Discipleship at Messiah

This morning as I was thinking about Thanksgiving, I knew I ought to post something on this site. It has been months since I have done that. I won’t even try to list the reasons (excuses? My mother used to say “An excuse is a skin of a reason, stuffed with a lie.”).

Then, I did what I usually do when I post. I looked at past posts and sermons or other things I have written on the topic. As I looked at the post for a year ago, I read what I think fits our present circumstances. So, I hope you find meaning for this time as I post it again, with a few editorial changes.

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Today in countless homes, in all kinds of places people will think about and tell about things for which they are thankful. The list is long for most of us and most of us realize there are even more things than we are aware of.

However, the most intense moments of thankfulness are not found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound. Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. Half their number was dead, they were without a country, life was difficult, but still there was thanksgiving to God. Their gratitude was not for something but in something. It was that same sense of gratitude that led Abraham Lincoln to formally establish the first Thanksgiving Day in the midst of national civil war, when the “butcher’s list of casualties” seemed to have no end and the very nation  struggled for survival.

It is exactly the type of situation referred to in the Bible: give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (I Thessalonians 5:18) Our list of “fors” might be short. Perhaps in your own life, right now, there is intense hardship. Try following the directions of the Psalmist: Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth… Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. -Psalms 100:1a, 4 (NIV)

Praising God, giving thanks won’t change your circumstances but it will change you. True thanksgiving is accompanied by joy. Through grace it is God’s gift to you.

Have a joyful Thanksgiving Day!

P.S. A personal story: Today I started my day with this song that I had not thought about for a long time and I experienced the results of praising God.
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The Cross: God Forbid!

Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You. -Matthew 16:22

Up to his point, the life of Jesus is a story of success and popularity. Healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, feeding the hungry, teaching about lilies of the field, blessing the little children, even raising the dead, he has attracted a tremendous following.

Jesus now begins to show his disciples what his life is really all about. Peter’s great confession–“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” has been affirmed by Him. He has given them the assurance of the future of his church. And Matthew says, “From that time on Jesus began to explain that he must…suffer…and…be killed. Whereas, Peter incredulous, exclaims, “God forbid it.” (“You’ve got to be kidding!”)

And Jesus answers, you’re not on God’s side but man’s. Not only must I go to the cross, but if you are to be my disciple you must come with me. And as time goes on and Jesus begins to make clear what that means and where it leads, he loses the crowds shouting hosannas to those shouting “crucify him.”

Someone has said, “A gospel which centers on a cross and finds victory in death makes no sense whatsoever,…A gospel which turns life upside down and demands that we make every human loyalty subsidiary to our allegiance to Jesus Christ flies in the face of everything that men naturally find acceptable.”

Those on the other side of the cross, looking ahead to it or standing before it on that fateful day, always were with Peter: “God forbid.” They did not know “Friday” and “Saturday” was followed by Sunday.

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In C.S. Lewis’ children’s books, The Chronicles of Narnia, he describes a land where “it’s always winter but never Christmas.” It’s a dark, hopeless place ruled by an evil queen.

For us, it seems to me, we live in a land where it’s “Christmas” everywhere. And sometimes, it seems it’s always Christmas too. There’s “Christmas in July” sales, or Hallmark movies. Of course decorations even begin to show up before Halloween. And the movies on TV begin in earnest. And it’s not just Hallmark either. Lifetime shows them around the clock every day.

They are about family, romance, and happiness. There is a lot of talk about the magic of Christmas. Everybody is nice to everyone by the end. They certainly provide a little relief from the daily news punctuated by anger, bad temper, suffering and all the other negative things of the human existence.

However, most of this “Christmas” is not the Christmas of the good news. Even if, here and there, are references to a story of a baby and a manger, rarely, if ever, is it about the real story.

The angel’s word to Joseph puts it in perspective. “You shall call him Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” To the shepherds on the hillside it was “to you is born this day…a savior.”

You see what’s missing is Jesus, specifically a savior, the savior. It’s not just a temporary, feel good, escape from the bad news all around us. It is the good news of a cure for all this, for me personally and you, and for the whole world.

That’s truly “good news of great joy.” And it’s to be shared.

Merry Christmas!

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The Lord Almighty is determined to do all this. -Isaiah 9:7 (GNT)
The people were on the tiptoe of expectation. -Luke 3:15 (NEB)

“God’s Determination—Our Expectation”

What do you expect as Christmas approaches?  Let me tell you what many people expect—stress, busyness, debt, dread.

One woman “wondered aloud whether it was worth celebrating anything anymore at that time of the year.  The way she put it was that along about Halloween she feels she’s stuck behind the wheel of a car she can’t control.  By Thanksgiving she’s going 40 miles-an-hour, by mid-December she’s racing along and 80 and on Christmas Day she always runs into the same brick wall.  “No matter what I do,” she says, “I wake up at the end of the holiday season feeling like I’ve been in a collision.  Our family is an emotional, physical, and financial wreck!” (Fred Rogers)

“The cruelest and loudest message of the season, shouted from millions of television sets, newspapers and magazines, seems to be: “To spend more is to love more…and to be more dearly loved.” (Rogers)

“The Christmas season has come to mean the period when the public plays Santa Claus to the merchants.” (John Haynes Holmes)

So the experience of many is “overworrying, overworking and overspending.”  One week during Advent I had a businessman express to me, what has become a common sentiment, “I’ll be glad when it’s over.”  My guess is that some of you have the same feeling whether you express it or not.  And you probably feel guilty because you know it shouldn’t be that way.  Can I confess to you that pastors are not immune to all this.  Or at least the one I know best.

One of the dangers of all this is that we lose our sense of expectancy, anticipation.  That is why a season of Advent is so important. It reminds us that the good news, the gospel calls us to anticipate, to expect.

Those people were in bad straits. But they had a promise. Some of you are struggling. But you have a promise. As Michael Card put it in this song The Promise “What more could God have given?” Because the “name of the promise was Jesus.”

Someone has said, “All we could ever imagine could ever hope for, He is….He is the Prince of Peace whose first coming has already transformed society but whose second coming will forever establish justice and righteousness.  All this and infinitely more, alive in an impoverished baby in a barn.” (source unknown)

What a powerful insistence that God is determined to do this.  We are to live in expectancy. The light of Jesus shines. The power of evil will be overcome and we will be part of God’s kingdom of peace, justice and righteousness.  Hallelujah!

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