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Oh
No! Not Another Christmas Article!! How
about this for a dreaded question?
“Say would you be interested in writing a Christmas article
for the December Restitution Herald?”
You know, it is an honor to be asked to write for a magazine
with such a discriminating readership.
But for Christmas?! I
mean what can be said about a holiday that has had 2,000 years of
comment, and had much more distinguished and learned authors than me
writing about it. How
often and how many ways can we say we tend to forget the true
meaning of Christmas, or that the humble birth of the baby Jesus
points to his fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy?
Don’t you get a little tired of discussions about the true
time frame of the visit of the Magi to the family of Mary, Joseph,
and Jesus or whether it was a cave or a stable?
So what do we say now? I’ll
tell you. I don’t
know. However, never
being one to turn down an opportunity to expound on my own thoughts,
we press on. She
will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins." (Matt. 1:21,
NIV) Have
you read that one? Of
course you have. However,
think about this. The
angel came to Joseph with astounding news that needed to be
proclaimed by a special messenger.
The same thing happened when Mary was told she would give
birth to this baby, and when the angels appeared on the night of the
birth proclaiming the arrival. Announcements
that carry this level of importance are often accompanied by some
level of fanfare. When
the King of some particular monarchy wants a special announcement to
be made he will use a person with special authority.
When this person speaks, it is with the full status of the
monarch himself. In some
settings the announcement is preceded by a trumpet or drum flourish
or fanfare. The person
delivering the message is called the herald.
During this season we sing a carol that uses that very word
to describe the angels who delivered the message. All
right, just what did the angel in Matthew 1:21 say.
In a court of law, when someone has committed a crime that
resulted in a loss for someone else, the convicted wrongdoer is
often required to make some payment to the plaintiff.
In this case, our wrong-doing or sin is our crime and it has
as its payment plan death. Our
crime, our sin, is against God, and a repayment is required.
The only way to avoid paying that price is having someone
paying it for us. Jesus
did that. He made the
restitution for our sin. Hey, look at that. The angels came announcing, proclaiming, or heralding, the arrival of man’s restitution. They were actually the first Restitution Herald. Now here we have the opportunity to continue that great tradition. We have a venue for doing the same thing that the angels did. Remember though, the angels were telling people who did not know. We know. So you as a believer reading this will learn nothing new. To truly make this a continuation of what the angels heralded, we must pass the news on to those who do not know.
The
Simplicity of Christmas When
thinking about the holiday season, all the glitz and glamour, maybe
we can break it down to one verse to bring some sanity to Christmas.
Some have suggested that because of materialism, pagan
origins, and more that we just give up the holiday. Maybe an
alternative might be even better.
Let’s focus on the very basic notions of one simple verse,
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son… ,” as a beginning to understand the REASON for the
Season. The FIRST lesson is that it begins with God, “For God so loved the
world… .” Pages
could be written on this.
James 1:17 says that “every good and perfect gift” is
from God. Isn’t Jesus
one of those perfect gifts of love?
I like Exodus 34: 6,7 that describes who God is by God.
Some Jewish writings call these the thirteen words from God,
but I like to call them the eight attributes of God by God.
He is “compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in
love, abounding in faithfulness or truth, maintains love, forgives
wickedness, rebellion and sin, yet does not leave the guilty
unpunished.” From
the “existing one,” God, comes the ultimate plan of salvation
through Jesus. Jesus
is going to come into existence and do the will of God.
Now that is Christmas in my mind.
The birth of Jesus originates with God. John simply describes what the SECOND lesson of Christmas might be and says
God, “… so LOVED the world.” This lesson is that God loves and
is going to do something about our situation through Christ.
This is also found in the simple quote “God is love.” (I
Jn. 4:8,16) That is
Christmas at its most fundamental element, LOVE!
Dr. David Hubbard, deceased president of Fuller Seminary said
in class that the greatest Hebrew word is chesed.
It means the “unfailing or covenantal love of God.”
The NASB often translates it “lovingkindness.”
Without God loving, we wouldn’t have a celebration at
Christmas! Through Jesus’ life, after his birth, we have the hope of eternity.
Jesus said in Mark 10:45 “The Son of Man did not come to be
served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
(NIV) As Jesus’
purpose was to preach the Kingdom (Luke 4:43), it was also to give
his life as THE ransom for us to enter the Kingdom.
What LOVE! “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his
friends.” (Jn 15:13) The
love of God and the love of Jesus inspires us to appreciate the
celebration of the birth of God’s Christ. The THIRD lesson is that THE WORLD and all of us in it, are loved.
That’s another reason for celebration!
In his new book, Heaven, by Randy Alcorn,
the author insists “God has never given up on his original
creation. Yet somehow
we’ve managed to overlook an entire biblical vocabulary that makes
this point clear.” (p. 88) He
wants us to refocus from going to heaven to God working with the
earth and heaven coming down, the Kingdom of God.
He wants us to think about the words: reconcile, redeem,
restore, return, renew, etc. What
a novel thought! Most
folks that are reading this are aware that “thy kingdom come”
has been a focus for us. THAT
is what God is doing through the birth of His Son!
Why not celebrate that birth even if we don’t know the
exact date? Loving the
world is the basis for Jesus being born.
Isaiah says, “He created it not in vain.” (KJV 45:18) The whole notion of the Kingdom of God centers around
what God is doing with us, the world,
through Christ. “Thy
Kingdom come, thy will be done” is not a mute, dreaming prayer.
It is the WILL of God. Brian
McClaren in article “The Strategy We Pursue”1
says that the FIRST strategy of the church should be to “Admit we
may not actually understand the good news , and seek to rediscover it.”
Amazingly, he goes on to say that a number of Christians are
suggesting “perhaps the gospel has something to do with the
Kingdom of God, and perhaps the Kingdom of God is not equal to going
to heaven after death, but rather involves God’s will being done
on earth… .” That
is what Christmas ought to be. As
Gabriel told Mary, “He will reign…his kingdom will never end.”
(Luke 1:33) The
FOURTH lesson we can gather trying to simplify Christmas is that God
has an “ONLY BEGOTTEN” Son.
The Greek here is simply “monogenes”2 pronounced as “mon o ge nes” with an accent on the “nes,”
with a long e. Any
one that has ever played Monopoly understands “mono.”
Your goal is to become the one and only ruler of the board.
“Genes”
can be compared to and is the root of “Genesis” the book of the
beginnings! I love the
verse in Psalm 139:13
“You knit me in my mother’s womb.”
I also love the fact that DNA is based on the simple
compounds A, C, T, and G.
How about that for an “ACT
of God!”3 In
this fourth lesson of understanding monogenes,
we ought
to pay careful attention because “Orthodoxy” tries to do a dance
around it.4 It simply
means, ONLY BIRTHED, coming into existence.
The Bible calls Adam a “son of God” (Luke 3:37), but Adam
is a dirt created son of God!
Jesus is the only BORN Son of God.
He comes into existence at “Christmas!”
THIS is the fulfillment of what many call the protoeuangelion, First Gospel, Genesis 3:15, where the seed of the woman,
would crush the serpent’s head!
Jesus is not an “angel” come down, nor like the Greeks
thought a “god” come down, he is the only begotten Son of God!
A SEED of the woman created in her by God.
Compare I Tim. 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”
Jesus’ favorite term for himself though he was the Son of
God, was Son of Man. What
a time of celebration even without the materialism, glitz and
glamour! We may not fully know (cp. Mt. 11:27 greek, epignosko) the details of how important Jesus is, but we ought to
understand his birth. In
Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT)5 there is an attempt to say that Jesus is “unique”
without, to my opinion, the proper notion of simple birth, coming
into being. (p. 337 ff) He
does acknowledge the beauty of “unique, unparalleled,
incomparable” but says
that “Josephus has monogenes in the usual sense of ‘only
born.’” NOTICE
that the usual sense of the word is simply “only born!”
ONLY BIRTHED, to me is what the real Christmas is all about.
Yes, Jesus was planned from the foundation of the world; yes,
he was in the mind and plan of God; but, when God knit Jesus in
Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit and BIRTHED HIM, NOW
THAT IS CHRISTMAS! Our family tries to “put the CHRIST back into CHRISTmas”
by reading the story of Jesus before opening presents.
What if we all focused on the four simple lessons for
Christmas based on John 3:16. God
is the Father and starts it.
He loves and causes it to happen.
The world’s salvation and restoration and regeneration is
the purpose. And finally
He birthed His only Son in the womb of Mary to eventually bring us
individually and the world into the Kingdom of God!
No wonder Jesus is the only necessary ransom, redemption,
payment for our sins. THAT
is the REASON for the SEASON. God bless us as we
understand the importance of the birth of Jesus! 1My
appreciation to Dr. Bill Lawrence for sending this to me and listing
the website where this may be read: http://www.nextreformation.com/html/resources/mclaren-strategy.pdf 2Strong’s
3439, monogenes,
from 3441, “mono”
and 1096 “ginomai,” 1) to become, i.e. to come into existence, begin to be,
receive being 2) to become [notes
from BibleWorks software] 3The
letters ACTG represent the basic four chemicals within DNA: adenine
(A), cytosine (C), thymine (T), guanine (G)… and with that God
makes all of us PLUS His Special Perfect SON! 4Compare
D. Moody, JBL (Journal of Biblical Literature) 72 (1953) 213-219 ;
Ray Brown, The Anchor Bible, Vol. 29 Page 13. 5TDNT,
Vol. IV, P. 739, Kittel notes the Josephus references,
Ant., 1,222 and Ant., 5, 264
Yearning
for Jesus Great
expectations
come with every pregnancy.
An expectant mother-to-be is not just anticipating a baby,
but a child who will grow up to be somebody and accomplish great
things. This
has been true since the first human birth.
Eve said, "I have acquired a man from the LORD"
(Gen. 4:1, NKJV).
She was thankful that after her sin, the LORD still blessed
her and gave her hope. How great her hope was, is explained by Paul
in I Tim. 2:14,15: "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman
being deceived fell into transgression.
Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they
continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control."
Eve expected Cain to somehow restore their family's
relationship with God. Great disappointment came when Cain killed
his righteous brother. Eve's hope burned bright again when another
child was born.
She named him "Seth" and remarked, "For God
has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain
killed."
"Seth" means "appoint" or
"compensate." Indeed,
the LORD compensated Adam and Eve for their lost expectations when
Seth's family "began to call on the name of the LORD"
(Gen.4:26). Seth's descendants included righteous leaders such as
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, David, and Jesus Christ!
Eve's yearnings for a restoration with her heavenly Father
were shared by thousands through the years and were finally
fulfilled in Jesus.
That pattern was repeated in many ways in ancient times.
A disappointment would create a desire.
That was often followed by a promise or prophecy from God
that the desire would be fulfilled, but it took the birth of Jesus
for it to come true.
Every pregnancy seems to last an unbearably long time. Only
the anticipation of the new life coming makes it endurable. The
hopes and dreams of the Old Testament people were like a gestation
that lasted for generations! David,
the soul-stirring singer of Israel, desired God's closer presence so
much that he originated the idea of building Him a temple close to
his palace. The Lord responded that He had never asked for a house
and what he preferred was to build David a house!
David already had a palace. But God meant it differently.
"Your house and your kingdom shall be established
forever before you.
Your throne shall be established forever."
(2 Sam. 7:16, NKJV.)
Can you imagine David's amazement and joy at this promise?
It implied that his children and grandchildren forever would
be close to God.
Another part of the prophecy stated that more explicitly.
"I will set up your seed after you, who will come from
your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house
for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
I will be his Father, and he shall be My son."
(2 Sam. 7:12-14, NKJV.) A
dream house often takes years to plan and build.
Some people have to settle for building a basement first and
living in it while they save and prepare for the completed upper
story.
David's "house" was like this.
Solomon started as a wise and intimate friend of God, but the
royal line of David's heirs was more base than basement for the
house that God was building for David.
That basement was often cold and damp, with very little
presence of God allowed.
But through the years of the Old Testament, a remnant always
yearned for that intimacy with God that brings inner peace.
And promises were always being made to them. A
song by David that is often quoted in the New Testament put those
promises and yearning together.
Psalm 2 was sung millions of times by those seeking God. Part
of it goes like this:
"Yet I have set My King on my holy hill of Zion."
"I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, You
are My Son, today I have begotten You.
Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your
inheritance...""Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with
trembling.
Kiss the Son...Blessed are all those who put their trust in
Him."
While quoting from this song in Hebrews 5, a New Testament
writer confirms that "Christ did not glorify Himself to become
High Priest, but it was He who said to Him:
'You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.'...And having
been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who
obey Him."
(Heb. 5:5-9, NKJV.)
All the wishing in the world could not have made this happen.
But by God's incredible insight into our needs and His
ability to satisfy our deepest longings, Jesus was conceived and
born and glorified. That special birth, which had built up such
great expectations, exceeded every heart's desire and longing! And
it still does.
Gloria Gaynor relates how it happened to her." It was
1982 and I was the 'Queen of Disco,' with more success as a singer
than I could ever have dreamed of.
My single 'I Will Survive' had been a hit, topping charts
around the world, and yet I still felt empty....(Then) my mother--my
closest companion--died. With her gone I became more and more aware
of a great emptiness at the center of my life.
I was looking for something to fill the ache inside me,
yearning for something I couldn't even identify....For the first
time, I was really ready for whatever God told me. At home I sat at
my dining room table with my study Bible. I prayed, God, I want to
know who Jesus is.
I'm listening. I want to hear from you...My Bible fell open
to a chapter titled 'Harmony of the Gospels.'
Verse by verse it showed how the Old Testament prophecies
were fulfilled.
I wrote and studied and read.
The verse that really spoke to me, a verse I had sung in
Handel's Messiah as a schoolgirl, came from Isaiah:
'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall
call his name Immanuel' (7:14).
At that moment, the Good News spoke to me. Gloria
was reading about a dark period in Israel's history, with invaders
threatening.
God continued His promise a few chapters later:
"Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is
distressed...In Galilee of the Gentiles.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
Those who dwelt in the shadow of death, upon them a light has
shined.
You have multiplied the nation and increased its joy, they
rejoice before you...For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is
given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name
will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no
end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and
establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even
forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this."
(Isa. 9:1-7, NKJV.)
Once again, it is promised that no human effort will bring
about this great cluster of blessings, but the zeal (excited
enthusiastic efforts) of the Lord will bring this to us!
There could be no greater guarantee! Merry Christmas and Happy Forever!
Prince
of Peace I
don’t
find a lot of peace during the Christmas holiday. I try to avoid
malls and department stores because I know that I’ll find way too
many people pushing and shoving to snatch up that ‘perfect’
Christmas gift. And the holiday traffic is anything but peaceful –
tempers flaring over bumper-to-bumper traffic and in trying to find
a good parking spot. Now
I don’t mean to sound “bah humbug!” about Christmas, but up
against that backdrop comes a Christmas card in the mail from a
friend or family member proclaiming the angels’ message of
“peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” Are you kidding?
Where’s the peace? Where’s the goodwill? Not at the mall. Not in
the traffic. Not in the world, for that matter. The season for
celebrating the coming of the Prince of Peace reminds us of how very
far we are from experiencing that peace in the world. While
it’s easy to lament the lack of peace in the world, it’s more
disquieting to come to terms with the lack of peace in our own
lives. Shouldn’t disciples of Jesus experience firsthand the peace
that only the Prince of Peace can bring? If so, how do we account
for the stress, anxiety and distraction that we too often
experience? Are Christians less stressed than non-believers? Does
the world take notice of our peace and calm amidst the natural and
man-made crises that seem to continually rock the world? Now
I don’t mean to send anyone on a guilt trip; especially since I
experience those same “nonpeaceful” feelings too often as well.
But doesn’t it call each of us to reexamine our relationship with
the Prince of Peace if our lives are often characterized by a lack
of peace? There
is a great deal of truth in the words of a song that is often heard
during this season: “let there be peace on earth, and let it begin
with me.” Perhaps the peace that “begins with me” is something
different than the songwriter envisioned. We need to come to the
peace negotiating table of the Lord ourselves before we can bring
anyone else there. The
Beatitudes of Jesus begin with the blessings of poverty of spirit,
mourning, gentleness, and a hunger and thirst for righteousness.
From there they progress to peacemaking (Matthew 5:1-9). We cannot
become a peacemaker until we have come to terms with our own
brokenness and experienced peace firsthand. We cannot negotiate a
peace with others that we have not experienced ourselves. I’m
learning that the qualities of the coming Kingdom of God – in
particular, peace – must be evident in my life as a witness and
example to others that I hope to influence to become Kingdom
citizens. Individual believers and the church collectively must
experience and model those qualities that will be commonplace under
the earthly reign of Jesus. That’s the message that seems
abundantly clear in the Book of Acts
– the Early Church experienced and modeled Kingdom
qualities that had a major impact on their world. The
real challenge is in knowing how to truly experience these Kingdom
qualities on a daily basis. How do we have the kind of relationship
with the Prince of Peace that produces the quality of peace that is
a witness and example to others? Philippians
4:6 holds an important key:
“Be
anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
(New
American Standard Version).
It may sound trite to say “why worry when you can pray” but it
really is true. The more we respond in prayer to
“anxiety-inducing” circumstances the more prevalent peace is
amidst these circumstances. We allow the Prince of Peace to
intercede on our behalf. Jesus
says in John 14:27, "Peace
I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do
I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be
fearful.” (New American Standard Version). A
few years ago I experienced some circumstances that caused me a
great deal of anxiety. It was a very unpleasant time. In the midst
of these circumstances Jesus’ words in John 14:27 became much more
real to me. In fact, I found that by reading and reciting these
words I could immediately experience peace in a very real way. I
came to realize and experience the peace that the Prince of Peace
wants each of us to have. We celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace this season. It is my prayer that each of us experience that peace firsthand, and that the presence of that peace in our lives will be a compelling example and witness to a world that so desperately needs peace.
Out
of the Manger I
love
cradling a baby. My own children are ten and thirteen, but I’d
keep them little if I could. There’s a special pleasure in
snuggling an infant, inhaling that baby-fresh newness and absorbing
their warm toastiness, a tiny heart beating against mine. However,
children do grow up. They are preprogrammed by God to mature into
people gifted with the abilities and talents He’s given them.
Where we see a tiny version of mom and dad, God sees the mature
follower of Christ they will be, and the wonderful things He
designed them to accomplish, and the lives they will touch. With
each birthday, we celebrate not only the day when our child came
into the world, but the growth they have experienced in another
year’s passing. We remember the events surrounding the day they
were born, delight in how much they have changed and get a glimpse
of the person into which they are blossoming. In
the same way, the Son of God was not meant to stay an infant. While
the story of his miraculous conception and birth is inspiring, it
didn’t end in Bethlehem. God had a unique plan and a specific
motive regarding Jesus. "For
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
(John 3:16, NIV) Jesus
was born for a reason, one he wouldn’t have accomplished had he
stayed a baby in a manger. It was only after he grew into a man that
he could fully understand and fulfill his heavenly Father’s plan
of dying on a cross, rising up in victory over death and ascending
into immortality at God’s right hand to someday come again in
glory. Think
about all the miracles that would have gone undone, the parables
untold, the life lessons untaught and the love undemonstrated, had
Jesus never gotten any further than his cradle. This
holiday, as you set up your nativity scene in preparation for
Christmas, take an extra long look at the infant figurine and
remember that he didn’t remain a child. Remember
that he matured into the purpose for which God prepared him. As Luke
2:52 reads, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor
with God and men.” Similarly,
God has plans for each of us. He wants to save us from our sin and
from death, but He also wants us to grow. He wants us to know all
the joys of life and the delight of being uniquely His. We
are born again through the waters of baptism and it is an exciting
new beginning. However, we Christians sometimes fall into the trap
of believing and living as if our acceptance of Christ is the end.
It is the end, but it is the front end. With
each year God wants our relationship with Him to deepen into a more
intimate friendship; He wants us to stretch our spiritual wings,
bear fruit for Him, and reflect His light to a dark, dying and
lonely world. It
is not enough that we were reborn. God wants His children to grow
“until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the
Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the
fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13, NIV). This
Christmas, and every one to come, let the crèche be a reminder that
we are to be another year more like Jesus. Another step nearer to
God. Another mile further down the road of spiritual maturity.
Another year closer to Christ’s return. And with the New Year as you put away the nativity scene, keep in mind that
Jesus didn’t stay in the manger; he didn’t remain a baby. By the
grace of God and with His blessings, neither will we.
n About
the author: Jeff Bull lives in Arizona with his wife Becky and two
children, Charissa and Nathan.
The
Coming King It’s that
time of year. We hustle and bustle about trying to find the perfect
presents, try to come up with the perfect meal.
We see the beautiful manger scenes. We can’t help but walk
up to the little “cradle” and see the precious baby Jesus born
in a manger. This single event fulfilled many Bible prophesies about
our coming Messiah. What many fail to recognize is that only a small
part of the prophesies about Jesus Christ were fulfilled at his
birth! The greater majority of the prophesies about Christ are yet
to be fulfilled! The Jews at
the time of Christ had a similar problem. They knew the prophesies
concerning their Messiah. They were students of the Bible. Sadly,
their King was right before their eyes and what did they do? They
crucified him. They were looking for a King. They wanted their
Messiah to “save them now” as was evident from their chants on
what we know as Palm Sunday. They shouted “Hosanna!” which means
save now. What they failed to realize was, Christ had a job to do
first. He first had to reconcile mankind to God through his ultimate
sacrifice! They looked at the prophesies, but failed to see them as
more than one part. They could not differentiate between his first
and second coming. They wanted out from under Roman control then and
there. Similarly
today, most fail to realize the prophesies of Christ’s second
coming. They want to leave him as the cute baby in the manger. They
fail to realize he is now our King! Yes Christ did fulfill part of
the prophesies. He died a horrible death on the cross for the sins
of you and I. He spilled his innocent blood on the cross. He
didn’t deserve to die. He was the only perfect human being ever to
walk on the earth! He did this willingly so that you and I could
have part in something so wonderful that words can hardly describe
it. He, through his blood, gave us access to the throne of God! But
what we need to look at is the wonderful promises that are yet to be
fulfilled. To get a
glimpse of these prophesies we need to take a look at the REAL
Christ, as he appears today. John on the isle of Elsewhere in
Revelation, Christ is pictured as “The Lion from the tribe of Where will
you and I be? If we still have the image of the cute little baby, we
may miss the glorious return of our Messiah and King. We can have a
part in all the wonderful promises of the Kingdom. We can be
“Kings and Priests” in the Kingdom of God. We must first open
our eyes and our hearts and we will see our King coming in all his
glory in the clouds, and usher in the glorious Kingdom of God on
this earth. Then there truly will be “Peace on earth and goodwill
towards men”.
The
Birth of Jesus, Unvarnished. Why I Believe in the Human
Jesus. Christmas
is coming. Family
gatherings, bright lights, colorfully wrapped gifts under a tree. Christmas is
coming. Long lines at
the store, running too many different
directions to attend parties and trying to please all the
family, credit card bills to be dealt with in January. Christmas is
coming. Joy to the world! O Little Town of Bethlehem, What Child is
this? In the midst
of it all, all the activity, all the glitz and marketing, and
materialism, all the sentiment, all the joy and all the stress,
there is a simple story of a birth. That story
has been largely overshadowed by layers of tradition.
Like a piece of antique furniture that’s been
repeatedly varnished and painted by generations of owners,
there is a beautiful piece underneath, but first you must strip away
some of the layers added by man to get to the genuine original. The fact that
the story has been altered and amended in the telling and retelling
should not surprise us. We
are all familiar with the ways that stories change in the telling.
Each teller tells the story from his or her perspective
adding elements from their viewpoint with their particular audience
in mind. No two people
experience the same event in exactly the same way.
This is why the Bible tells us that in court there should be
a minimum of two or three eye witnesses.
Each witness sees and experiences the event from a different
perspective and together they can provide a picture of what really
occurred. As we listen
to the story as it’s told our minds help the story along.
We add in our own assumptions.
We picture in our minds what the events being described look
like. Who hasn’t had
the experience of reading a novel’s description of a character and
forming an image in our minds based on the description given, but
also drawing from familiar people in our experience?
If the novel is made into a movie, an actor is chosen to play
the role, and it is quite likely that the appearance of the actor
playing the character will be very different than the one we
imagined. As the story
of Jesus was told and retold, it began to be changed.
With each generation of retelling, another layer of varnish
was added. We need to
carefully, lovingly strip away the varnish to get to the beautiful
original underneath. There is
cultural varnish. Jesus was not a white baby.
Go into any museum and look at the European Renaissance
paintings of Madonna and child and you would believe that Jesus was
a little Italian boy, or perhaps German, French or English.
Jesus was an olive complexioned Hebrew boy.
His parents were followers of YHWH.
They believed that there was only one true God, creator of
heaven and earth. They
would have grown up reciting the Shema Israel in their synagogue
services “Hear O Israel, YHWH is God, YHWH alone” .
They would have understood that the one and only God entered
into a Covenant with their ancestor Abraham to make them a great
nation and to give them the land as an inheritance.
They would have understood
that the Kingship of Israel was granted to David and his heirs.
And they would have been living in the hope that an heir to
David’s throne would emerge who would unite the kingdom and grant
them freedom from generations of oppression by a succession of
dominating world empires from They would
have been familiar with such passages as: “I will put
enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and
hers; he will crush your head, and
you will strike
his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) “Therefore
the Lord himself will give you a sign:
The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son,
and will call him Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14) “But you,
Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of They may
never have imagined that events would unfold in the way they did,
but they would have shared a common background, common language,
common perspective, common world view that would have helped them
understand and interpret the events as they unfolded.
And the same was true for the first generations that heard
the story who shared their Hebrew background.
So when Matthew tells the story he was able to refer back to
these shared texts and understandings
to interpret Jesus’ birth to his audience. But as the
story began to be told to different cultures, they didn’t share
the same worldview. The story began to be shared with people who
didn’t believe in one God, YHWH, but multiple gods.
The story was told to people who were more familiar with the
legend of Mithras, who was a god who came down to earth in the form
of a baby, a god whose birth was celebrated at the time of the
winter solstice, December 25. And
for these people, as the story of Jesus was told to them, they began
to add elements of their stories.
Jesus, a baby, the son of God, born of a virgin… that
sounds a lot like another story… and the stories merged, and
eventually the story was retold that Jesus was God or member of the
godhead who was incarnated as a child and born of Mary in
a manger in For years
there were parallel accounts of the story being taught and as the
world of politics began to mix with the telling of the story of
Jesus strong divisions emerged.
For some, Jesus was the human messiah, born of a virgin. For
some he was an angel come to earth.
For others, Jesus was God the Son, Incarnated in the virgin
Mary. When the
controversy reached the ears of the emperor, who had already
determined that the Christian Religion could be used as a tool to
bring unity to his empire, he acted to stop the controversy and
ordered the two sides to get together.
In the process of much political chicanery, those who taught
a Hebrew human messiah were silenced, killed, or driven underground,
their writings were destroyed or hidden away, and the varnished
version of Jesus became predominant. However, with
the advent of the printing press making books available to not only
scholars but to the common man, and reformers such as Martin Luther
and William Tyndale daring to translate the ancient Latin, Greek and
Hebrew texts into the common spoken languages of the day, people
began to be able to read the story of Jesus for themselves.
Now, many still read the texts with the preconceptions still
firmly in their minds, so that when they see Jesus, a human baby
born of Mary, they imagine it to be God the Son incarnate, not
because that’s what’s written
in the Bible, but because that’s what they’ve been trained to
see. At the same time
others have worked to strip away the layers of varnish to see
underneath the original, unvarnished Gospel of Jesus, the human
child of God, born of Mary, a young woman who was chosen by God to
bear God’s anointed King. One might
rightly ask the question, what difference does it make?
Does it matter if Jesus was a human, or if Jesus was God
appearing as a human, or as a hybrid God-Man? While to some
it may seem to be theological hairsplitting, I do think it’s
important. If Jesus is
truly God in a human suit, as many imagine, then he wasn’t really
tempted in the same way as we are tempted.
One of the characteristics of God is that He cannot be
tempted by evil. If
Jesus is God then it’s not at all remarkable that he was
“tempted in every way just as we are-yet was without sin” (Heb. So the person
of Jesus, whether he is a God-Man or the human son of God, does make
a very practical difference in our daily experience of temptation.
As I face the struggles against sin that are common to man
and I appeal to Jesus for help, and mercy and grace, can I do so
with confidence? That’s a big deal to me.
If you take that away from me by presenting a god incognito
in place of a human messiah, you’ve robbed me of a major piece of
armor in my struggle against sin.
Apart from
very personal and practical reasons why it’s important to
understand the humanity of Jesus, I believe there is an important
Faith issue at stake. God
has revealed himself in scripture to be “the Alpha and the Omega,
who is and who was, and who is to come the Almighty.” (Revelation
1:8) By this God is
saying, I am, I always have been and always will be.
God is God, and as God he is eternal.
It is in the nature of one who is eternal that he is not
subject to death. Put
quite succinctly, God cannot die. At the heart
of the story of Jesus’ birth is his death.
Among items brought to him by the Magi was myrrh.
Under normal circumstances this was a bizarre if not entirely
inappropriate gift for a young child.
In the ancient world myrrh, a highly aromatic resin was used
in embalming the dead. It
had no place in the celebration of a birth of a healthy boy.
It’s use in this instance was as a prophetic foreshadowing
of Jesus’ death carrying a special significance.
Not only was Jesus to be the Messianic King (gold) and High
Priest (frankincense) but he was also to be the Sacrificial Lamb. He
fulfilled not only the messianic prophecies of David, but also
promises of the
Suffering Servant, the “lamb of God that takes away the sin of the
world.” In order for
Jesus to fulfill the role of the sacrificial lamb, he had, by
necessity, to suffer a real death.
While there have always been conspiracy theorists who claim
that Jesus didn’t really die but that he faked his death, the
Biblical accounts are unanimous, Jesus died on the cross and God
raised him from the dead and there were numerous eye witness
accounts of a post-resurrection Jesus.
So the salvation hope upon which all Christians base their
faith is a real death of Jesus and a real resurrection.
If Jesus was not a real human being, but God masquerading in
flesh, then in what sense could he have actually died?
If Jesus was God in flesh who went on a 3 day preaching
revival in hell and then came back up to the tomb on Sunday Morning,
then he didn’t die in the same way that humans die.
He wasn’t really dead.
And as Paul clearly states, if there is no death of Jesus and
no resurrection from the dead then our faith is “futile” (I
Corinthians As you
celebrate the birth of Jesus, take time apart from the parties and
presents, to give serious thought to the essential story underneath
it all. A story of God’s love, who allowed his human son, the baby
born in
Report
on Hurricane Katrina Most
of you that will be reading this might know that I am a native of
Louisiana, specifically Pumpkin Center, a little community north of
New Orleans and east of Baton Rouge.
I would like to give you a ground level perspective about the
situation I found on a recent visit. Traveling
from Atlanta there, as I reached Biloxi, all the trees had fallen to
the north indicating the counterclockwise swirl of the tremendous
winds of Katrina.
I found it extremely profound that many of the Casino signs
along I-10 were “bowing” to God.
By the way there are over a hundred of those signs.
As I reached the Pearl River and entered Louisiana around
Slidell, the trees and signs were fallen towards the south from the
opposite side of the hurricane.
As I crossed the main bridge listening to WWL radio an old
New Orleans station, the Governor was at a ceremony at the opening
of one lane of I-10 that comes out of New Orleans.
There will be one lane going and one lane coming.
The other section will not be ready for a long time.
The water surges from the hurricane wiped many of the
sections into Lake Ponchatrain.
Our
two main churches in the area are the Happy Woods Church between the
towns of Hammond and Ponchatoula, and the Blood River Church,
southwest of Springfield.
I graduated from Ponchatoula High and went to Southeastern
University which is in Hammond.
Pumpkin Center is about seven miles due west of the Happy
Woods church and 7 miles north of the Blood River church.
I met with both Rob Bernheisel, pastor at Happy Woods, and
Pastor John Wincapaw from Blood River. It looks like the
evacuees will be an opportunity for ministry over the next two
years. An example of this is that the 30 acres at the end of the Pumpkin Center Road and I-12 has been leased by FEMA. The | |
