hard knocks, big and little, and it doesn't seem like it's getting easier.

When one studies Israel during the time of Jesus, you find the sense of being in a hard place. They were under Rome's heel, so to speak, and not all was good and pleasant. Taxes was one obvious weight, as was the sense that in spite of a good number of them being back in the land with the temple rebuilt (albeit Herod's temple) this just couldn't be even close to the fulfillment promised by the prophets in Scripture, as in Isaiah. The LORD was not ruling, and what was going on, even amongst themselves, was not all right or kosher.

Then comes Jesus. Yes, God-with-us, Emmanuel. This brought joy at its inception for the few insiders who did share the news with others. But this coming turned into another way which in itself was hard, the way of the cross. This was to a large extent at the heart of Jesus' first coming. It was not an easy road, this Calvary road. Jesus was fulfilling the promises of God in ways unexpected.

Of course the place of Jesus' birth in its circumstances and setting, was not pleasant or comfortable. After a long trip, especially for a woman near delivering her child, they end up perhaps in a cave, but using a feeding trough (manger) as a bed for the newborn with animals possibly nearby.

Jesus made a new way for us, and in this life we in him share in that way. We must therefore take up our cross and follow, not adding to, but in proclaiming and seeking to live in and live out this salvation which has been accomplished for us in Jesus. But the way we do that is to learn to accept and to live well in our hard places.

Not easy, and though I've come a long way in my life, God is not finished with me yet in this. I see that God's necessary work continues, when I really am not dealing with the difficulty in a way which sees it as God's way for me, or when I'm off track in being taken up with my own way, not the way of the cross, the way of Jesus. This includes all that comes to me. Something I'm working on. Something Jesus lived out and by his salvation, gives to us to live out here and now, in our witness to the world of him.

Any thoughts or sharing from your own life, here?

God with us

This Advent season we celebrate the coming and birth of God-with-us, Emmanuel, in Jesus. This was striking to me yesterday at work. Started out as an ordinary day. But ended up extraordinary as it wasn't just me and my friend working together, but actually three of us. God was surely with us.

God makes his Presence and Reality known in the Person of Jesus. He continues to do this today by the Spirit. When this happens all is touched with a sense of God's Presence. It may look the same, but it isn't. Every child of God through faith in Jesus knows what I speak of here. It's just that yesterday it was unusually palpable to me, or at least I sensed the reality of it. It certainly added a joy and charm to the day.

Later on I struggled over some anxiety issue, which I later overcame, but in so struggling I lost that sense of the Lord's Presence, even though he certainly was and always still is present with us. It is wonderful though, especially in company with another believer, to know something of the Lord's Presence with us, God with us in Jesus.

Maybe you would like to share something about this from your own life. Or any thoughts.

Advent and the holy stump

Eugene Peterson, in his wonderful book Subversive Spirituality has a chapter entitled, "The Holy Stump." This is taken from this passage in Isaiah 11:

1A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—

This originates in a spiritually destitute time, in which at the end of Isaiah's faithful proclamation of the magnificient revelation he had received from God, due to God's judgment- all that would end up being left of God's people would be a nation of stumps.

God had promised Isaiah the same at Isaiah's commission after the life shattering and changing vision and the thrice proclaimed holiness of God (6):

13 And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.

Wonderfully we find holiness, a holiness which changes us, bringing the real life from God in place of the counterfeit life pressed in on us from every side: from the world, the flesh and the devil. Wonderfully this life from God in Jesus appears at the most unlikely places. In seeming desolation and ruin often among those who are castoffs and of no regard to this world. And if we look, we can find it in the stump of our own lives.

Holiness in the form of judgment begins this process. Yes, Jesus took the judgment on himself, but we also read that judgment must begin in the house of God. We can receive this salvation from God only by acknowledging both God's righteous judgment against our sin, as well as God's gracious salvation in the Savior. From this the holy seed, Jesus, comes life, life that takes hold in the most unlikely places of our lives, as we submit to the Holy God- receiving the revelation of his presence and ourselves in light of that, and submitting ourselves to his just judgment on ourselves and his accompanying salvation in Jesus.

This is part of the Immanuel ("God-with-us") promise in Isaiah, fulfilled in Jesus, and coming true even in the most devastated, dead places of our lives, and likely especially there. Look for the life, the life of the holy, changing us surely, as we seek to worship and live faithfully, before him.

What does this bring to mind? Why should this encourage us?

Christmas reading

Luke 2

The Birth of Jesus

1-5 About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.

6-7 While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.

An Event for Everyone

8-12 There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God's angel stood among them and God's glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, "Don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David's town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you're to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger."

13-14 At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God's praises: Glory to God in the heavenly heights, Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.

15-18 As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. "Let's get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us." They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.

19-20 Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they'd been told!

The Message

Christmas prayer

O God, you make us glad by the yearly festival of the birth of your only Son Jesus Christ: Grant that we, who joyfully receive him as our Redeemer, may with sure confidence behold him when he comes to be our Judge; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

taken from Jesus Creed

Advent and the cross

Christmas is about Christ and his coming. God becoming flesh to take on himself a death that we as sinners were, and in ourselves are doomed to die. Jesus took that on himself at the cross that we might in exchange receive a new start in the new humanity in Jesus.

The cross. It should never be forgotten that it is through the cross that God accomplishes everything that is to be done, in the coming of his Son. And in Jesus, by faith, especially together we're to become part of the solution, as we live a cross-formed life in Jesus, a humanity like what he lived. But not by mere imitation, but by very participation through the Spirit, as by Jesus' atoning work we're taken up into this new way of living.

Jesus, and everything about his coming is somehow related to his cross and his death for us. It speaks God's word to and about everything. All is judged but also redeemed and saved through that death. Through this death alone comes our real life. Not in the world's terms of life, but in God's terms.

This is part of God's word to us this Christmas season: it's the word of the cross. God's gift to the world in his love, his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Do we see this season in terms and through the cross? Do we see everything through the lens of the cross? And with that the resurrection. But resurrection means life out of death, accomplished for us and for the world by Jesus.

What might you like to add or say here?

prayer for the week

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer

Advent and faith

Quite often it is the case that when we feel stuck, or out of sorts, not knowing what to do- it can be a matter of our lack of faith. We find ourselves stuck at a crossroads or down the wrong path, and really our faith seems to be going nowhere, or is stagnant. I find this to be true of myself at times.

The Magi (see this) were led by this mysterious star which led them all the way to Bethlehem where they worshiped this new King and presented gifts to him worthy of a king. Then they returned, by God's direction avoiding King Herod who was bent on destroying this new King.

Faith for us is key to be led to look towards Jesus in the first place, to be led to him and to worship him, giving our best and our all to him. We need to be thinking this season of Jesus in his coming. God becoming flesh in the Person of his Son, God's final Word to us. This is what the narrative of the New Testament is all about. God being revealed in Jesus, and what all of that means for us all, and for the world.

Everything else then, can take its proper place in light of this wonderful revelation to us, as we embrace this revelation and gift by faith. Our faith may be weak and wobbly, but it can become stronger and more steady as we keep our eyes on the star which leads our eyes to become fixed on Jesus.

Whatever faces us, let's remember this star, and Jesus. And let's worship him this season, giving our best and our all to him.

How do you think this star can apply to our lives? How can this help us, or even hinder us? Or whatever you might like to add here.

Advent and time

We read that at just the right time, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law, that we all might have the full rights of sons.

We are creatures of time. Time was important too, for Joseph and Mary. Events and human development happen within time. We have the advantage of seeing the time and events of Mary and Joseph in the narrative given to us in Scripture. We can see the whole picture and how God brought this together, worked it out with the more than difficult issues and completed it. Time like everything else, is God's servant. And yet we, even as servants of God in Jesus, can think and live at times, as if this is not true. As if time is not on our side, though since time is a servant of the One we serve, we know that God will work out and make everything beautiful in its appropriate time, at just the right time.

It has been said that for God to send his Son during this time, from the perspective of inhabited earth, was apt, as the Roman empire, with its roads and civilization, maximized the possibility of the spread of the gospel and the growth of this faith. The mission of God in Jesus is always to be undertaken, as we in Jesus plant seeds of this good news, water it with more proclamation and living, and then see the harvest of souls, as we continue to share and live out this word. This takes time, but time is on our side since God is over time, which along with us, ends up serving God and his will in Jesus.

We are not told in Scripture that there will be no bad times. Certainly Mary faced this later in life when the sword of her son's suffering pierced her very soul. We live in a world in which time seems to have run out or is running low for many. Yet we must persevere in faith, and be assured and awake as God's servants, that God is in control of time. At the right time God moves, and by the Spirit God wants us as his servants to move in correct time; his timing in our lives, in mission in Jesus in this world.

Advent and time. Let's take the time to make this Advent season and celebration special, remembering this most remarkable gift given at just the right time, in God's time- for us, and for the world. And then let's live out the continued giving of this gift for our own time, in Jesus as God's servants, knowing that time in God's will in Jesus, is not out of hand for God, but in God's great and good hands.

Advent and hope

Hope helps us endure when all seems hopeless. It is called "an anchor for the soul", set on Jesus and his life and work for us. I see it spring up from my own deadness. Like sprouts seeming to come out of no where, from nothing, and in spite of some things.

As we celebrate Jesus' First Advent, we look forward in hope or anticipation to his Second Advent. This is when all that has begun in Jesus now is completely fulfilled. What a wondrous event that will be!

As we celebrate Jesus' First Advent than, let us look forward to his Second Advent in which our hopes born of faith will be fulfilled.

Advent and stress

Scripture is written to the point in its largely story form, surely partly so we can fill in the gaps in seeing how our various stories fit into the one great Story of God (as Eugene Peterson points out). When we read of Mary and Joseph we read of a narrative with gaps in which there surely was some times of more than ordinary stress for the two.

There is the time after Mary received word from the angel of the miraculous conception and special baby she was to carry. How would this work out? Would Joseph believe her? There is Joseph, struggling through this until God assures him in a dream through an angel that Mary is indeed telling him the truth, amazing as that truth is. Then there is the aftermath, in which Joseph and Mary together surely had to live among whisperers and people who knew that she was pregnant, though they had yet to come together to live fully as husband and wife. A time of stress.

Then Jesus is born. Stress surrounds this of course, but more than from the normal process of birth. There is the king Herod from whom they end up having to flee and then live in a foreign land: Egypt. And then upon their return Joseph is uneasy and is directed by the angel to leave Judea and they go back to Nazareth.

Stress. A normal part of human life and at times especially acute. It's good that we have the story laid out as we do. We can see God's hand in it all throughout, though in the actual living out of it Mary and Joseph could not always see that, and surely they had questions along the way. But in our reading of it we see it turns out for good, though not in the way we would come up with ourselves. Simeon made it clear to Mary that her path would not be an easy one since a sword would pierce her soul too, with reference to her son and his mission from God.

Jesus himself shared in this stress. We can see it sometimes in his interaction with people during his time of ministry, and acutely so in Gethsemane. He knows firsthand and with that empathy is God-with-us, Emmanuel, to help us in the times of stress we face.

Let's thank and praise God who has come to live in the person of his Son, in this real world and experience. Completely human just as we are, yet also "God-with-us", present to help us through to the glorious end.

Advent and politics

Biblical scholars and theologians such as John Howard Yoder have helped us see that the coming of Jesus was indeed political. Jesus' coming had to do with all of life, not just with the inner world of the individual. The kingdom of God come in Jesus brings in the beginning of the new creation and this began at the coming of Jesus: his Incarnation, life and ministry, death, resurrection, ascension and pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost.

Jesus' coming said, in a day when Casear was considered both "son of God" and "Lord", that those titles belong to Jesus. Yet at the same time Jesus taught to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. Jesus seemed uninterested in dealing directly with the powers and trying to be a part of the world system. Instead he speaks of a kingdom not from this world and not living according to it. This is the heart of his kingdom come and now present "in Jesus" and in those who are in Jesus, his church.

To say Jesus' coming and the kingdom of God is political is to say that it really is concerned about all of life: the personal, communal and systemic; local, national and international. But it is one that infiltrates, I believe, especially through the people of God in Jesus, the church and the church's act and proclamation of the good news of Jesus in the world. And in the tradition of Daniel, Esther and early Christians in various stations of life, it is one that is salt and light in whatever corner or calling one is found in, and having potentially a major impact for its time.

I believe Jesus' coming is subversive in a transformative way within the system. It makes a big difference potentially even now. Herod could have been a part of that if he would have bowed his knees in repentance to the newborn king. In fact no matter what form of government is in play in this world, even in most trying circumstances brought on by it, acknowledging the King of kings and Lord of lords, the one exalted over all- can help in this world and existence to make a difference. But it's one of a subtle nature through the church and through members of the church at work in society. Not one of directly overthrowing this world order, which awaits the return of Jesus to this world, the Second Advent.

These are rather preliminary thoughts I have on this. Have you thought about this, and whether you have or not, what would you like to share here?

Advent and snow

Over the weekend we were rather bombarded with snow. There is now a lovely blanket covering the ground and our roof, equal to several warm blankets on a bed. It's Winter in Michigan, after all. We do get some lake effect snow this time of the year.

Advent reminds me of snow in that Jesus' coming ends up making our crimson red sins as white as snow. Believing and receiving this gift gives us far more than we bargain for. We may think we're getting "heaven" for someday, but we end up getting a new life beginning now. And it's a life in which there is a washing of new birth after which there are regular cleansings. Sin continues to be a factor for us in this present existence in Jesus. It is something we have to be aware of and sensitive to, if we're to really begin to understand and appreciate God's grace to us, in Jesus.

As the angel told Joseph,

[Mary] will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

Matthew 1:21

It is important for us to remember that in Jesus' very name is a crucial part of the reason why he was born on that wonderful night. It's a reason that's important in our lives and together, in this world, everyday of our lives. It gives us hope, not only for beyond, but in this life. For this we give him thanks!

prayer for the week

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer
(the "Collect of the day" for each day this week, Sunday through Saturday- as true of past weeks)