Tod Bolsinger

Jesus is not a Partridge and other thoughts about a lingering Christmas

Lest you think I was referring to that classic Shirley Jones and David Cassidy show about the single mom leading her kids in a band, let me be clear here that I am spending the next--now nine--days of Christmas encouraging my congregation and my blog readers to "let Christmas linger" by focusing on the Twelve Days of Christmas (the season, not the song). 

In fact, there have been ample attempts to find the deep Christian significance of the Twelve Days of Christmas (the song, not the season) and some of them are quite clever and consistent.  But urban legends all, I'd say.   For a nice description of the Twelve Days (both season and song) that acknowledges both the myth and the helpfulness of it, I'd suggest following this link.  You may even want to use it each day to think about another aspect of the Christian faith. 

Let me be clear here, that in encouraging a lingering Christmas, I am not talking about spending time at the after Christmas sales, drinking extra egg nog and eating more and more Christmas cookies.  If you feel like indulging a bit, so be it, but the last thing we need is for the "Christmas chaos" that so makes the last days before the holiday such a stress. 

Instead, let Christmas linger in your heart, mind and soul.  Take time now that the day is over to use the season to "ponder nothing earthly minded" as the old carol encourages. 

Also, here is another suggestion for how to "let Christmas linger" during these Twelve Days from Christmas to Epiphany: 

Let Christmas linger in your conversation with others.  Keep conversing about Christmas.   

Really.  While others are beginning to talk New Years' resolutions, and the stores are encouraging early shopping for Valentines' day, let's keep thinking and talking about the good news of God with us. 

You see, since so often the Christmas carols are sung amidst the chaos of preparing for packages, meals and guests.  We rarely get to sit with others and talk about the meaning, the significance, the difference that God's coming to earth should make.

If you are not in a liturgically focused church, you may never even study the gospel passages like Matthew 1-2, and Luke 1-2.  They are only read in pageants and in candlelight services. But this would be a great time to read not only about angels and shepherds, but about Anna and Simeon, Mary's Magnificat, Elizabeth and John the Baptist, the Magi, Herod  and the Slaughter of the Innocents.

You may even want to spend some time listening to the Christmas music you missed and talking to a friend or adding a comment to this blog.  (When was the last time Bach's Christmas Oratorio or Handell's Messiah was played in the mall?)

For the rest of this Christmas season I will both offer some of my thoughts and point to some friends who can help us keep the Christmas conversation going.  So check in here each day between now and January 6 and we'll let Christmas linger--together.

Note to neophyte blog readers:  Since some of you are first timers to my site or any (encouraged by my sermon last Sunday), you may want to spend a few minutes reading my "Welcome Blogs".  They serve as an introduction and might be helpful. 

Let Christmas Linger

This is an excerpt from my sermon on December 26.  With it, I introduced my congregation to the idea of the Christmas Season from Christmas to Epiphany.  Over the remainder of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” I will be offering some Christmas reflections to help us use this season to the full.  Tomorrow: "Jesus is not a Partridge: The Urban Legend of the Twelve Days."

Well, Christmas is over.  At least that is what it says in the paper today.  The “Day After Christmas sales” are in full force (and frankly I am pleasantly surprised that any of you are here when you can get wrapping paper at 80% off).  The local Starbucks won’t be offering any more seasonal favorites, the radio stations will stop playing “White Christmas” in Orange County and many of you are going to spend the afternoon doing nothing but tearing down the Christmas tree so that you can get it into the morning’s trash pick-up. In Canada it’s Boxing Day. (Not sure if that means that ordinarily mild manner Canadians are going to don gloves and play like Muhammad Ali, but that’s what they call it).

I know that some of you expected to come into worship this morning and find the decorations down and a new series begun, and most likely, me on vacation.  You may even think that we were just too lazy to getting around to cleaning up.  (I’ll bet some of your houses are still messy from Christmas, huh? We need to go home and clean up the wrapping paper just so we can find the cat.)

But whether we want it to be or not, Christmas isn’t done yet.  While Christmas day is over, the Christmas SEASON has really just begun.  You know that old carol, “The Twelve days of Christmas?”  Well what it refers to are the days between Christmas and Epiphany—the day where we celebrate the coming of the Magi and the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles.  (If you are keeping track, Sunday  was Two Turtle Dove Day). 

In the same way that Advent was the season of preparation, the Christmas Season is the time of celebration.  The season in the church where we reflect upon the Christmas Story and celebrate all the depth of mystery of the incarnation and what God’s presence means to us.  Between now and Epiphany we can say with full spiritual conviction that Christmas isn’t done yet. 

Now, the great temptation on this day after Christmas is to put Christmas away.  In our house, being aware that you didn’t get the Head CMT 75 Monster Skis with Tyrolia bindings you wanted for Christmas means that you can immediately start looking forward to your birthday.  Getting Christmas behind us means we can start looking forward to the new year.  Usually by this time we are so filled with feasting that we almost eager to start a New Year’s fast. 

But, we need time to reflect on the meaning and purpose of Christmas.  There is way too much going on, way too much at stake, way too important a message to let it get lost in the leftovers and thrown out with untied ribbons and torn wrapping paper.

Now that Christmas day is over, focus on the Christmas Season. Now that society has given up on Christmas carols, use the next two weeks to sing and ponder something much greater than a season. (Mark Roberts' reflection on "Joy to the World" is a great place to start.) For the next eleven days, you can follow along here for some devotional thoughts.  And now that the party is over, let the reflection and celebration truly begin.

Let the next eleven days take you deeper into the both the taste and the thirst of Christmas. That which we want and continue to want from the God who has come to earth, how the incarnation meets the needs of the world, but how they are still unfulfilled.

Use the next eleven days to reflect upon the joy of God’s presence and where you experienced being known and loved and where that joy is still unfulfilled. 

Use the next eleven days to reflect upon the peace on Earth that is proclaimed at Christmas, how you experienced that peace and how it is still so terribly unfulfilled. 

Use the next eleven days to reflect upon the purpose of life to give glory to God—to reveal God’s presence—and let both the taste and the thirst lead you to seek to live a life that more and more aware that what you really wanted for Christmas, you still want. 

O How Great that Manger was

O how great that manger was
To confine all of infinity
O how great that baby’s skin
to encompass all divinity

O how clean that soiled wood!
O how pure that human flesh!
For there we find the Trinity
(Omnipotence brought near for thee.)

Tod Bolsinger

Louis Cassels' The Birds

With thanks to my friend, Derek Simmons for sending me a copy of this classic for Christmas eve.  (Those of you who follow the comments section of this blog will know that Derek's hobby is theological jousting with his pastor.  This little story will also let you know of Derek's great heart for Christ and the wonder of the incarnation.)

Once upon a time, there was a man who looked upon Christmas as a lot of humbug.
He wasn't a Scrooge.  He was a very kind and decent person, generous to his family, upright in all of his dealings with other men.
But he didn't believe all that stuff about an Incarnation which churches proclaim at Christmas.  And he was too honest to pretend that he did.
"I am truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, who was a faithful churchgoer.  "But I simply cannot understand this claim that God became a man.  It doesn't make any sense to me."
On Christmas Eve, his wife and children went to church for the midnight service.  He declined to accompany them.
"I'd feel like a hypocrite," he explained.  "I'd much rather stay at home.  But I'll wait up for you."
Shortly after his family drove away in the car, snow began to fall.  He went to the window and watched the flurries getting heavier and heavier.
"If we must have Christmas," he reflected, "it's nice to have a white one."
He went back to his chair by the fireside and began to read his newspaper.
A few minutes later, he was startled by a thudding sound. It was quickly followed by another, then another.  He thought that someone must be throwing snowballs at his living-room window.
When he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow.  They had been caught in the storm, and in a desperate search for shelter had tried to fly through his window.
"I can't let these poor creatures lie there and freeze," he thought.  "But how can I help them?"
Then he remembered the barn where the children's pony was stabled.  It would provide a warm shelter.
He quickly put on his coat and galoshes and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn.  He opened the doors wide and turned on a light.
But the birds didn't come in.
"Food will bring them in," he thought.  So he hurried back to the house for bread crumbs, which he sprinkled on the snow to make a trail into the barn.
To his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flop around helplessly in the snow.
He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around and waving his arms.  They scattered in every direction -- except into the warm, lighted barn.
"They find me a strange and terrifying creature," he said to himself, "and I can't seem to think of any way to let them know they can trust me.
"If only I could be a bird myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety."
Just at that moment, the church bells began to ring.
He stood silently for a while, listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.
Then he sank to his knees in the snow.
"Now I do understand," he whispered. "Now I see why You had to do it."

Derek adds: A very Merry and Blessed Christmas to you all!

Peace be with you (and your family)...Part 3

In this end of Advent series, I have been putting forth the idea that we find the peace of God in our family by putting God’s priorities even before our family
This includes both prioritizing God's word in our famiies and now,prioritizing Christ’s Call in our Families.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 10 are at first glance confusing and troubling. 

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

Huh? We ask scratching our heads, “I have not come to bring peace?”  I thought that was exactly what he came to bring. 

But finish the rest of the section: 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Jesus is using a very common first century literary form of exaggeration to make his point that is, once again, about priorities.  He is reminding us that we humans cannot attain on our own strength the things that only can God give.  So we are called to seek God and put his son, first as the Lord and Savior of our lives.  Again, like the way that the person who is desperately trying to be happy is usually the most unhappy person in the room, Jesus says that if you try to find your life, you’ll lose it. 

If you try to secure peace in your family, you’ll wreck it.  Peace is granted by God to those who make Jesus the center and focus of their lives.  We secure God’s peace in our families when Christ’s call is the first priority in our families.

This is why as a church we don’t just offer programs for children and youth, but continually seek to minister to the whole family.  It is why we offer worship for the whole family, and why we value our multi-generational fellowship.

Let me also stress that this emphasis on the family doesn’t mean that at our church we have nothing for those who are single or who don’t have kids in the home.  Quite the opposite.  Because everybody has a family of origin and every person needs to relate to others in this church as brothers and sisters. Our goal is that in our church would be the kind of large multi-generational Community that God intends his people to be.  That our church would be an extended family that puts Christ’s call as the first priority of our lives, and helps each of us to experience and pass on to others the peace that comes when Christ is at the center of a family. 

We find the peace of God in our family by putting God’s priorities even before our family.

• We open ourselves to God’s peace in our families by making God’s word a priority in our families.
• We secure God’s peace in our families when Christ’s call is the first priority in our families.

George Bernard Shaw wrote, “A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” 

I would have to agree. There is nothing quite so divinely peaceful as when a family is at peace in a home.  Growing up, I was raised in a family where I was deeply loved but where we experienced a good deal of family pain. I still remember what it was like to suffer through my parents’ divorce and especially the painful Christmases of adjustment that followed.  Like so many people who have grown up in broken homes, I often worried whether I would be able to provide my own children with the kind of peace that I lost as a child. 

But one year at Christmas time, I had one of those moments that reminded me that God can do anything.  Beth and the kids and I were in Mammoth on a Christmas week ski trip. We were skiing down to our condo on the last run of the day and I began thinking about what a great trip we were having together.  I had woken up early that morning and sipped a latte while Beth and the kids slept.  We had all stayed up late watching a movie while piled into the big king-sized bed.  I don’t remember who had said what, but during dinner the night before all of us had laughed so hard that Brooks fell off his chair. 

On that last ski run of the day, when I didn’t think I could be any happier, a little girl all dressed in pink skied up next to me, humming as she flew down the slope.  Ali and I exchanged smiles and I could finally make out the tune that was unconsciously coming from within her as she skied with her family and next to her Daddy.

“I’m so happy, so very happy. I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart.  I’m so happy, so very happy. 

You could have taken me to heaven then. 

I am not a perfect father and we are not a perfect family, but I do know that the more our family prioritizes and seeks to live by God’s word; the more our family prioritizes and obeys Christ’s call, the more pervasive the peace of Christ seems to grow within our home.  The God whom we trust and follow wants us to have peace and happiness in our families. 

Peace be with you (and your family)...Part 2

I have been focusing the past few days on the elusive "peace of Christ" promised at Christmas time.  Yesterday I concluded by saying that the key to finding peace in our families is to have two priorities that are greater than the family: God's word and Christ's call. 

Now let me start by saying that I’m not trying to be simplistic here.  I’m not saying that we shouldn’t take advantage of other resources, counseling, or support. And I know that this is complicated when not everyone shares our faith, but if we prioritize God’s word and Christ’s call we can begin to bring peace into our lives and our family.

1. Prioritizing God’s Word
In Malachi 4:6, we read, “Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded…” 

Now the teaching of Moses, the statutes and ordinances, is the Word of God given to Moses for the people of God.  In Deuteronomy 6 God tells his people that if they want their “days to be long,” if they want their lives to “go well,” if they want to “multiply greatly” and be blessed “in a land flowing with milk and honey,” then they need to “keep his decrees and commandments.”

God’s intention for his people is that they would live together as a large, multi-generational, extended family of families with blessed and peaceful lives.  When the Old Testament closes, the people of God have forgotten those commands, they are in exile and their families are scattered.  Malachi reminds them of what they need to do, to prepare for the one who will come and bring peace to each person and within their families: They need to remember and heed God’s word. 

What was true for them is true for us.  We open ourselves to God’s peace in our families by making God’s word a priority in our families.

Not sure if you believe me?  Then just ask yourself: How much of the tension that goes on in your family is due to someone who broke a promise, picked a fight, acted disrespectfully, had an affair, or is treating someone else in the family in a manner that angers the others?  How much of the lack of peace has been brought on because of old grudges or because of action, attitudes or values that harmed you or someone else?

Just consider this: If the whole family agreed to, modeled together and taught the next generation
• biblical sexual ethics;
• biblical instruction in tithing, stewardship and generosity and the handling of money;
• the biblical commands to keep promises and honor vows,
• biblical attitudes toward enjoying the good things of life without covetousness, greed and addiction;
• the biblical admonition to honor and respect the older generation
• as well as the biblical insistence on forgiving those who don’t,
wouldn’t our families be more open to the peace of God?   

I know that some of the lack of peace present at a family gathering is because Uncle Ed talks too much and Aunt Marge butts her nose into where it doesn’t belong, but more often than not absence of peace is deeply connected to violating biblical teaching, (whether we agree with it, know it or not) and the cancer that creeps into relationships through sin.

It doesn’t have to be this way, dear friends.  Beth and I have been blessed by the example of so many in our church as we have learned from them how to make the word of God a priority in our families.  Recently, I was inspired by one of my friends who flew half way across the country to spend two days holding his aging mother’s hand.  She didn’t even recognize him, her once active mind now slipping away.  When a friend asked why he does it, he replied without fanfare: “I do it for me, I have to honor my mother.” 

When we start living out the word, we offer a type of family relationship where children’s hearts are turned to the parents, and parents’ hearts are turned to the children and all who see it get a glimpse of the peace of God that is available to us.  If we want to be open to the peace of God for our families then we must genuinely know, prioritize and follow the word of God in our families. 

But when we seek to live out God’s word in our families, we also become keenly aware that with our own strength, we can not fulfill it.  We become aware that we need more than just laws and statutes in front of our eyes; we need God’s own Spirit in our hearts.

Tomorrow, Christ's call.

Peace be with you (and your family)...Part 1

I once heard a person describe holidays as that time of year where we travel long distances and spend great amounts of money to be with people whom we have avoided all year long.

Of course none of us wants it to be that way. We all would love to be part of one of those remarkable families where everyone genuinely loves each other and enjoys being together. 

We want our grown children to want to come home for Christmas; we want to be the kind of person who can both honor aging parents and inspire honor in our own children.  We want our home to be filled with sounds of easy laughter, of comfortable banter, of heartfelt sentiments of love. 

Yet, for so many of us, that is what is most missing every Christmas. 
• The first, or second or tenth Christmas since the loss of a loved one will leave a howling hole without joy or light. 
• An estrangement with a son or daughter will leave you spending the day wondering if the phone will ever ring. 
• The tension of trying to hold together a crumbling marriage in front of the children at least through the New Year will take all the energy you have. 
• Or the painful reality of so many blended families like I grew up in, where negotiating which parent gets the kids for which half of Christmas makes even the best moments tinged with sadness. 
Or even worse.

I will never forget the Christmas night when the phone rang and one of my college students told me that she found her Dad face down in the kitchen.  She said that at first she thought that Dad had just started his Yule-tide drunk a little earlier than usual.  She figured that her Mom was going to be no use and her brother no-where-to-be found.  So she prepared pour him into bed so that the family could start their usual, “Dad is sick on Christmas again” routine.  But then she noticed a difference.  Dad wasn’t passed out, he’d passed away.  He wasn’t drunk, but dead.  The addiction that had devastated their family had taken his life and, for my young friend, marred Christmas forever.

I certainly cannot claim that what write here today and tomorrow will be enough to take the tension out of your family Christmas festivities, if there is some obvious pain there, or bring enough comfort to you for the pain you might have, but what I can say is that God wants peace in your family. And what we celebrate at Christmas time is part of his plan to restore it.

The Old Testament ends with a prophecy of a prophet who will come to pave the way for the Redeemer.  That prophet will come like Elijah with power and authority, Malachi tells us, and the sign that he is coming to make straight the way of the Lord, will be that “He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents…”

The good news includes God’s intention for heavenly peace, God’s peace, the peace of the Prince of Peace, to be present in our families and in our homes. 

In both the prophecy about John the Baptist that we find closes the Old Testament, and Jesus own words in the New Testament, we find some guidance for restoring peace to our families and even better for protecting the peace that we do experience in our families. 

What we learn from both the prophet Malachi and from Jesus’ own words is a hard principle that will take both trust and discipline:
We find the peace of God in our family by putting God’s priorities even before our family.
I know that for many of us, this seems harsh.  Doesn’t God want my family to be my first priority in life?  Shouldn’t family come before everything else? 

No.  Not everything else.  Just most everything else.  (Please know that I say this as a husband and father whose greatest joy in life is my family.)  God’s own priorities teach us that when we make family the ultimate focus of our lives, we actually end up losing the peace we want for our families.

It’s like the way that people who focus their whole attention on happiness usually end up being very unhappy.  Peace in the family is actually a by-product of two other even more important priorities.  They are: God’s word and Christ’s call.  (Which is what I will discuss tomorrow.)

Peace be with you...Part 2

Yesterday I pointed out that the Bible doesn't say that Jesus is the messenger of peace, but the message itself.  Today, more on what that means for us...

In Acts 10:36, Peter said, “You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.”

See God sent a message of peace, and he did so by “preaching peace by Jesus Christ.”  Not through Jesus, not with Jesus, but by Jesus.  What this means for you and me and everyone who knows that this world is not what it supposed to be is that Jesus is God’s sermon of peace.  Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is God preaching peace, proclaiming peace, bringing peace, being peace. 

The world we want and the peace we want in this world depends on our hearing the message with our eyes.  When we see Jesus we have a message lived out in front of us so that we won’t miss it:  This is what peace with God is all about.  This is a life lived in submission to God’s leadership.  This is a life that reveals what God intended life to be.  What life is supposed to be, is the way Jesus livedhe lives it.

In my book, Showtime, I tell the story I once heard about Albert Schweitzer.  Some of you will remember Schweitzer.  Born in 1875, he graduated college at age 21, became and minister and earned a Ph D. from the university of Strasbourg. He became both an accomplished theologian and an equally respected classically trained organist and the leading authority of his day on Johann Sebastian Bach.  At age 30 he went back to medical school, became a doctor and in 1913, he and his wife, who was also a nurse, left Europe for Africa where they established a missionary hospital for patients with leprosy.  They served in Africa for 50 years.  In 1952 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 

According to one story about him, when Schweitzer visited America in 1953, he was greeted in Chicago by a crowd of city officials and reporters.  As this bushy haired mustachioed 6 foot four inch tall man came off the train, the reporters and officials crowded around him with cameras flashing and heaping praise upon him.

Schweitzer politely thanked them but then looking over their heads he spied something that caused him to ask the officials if they would excuse him for a moment.  He quickly walked through the crowd until he reached the side of an elderly African-American woman who was struggling with two large suitcases.  He picked up the bags, escorted the woman to a bus, smiled and wished her a safe journey.  As he returned to the officials, he apologized for keeping them waiting. 

One member of the reception committee said to another, “That’s the first time I ever saw a sermon walking.”

My friends, the most powerful sermon is not the one that is spoken, but the one that is lived.  And that is true even for God’s sermons.

For thousands of years, God spoke through the law and the prophets offering people a chance for peace with him and peace with each other.  But the words, though powerful did not bring peace.  So the angels declared to a group of lowly poor shepherds on one starry night that they had Good News that there would be peace to all on whom God’s favor rests.  The angels served as the introduction.  They hushed the crowd and got the world’s attention.  And then, God cleared his divine throat and spoke his final word, his climactic sermon, his ultimate message in the incarnation of his Son.

“You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.”

The life we have always wanted is available to us in Jesus.  The peace that God intended is here waiting for you in the manger in Bethlehem, on the roads to Galilee, in the cross of Golgotha, in the empty tomb of Jerusalem. 

Romans 5:1 summarizes it this way: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now this is the point in this post that at least one of you is thinking, “Um, Tod, okay, I believe that Jesus is God’s message but it seems to me that that message isn’t making much of a difference. It seems to me that Jesus came a long time ago and the world is still not filled with peace.  People are still at war; life is still not the way it is supposed to be.  If Jesus is the message, that message hasn’t gotten out very far now has it?”

Right.  I agree.  And that is the tragedy. We are in need of more messengers.

Every year at Christmas time I read about those angels declaring the good news that there is peace available to people and I wish they’d make another appearance.  I wish that tonight over Baghdad or in South Central LA or in every home filled with family strife, the angels would show up with their message of peace.  That no one could miss it.

But they won’t. 

Jesus is the message.  Today we are the messengers.

Isaiah 52:7 says:
How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.

My friends, this is our job.  Whether you are a Marine who must regretfully usher in peace through toppling a dictator, a parent who is trying to bring peace to warring siblings; a business owner, or school principal or shopkeeper or neighbor or friend who is just profoundly aware of the lack of peace in our world and in people’s hearts.  You and I are called to be the messengers who announce peace, who bring good news, who announce salvation, who say to everyone, “God reigns.” 

We are called to proclaim the message: The Peace you want does not come from within.  It only comes through submitting your life to the reign of God, through believing the message of peace preached by God in Jesus. 

Jesus is God’s peace message; Jesus’ people are God’s messengers today
What does this mean for you and me?  Well if nothing else, we can take advantage of the Christmas interest in spiritual things and invite someone to come to a Christmas Eve service in our churches.

A second way we can be a messenger for God is to be ready to share how the peace of God has transformed our lives. We need to be ready to remind people we of reality that we cannot generate the peace that we are looking for, but that it has to be given to us by God.  But even more than that, like Schweitzer we too must be a “Sermon walking.”

And in the same way that Jesus is the message more by how he lived than even what he said, we, too are called to be people who proclaim the message with our lives. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”  (Matthew 5:9). 

We are to be people who live out the shalom of God with those around us.  Who do what we can work together as a church to further the complete well-being of every person,; who work together for harmony in the home and health for every person and challenge the chaotic acquisitiveness of our culture; who demonstrate the blessedness that comes from living together under God’s reign and rule. Our church dear friends is to be a church that demonstrates in the way we live together, the way we reach out to neighbors and the way we minister to people in our community, the deep satisfaction that comes from living life under God’s authority and rule.  If Peace is the result of God truly being in charge of his creation, then let us commit that God will truly be in charge of us.

Let us be people who can proclaim through our lips and through our lives the message of that old carol:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.’

Peace be with you...Part 1

As we enter into this final advent week, I want to spend some time focusing on that which is promised at Christmas but seems so elusive, "Peace on earth, good will to men (and women.)

For all the Christmas programs that are on TV, there is one old carol, that never gets sung: “I heard the bells on Christmas day”. 

That’s the kind of carol that often gets forgotten in TV specials and even in most homes and churches.  Yes, it starts innocently enough, with the expected idea of someone hearing Christmas church bells and humming along to the sentiments of the season.

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

But then, this old carol takes on an unexpected Christmas turn.  A wide-eyed, bluntly realistic Christmas turn.  We realize that the singer isn’t a Hollywood performer on a sound stage, but a mother in south central LA, a soldier in Baghdad, or a child who is spending another holiday listening to his drunk father fight with his scared mother. 

And in despair I bowed my head:
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said
‘For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.’

We probably don’t sing this carol much because it reminds us of two brutal realities.  Two things that we experience far too often every Christmas, but we’d just assume put out of our minds. 

First, that all of us long for a world that has been lost.  We really miss and yearn for the world that God intended: Where lions and lambs played together.  Where humans lived joyfully at ease with each other and in intimacy with God.  Where the world was garden full of all we needed to be happy and safe.  Where the primary command was to “be fruitful and multiply.”  Where everything in the world is “good”.  “Very good.”   Where there was “peace on earth”.

Yes, this carol reminds us that we long for the world we have lost.  And it doesn’t take the evening news to remind us, we experience it within our own homes, within our own souls. Don’t we?  This is why the holiday season for all its high expectations of joy, family love and hopes for a better world, is also the time where people report the highest amount of depression, sadness and grief.  We really do long for a world we have lost. 

The second painful reality that this carol points to is that good intentions, good attitudes and even Christmas cheer is not enough to get it back.  You can’t make yourself have a merry Christmas any more than you can will the terrorists of the world would all lay down their c-4 explosives and go back to their homes.

The first lesson of Christmas peace: The Peace you want doesn’t come from within.

This is the pervasive message of the Bible: God intend us to live in peace. 
We lost that peace with each other when we rebelled against God.
Nothing we can do by ourselves can get it back.
You can’t will it, you can’t work for it, you can’t buy it and wrap it and put it under the tree.  You can’t make yourself have a peaceful attitude, you can’t generate it peaceful self-affirmations. 

The peace that you and I want does not come from anything within us.
The peace that you and I want does not come from anything in this world.
The peace that you and I want only comes from outside of ourselves and outside of this world.  Because, peace on earth begins with peace with God.  And only God can bring us peace with God.

And that is the first lesson of Christmas Peace: 
The Babe in the manger who became the man on the Cross was not the messenger of peace.  He did not say, “Find peace” or “Seek peace” or “Have peace” or “Get peace”.  He said, “My peace I give to you.” (John 14:27).

He was not God’s messenger of peace, he was the message itself.

Anyone who quotes NT Wright is a friend of mine...

Link: Until The Tide Turns.

If I study a subject like the Virgin Birth so that I’ll know the right answer to give on a test, God probably won’t be very impressed. But if I’m interested in it because I realize that believing in it totally changes the meaning of human history and life, that’s the difference. Being able to give the right answer is not particularly important if, at the level of your “mental map,” you don’t actually believe it’s true. I like the way Bishop N. T. Wright of Durham puts it in one of his Christmas Sermons: "In Durham of all places, the Church of England ought to be able to look our culture in the face, match it stride for stride, and point out where it's trying to pour a quart of truth into the pint pot of inadequate worldviews. The reason Christianity seems incredible to many people today is not because it's been disproved but because, as you might say to someone trying to play a Bach fugue on a tin whistle, you need a larger instrument. Or, changing the image, it's the familiar problem of the map–makers coping with the curvature of the earth. Until you give in and build a globe, reality is never going to fit your flatland surface. People sometimes accuse Christians of being flatlanders. In terms of worldview, it's the other way around

This is Rick Lord's twin brother...they must have some interesting family get-togethers.