Fire in the Inn!

If only the Christmas innkeeper could have heard Sunday’s sermon. But he hadn’t, and Mary and Joseph came too late. The rocks had already been placed in the jar, the sand sifted in around them, the water poured into the air pockets. One by one, he had dropped his guests into empty beds, stuffed his food and bedding into and around them, then poured his effort and energy into the remaining space.

The innkeeper’s jar was full. There was no room in the inn. Not for even one more rock. Not for even the Rock.

But what could he have done, after all? Even if he had known who Jesus was, the innkeeper had a predicament. Was he expected to kick someone out of their promised room? Give up his own bed?

Maybe… a fire drill? What if he had run into the inn and shouted, “Quick, everybody out! Move it, move it! Out! Out!” Then, with flustered guests still muttering and making for the door, he could have ushered Mary and Joseph in first, made sure his own family had lodging, and afterward fitted the remaining guests in - or as many as possible. He might have been the cause of some head-shaking and grumbling, or, worse, the target of well-aimed punch or a vengeful lawsuit… but what price can you put on hospitality to the Messiah?

But of course the innkeeper didn’t do that. In his defense, he had never heard the Christmas story. He could hardly know he was refusing the Messiah. But what about us? We’ve heard the story, and we heard Sunday’s sermon. We understand that Jesus is the Rock which must go into the Christmas season first, and everything else must be filled in around Him.

But we have a predicament. We’ve already packed the season with family, traditions, obligations, expectations, shopping, partying, traveling… We’re locked into our pattern of celebration, and it seems impossible to add much of anything – even Jesus - without causing an overflow of protest, a spill of resentment.

But what if we just “emptied the inn” this week? What if we dumped our to-do lists and family traditions and gift-buying expectations and all the contents of the Christmas jar out on the table, and started over? What if we then picked up the Rock upon which our salvation is built, and placed Him in first? Then we could replace the rest of the contents, prayerfully fitting them around our welcome to Jesus, as the Holy Spirit directs us.

It might be surprising how much would still go into the jar… but surely everything won’t fit. And won’t even seem to belong in there any more.

Maybe some things can’t be changed this year; it may be too late for that. But next September, when the world of commerce is starting to make little noises about Christmas, we could pull our jar off the shelf. We could empty its contents and reach for the Rock. We could start the new season a new way.

Others might have a little trouble understanding the change in our celebration of Christmas. But what price can you put on hospitality to the Messiah?

Sing Christmas!

Joseph reaches down for the strap of a heavy shoulder-bag. Hoisting it over his shoulder, he bends again and pulls up a second bag. He slings that one atop the first, and bends yet again. The third bag slaps heavily against the others as he turns to Mary and takes her arm.

Around him swirls music about a Singer and sweet harmony and the Song of the Redeemed, and a choir sings “Let there be Light”… but he just feels like a man stepping out on a long journey under a heavy responsibility: Mary, with Child. Immanuel.

To watchers of FAC’s Christmas musical, this 21st century Mary and Joseph are setting out for Bethlehem. The eyes of the congregation are fastened upon them, choral well-wishers sing them on their way - but we all know that in the end, there is no one to accompany them. It is their journey.

It’s Joseph’s journey, and the weight of responsibility in those bags is even heavier than he yet knows. For it will be up to him to move the Christmas story from Point A (Nazareth) to Point B (Bethlehem ) and, although he doesn’t yet know it, on to C (Egypt) and back to A (Nazareth). He’s got to see them through this journey, oversee a divine birth, meet Kings and shepherds, protect an infant Savior from a murderous monarch, obey angelic orders and divine dreams…

No wonder those bags feel so heavy, Joseph.

But he carries his responsibility anyway (and we should be glad). It’s his glorious burden, his privilege, his song, as the angel says. No one else can sing it for him. He alone can do what God has given him to do, play his part in bringing Light to a shadowed world, sing in sweet harmony of peace on earth, good will to men.

We cannot see what is in the bags of responsibility that lay at our feet today. But we can be sure that no one else is supposed to pick them up for us – they’re ours. We might shrink back, protesting that they’re too heavy, there are too many, someone else is better built to bear them. But they’re our bags, and God is asking us to carry them.

We might be more willing to bear our burdens if we remember two things:

1. Our burdens come with a song. When we stoop to pick them up, that melody will arise behind and around and within us… if we will take the time to listen. It’s the Song of the Redeemed and it arises in sweet harmony with the Redeemer, swells with the power of the Holy Spirit, and swirls with the promise of eternal peace.

2. Our songs matter. Each are meant to move some part of the Redemption Story from Point A to Point B. From darkness to light. From fear to peace.

Sing, then. Sing your song, the song no one else can imitate. Don’t let it fade to a faint hum; belt it out! For it’s a song holy angels cannot sing. A song that brings glory to the Son of the Singer. A song that will reverberate through all eternity.

Sing!

Psalm 23: Rx for Spiritual Sanity

It’s right about now that I’m tempted to go spiritually insane.

Tomorrow, two turkeys go into the oven (that’s right; one for Thanksgiving, the other to slice into take-home packets for those who love turkey sandwiches and more turkey sandwiches). Tomorrow also signals the beginning of the long downhill slide into hunting season, deer processing (a family activity), college breaks, decorating, shopping, Christmas, and New Year. As it all whizzes past with increasing speed, bodies will congregate and voices will multiply and…

And I am tempted to lose touch with Reality. To see only a world of my own making, in which I drive myself to do the impossible until pushed beyond exhaustion (it takes only a little push!). In which I threaten to harm myself with anxiety and unrealistic expectations...

As if there is no Shepherd, or, at best, He is a theoretical figure who came down at that first Christmas, but certainly won’t for this two-thousand-and-tenth-one.

Now, maybe the mayhem of the holidays is no big deal for you. Maybe your spouse handles that, or maybe you genuinely thrive on it. For you, perhaps something different triggers unReality – a stock market plunge, a job market plunge, poor health, poor choices (yours or those around you). Most of us have circumstances in which we allow ourselves moments, even seasons, of spiritual insanity… because they are so logical. So excusable. Who wouldn’t fall apart after hearing my prognosis, seeing my portfolio, opening today’s mail, getting that phone call? Even a saint falls apart every now and then…

Certainly the basis for anxiety and depression and loss of touch with reality sometimes lies outside the spiritual dimension. Medical or psychological problems, may require assistance and prescriptions of a far different sort. Much of the time, however, we've chosen (without realizing it) spiritual insanity: Loss of touch with spiritual reality, denial of the Shepherd, repression of past His faithfulness, suspicion of His intentions… and we experience the painful results.

Well, I can approach the poultry tomorrow morning with dread and loathing… or I can give myself a reality check. There is a Savior. And in the 23rd Psalm he has written us a prescription for spiritual sanity and delivered it to us this past Sunday. The ingredients are serenity (vv. 1-3), sight (v. 3), safety (v.4), significance (v.5), security (vv.5-6), and (Him)self (v.6). The side effects are faith in the shadowed times, fearlessness in the scary ones, and an ability to laugh at the days to come.

Wow. Dare I take these meds? Or will I drag my feet: I don’t need them, they won’t work, they don’t have my name on them...

Some rather important outcomes are at stake here. People are watching. They need to know whether Psalm 23 is just a beautiful recitation for the dying, or a potent prescription for the living.

By God’s grace, let’s show them which it is. Let’s confront our turkeys, or our job applications, or our test results – whatever - with spiritual sanity… because of the Shepherd of Psalm 23.

Choose to Remember

In The Face by Angela Hunt, main character Sarah Sims has a choice to make. She was born with severe facial defects, raised in seclusion as an orphan, and now has opportunity to receive a face transplant and return to “real world.” In addition, she’s offered a drug that would “cut the cord between memory and emotion.” In other words, although she could recall her past, it wouldn’t be traumatic any more; the pain would be erased from it.

But her aunt/psychologist protests such action. “I would give anything to prevent my child from suffering… but who’s to say that a painful experience won’t serve a purpose in my daughter’s life?” she theorizes. “If we could resurrect Anne Frank, would you advocate giving her a drug so she could forget all about the unpleasantness of the Holocaust? All the people whose lives have been changed because of her story – can you honestly believe mankind would be better off if we’d eradicated Anne’s trauma?”

We Christians face Sarah’s choice. In Christ, we’ve been given a new face – made, in fact, into new creatures. Old things have passed away. Everything is new. And so we make haste to eradicate the past. We give up old, harmful habits and lifestyles. We learn to look at life through eyes of faith. We frequent counselors and devour self-help books in attempts to finally rid ourselves of the baggage carried over into our new lives. The goal? Eradicate the pain.

This is good… but maybe, in some ways, we’re too successful at it. We turn our backs on our personal Holocausts and fixate on the present presence of God and assurance of salvation and hope of heaven, and life becomes very, very tolerable… But is it possible to forget too much? To deaden the pain and despair of separation from God until they are just a vaguely unpleasant memory?

Sounds harmless, until we hear a sermon about those who are still lost and headed to an eternity of separation from God. Until we hear about those who have no access to the good news of the gospel. For how will we care, pray, give resources, even set our own “beautiful feet” on those darkened mountains, if we never remember what it was like without Christ? How will we empathize with their pain? How will we love our neighbor as ourselves, if we never again put ourselves in their shoes? If we spend all our time trying to forget the darkness in which they still live?

In The Face, Sarah Sims finally makes her choice. “If I cut the cord between the memory and this pain, will I not lose the warmth that comes from the feeling of being loved? The pain, the love, the loss are all braided together, and I don’t think I will ever be able to separate them.”

If we cut the cord between the memory of our lostness and the rescuing love of Christ, between our helpless despair and His dogged pursuit, will we care as much about those who have no access to Him? Will we long for them to know the joy of redemption? Will we spend ourselves for their sakes? If that’s what Christ is calling us to do, some of us had better choose to remember.

Wrecked by Pride

There are wrecks, and then there are wrecks. There are autos flipped onto their roofs in the median strip, cars jammed under semis, ten-car pileups on icy winter roads.

But probably more often there are the fender-benders, the rear-enders, the side-swiping the guard rail, the taking out of a mailbox, or the loss of control that lands us in the ditch. Nobody’s hurt, we insist, as we climb from the vehicle. Just shook up, but we’ll be fine. No need to be checked over, we’ll just shake it off and send the car to the garage to be fixed by somebody skilled in collision repair. Maybe take a bit of a hit on our insurance premium, but it couldn’t be avoided.

Pride is always involving us in minor accidents, it seems. Like a set of bad brakes, it sends us into the person in front of us. Like a bald tire, it looses our grip on the narrow road as we take life’s curve too wide, too fast. Like a stuck gas pedal, it propels us forward when everything in us warns, Watch out! You need to slow down! Pride is the accident waiting to happen. It’s an often-undetected, even pre-inspected and stickered reason for the pile of minor wrecks we’ve left in the rearview mirror.

It takes many subtle forms: We’ve been defending our rights. We’ve been overworking to achieve (even in the church). We’ve been building an image that people keep scuffing. We’ve been holding out for our own clearly superior ideas, and on and on... And we haven’t stopped to realize that God never even authorized the use of His vehicle for this sort of thing.

“Come to me,” Jesus invited, “all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light” (Mt. 11:28-30 NLT).

Let me teach you, because I am humble… The heavier we load our frames and the faster we push the limits, the greater the wreck will be. But Jesus offers a perfectly-fitting yoke and a light burden… if we learn humility.

The humility that says I can’t do everything, and I’m not even supposed to. I don’t need to prove anything. I am more concerned about elevating those around me than promoting myself. I’m going to cultivate a thicker skin instead of taking offense at every slight. I’m not going to lobby for all that’s coming to me - I don’t deserve even as much as God’s given me. And I’m not going to ride His bumper; I’m just going to follow Him at His pace.

Pride is tricky. It pushes us into all sorts of bad driving habits, justified as “common practice,” and sets us on a collision course. So the next time you or I feel the yoke of service chafing or the burden of life weighing us down… it might be good to check for pride. A little humility often goes a long way toward lifting the heaviness from our hearts, and realigning the perfectly-crafted yoke we share with Jesus.

On Death and Dismemberment

Every once in a while Jesus comes out with a pronouncement that just tilts your mind up on end, doesn’t He? We heard one of them Sunday: “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell” (Mt. 5:29-30 NIV).

Yikes. I picture large garbage cans at the doors of the sanctuary, quickly filling with offending body parts as the congregation files out. (Elders wielding long knives? This is a good blog for Halloween weekend). For who of us hasn’t sinned with our eyes or hands or tongue? Who of us would be able to keep from whittling away at our bodies, lopping off first this and then that disobedient part, until we were finally the death of ourselves?

Still, Jesus said it. So partway through Keith’s excellent sermon, I reached over to snag Dave’s Life Application Bible. Their commentary on the gouging/cutting-off verses did not, unsurprisingly, advocate literal mutilation of the body. Because, they point out, even a blind man can lust. Even an armless man can sin. For sin goes deeper than flesh and blood.

Lust – overpowering desire for any object – is a product of our inner man, not our physical body. Therefore, it’s the inner senses that lead us astray , and the inner person who needs dealt with. Scripture calls that inner person “the old man.” Yes, as believers we are new creatures in Christ, that old man has been crucified with Him… but we know that crucifixion is a slow and painful death. That old man hangs on the cross and begs for mercy and just a little more time. And Jesus is saying, “Don’t give him any. Cut off every supply of life. End it with a swift stoke of the sword. Don’t coddle what can send you to hell.”

How can we hasten the death of that old self within? Ultimately, there is only one Executioner able to deal the fatal blow and free us from the bondage of lust… the Holy Spirit. “If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live” (Rm. 8:13 NIV). But He won’t do it without our cooperation. So we’ve got to show the Spirit that we mean business about this death of self. Here are some practical ways:

1. In our minds: Proclaim a “fast” from that forbidden thought pattern, from thinking about a person you shouldn’t be thinking about, from starting down a mental path that always drags you down. Every time your mind goes that direction, grab it by the neck and turn it elsewhere. Just do it, and do it for three weeks. That kind of starvation has an amazing power to clear the mind and open it to the Spirit’s perspective and help.

2. In our actions: Cut off the “blood supply” to that which is dragging you down. Pull the plug on the computer. Block the caller. Drive a different route to work. Plan new weekend activities to replace the harmful ones. Be as radical as you must, using every physical means available to strangle the temptation, and do it mercilessly, for three weeks. You'll be creating an opening for the Spirit to gain a foothold, and ultimately defeat a stronghold in your life.

3. In our hearts: Take an honest look at your heartstrings. What are they connected to? What is your “treasure”? If you aren’t sure, answer this question: Where does my mind go when it’s free to think about anything it wants to? That’s likely your treasure. If it’s not God-honoring, cut the strings. If you are unwilling, are you willing to be made willing? Tell the Spirit so, and whatever He says to you, do it.

Cut. Starve. Strangle. Desperate words for people who mean business. Who mean to do their part, and finally be the death of themselves. Who mean to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, experience the gift of His power and love and self-discipline (2 Tim. 1:7), and freely walk in newness of life.

It’s Time to Pray

In Jan Karon’s delightful series The Mitford Years, pastor Timothy Kavanaugh and his fiancé-eventually-wife Cynthia have a unique way of dealing with challenges. In times of crisis, they pray "the prayer that never fails."

But what that prayer is, the reader is not immediately told, and we grow increasingly curious. Karon is not a writer of fluff, offering pat answers that don’t really stand up to reality. But how can there be a prayer that never fails? What is it? Finally the reader is enlightened. We listen in as they carry yet another desperate need to the Father, and we learn… the prayer that never fails is this:

“Thy will be done.”

Four words! Four words that, sincerely prayed, never fail to help us see the situation through God’s eyes. Never fail to challenge our selfish preferences and foolish fears and stubborn agendas. Never fail to gently pry the need from our grip and hand the reins of authority over to Him. Never fail to give the Spirit permission to work in the crisis and in us, and freedom to move outside the lines we have drawn. Never fail to stretch our faith in His goodness and expand our confidence that He only seeks the best for everyone involved.

We at FAC are at a crucial point. According to our Search Committee chairman, within the next month we will likely know the name of our new senior pastor. So while we’ve certainly been praying all along, now is the time to pray as we have not prayed before. I don’t mean length or intensity of prayers, necessarily, but the kind of prayer we pray.

“Thy will be done” fits the bill. It puts us all on the same page, preserves the unity of the Body, seeks the highest possible good for all, pleases the Father, and aligns us to hear and cooperate with whatever He does. And it governs our response to God’s answer.

But it’s not for wimpy pray-ers, or those with their own agenda. It’s not for those who trust their own wisdom or pretend to see into the future. It’s not for the fainthearted or the hidebound (great word, google it). It’s a gutsy prayer, and only the gutsy intercessor can pray it and mean it.

A simple prayer but not always an easy one. Yet those four words can often accomplish what hours of intercession cannot. And it’s time to pray.