messengers

If you had an incredibly important message that you needed to share with the world, how would you go about it?  My guess is that you would start with the most credible, powerful, influential, and well-connected people you could find, right?  Well, that’s not at all what God did.  He did not start with the “influencers” of the world, but with just the opposite.  God chose shepherds (Luke 2:15-20): lowly, uneducated, irrelevant shepherds.  God chose the most ordinary, humble, lowly, outcast group he could find.  Which shouldn’t be surprising at all since God seems to always start with the fringe, rather than the popular crowd.  I wonder why?

Maybe he chose shepherds because they were the most open and willing and eager ones he could find.  Maybe because they would be the ones most likely to drop everything—including the sheep—at a moment’s notice and leave it all behind, in order hurry off and find the Newborn King.  I mean, Herod would not even leave the palace, right? 

Maybe God chose the shepherds because he knew they would not get in the way of what he was trying to do; they were to ones least likely to try and hijack, manipulate, control, or profit from what God was up to.  They had no agenda, no need to make an impact, no need to try and spin it or use it for their own gain.

Maybe the reason God chose shepherds was because they were the ones who were the most free: free to receive, free to respond, free to share the news in a way that it was not about them, but about God.  And that’s exactly what they did.  They found their friends and their families and their co-workers—not exactly the who’s who of Bethlehem—and told them exactly what they had seen and heard.  And the people were amazed.  God had entered human history in the most random, unassuming, covert way possible, and these would be the perfect ones to tell the world about it.

today

today in the town of david

a savior has been born to you

luke 2:11

there is a gift

in the present moment

if you are willing

and able to receive it

if the grip of

current demands

or past regrets

of future concerns

do not rob you of

the gift of today

today there is

good news

of great joy

for all people

so don’t miss it

what lies within

The contrast is stark (Matthew 2:1-11).  On the one hand you have King Herod and “all Jerusalem with him” who were apparently troubled (ESV), disturbed (NIV), deeply perturbed (JBP), or terrified (MSG) by the birth of Jesus, depending on which translation you use.  The Greek word (tarassō) means to agitate, which gives the impression that, at the very least, they were threatened and disrupted somehow.  I wonder why?  Why would the birth of a baby bring about such a negative and insecure reaction?  Unless of course that baby was not just any ordinary baby.  Unless that baby, in fact, was the King of kings and Lord of lords.  If that’s who that baby was, then it might well have been something to turn their lives upside down.

On the other hand, you have the Magi, foreigners who had traveled a great distance, seeking the One the star was meant to lead them to.  The star was only a sign.  Thus, when they saw the star, let alone the child, they “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.”  Their journey was almost over.  They had reached their destination.  They were finally about to find the One their hearts had been looking for and longing for and hoping for.  Thus, one word was not enough to capture the emotion of seeing that star in the night sky, so Matthew used four different words: they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

But surely others had seen the star as well, right?  Did they just not know what the star meant?  Or did they just not care?  Were they so busy spinning around in their own little lives that they didn’t take the trouble to venture a measly five-and-a-half miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to see from themselves?

But the Magi did.  In fact, they had traveled hundreds of miles, seeking whatever, or whoever, the star was leading them to.  Thus, the joy they were filled with when they finally arrived at their destination.  Then, upon seeing the child, another reaction took place—worship.  Worship happens when you stand in the presence of someone, or something, much bigger than yourself.  It is a feeling of awestruck wonder that fills your heart with awe and brings you to your knees.  And the “someone” they found when they arrived was the One who held the waters of the earth in the hollow of his hand, spoke the mountains into place, and called the stars by name.  So they fell down on their knees and worshiped the Newborn King.  They opened their treasures to him and offered him gifts of gratitude and affection and honor and praise.

There are many ways we can react to the birth of Christ, and Christmastide gives us the time and the space to do just that.  Not to pretend or fabricate or manufacture a response, but to reflect and to recognize and to discover what is honestly there—no guilt, no shame, no ought or should.  It’s just where you are.  And where you are is exactly where God wants to meet you, it’s what the incarnation is about in the first place.  If you are full of joy and gratitude, thanks be to God.  But if you are agitated or disrupted or troubled or disturbed, don’t deny it or try to hide it, just ask him why.  If you lack joy, don’t beat yourself up over it, tell him about it.  It’s not like he doesn’t already know that anyway.  Ask him for the strength and the grace and the courage to choose joy.  Ask him to give you his joy.  Ask him to fill your heart with life and love and hope and peace and joy.  He is the source of all of those—just ask the Magi.

he came

“And the Word became flesh 

and made his dwelling among us.  

We have seen his glory, 

the glory of the One and Only, 

who came from the Father, 

full of grace and truth. 

(John 1:14)

He came! 

He really came! 

In spite of the darkness

and in spite of the lostness

and in spite of the brokenness,

He came! 

Can you imagine 

what your life

would be like 

if he had not?

setting the stage

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.  (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)  And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was great with child.  While they were there the time was fulfilled for the baby to be born.” (Luke 2:1-6)

Random events are almost never random; they often have God’s fingerprints all over them.  I mean, a census?  Really?  But then why else would a man drag his nine-month-pregnant wife, who is great with child, on a four-day, ninety-mile journey when she was about to pop?   

Probably because it wasn’t random at all; the stage was being set for a glorious unfolding.  All of the characters were being set in place for a script that had been written hundreds of years in advance (Isaiah 7:14) and had existed in the heart of God before the foundations of the world.  And now everyone was in place and just awaiting that one little word from the Master Director: “Action!”

How is God setting the stage in and around you, on this Christmas Eve, for his coming?  He is, you know!

zechariah's gift

Can you imagine being Zechariah?  All of those years, all of those prayers, all of those hopes and dreams, and finally God answers and gives him the son he has been waiting for and longing for and hoping for. 

And now, as we stand with Zechariah as he sings this song over his newborn son (Luke 1:67-79), we know the end of the story.  We know what lies ahead.  We know the pain and the heartbreak that awaits him.  Zechariah’s sweet son, the one he sings this song of hope and redemption over, will be a lonely outcast, who lives in the desert, and is eventually beheaded.  Can you imagine?

I guess it is a little glimpse into what must’ve gone on in the Father’s heart as he sent his beloved Son to earth.  You see, God never asks us to do something that he, himself, is unwilling to do.  His heart is so full of love for us that there were no lengths that he would not go to—including sending his beloved Son into this dark and broken world as a newborn baby—in order to show us how fully and deeply and extravagantly we are loved.  

obedience

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:20) 

You’ve got to admire Joseph.  He was put in such a tough spot.  Even though everything that was going on with Mary sounded absolutely preposterous, he was asked by God to trust and obey—and he did.  He was asked to believe that what was conceived in Mary was the work of God, whether he understood it or not; whether he agreed with it or not; whether the people around him thought he was doing the right thing or not.  He was asked to choose obedience over ease and popularity.

I get the sense that I should strive to do the same.  More and more, I find that I need to let God be God in people’s lives and just trust what he is up to, rather than trying to meddle, manipulate, or control it.  After all, he is God, and I am not.  He knows what he is doing and I need to honor that and trust in that.

Honestly, it is not an easy place to be, just ask Joseph.  I must be watchful, attentive, and prayerful as I venture in.  I must be careful to discern when and where and how he wants me to share my thoughts and opinions, and when and where and how he would rather me just keep my big mouth shut.; which can be both incredibly freeing and terribly frustrating, depending on whether it is all about me, or all about God and what he is up to in the life of the other.

Luckily, Joseph figured it out.  I need to learn how to follow his lead.