Using Christmas

Perhaps he was the original "Bad Santa."  We know he was bad enough to be lynched by an angry mob, perhaps the last man in Texas history to meet such an end.  His name was Marshall Ratliff.  He borrowed a Santa Claus suit from his landlady and set out from Wichita Falls in a stolen car with three other men to rob the First National Bank in Cisco, Texas.

On December 23, 1927, Ratliff dressed in his Santa suit and armed with a gun, walked into the bank and announced it was a hold up.  He did not count on several children dragging their parents into the bank right behind him because they had just seen Santa walk through the streets of Cisco, Texas.  They walked into the lobby behind Ratliff, saw Ratliff's friends who had now entered from the back of the bank with guns drawn and one little girl began to cry, "They're gonna shoot Santa!"

Things turned violent very quickly.  There was a gun battle in the bank, a high speed car chase (for 1927 standards), a car jacking, a group of armed citizens joining the pursuit and finally a capture of the bank robbers.  In all, six people were killed and eight wounded. Ratliff later escaped from jail and was captured by a mob of angry citizens who lynched him.  Using Christmas backfired on Ratliff and his bank robber friends big time.

People still try to use Christmas for their own selfish reasons.  A man called the church the other day, telling a tale of woe.  He had just begun to attend our church, he said -  we had no record of him coming.  He was now calling "his pastor" to see if "his church" could help him by putting money onto his prepaid VISA card.  There was no other possible way he could be helped and it need to happen immediately he said.  I told him I was sorry I could not send money that way, but we would pray. We later saw he had been on our website fifteen minutes before he called and left his name and email address.

We can grow cynical and bitter about "the way people use Christmas," but maybe a better way to approach this season is to ask ourselves, "Are we letting Christmas use us?"  In all the commercialism of Christmas, the conflict about Christmas and the chaos of the world at Christmas are doing anything positive?  Are we being messengers of something different?  Witnesses of God's love in sending his son?  Examples of a better way to honor and celebrate the season?

I must confess, I am not as creative in letting Christmas (and of course God) use me as others are creative in using Christmas, but maybe it is not about my creativity.  Perhaps it is more about responding to what God is doing in the world rather than what the world is doing in Christmas.  Where is God at work this Christmas around you?  How are you going to respond?  Maybe that is a request I really need to respond to this week.

for the journey...

Tim

Do You See What I See?

The preschool kids were coming out into the foyer after their turn at the Northside Baptist School's presentation of "The Best Christmas Present Ever."  I was there in the foyer, at the Welcome Center, ready to hand out invitations to "The Sounds of Christmas" performance on Sunday and I heard their conversation. 

The first little boy in the line they were now struggling to stay in, turned and announced to the other preschoolers, "I saw my Daddy!"  Without skipping a beat the next little girl in line said, "I saw my Mommy and my Daddy!"  Then someone else chimed in to the new competition, "I saw my Mommy and my Daddy and my Grandma!"

As the teachers tried to keep them in line and coach them to walk back through the foyer for their appearance in the next act, the one-upmanship continued of who each one had seen. It was as if this whole Christmas program had been arranged for them so they could see their family. As adults we know the bigger reality is that all those people - family and friends - had not come there to be seen by the children but to see the children. 

We can read the Christmas story and see it is written from the human stand point of what we saw in that first advent.  Mary saw the angel, Gabriel.  The wise men saw a star.  Joseph saw visions in a dream.  The shepherds saw a host of angels and then they saw the baby in the manger.  These were all wonderful sights and those who saw them told others of the amazing things they had seen.

I wonder if from heaven's view though, we all are a lot like those preschoolers.  We can think about what we have seen in "Christmas" but the greater reality is that the reason Christmas happened in the first place is because we were seen.  God sent his son from heaven to earth because he saw our need and he acted on his love for us - just like the families in the audience came to see the kid's performance.

Perhaps this Christmas, we need to not take the perspective that all this happened for us to see, but it all happened the way it did first and foremost, because we have a God who sees us, who knows our need and who always acts on it.  The fact that we get to see him at all, is because he sees us.

She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me."  Genesis 16:13

for they journey...

Tim

The Cost of the Incarnation

"Most American evangelicals hold views condemned as heretical by some of the most important councils of the early church."  That statement from a Christianity Today article got my attention.  As I read the article I found that much of our modern confusion centers around things related to Jesus and the incarnation.  We are good at celebrating Christmas but not as good at understanding the implications of the incarnation of Christ.

Note that this survey is speaking to people, 96% of whom believe Jesus rose from the dead and 92% believe that salvation is found only in Jesus and 96% believe in the Trinity.  But nearly a quarter (22%) said that God the Father is more divine than Jesus with another 9% not being sure.  Also, 16% said that Jesus was the first creature created by God with another 11% not being sure.

The Bible does not teach that Jesus was created and it certainly never teaches that Jesus came into existence to come at Christmas.  It always teaches that Jesus was fully human and fully divine.  Somehow Jesus came into this world as a human but never lost any of his divinity.  He would even say that he and his Father were "one" (John 10:30).

It cost something for the Jesus, the son of God, to become a son of man.  People would never fully understand him while he walked on this earth and today we still don't. That was one price he bore in becoming God incarnate - being misunderstood. 

Our little minds can hardly fathom what it must have been like to leave the glory of heaven for the goriness of a human birth.  Perhaps C. S. Lewis caught this part best when he wrote this in Mere Christianity:

The Second Person in God, the Son, became human Himself: was born into the world as an actual man—a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular color, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone. The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a Woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.

We often think of what it cost him to go to the cross.  To fully understand him, perhaps we should first seek understand what it cost him to go to a stable in Bethlehem.

for the journey...

Tim

The poll can be found at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/october-web-only/new-poll-finds-evangelicals-favorite-heresies.html

Researching Thanksgiving

Last week as I listened to some other pastor's preach on giving thanks, I heard a statement like the following one several times, "Research shows that being thankful improves your health."  But the research was never cited or directly quoted, so I did some looking into that.  I found some studies on gratitude that came out of Harvard (Harvard Mental Health Letter, "In Praise of Gratitude"  November 2011 quoted in preachingtoday.com).

Psychologists Dr. Robert A. Emmons and Dr. Michael E McCullough asked participants in one study to write down a few sentences each week. One group was told to write down things they were grateful for in their week.  Another group wrote about what irritated them.  A third group just wrote down events of their week with no instructions on whether they were to be good or bad.

Ten weeks went by and then the groups were studied.  The ones who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic, felt better about life, had fewer doctor's visits and exercised more than either of the other two groups.

Another researcher, Dr. Martin E. Seligman tested 411 people, giving them various assignments and then studying the impact those assignments had on the individual's moods.  The most impactful assignment given to the group was to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked.  Study group members immediately showed a huge increase in happiness scores after the assignment with benefits from the letters they wrote and delivered lasting for more than a month.

Though none of these studies show a direct cause and effect correlation, they point to the power of gratitude to change our lives for the better.  I doubt that a typical Thanksgiving dinner with all it's calories will improve your health and well being, but the act of thanksgiving surely will.  Writing things down seems to big part of that as well.  Why not write a thank you note to someone this Thanksgiving?  What have you got to lose?

for the journey...

Tim

Admirable

In this Thinksgiving week challenge that I gave us in my post last week (The Thinksgiving Week Challenge), the day I had the hardest finding an example verse for was the word "admirable."  If we are to think on things that are admirable, where is that in the Bible?  The Philippians 4:8 verse is the only place I found the word "admirable."  Surely there was admiration going on, especially of Jesus, but it does not use that word.

That is why I went with the word "marvel" and used the example in Matthew 15:31 that the crowd observing Jesus "marveled" at his works of healing.  We don't do enough marveling or admiring today, especially of Jesus.  Anger, criticism and judgment are much easier and much more prevalent.  When we think on those negative things, we do negative things.

Years ago I heard a story about a college football game where the coach had to make a tough decision.  The starting quarterback went down with an injury.  The back up was sick with the flu and not suited up.  The only quarterback left on the team was a freshman who had never taken a snap.  On top of all that, the opposing team had just downed a punt inside the five yard line.

So the coach called the freshman over and told him to go no huddle on offense and to hand the ball off on two successive plays to the running back, then on the third play to surprise the opposing team by punting the ball.  The coach knew the freshman had been a punter as well as quarterback in high school.  The freshman went into the game angry that the coach only trusted him to hand off and to punt, he knew he could do more than that.  His ego was bruised and he was steaming that his coach only wanted him to get the team out of trouble but he did what he was told.

The first handoff went for a minimal gain, but on the second running play, the running back took the ball and broke through the defense and down the field all the way to the opponents two yard line.  The freshman hurried his team to the line of scrimmage and just as he had been told, he punted it on the third play.  Of course the ball went through the end zone resulting in a touchback so that the other team got the ball on the 20 yard line.

When the quarterback got back to the sideline, the coached yelled at him, "What were you thinking?"  To which the freshman shot back, "That we have the dumbest coach in the country to call those plays!"

When we think negatively, we feel negative things and we act negatively - and it is all completely natural to us.  What happens when we learn to admire?   When we learn to marvel, especially at the things Jesus is doing?  Today, let's try to find out.  This may the be best way to turn "Thinksgiving" into "Thanksgiving."

for the journey...
Tim

Thinksgiving

No, that title is not a typo.  That is a specific challenge that I have given to us at Northside for the coming week.  If you are reading this without hearing the sermon, "Fixing Your Thoughts" on November 16.  We are studying eight things that Paul challenges the church there to think about from Philippians 4:8.

So if you are willing give this a try this week:

The Thinksgiving Week Challenge

Each day there will be focus word from that verse as well as another scripture verse to help us fix our thoughts on that word.

Day 1 – Sunday:  “whatever is true…”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  John 14:6

Day 2 – Monday:  “whatever is noble…”

(From the Parable of the sower, speaking about the seeds that fell on good soil).

“But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.”  Luke 8:15 NKJV

Day 3 – Tuesday:  “whatever is right…”

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”  James 1:19-20

Day 4 – Wednesday:  “whatever is pure…”

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”  Psalm 51:10

Day 5 – Thursday:  “whatever is lovely…”

“How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty!   My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”  Psalm 84:1-2

Day 6 – Friday:  “whatever is admirable…”

“So the crowd marveled as they saw the mute speaking, the crippled restored, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.”  Matthew 15:31 NASB

Day 7 – Saturday:  “whatever is excellent…”
“Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.”  1 Timothy 3:13

Day 8 – Sunday:  “whatever is …praiseworthy…”

“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.”  Psalm 145:3

“…think about such things.”

A Little Peace and Chaos

"It was the biggest crisis of my life and I had peace.  It was incredible."  That was the statement I heard from a young man this week who was recounting how God worked in his situation. His premature, new born baby was in a neonatal ICU - struggling.  The young man's father had come to visit and he had a major health crisis and ended up in the ICU in another part of the hospital.  Crises do not usually crash into our lives alone.

So how do we get peace when your child and your father are both in ICU?  The interesting thing about where God teaches us peace (as well as patience, kindness, love and pretty much every fruit of the Spirit) is that it comes in the places where it is hardest for them to naturally exist.  In the places where it seems life takes peace, God teaches peace.  He takes us beyond the natural to grow the supernatural. 

Think about that in your life.  Have you ever learned patience without actually being in a place where you have to wait?  I haven't.  Peace is the same way; God teaches it to us in the crisis and the chaos.  If we learn it there, peace will be there when the crisis and chaos go away.  And the peace will be stronger.

This Sunday we are going to be learning about God's peace.  I have a sneaking suspicion that many of us are in a place to learn it  - right now.

for the journey...

Tim