But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart—Luke 2:19, ESV
Christmas Eve and Christmas turn our thoughts and hearts toward the birth of Jesus. Even the most avowed Atheist must recognize that the reason we even celebrate at this time of year is because of a baby born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Tonight, I deliver a Christmas Eve homily. Not really a sermon, just a meditation upon Christ and Christmas. Reading through Luke 2, what struck me most was verse 19.
Throughout the Advent season, we light candles. Candles are used to celebrate Christ because, as Jack read from John 1, He is the True light the gives light to all men. Tomorrow morning we celebrate the arrival of True Light.
John’s Gospel gives us a slightly different take on Christmas. Luke 2, which our kids reenacted last Sunday, gives us the traditional Christmas scene: manger, stable, shepherds and all. John’s gospel dispenses with the historic details in favor of explaining Christ’s birth by it place in human history. Certainly the other gospels do likewise, but John (as inspired by the Spirit) gives us this rich picture of a light stepping into darkness. This Christmas Eve, let’s try to understand Christmas as John presents it. And to do so, let’s go back to Eden. Continue reading
This is why I’m a huge Piper fan. I think he not only gets it, but is uniquely passionate about Christ.
Part of teaching people how to fly is teaching them how to land. In fact, the landing may be the hardest part of taking a new student pilot and turning him into a private pilot. The challenges of landing an airplane are many. Precise airspeed control, a well-flown traffic pattern, glide slope, control coordination and communicating on the radio. I know when I first learned to fly, I felt like I was doing 20 things at once during the first few landings. Continue reading
The Rt Rev Stephen Venner called for a more sympathetic approach to the Islamic fundamentalists that recognises their humanity.
via Taliban can be admired for their faith and loyalty, says bishop – Telegraph.
Wow, just wow. I’m all about grace, mercy and forgiveness, but I have a real hard time with Rt Rev Venner’s assessment of the Taliban. These are folks to use suicide bombing, threats of violence, human shields and more to try and regain control of Afghanistan.
They behead journalists, destroy relics and really have nothing to commend themselves. To say,
“The Taliban can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to each other.”
Is akin to saying, “We can admire HItler, perhaps, for the punctuality of Nazi Germany’s train system.”
Christianity is a religion of grace and peace. But it is also a religion of repentance. I’m all for the Taliban repenting and becoming brothers in Christ. Until then, our nation and west fails to protect ourselves by acting as if the Taliban are anything more than animals.
UPDATE: A good friend recently questioned whether these sentences conveyed what I meant, so I’ve decided to clarify.
The Church needs to pray that God would raise up a generation of missionary martyrs, men and women called to evangelize the Muslim world at the cost of their own life. However, we must guard against the moral relativism which would seek to minimize the attrocities of folks like Al Qaeda and the Taliban because of such virtues as faithfulness to their beliefs and brothers. From a civil point of view such moral equivalence will get more innocent people killed.
God imbued government with the power of the sword. He did so in order that governments might, as His regents, restrain evil. War is one such example. History shows us that, once war has been joined, the most humane path is the path of overwhelming violence that breaks the enemies will. Only in this way can decisive victory be achieved and real peace be established. In this way our greatest enemies of WWII (Germany and Japan) became friends and allies. In this way Israel finds itself still beset by enemies, despite victories over them.
Most of our communication is nonverbal. What we say is hardly as important as how and where and the way in which we say it. ‘I love you,’ can be meaningful or it can seem hollow, all depending on the accompanying nonverbals. So, I began thinking, what do the nonverbals of Christmas say about my Christ? In other words, does how I celebrate Christ accurately reflect who I believe Christ to be?
Let me illustrate. Christ promises to give peace and rest to those who will follow Him. Thus, my life should reflect a growing sense of peace and rest. Yet, during Christmas time most of us become busier than a 1-armed paperhanger. Between decorating, baking, parties, Church, cooking, meals, etc, we barely have time to breathe, let alone reflect the peace and rest of Christ to a busy world.
So, the question becomes, does a lifestyle of hurry and busyness celebrate the giver of peace and rest? Or, is it another example of the radical disconnect between the Jesus revealed in Scriptures and those of us who claim to follow Him today?
We shouldn’t scold ourselves for this. There’s no point in shaming ourselves because we don’t love God. To begin with, you can’t make yourself love someone or some activity. You either love or you don’t.
via Waiting for Jesus to Show Up | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction.
A great article on loving God. Especially at Christmas we need to remember that love is not forced, it is a gift. At the same time, we need to call our lovelessness what it is: sin.
God commands us to love Him (Deuteronomy 6:5). Though I cannot make myself love Him, yet I must repent of not loving Him. This, I believe, is the first step to learning to love God: recognizing my lack of love as sin. Having done this, I can turn to Him who is Love, find forgiveness and His love begins growing within.
As I listen to this classic American Christmas song, I wondered if that’s just not about the best way to celebrate the birth of Christ.
In Matthew 11:28, 29, Jesus offers peace and rest to those who will follow Him. Yet, when it comes to celebrating His birth, peace and rest are two qualities often missing from the celebration. Between decorating, cooking, baking, parties, shopping, wrapping, worshipping and all the other Christmas Season must-do events, we often become haggard, tired and frustrated. Some of us even breath a sigh of relief when Christmas is over, because the most-stressful time of the year is gone.
But, should it be this way? Would Christ want us greeting His arrival with stress and busyness or with quiet contemplation or with restful peace? I believe that allowing Christmas to become stressful completely misses the point of who Christ is, and what He wants for us.
So let me invite you to evaluate the next two weeks and deep six anything that’s going to keep you from experiencing Christ’s rest this Christmas.
Tiger Woods TV Ads Disappear After Reports of Affairs Update2 – Bloomberg.com.
I’m a bit late to the ball on this one, but Tiger’s travails provide an excellent illustration of a key Christian concept. Your sin will find you out (Numbers 32.23).
Tiger lacks integrity. He presented one public persona while he was really a different person. In his apology he even stated,
he let his family down with “transgressions” and hasn’t been true to his “family values.”
Now he is paying the consequences of his actions. Lost contracts, ruined reputation, etc. This should be a warning to those who believe they can hide their sin. Sure, we can hide it for a time, but eventually our sins are known. Perhaps we’d do well to consider the consequences of our secret sins, if they were to become public. Then, maybe, we’d find repentance and grace to heal us.
America continues to search for the answer to racism. Though most don’t know it, the answer America searches for is the gospel.
Racism is both sin and the result of sin. Genesis 11 recounts the beginning of diversity. In verse 1 we read, “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.” This tells us not only that everyone spoke the same language, but that they shared a common culture. Sadly, this unity was not to last. Through this shared language mankind devises a plan to build the Tower of Babel. To graciously slow the spread of sin, the Lord confuses their languages and drives them apart (Genesis 11:7,8). This linguistic and geographic separation gives birth to diversity.
But this is not the end of the story. God’s gospel includes a plan to reunite now divided peoples. On the day of Pentecost, the Apostles received a remarkable gift. They were able to speak the gospel in the languages of all the people gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 2:4-6). This is God overcoming the confused languages of Genesis 11. It shows God desires to create one people out of the folks from every tribe, tongue and nation.
Hence the language of Revelation 7:9-10, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Here we have a multitude of people, comprised of people from every tribe and people, all singing together the same song, with a loud voice! Certainly this is the anti-Babel. Instead of one people being driven apart, they are brought together to form one people. Instead of one language becoming many, many languages become one.
This happens through the gospel. Paul writes in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians teaches us the gospel is for everyone—Jew, Greek, Slave, Free, Male, Female, so on and so forth. When we come to Christ we all come the same way, and having come to Christ we are now united in a new kingdom, a new people. To borrow from Dr. King, in the kingdom of heaven no one is judged by the color of his skin.
What does this mean for us? It means that the Church holds the only, viable answer for the problems of prejudice and racism. The answer is disciplemaking ministry. As the church engages the world with the gospel and teaches the world to follow Christ completely, we build a community that is truly post-racial. In the end, the world should look at the church and see the kind of community for which they long.
Certainly this is no short-term answer. Lasting gospel transformation occurs over time as we first come to faith in Christ and then learn to live according to the gospel teaching. While it may not be a quick fix, the gospel is the only, real answer to the sin of racism.
Brandon Markette 