Happy New You!

Are you avoiding something? That list of things you want to accomplish in the New Year (I hope you do them all), will not compensate for the thing you’ve been avoiding. What is that unfinished, or not-yet-begun thing - that abiding sense of angst? What do you procrastinate and rationalize with excuses that seem so legit?

It’s a persistent whisper, but there is always some loudness, some obstacle, some other business that distracts you. You may even volunteer for other urgent tasks that you imagine need your attention…just to avoid that more quiet thing. It’s so easy to let yourself off the hook by letting yourself believe the Holy Spirit has pushed pause. Your environment and your body ally with your willing self-deception, self-sabotage and delay, seeming to validate your excuses.

The best opportunities for change come with distressful barriers that must be overcome first. It will cost you something. Forget the cheapo hack, the knock-off imitation and half-off coupon. You need to be willing to pay full price. This is by divine design. It is to keep out those who don’t value it enough to alter old habits, endure the cost, hard work, pain and sacrifice. Cowards are not welcome. Weekend warrior…stay home. Ya gotta want it!

And before the ball drops on midnight, eighty-six the addiction to instant gratification. It’s a powerful drug that fritters away the days of your life for little nothings, spends frivolously, diluting your energies, dismissing your significance, robbing the rest of us of YOU - the best of the YOU that you were born to be. It’s a con, a train wreck, a hit man. Run! Pray! Keep running!

There are many voices telling you to believe in yourself. I think you should increase your imagination and believe in some things bigger than yourself - things you can’t see. You must believe in the unseen if you are going to do that thing we’re talking about. But Heaven will only do so much to get you moving, and then wait to see if you’ve got the guts. If you do…Heaven is pleased. When you go all in and fully commit, the Unseen partners with, opens doors and provides in ways you can’t predict.

Don’t be reckless. Exercise due diligence. Give it thought and get wise counsel, but don’t get stuck in introspection. It’s okay to be afraid, but when you know…go. You are not alone.

Happy New Year! And happy new you!

I Believe in Santa

I believe. Don’t you? I mean...you may as well. Is what we are asked to believe in scripture at Christmastime any less wonderful or incredulous as that jolly ole dude? A virgin gave birth to a baby??? Do not deny the impossibility of the enchanted story. An angel is sent by God with a message: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus” (Luke 1:30,31).

Mary is young, but not stupid or naive so, naturally, she asks, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel claims, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…” The angel doesn’t explain everything, make a case for dogma, or dissolve all mystery, but leaves room for imagination with this reminder, “For nothing shall be impossible with God” (v37). Mary’s response is key - “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” She’s not naive, but not too enlightened to believe what cannot be true.

There is meaning in mystery that only gets unpacked when you believe. You and I are not far removed from old Nazareth and that angelic visitation. In a sense, that same sublime message is for us. As the Word was impossibly made flesh in Mary, so the Spirit would form Christ in our incomplete and broken flesh. Mysterious. Impossible. But true. It must be true. It has to be. Our only hope …“this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Like Mary you might ask, “How can this be?” Just be sure to hear Gabriel’s words, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…” And at that point, unseen celestial creatures lean in with hopeful anticipation of your response to the proposition that’s no less fantastical than Santa Claus himself. Destiny hinges on whether you take this tendered dream for true. You don’t have to be naive, but you do have to believe.

Sometimes facts alone, like a virgin girl, are incapable of delivering the truth. So with splendid disregard for the impossible, there is conception contrary to natural limits. The Word defies normal, challenges the limits of reason, dares reality not to comply with the dream, demands the “facts” acquiesce and concede another reality. The Spirit is prepared to negotiate a miracle. Are you prepared to believe? What’s at stake is everything.

My Christmas wish is for your youthful imagination to be healed, your wonder restored, your heart re-enchanted via beauty and mystery (i.e., “the hope of glory”). This Christmas eve, I hope you’ll take some little ones outside and search the starry night sky for flying reindeer. And while you are out there, teach them these words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” And when you’re all cozy back inside, why not set out some cookies for St Nick? Not to deny it’s a fairytale, but as a simple reminder - Sometimes fairytales and dreams come true… and “nothing shall be impossible with God”. -

Christmas Lights

It reads like a cup of hot chocolate with a big ole-melting marshmallow on top, sipped by a cozy fire on a calm, snow-fallen winter’s eve. Luke 2 provides an enchanting traditional Christmas reading that warms the heart. It’s delightful. The nativity narrative in Mathew 2 tells of a star that leads far-away outsiders to worship the newborn king. I don’t know how it is even possible for a star to lead to the exact place the child was, but I just take it the way we have it in the story.

Like Luke 2, Matthew 2 begins as a charming tale, but hang on to your hot chocolate ‘cause all that goodness is short-lived. “Silent night. Holy night” is soon wrecked. “Peace on earth” is lost in the horror of infants being slaughtered (The Massacre of the Innocents), and the child Jesus must become a refugee. These traditional Christmas readings are both enchanting and disturbing. The clash is left unreconciled.

If Matthew 2 and Luke 2 render some beautiful words, so does Philippians 2 (See: the Christ Hymn, vv6-11). While Matthew 2 and Luke 2 have our attention at Christmastime, Philippians 2 offers understanding. If the nativity narratives leave us guessing, Philippians is explicit…Jesus is God “born in the likeness of man” (v7). You’re excused if you can’t see it right off because Jesus does not leverage his deity, but comes with the attitude of a servant. In obedience and humility he empties himself to death.

The Gospels tell the Christmas story. Philippians interprets - “Your attitude toward one another should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (v5), with a unity of love, spirit, mind and purpose that prioritizes the importance and interests others (vv3,4).

It’s a lot to wish for at Christmas, but here’s the Christmas gift: “it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (v13). It’s a gift, i.e., grace. Grace is the power and desire to do as Christ. The efficacious nature of this gift is put to the test in the very next verse: “Do all things without murmuring and arguing [is that possible?], so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe” (v14).

Philippians helps us locate ourselves in the Christmas story. We are the ones called to empty ourselves for others. We are the slaughtered innocent children and the refugees. We are both the seekers and the bright stars that lead others to the king.

I don’t know how this is all possible any more than I understand how a star could have led the way for the wise men. But again, that is how we have it in the text, so hold on to it like a steamy cup of hot chocolate goodness. “It is by (our) holding fast to the word of life that (we) can boast on the day of Christ that (we) did not run in vain or labor in vain” (v16).

The Trouble with Christmas

“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him…” Matthew 2:1-3

Jerusalem “troubled”??? I wonder…did it just seem safer to keep waiting for their king than to finally welcome him? Perhaps the old routine of just waiting on the promise had become too comfortable, while finally receiving it seemed too much of a threat. For in fact, with the advent of promise comes disruptive change.

At a distance, opportunity can occupy one’s interest, something to safely fidget with in the imagination. But when the opportunity actually comes into reach, it could threaten our comfy, familiar routines. Real opportunity comes with risk.

I wonder too, could they have been like us, so focused on biblical principles that they missed the poetry, the song, the metaphor, the surprise? In the reading of the Law, did they overlook the love note? Having heard what the Spirit said, do we miss what the Spirit is saying? They missed their liberation that came in the lyrical slipstream of fresh revelation. While preserving the past they missed divine visitation in the present. Nostalgia neglected the new, and precedent kept them from surprise.

Vibrant tradition had been pointing ahead, providing vision, trajectory and momentum. It handed them a baton to run with, but they made it out to be an anchor. So taken with Torah, they missed what Torah was pointing to. Attentive to the letter, but not the Spirit - the scrolls of dead animal skins, but not living Word made flesh. Words without wonder failed to prepare them for the Spirit overshadowing Mary. Foreigners worshiped, but Jerusalem was troubled. Hmmm.

Aliens could see what bible thumpers couldn’t. Shown to those who studied stars and kept from students of scrolls. They could read Torah, but they could not see the lights above. How is it angels reveal the glory of God for shepherds outside the gates instead of officials gathered in the temple? The clergy and their prophecy charts didn’t get it - the uncredentialed did. The angels with good news came to fields where sheep and shepherds were, that is to say, where the officials were not.

Let’s be honest. We might have missed it too. One day he came, and one day he will come again. So while we remember the first advent and anticipate the second (this in-between time), may we be sensitive to the way he comes to us every day, and in unexpected and ways. Revelation through teenage girls, old folks and angels. The observations and questions of outsiders that get us looking again. Found in the church house and the outdoors. Found in the scriptures - in disruption - in the evening skies and nighttime visitations. Found here. Found now. And it’s worth the trouble.