Christmas is over! Come on let’s go! Get moving! No time to waste! Move it, move it, move it! We have a lot of things that need to get moving again! Back to normal & quickly!
…wait!
At this point, if you stopped for one more moment, you may have a couple thoughts rolling around in your head. You may be looking back over the past few weeks and saying…
“Wow, that was great. I feel like I lived well during this season of Advent”
or maybe you are feeling more like
“Wow, I really messed that up. I gave it my best shot, but I’m glad that’s over”
I hope it is more of the former and less of the latter; however, either way, there is one larger question still looming. The question of…
“Where do I go from here?”
Regardless of your perceived “success” or “failure” this Christmas, it is now behind us. But this question of “where do I go from here?” Well, that is a really big question.
(Thank goodness we have a little help in trying to answer this question. Last week, I heard Dr. Mark Bailey make some of the following observations about the story found in Luke chapter 2)
If we return to Luke 2, we find that Mary has just given birth, and her actions immediately following are nothing short of incredible.
“And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger”
Did you catch the incredible part of that?
Shortly after this, Luke 2:11 describes a scene where Angels find some shepherds in a field to tell them…
“And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
Did you catch the incredible part of that?
Look again at Luke 2:11 and ask “what was the sign the shepherds were to be looking for?” Was the sign the manger or the baby wrapped in swaddling cloths? This is very significant because…
…swaddling cloths were not just used for birth in biblical times. They were also used to wrap the dead.
I am told it was common for men and women to carry these swaddling cloths with them while they traveled. In the tragic event that they died along their journey, these swaddling cloths were used to wrap their bodies so that they could be carried home.
All of a sudden, this Messiah King who was wrapped in “swaddling cloths” gives us a picture of something far greater.
…His birth pointed to His death. He was a baby born and yet he was prepared for death.
So, if you’re still asking “where do we go from here?” I think the road ahead is clear. The road we’ve been traveling along through Christmas Change now leads us to the defining moment of the Christian faith.
…this road leads us to the cross.
Jesus, from the moment that Mary laid Him in the manger wrapped in those swaddling cloths, told us where He was going. We are simply called to follow Him there.
So, “Where do we go from here?” The answer first depends on our response to this question…
Is Christmas Change just about how we change our approach to Christmas, or is Christmas Change about how we change our approach to living?
because if this is about living in such a way that means following a King to a cross, we need to move very carefully. We need to move very carefully because that means that this road we are on has the potential to change everything.
For many, it has truly been a season of change, and the potential for more change is great. For others, we may not be ready to change it all, and that is okay. It is okay, because we are simply called to follow.
…However, the one thing that we cannot do is remain here.
We must continue asking the difficult and challenging questions that cause us to move forward as a community. It is in moving forward that we truly begin to understand the need for a season of change. However, as these seasons come and go, they must do so in a way that progressively draws us deeper and closer to the heart of our Creator. It must be a progression that moves in the direction of living out this idea of “a life of return.”
A life of return?
consider this King who…
…returned to the world’s brokenness and suffering
…returned to proclaim freedom for the captives
…returned to rescue, redeem and restore
…returned to bring good news to the poor
…returned to restore the prostitute
…returned to establish justice and mercy
…returned to feed the hungry and care for the orphan
…returned to bind up the broken hearted
…returned to adopt us as His sons and daughters
…returned to give us a future and a hope
…returned to rebuild the ancient ruins
…returned to restore the places long devastated
And this is a King who will return again…
…so, until that day comes, may we be known as a people who are the active foreshadowing of this returning King.
]]>Settle in, remove the distractions, pause, just breathe and read this slowly…
…it’s almost here. The day that literally reset the course of human history is now quickly upon us. The moment when “Emmanuel” became more than prophecy and “God with Us” came into a small corner of the world in the presence of shepherds to breathe for the very first time.
I’m curious. At that moment, what was the world really expecting?
Today, in this moment, what is the world really expecting? Something that looks like this?
Obviously not…
I believe that so often we have this picture in our minds of a manger scene that was full of peace and silence where all the animal looked in (and didn’t smell), and for our convenience the manger had a couple of little side rooms for reflection and prayer.
Just for a moment consider what the world outside of this Norman Rockwellesque scene may have been like.
The streets must have been full (there was no room at the inn). Certainly people were preparing meals, transactions were being made, to-do lists needed to be checked off & people had places to be. Did anyone in that little town really even know or care about what was happening among them? I very much doubt that all was quiet and peaceful both within or just beyond the paneled walls of that barn.
However, for some reason, on that day and at that time God spoke softly in the fields during the still moments to those that were listening to the promise that He was coming.
…because, this is a God who speaks softly to all who listen to His promise of “God with Us.
The reward of “God with us” was given to those who were listening. It was given to those that could pause long enough to lift their eyes to the sky and search for the star pointing to a King. God was with them; this Messiah became present with them. He brought no armies, sat on no throne and didn’t use facebook to announce that He had arrived. He was present with us, and we only know this because of a small gathering of people who were listening.
…they were present, and this God brought His presence to give to them.
Time and time again, as this story of rescue and redemption unfolds, we find Jesus and his disciples reenacting this scene of being present & giving presence.
But, do we even know what it looks like in our world today?
…to be present.
…to be the “with Us” part of Emmanuel?
Our world places little value in being presence because we do not understand it. We must trick ourselves into thinking we are present by thinking it’s a stare, a momentary pause to pay attention or not checking my phone for five minutes. Certainly this Messiah King did not come so that I could learn how to put my phone down for a day.
…His presence and my presence must certainly be about something greater.
We have just a few days remaining in this season of waiting, preparation and arrival, so what will we do with these next few moments before they are gone forever? What will we give that moth and rust will not destroy? What will we give that will not be forgotten?
…the gifts and measures of this world that mark our days and years are simply insufficient.
In one short story found in the third chapter of the book of Acts, Peter & John encounter a man begging for money. Peter says to the beggar “silver & gold I do not have, but what I have I give to you freely.”
In that moment, at the temple gate called Beautiful, they gave him Christ, and Christ, by His very name, is presence.
…Peter & John gave him everything.
Once I heard Rick McKinley ask this question…“What would our family, church and community look like if we said ’silver & gold I do not have?’
As we celebrate Advent, I can chose to follow this story and give the greatest possession that I have ever been entrusted with to those that I love the most. It is really the only thing that I came into this world with, and it is the only thing that once lost can never be regained.
…Presence is something that God gave to me, and He entrusted that I would give it away to others.
In our crazy, busy, excessively connected & to-do list filled world, may we be a people that seek out a place to lift our eyes and search for a God who is speaking softly that He is coming. And, like the Magi, once we find that star, may we travel over the difficult & treacherous roads that allow us to be fully present.
Today, there is still so much to learn from these shepherds…
…they were present and waiting for their King.
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Have you ever had the feeling that you were seeing the same thing around every corner? Whether it is going to Seattle and seeing a Starbucks every two blocks or driving cross country on the interstate and seeing signs for McDonalds at every other exit. It seems that life occasionally has its seasons of repetitive speaking. Sometimes it whispers and then it starts to yell. Recently it has been a season of shouting for me.
When it came time for the Creator to personally engage in the redemption of people, he did so in an obviously perfect yet seemingly dangerous way. Jesus was to be born as a man and die like a man. What has been so striking to me is the PLACE that all of this took place. God’s agent of redemption was to be given a family, a mother and father. Out of this cohesive covenant would come the Christ. The family would be the vehicle through which the Savior would be carried. Jesus would consummate what was begun in the Garden with the first family’s privilege of filling the earth with the knowledge of the the glory of the Lord.
What I’ve found so thought provoking is that God would not only trust but entrust the Messiah to a young woman and her husband. It adds to my growing belief that it is inside of the family that the seed of redemption has been planted by God. It is his design within the created order that husbands and wives, Mommies and Daddies, men and women accept the task to act as agents of redemption. This begins first in the home itself and then is grows and spreads as every good healthy garden does.
So, back to the shouting that has been taking place in my life. I can’t pinpoint the week that it started happening, but I do know that its been going on for some time now. So many of our friends have been discussing and deciding that adoption is one of the greatest privileges and displays of redemption. As you read this, some of our good friends are in route to get their son, Simeon, from Ethiopia. A few days ago, some other friends passed the court process to adopt their little girl Sosi from Ethiopia as well. (Who knows, maybe they’ll get married).
I was certainly cut to the heart watching the Michael Oher story in the movie The Blind Side. The Tuohy family was a great portrayal of the redemptive power of family. I had been praying a fairly specific prayer lately that God is seeming to begin to answer. I’ve been asking God to bring someone into our family that we can love and share our life with, someone with whom we would normally not interact. Through a very humorous, but obviously ordained scenario, my wife has met and befriended a young girl from her Bible study group has been through it all. We are hoping and praying to be a part of her restoration process.
I often eat lunch with my daughter in Kindergarten on Fridays. I’ve met most of the kids in her class, and not all have been raised in a family of redemption. While it is heartbreaking, I leave every time knowing exactly how my wife and I are to view our home together. It begins in the willing hearts of the parents (like Mary and Joseph) to accept the change.
Next in line is the daily life-giving attitude and assignment that we have to raise our children to fear the Lord and worship Him alone. Along the way, then, the family is called to be an agent of redemption and restoration to others outside the home. From welcoming in a hurting friend from school, to befriending an international student from the local university, to serving a single mom while she makes her way through life on her own, to going to the ends of the earth and adopting a child, we are all to act.
THE HOME is the place that God has entrusted the responsibility of redemption by being couriers of the grace that is given in Jesus Christ.
Greg Harris defines a household as “people and possessions managed for a purpose.” May we all knowingly act in the truth that our purpose is redemption by pointing others to the Great Redeemer of our Souls, Jesus Christ.
written by Finley Robinson
]]>When he came screaming into the rough hewn manger from the womb of an unmarried woman, when he was delivered by the calloused hands of a carpenter amidst a family of goats, the angels found the unassuming and sang the message,
“glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on Earth.”
Messiah had come, and so, the shepherds, watching o’er their fields at night, left the sheep to fend for themselves. They wanted to see this good news incarnate, the majesty of which the angels sang. Their deliverer, the King of kings, had surely come.
The Wisemen traveled stable-ward, also. Keen readers of the stars as they were. They stopped and asked directions from a paranoid King with a psychotic twitch,
“where is this Messiah, for we have seen his star?”
And the king, the first of the anti-Christs, spun a yarn of Bethlehemic prophecies and his intent to worship the newly born despot. They left his estate, in awe that a king would seek to worship another, and hurried on to Bethlehem. There were, after all, presents to deliver to a good little boy who was
God with them.
And when they arrived, led by the Spirit to that splintery hospital-hotel, were they surprised to find Messiah in a manger? Were they astounded to find his mother, the first of the holy grails, relegated to a bed of straw? Did they expect something different, something more grand?
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It is how we celebrate the scandalous story, and to be honest, I love it. There is joy in the gift giving, and sometimes I think there is a reason for that. After all, it was God-sized gift giving that started this whole season. And some of us may find ourselves in Best Buy in the coming days, asking for the “Daddy, daddy, I love it,” gift.
And maybe we do this because we, like the shepherds, are looking for something more grand.
But when we are in those isles, can we agree to think back to rough-hewn manger? Can we remind ourselves of the foreordained family that found themselves bearing God into a world of disadvantage? Will we remember His coming into a generation of genocidal treachery, and how he was given only a feed bin in which to sleep? And then, can we ask
“Lord, how can we bring a gift to your manger?”
And as we silently and inwardly kneel among glittering passable joys, can we remember the answer that Jesus has already spoken?
“I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:37-40, The Message).
]]>“This is the palace that Jesus was born in.”
She pats my face with her hand, holds the paper high so that I can’t miss her drawing. In her art journal, she’s scrawled JESiS (backwards J) over that wee head tucked into the cradle, like a neon sign, so He can’t be missed. Sometimes I need that to see Him too.
“Now that is one very beautiful baby Jesus.” I smile and she dances happy. “And this is the palace roof?” I point to what looks like a gold onion dome.
She nods slow, unsure.
“Oh. So tell me, sweet,” I kneel down to really see the world through her eyes… “Tell be about Jesus being born in a palace.”
She shakes her head, those eyes all large. “Nooooo…. I know He wasn’t born in a palace really. I just want Him to be born in a palace — not in a BARN. Babies aren’t supposed to be born in barns! Pigs are!”
I sweep her mop of curls out of her eyes, this wisp of a girl who rises every morning in the dark to go out with her dad, her five siblings, to feed the sows at the barn. This girl knows the smell of a barn.
“Didn’t you read last night by the candles that we would call Jesus a Prince of Peace? He should have been born in a palace, Mama.” She cups my face, eyes begging.
And I stroke her cheek, her angst, and whisper soft, words for me.
“But Jesus knew ours was a world stuck in the mire and reeking with sin. Sort of like a barn with all the pigs squealing. He came as the Prince of Peace to the hurting and dirty places where we need Him most…” I search her eyes. A glimmer of understanding?
But she’s staring at her penciled Jesus. She drops down into my lap, and together, we gaze at the way she’s made the lines, shaped the world.
Her sister cuts stars for a nativity scene, her brother sketches a grotto at Bethlehem. Crayons and snippets and visions scatter everywhere. The house is a whir of creativity and it feels powerfully right, Edenic. This art is a way of looking for the Creator Who Comes, a way of expressing who we are and offering it back to the Artist.
Each Christmas we make, imitating the Prince of Peace, who came to Remake a broken down world.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God,” reads Mt 5:9.
“The Greek word for peacemakers is eirenepoios, which can be interpreted as “peace poets” suggesting that peace is a thing to be crafted or made,” writes Makoto Fujimura
.
“We need to seek ways to be not just peacekeepers, but to be engaged as “peacemakers.”
What if Christmas was about families gathering to be Peace Makers and Peace Poets, change makers who offered themselves in words and pictures and color and beauty? What if families created annual Portfolios of PeaceMaking, a collection of creative works that saw Jesus in the weeks of Advent through drawings and story? Peace poets and peacemakers who craft and write and draw and create and make peace with our hands, to become sons of God too with gifts for the Prince of Peace — making gifts for His wounded world.
Art, what Aristotle defined as “our capacity to make,” this “art should cause violence to be set aside,” posited Leo Tolstoy. What better way to “make the nations prove the wonders of His love” than to make and create, so that violence might be put aside this Christmas, the violence of oppression, of materialism, of poverty, of consumerism.
Wouldn’t the best thing to make this Christmas be peace?
I run my hand across her paper, this Jesus Babe in a palace, and her art, it teaches me about me. It cuts me to the quick: I do exactly what this four-year-old has done. I redraw Christmas too — make it about palaces and lights and winter wonderlands and forget that He comes to the neglected and unlikely — to the wounded places.
It is never too late to remake Christmas… to make it one that meets the Prince of Peace where He can always be found — with the poor and dispossessed.
“Sweet…” I tuck a curl behind her ear. “How would you like to draw a picture of Jesus for one of our Compassion children?”
She grins.
“Okay! For Anna. And I’ll color it… and this time, Mama?” She crawls up off my lap, turns to face me and I can see it in her eyes, how art remakes us — and the world.
“This time, Mama, Baby Jesus will be born in a barn.”
Would you like to be a ChristmasChange Maker?
Consider creating an annual ChristmasChange Portfolio of Creative PeaceMaking — a simple, organic expression of your creative selves!
5 Ways to Make the Best Things this Christmas
1. Leave an art journal out on a coffee table with a pencil throughout the holy-days — or hang a roll of paper on the back of a door. Leave a camera on the counter to encourage seeing glimpses of His beauty.
2. Encourage family members to recreate – draw, write, paint ways they have seen Jesus in their day — just leaving a pencil and journal laying open will invite doodles and ideas and joy.
3. Jot down a phrase, a quote overheard, a praise prayer in your collective PeaceMaking Portfolio. Be a Peace Poet for the Prince of Peace.
4. Consider snapping a picture of your family’s creative endeavors – your makings in art, in the kitchen, the workshop, the sewing room — and sharing with us at the ChristmasChange Makers group at Flickr.
Or upload a video at the ChristmasChange Makers Flickr group of your family poetry jam, your night of tap dancing, your impromptu night of songmaking! Have fun and enjoy the wonder of creating like our Creator Father!
5. Then share your art. With a sponsored child, an elderly shut in, a sick neighbor, a homeless person — anyone in need of a smile. Bring peace and healing to the wounded through the beauty of creativity. (Consider making copies of your art that you share, or photographing the original pieces you share, so that year to year, you leave a family legacy of making peace with art.)
Wouldn’t it be neat to gather as a community of ChristmasChange Makers making the very best thing this Christmas? Peace makers welcoming the Prince of Peace.
Q
4U:
What are you making this Christmas?
]]>I’m six or so, big enough for childlike faith and small enough to still believe in the wonder of Christmas. My brother and I giggle as we dress up for our yearly tradition. I am Mary and he is Joseph.
We put on bathrobes that belong to our parents–so long they drag the carpet behind us. We cover our heads with bath towels. The color doesn’t match and terry cloth didn’t exist in Bethlehem but we don’t know or notice.
I swoop up a doll in my arms—an impromptu baby Jesus. We walk into the living room where parents and grandparents expectantly wait. My dad holds a Bible open to the second chapter of Luke.
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.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 room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:4-7 NIV
A holy hush falls over the room. A candle flickers. My brother and I act out the story as my father reads on, unfolding eternity word by word. Eternity that came to sleep in a manger and die on a cross.
In those moments, our home becomes holy. Bathrobes, towels, clothe us in the divine. Christmas truly comes and nothing is the same.
It isn’t make-believe—it’s transformation.
I’m grown now and no longer dress up to read the Christmas story. But the lesson I learned from those days stays with me. Christ has the power to change. And always, especially at Christmas, things are not as they appear in the Kingdom.
This is truest of all when we give.
The cost of two cups of coffee becomes a Village of Hope for women in Africa through the Mocha Club.
A gift to Rapha House becomes a divine key that sets girls free from sex slavery.
A sponsorship of a child through Compassion International becomes a pathway to a better future.
Water into wine, a few loaves and fish into a feast, a tiny baby in a manger Savior of this great big world. Jesus has always been a multiplier, transformer, changer, who takes what little we have to offer and makes it more than enough.
This happens not when we are perfect, not when we have much to give, but when we—who are all grown up now—open our hearts once again to childlike faith and the wonder of Christmas.
When we do, the One who came for us then comes to us again. And miraculously, through us, makes His way to the hearts of others who need Him too.
This is still, always, the miracle of Christmas.
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