ready to serve

There’s something melancholy about New Year’s Eve.

Partly it’s the fact that Christmas is done, the family reunions and time off a thing of the past. Where I live, we’re looking at months of cold days and long nights, grinding through the winter. But also, there’s this feeling that another year of my life is gone, and sometimes it seems like I didn’t do much with it.

Tomorrow starts a new year. Instead of parties, I’ll be thinking of goals. There’s a lot on my plate for 2016.

So I look once more to the life of Jesus, to that time when the miracle baby of Mary and Joseph crossed paths with the miracle baby of Zechariah and Elizabeth.

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then John consented.” Matt 3:13-15

There was a lot on Jesus’ plate too, but in this passage I see him getting ready. Oh, he didn’t need baptism the way I did, but just as he was brought to the temple as an infant, and returned as a young boy to meet the requirements of the law, he now turns to John to carry out the new forms of grace.

Jesus doesn’t say he’s above all that. Jesus carefully did what was expected of righteous men of that day, and modeled the relationship with God that baptism marks.

As I get ready for 2016, I pray that it will be a year of effective ministry, through this blog, through the opportunities to fill pulpits, through my work operating paint plants. And I look to Jesus, who carefully attended to his relationships with God and with people as the foundation of his ministry.

coming home

There were three locations in the prophesies of the Messiah that needed to be fulfilled: Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, God would call him out of Egypt, and he would be called a Nazarene.

And so we read in Matthew 2:13-15 that an angel speaks to Joseph in a dream, and he takes his little family to Egypt to hide from Herod. And we read in verses 19-23 that after Herod died, they came home, but went to Nazareth because they feared Herod's son.

I imagine that scholars across the years looked at all the prophecies and tried to predict what was going to happen. I can see them poring over the scrolls and parchments, arguing about which location was correct (they couldn't all be, surely), flaming each other on Twitter. Well, maybe not the last one.

But it's all so . . . improbable. Convoluted, even. I wonder why. After all, God could do it any way he wants to. He could have put Jesus right into the palace in Jerusalem.

No, there's something important about Jesus being born in Bethlehem. There's something significant about him being called out of Egypt (my pastor preached that it's an echo of God's people being called from a land of death and captivity under the hands of another tyrant who killed all the boy babies). There's something necessary about him being a Nazarene.

I'm sure Bible scholars know why all these locations are important to the prophecy. I don't, so I imagine people who met Jesus or chatted with Joseph or brought Mary a casserole. I imagine little one-person restorations happening in each of these locations.

True? I don't know, but I do know God's work is never about just one thing. He might and often does work in the lives of many, many people who don't even know each other with one single event. Sure, I think I'm the center of it all, but sometimes the work he does in me is a byproduct or offshoot or somehow related to something bigger he's doing for someone else.

In the end, I realize that this seemingly-complicated moving of Jesus' family all over the map is as simple for God to imagine and do as just putting Jesus directly into Jerusalem. It only looks hard to me.

disturbed

Since I was a little boy, the story of the Magi always raised a cloud of questions. What are Magi? How do you follow a star? How can you tell which house or even town a star is over? What about that star made them come anyway?

As an adult, I still don't have satisfactory answers, but I do have another question. Matthew 2:1-3 reads, "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him."

I get why Herod didn't like hearing about a new king, but why was all Jerusalem disturbed with him? Why wouldn't they want a king from David's line instead of a Roman king?

It suggests that Jerusalem was pretty comfortable under Roman rule. The religious elite, those Pharisees and Saducees, may have liked their status as an officially approved religion, and probably liked having Roman troops available to stamp out other sects. The people of Jerusalem might have liked the boost to the economy of having all these Romans in town.

Or maybe they'd lived with Herod long enough that they feared what he might do. Maybe they were used to having to keep their heads down during his tantrums.

It makes me think, though. Have I gotten too comfortable with my life in this world, so much that I wouldn't want Jesus to disturb it? Do I sometimes cringe when faith topics come up because I fear the reaction of the non-believers around me? Like all Jerusalem, I probably sometimes am disturbed at the thought of how disruptive King Jesus can be to this world.

Why wouldn't I long for Jesus to purge and restore my corner of the world? Sometimes, I guess, no change seems the easiest.

finally

Two old people. One, Anna, was a prophet who never left the temple. The other, Simeon, clinging to a promise, was at the temple because the Spirit urged him to be. And both had their patience rewarded, because that was the day Mary and Joseph brought the baby Jesus into the temple for purification rites demanded by Jewish law. You can read about it in Luke 2.

Anna's response was to tell anyone who cared (v38). And Simeon said, 

"Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,

you may now dismiss your servant in peace.

For my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:

a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

and the glory of your people Israel." (v29-32)

" . . . a light for revelation to the Gentiles . . . " Simeon, the old Jew waiting for the Jewish Messiah, speaks first of the Gentiles, those "others" who were outside the covenant. Of me. His thanksgiving prayer was, in part, for my salvation! Jesus would be the Messiah for the Jews, to be sure, but even more so, he would save millions who weren't even looking for a savior. He would include in the covenant of Abraham any who listened and believed, including a long line of Dutch Calvinists who eventually became my church in North America. 

 

Simeon had seen everything he was promised, and was content with that. Chances are good he was dead before Jesus started his ministry, but that's OK; Simeon knew.

 

Just like I know about Jesus' return, not yet happened but certain anyway. Simeon and Anna is a great role models of the kind of patient, faithful waiting I am to live with every day. Simeon, longing for the day. Anna, quick to bring the good news to others. Me, sometimes that way, but too often focused on my own worldly kingdom. 

 

Live like Simeon and Anna. What a New Year's resolution that would be!

angel words

"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night."

Luke 2 might contain some of the best-loved and most widely recognized verses in all of scripture. I love to imagine these rough shepherds around their little fire, jumping out of their skins when the sky suddenly blazed with angelic glory. And then the words that everyone had waited for since the beginning: "'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.'" (Luke 2:10-11).

I've read and sung those words since I was a little boy, so I have to put some work into really feeling their impact. It's like a castaway on a desert island finally seeing a ship. It's like a POW finally being released. It's like a terrified mother finally getting a phone call from a runaway child. Only more so, much more.

For centuries upon centuries God's people had been tormented by evil. For all those hundreds of years humanity had inflicted suffering on itself by its own sin. The whole world, scripture says, groaned in it's misery, helpless victims. And now, finally, the beginning of the end. Or maybe the end of the beginning, if we're talking about our relationship with God.

All of the frustration and sadness and pain that I cause myself in my own total depravity had its answer on that night in Bethlehem.

If I can get my brain around that baby announcement proclaimed by the angels, then it's easy to join in their song:  "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."

the best he had

I've heard a lot of sermons on Luke 2:6-7, and read a lot of devotionals too, and as far as I can remember all of them have had the same take on the fact that there was no room in the inn. Jesus was born into a cold, hard world where he wasn't welcome, pushed out to the barn by a hard-hearted innkeeper and a bunch of inconsiderate patrons.

That's probably the correct interpretation, since there seems to be consensus, but I tend to see a different view. To me, this offer of the stable seems like a generous act, like the best an overwhelmed man could do.

Joseph and Mary got word of the census, and then needed a few days to get supplies and animals ready for the 100-mile walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That trek would have taken several days, especially with a very pregnant girl, so it's no wonder that all the Bethlehem natives who were closer or had simpler logistics got to town first. By the time Jesus' parents showed up, there were probably more people in Bethlehem than there had been in decades.

That's why the innkeeper seems a lot like me. Here comes Jesus (or the church, or a neighbor), when I'm as busy as I've been in a long time. My resources are all used up, and it's all I can do to keep up with what I already have on my plate. But I don't want to say no, I can't say no, so I look around, find the best answer that's left, and offer that.

Instead of the worst room in the place, is it possible the innkeeper offered the best he had available? Maybe he looked at the exhausted woman and desperate husband and thought, "These poor people. I can't just send them down the road." Instead of disappointment, could Joseph have responded the way I hope people do when I'm offering the best of what I have left? Could he simply have been grateful?

"While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them." Luke 2:6-7. Mother and baby were safe and warm, and there was a bed of straw for everyone. Not glamorous, true, but if their needs were met, then enough.

And isn't that one of the key lessons of Jesus' walk on earth? That rather than chasing after excess, we should be grateful when we have enough?

what a plan!

Often I'm amazed at the intricacy of God's work.

Way back at the beginning of humankind, after Adam and Eve defied God and listened to Satan, God announced his plan to restore us. All through the Old Testament his prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah. They named names and told of places, and the prophecies included the little town of Bethlehem.

But then God chooses a couple from Nazareth, 100 miles away, to parent His son. Oops! It's the details that'll get you, right? Great choice for parents, probably, but wrong town. At least that's what I'd think if it were a human choice. But God has this detail covered too:

"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child." Luke 2:1-5.

It's time for the prophesy to be fulfilled in Bethlehem, so God uses the vanity and pride of one of the most powerful pagans in the world to move Joseph and Mary to the place he wanted them to be. Caesar wants to put a number to his vast power and his wide-ranging conquest; Caesar could care less about Jewish prophesies or even the Jewish God. But he's working for God nonetheless. He doesn't have a choice.

That is wonderfully reassuring. What God wills in this world will be done, not just by his followers, but by any humanist or atheist or Satanist that God chooses to use. All of the shrill naysaying and disrespect shown to God by the most evil in this world amount to nothing. If God needs something for the good of his people, even the most foul-mouthed, immoral, vicious person on the globe will do exactly that.

I can rest confidently in every word of God's promises, because at the right time every part of the world will bend to God's will.