The Christmas Story

I have a little book on my shelves, cardboard-bound and covered front and back with fabric. Its content is typed; the art is hand-drawn; the author is my son Greg. The occasion was a grade-school assignment and the title is “If I Were in Charge of the World.”

All I can say is, thank heaven he isn’t! In the space of twenty pages Greg canceled homework, nixed the idea of cleaning one’s room, and eliminated his brothers, cats, and sickness (okay, Ill give him that one). He also pronounced sugar a vegetable and went on to callously obliterate the entire Steelers football team (sorry, Ben). He ended by covering all his bases:

“And a person who forgot to do his homework
and sometimes forgot to clean his room
would still be allowed to be in charge of the world.”

I wonder what he’d have written if the assignment were “If I Were in Charge of the First Christmas”? I wonder what you or I would have written? Pastor Ben mentioned Sunday that “in my story, the glory of God would have lasted all night.” I think we all would tend to minimize the hard parts and the puzzling or painful places, and major on the joy and glory and good news.

Written by us, we’d have a Jesus who enjoyed a life of privilege that few could identify with. Jesus would have been born in a pristine setting in Nazareth, with grandmas and grandpas close at hand. And everyone would have welcomed Him. But part of the glory of the Christmas story is in those hard places. In the long, difficult journey. The separation from kin. The birth in a stable. Being hated and hunted by Herod.

Yet God could be trusted with that story, couldn’t He? He knew what He was doing – fulfilling prophecy, identifying with the poorest and most insignificant, becoming nothing for us.

He can be trusted with your story, and mine, too. It’s foolish to try to grab the pen from His hand and write “If I Were in Charge of My Life.” We’d eliminate the very things that God meant to use for glory. Better to gaze in wonder at the manger scene this Christmas, and reaffirm to our Creator, “Lord, You are in charge of my story. Write what You want. I trust You with all of my heart.”

Christmas, condensed

Christmas, we were reminded at the musical this past weekend, can be condensed into four words:

God is with us.

I think we’re more accustomed to the diluted versions. Those versions that start with the basic observation of Christmas, then water it down with a lot of tradition and required atmosphere and general hyperactive hoopla.

But there’s something simple and powerful about a condensed Christmas. Really, it’s a version that should blow our minds, if you think about it. It should nearly short-circuit our mental wiring to realize the truth of Christmas: Emmanuel, God with us.

Why is the condensed version so wonderful? Because now there need be no separation between us and the God who made us. No no-man’s land. In fact, there are no alone places in our lives. We never have to experience anything on our own. We’re never left to our own devices. In no situation are we powerless. He softens bad news with the reassurance that it is not the final word, that someday He will make all things new. He’s there to confront the nagging past, to calm future worries, and to liven the dull present… because how dull can a moment be when infinity and omnipotence and irrepressible hope and joy are right there with us?

But I think most of us live our lives in a sort of a brown-out. We need the truth of God-with-us to surge through in its full-strength reality, and overload a few systems: The system of doubt and suspicion with which we regard God. The system of weight and worry through which we process our lives. The system of cynicism and despair with which we face our futures. The system of self-protection behind which we live our days.

God-with-us races along the old, decrepit wiring of those false systems, and POP! FLASH! – they’re left smoldering… until somehow the connection with worry is broken. Self-protection has been bypassed. We’re unable to contact despair. Something – Someone – has taken over the power grid, and the lines are humming with hope and we feel more alive than we ever have before.

Alive with the indescribable wonder of Emmanuel, God with us.

Waiting Well

What do people do while they wait for something?

I’ve seen the weary traveler dozing in the busy airport terminal, and heard the impatient customer complain loudly about “getting another register opened up!” I once saw a driver shaving at the stoplight on Peach and Kuntz (the efficiency experts would approve). And I heard of a husband who claimed to have, over the years, read an entire set of encyclopedias while waiting for his wife to get ready to go out!

What will we do while we wait this year for Christmas?

We generally experience Advent by trying to re-create the Christmas scenario. By putting ourselves in Mary’s sandals or the shepherd’s bare feet or even the donkey’s hooves – trying to feel what they felt and experience what it all meant to them. We dress up like them, we sing "O Come O Come Emmanuel," and we wonder what it really would have felt like to be on the waiting side of Jesus’ coming.

But we are on the waiting side of Jesus’ coming - again. Ronald Klug wrote:

“I am an Advent Christian… Advent Christians believe Christ came, but we still sing, ‘Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel.’ We believe that in Christ the kingdom of God has dawned, but we still eagerly pray ‘thy kingdom come’ because we long for a world that is still to come. Exile, longing, watchfulness and waiting resonate with us…” The cry of Advent is still, as Klug writes, “Wake up! Be alert! Watch for his coming.’”

Watch for the One Who “will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God” (1 Thess. 4:16 NIV). Watch for the One called Faithful and True, with eyes like blazing fire, on Whose head are many crowns, and on His robe and thigh is written this name: King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev. 19). Wait eagerly; look and long for His appearing.

He may not come on our watch. But no matter, the charge remains: Wait well. Don’t fill the intervening days and years with busy work just to look productive; don’t reach for mindless diversions; don’t sink into lethargy like the foolish virgins of Jesus’ parable. Don’t grow impatient or discouraged and adopt the mindset of the skeptical world: “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? (2 Peter 3:4 NIV).

Instead, “live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming… Make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him… looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:11-13 NIV).

Do Something!

It’s like one of those dreams where your child is about to be run over by a truck and you desperately want to reach her in time… but your feet are leaden and you seem to run in place. Where the car is careening toward the cliff and you cannot find the brake. Where your spouse is entering mortal danger, oblivious, and you scream out a warning… but no sound issues forth.

Anguished – but powerless to respond. Isn’t that how many of us feel when we think about situations like Haiti? We are grieved for that country, frustrated by the many hindrances to aid, and perplexed by Haiti’s history of victimization and betrayal and self-inflicted injury.

It’s often the same, on a smaller scale, with the poor among us - the poor who “will always be with us,” as Jesus said. We’re paralyzed by our inability to effectively fix things for them and the knowledge that poverty is, in general, here to stay. It’s tempting to turn to situations we can solve. To endeavors that look productive, that will really shine before men and elicit an enthusiastic “Well done!” when we stand before Christ. For if we can’t heal a nation or even wipe out poverty in our local community – if the Lord Himself promises the poor are here to stay – why spend our energies and prayers and money on them?

Because God cares about individuals. When Jesus lived on this earth, He personally touched a relatively small number of people. There were certainly famines and weather-related tragedies and struggling countries beyond the realm of His circuit. But He ministered to His neighbor and did what God directed Him to do on a day-by-day basis, and made a difference where He was.

That’s what we need to do.

The story is told of a man who was standing on the beach amid hundreds of starfish that had washed ashore. He was throwing them back in the water one by one. Someone approached and asked “Why bother? What does it matter? There are so many.” The man looked at the starfish in his hand. Just before he tossed it back he replied, “It matters a lot to this one!”

And it matters a lot to God. So look prayerfully around for someone in need and do something… today.

The Real Thing

It was a feast for the eyes and the taste buds, too. I just couldn’t hurry past without pausing for a second glance. Bins of luscious fruits – peaches, apples, bananas, pears, and many more… and not an unripe piece in the bunch. The peaches blushed, the apples shone, the grapes fairly burst their skins, and even the closest inspection couldn’t turn up one bruise or scab or worm hole. This was fruit-lover’s heaven!

If looks were edible, that is. For this was Michael’s, the arts and crafts store, and these bins were piled high with inviting imitation. While there was nothing here that could wither or rot, there was also no scent, no sweetness, and no nourishment, not one drop.

Give me a succulent peach fresh-picked from a North East orchard, fuzzy and aromatic and yielding slightly to the pressure of my finger. Or give me one of their McIntosh apples (what is it about North East and fruit?), with a smell that says autumn and a flavor that can only be improved by a bit of caramel dip…

Give me something real, that delights the taste buds and satisfies the stomach. Hold off on the hollow stuff, the plastic stuff, the look-but-don’t-sample substitutes. I don’t want those imposters rolling around on my plate – and I don’t want to serve them to others, either.

Dr. Aderholt challenged us Sunday to be real with people. To stop offering plastic smiles (shark-smiles, I think he would have called them) and quick fixes and surface attraction, and to become Christians of substance, filled with the juice of humble servanthood and the sweetness of compassion and the freshness of joy and the firmness of perseverance.

The Michael’s variety… the North East variety… if you were an unbeliever, which peach would you reach for?

Across My Path

There was once a man who heard a mini-sermon on compassion: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He felt a little uncomfortable with that statement and he wanted to get rid of those pesky little barbs of conscience. So he asked the Preacher, “Who is my neighbor?” And the Preacher replied with the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35).

By definition, a “neighbor” is one who is near. The man who lay helpless along the Jericho road, robbed and beaten, became the Samaritan’s neighbor when their paths “crossed” and the Samaritan’s ears heard his moan and his eyes fell on him and saw his need.

Maybe the story of the Good Samaritan teaches, among other things, that first and foremost the people we need to love as our own selves and empathize with and reach out to and give to and sacrifice for are the people that personally cross our paths on our daily walk. These are, in the strictest sense, our neighbors. They’re our responsibility, as God leads us.

Why is it so tempting to mimic the Levite’s response and cross to the other side of the road – to get far enough away that they are no longer my neighbor? Three reasons come to mind:

I’m desensitized. I don’t feel their pain. I’ve watched enough pain on TV, I’ve said “No” enough times to my conscience, I’ve got priorities more pressing than compassion, I’m distracted by other concerns, I’m too focused on the past or the future to pay attention to who’s laying alongside my road.

I’m selfish. I don’t want to feel their pain. I’ve already felt enough of my own. I don’t want to feel any more myself, and I don’t want to share anyone else’s.

I’m passive. I don’t want to do anything about their pain. If you twist my arm or wring my conscience, I will act. Otherwise, I’m for doing what I’ve always done on this trip to Jericho – staying to the time schedule, sticking to the MO as usual, not getting involved in messy and open-ended situations.

I don’t mean to say that every need that crosses our path is a call to action. We must be Spirit-directed. Spirit-sensitized. Spirit-quickened. (I also don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t get involved in global needs – we should.) But if we begin each day with a declaration of love for and commitment to God and our neighbor, we’ll be more sensitized to both of them. And as we walk through the territory God has mapped out for us that day, the priest and the Levite and the man in the ditch will all know that we are Christians… by our love.

Election Benediction

As I head out the door in a few minutes and make my way to the Summit Township Municipal Building to vote, I’m keeping in mind the principles from Sunday morning’s sermon. I’m not voting my pocketbook or my party or my personal preferences; I’m voting, prayerfully and as best I understand, after God’s heart – after the things that matter most to Him.

But after I exit the polling place, I want to turn from the sermon to the brief but weighty benediction offered by Pastor Dave following the first service:

“In God we trust. Amen.”

How hard that sometimes is! Especially in these days when the economy is unraveling and the stock market is ricocheting about and the scaffolding we have erected for the future begins to wobble, until the economy has become the biggest issue in this presidential election. In truth, it’s likely to remain a major issue for some time. That’s why Sunday’s benediction will remain so relevant to our situation, and so vital to remember.

Thankfully, our wise forefathers had “In God We Trust” inscribed on our country’s pennies and nickels and dimes and quarters and bills. Maybe they realized we would need it on the currency in which we instinctively place so much of our hope and sense of well-being. Silently, unceasingly, our coins and greenbacks proclaim that wonderful benediction… we just need to listen to it a little more closely. To agree with it a bit more frequently. To accept the reminder and let it increase our faith.

Perhaps it would help us to inwardly repeat those words when paying the parking lot attendant at the hospital ramp, or swiping our card at the supermarket, or putting money into the church offering. Maybe we should have those words imprinted on our checks and posted prominently at the desk where we pay our bills and balance our checkbooks.

However we do it, let’s not forget. In matters of elections and economics and all things earthly, our God is sovereign and all-powerful and He watches over His own. And should you ever waver in your trust, take out a penny and once more receive the benediction:

“In God We Trust. Amen.”