It Takes A Church...

New Year's Happiness, amidst the sadness

Consider it my end of the year gift to offer you two thoughtful posts from friends of mine this New Year's evening. 

Mark Roberts offers us some lessons from Charles Dickens for a "sober celebration" (pun intended) amidst a world filled with pain and Rob Asghar has us think about how we start the New Year sets the tone for the rest of the year. 

Read them both and you'll know understand immediately why it's so good to have such smart and wise friends.   I'll tease you with a quote from Rob's site.

Psychologist Martin Seligman noted that there is a hierarchy of three calibers of life that people pursue.  The "pleasurable life," which is a life filled with great grub and great drinks and great songs.  The "good life," in which a person is connected to a circle of friends and family.  And the "meaningful life," in which a person is connected in meaningful ways to something much larger than his or her immediate circle.  It is a particular blessing when all three can be interwoven, but the third is the most important.

New Year's is a moment in which we can be tempted to linger with just the first and lowest form without thought to the others.  But we can always do better.  A friend mentioned some wise words yesterday about how the manner in which we spend new year's sets a tone for the year we'll have.

There are grim, serious legalists who want to clamp down on all fun.  Then there are wild, grinding party machines who don't know restraint.  Among the many paradoxes of of the quest for "the abundant life" is to discover a richer and better and meatier way that transcends these two polarities.

Happy New Year from me and my friends to you and yours.

Tod

Christmas Old and New

I have been using these Twelve Days of Christmas posts to introduce both new Christmas musings and some good Christian friends. (Some are "only" blog friends, but friends nonetheless.)   This morning a pre-Christmas reflection from Jeff McCrory of Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Hills, CA.  An OT Ph.D, Jeff gives us a nice insight into the connection of Exodus to Jesus.

I had a woman today say to me as she walked out of church, “Why don’t you preach on Christmas at Christmas time?” I was flabbergasted. I had just finished a series of sermons on the Book of Exodus and had preached on Exodus 40:34-38, “the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” I had linked the text as proper to John’s statement (John 1: 14) that the Word became flesh and tabernacled (the Greek verb here is a derivative of the word which we translate tent) among us. I had used the metaphor of inviting someone into our house for Christmas dinner. “Why don’t you preach on Christmas as Christmas time?”

This brings me to the gospel Old and New. The New Testament Gospel that Jesus is God among us, in the flesh, is the same good news that God comes to dwell in the midst of his people in the tabernacle. The goal of the Book of Exodus, the story of liberation is not liberation, as many would have it, not guidance through life through the pillar and cloud, not even covenant (Exod 19-24). The goal is that Yahweh God would live among us. This is the Christmas story: the Word became flesh and lives among us. Why some people can’t see this in the Old Testament I do not know.

A Biblical Perspective from a South Asian Christian

One of my seminary students offers up this post from his perspective as a Vietnamese Christian praying through the significance of Epiphany, the celebration of the coming of the Magi and the Tsunami.

"It Takes a Church" cited

In the most recent issue of Christianity Today, Tim Stafford writes an article called, "The Church. Why bother?"  In it, he cites my first book, It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian: How the Community of God Transforms Lives. (It's not available online yet, but if you have the magazine and would like to offer some comments, rebuttals or further thoughts, please add them to this post.)

I'll link to the article when it is available on line.

Christmas, a Tsunami and Hope

A familiar New Year's Day image offers eerie perspective.  Picture the Rose Bowl Game with all of the fans, the bands and the teams.  The color, the pageantry, the sheer energy of excitement. Now picture every one of these people gone.  That's the damage of the tsunami in South Asia. The latest death toll is 114,000 people.

The numbers are staggering and the images haunting.   And the need is obvious for Christians to join our prayers and efforts with those whose lives who have been so devastated by our beautiful but, fallen and still groaning Earth (Romans 8:19-22).

In the Christmas post immediately below, Craig Williams offers Anna and Simeon as models of "a persistent lifestyle of hope."  May we who believe that because of his personal visit in the incarnation, God has special interest in the groans of the world, demonstrate the difference of our faith. Our reflection on the incarnation can lead to compassion prayerfulness and action.  While it seems like so little, even those of us who are so far away can, in the words of Tolstoy, "add our light to the sum of light".   

(If you'd like to join me in contributing to the relief effort that is already going on, here is the link for World Vision.  If you are having trouble getting through World Vision's web line, you can call 888-562-4453.) 

Christmas Expectations

My friend, Craig Williams, is the pastor of Trabuco Presbyterian Church, in Orange County, CA.  His pre-December 26 service blog offers this gem for our continued Christmas consideration. Thanks Craig.

One of my favorite Christmas poems comes from W.H. Auden, For the Time Being.  It is a fantastic narrative poem that moves through the story of Christmas at many different levels.  One of the lines towards the end suggests that what we have done is tried too hard to make Christmas live up to our expectations.  Many times I feel that is what I try to do.  Whether it is family or church or culture, I have high hopes of what Christmas will bring.

Christmas isn't about our expectations.  This morning I will preach on the story of Simeon and Anna in the temple, blessing the young boy Jesus.  These two old saints are a model of what Christian discipleship is all about.  Diligently these two pray and fast and watch.  What all Israel is supposed to do is embodied in these two.  The text in Luke 2 says of Simeon that he "lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel." (Peterson's translation in The Message)  Of Anna the text says that she never left the temple, worshipping and praying and fasting, day and night.

This persistent lifestyle of hope pays off.  They see God's salvation in person.

Christmas isn't about our expectations.  I believe my expectations are too low.  I'm not cut of the same faithful cloth as Simeon and Anna.  I'm not sure I'd last a lifetime waiting and hoping.  My expectations are probably too low.  They're probably low so I won't be disappointed.  I can hear the echo of phrases like "make sure you have realistic expectations."  I believe that means "don't hope for too much."  I suppose it is a way of bringing solace to children when they don't get what they want.  But it's bad advice.

Christmas is about meeting God in the person of Jesus.  Anna and Simeon's expectations were very high.  And God went beyond even what they could hope for by sending his Son.

As you can see, Craig's website Tabletalk is worthy of regular reading.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

How much you have loved us kind Father!
If your Word had not become flesh
and had not dwelt among us,
we would have had to believe
that there was no connection
between God and humanity
and we would have been in deep despair.

                                    —Augustine (Bishop of Hippo, d. 430)

(With thanks to Rick Lord.)

When was the last time that we consider the "despair" of being unconnected to God?  Have we ever stopped to ponder how different life would be if like most cultures the gods we worshipped and served were distant, fearsome, fickle and dangerous?   

Think of all the people in human history who have lived without knowing that God has come to make connection with us and "save us from Satan's power when we had gone astray."

Tidings, indeed, of comfort and joy and another Christmas thought worth lingering upon.

WSJ.com - 'Now We Hate Seeing This Sea'

A harrowing and important article about the tragedy in Asia.

Link: WSJ.com - 'Now We Hate Seeing This Sea'.

Tsunami Relief: Update!

The devastation in Asia from the recent earthquake and tsunami is being called possibly the worst natural disaster ever.  If you'd like to join me in contributing to the relief effort that is already going on, here is the link for World Vision.  These guys know what they are doing.

And let's all pray for God's mercy and provision for our across the world neighbors.

PS Update: The death toll has now been announced at over 62000 people. If you are having trouble getting through World Vision's web line, you can call 888-562-4453. 

Slaughter of the Innocents, 2004 - Christianity Today Magazine

For those of you who were following the Groningen Protocol discussion earlier in Advent, CT offers a fine analysis from Frederica Matthews-Green

Link: Slaughter of the Innocents, 2004 - Christianity Today Magazine.