I sang in a concert last night for a CD I did with some folks from a church. All the proceeds from the CD go towards a shower trailer for some of the homeless people who live in the city near the church. It was a lot of fun! We ended the set with some Christmas songs and before we sang I made the comment that most of the Christmas carols are songs of joy and celebration yet we still sing them like we’re going to a funeral… and then we sang much more jazzed up and joyful renditions of some of the traditional songs. I think some people were a little shocked, but most had smiles on their faces. Anyway, I don’t understand why so many Christmas songs are so slow and minor and melancholy. They’re about joy and celebration and angelic hosts singing “Halleluja!” And I don’t think the angels were crying as they sang, either. Have you ever thought about the words of the songs? Was it really a silent night? It probably was in the fields, until the angels started singing. It probably was in the inn’s barn, until Mary went into labor. And it probably was almost everywhere, except where the Christ child was born. Can you imagine the entire earth holding its breath as young Mary pushed and cried to bring this incredible gift into the world? And can you imagine the awe and then the mighty roaring cheer that arose from the ranks of the angels and the rocks on the ground when Yeshua screamed his way into our existence? To see the Word made flesh and God become Man, how shockingly wonderful! Hark! The herald angels sing! Why do melancholy as the song rings? They’re singing gloria! Joy to the world! The Lord is come! Shout it from the rooftops! Dance in the aisles! This isn’t a day for sorrow and sadness. It’s a day to sing joy! Our savior has come! He is here! The darkness cringes into its corners and slinks away to lick its wounds, knowing that its time has come. JOY! Luke 2:13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!”
It seems that no matter how badly off my family is, I am always reminded that there are others with less. My family doesn’t have much – financially, that is. We don’t have our own home, we don’t drive fancy new cars (although right now I get to drive my mom’s fancy new car), we live from paycheck-to-paycheck and pray for providence to pay our bills… it’s frustrating. We don’t have anything else to cut out (except diapers, and I for the life of me don’t know how to potty train a child with autism…), so there doesn’t seem to be much hope of a reprieve any time soon. I have no idea what we’re going to do about Christmas presents this year. But at church last night I was reminded (they talked about their Christmas Angels program) that there are families out there with children who have struggle similar to my own children’s struggles. They don’t have homes to live in, they don’t have bells and whistles, they may not be able to afford basic things like shoes, they may not have family to help them. So, I adopted a little girl with nothing, except autism. I am not sure how things will work out, but sometimes the tug of God is so strong on my heart to help people. I can’t imagine parenting a child with autism alone, and living below the poverty line (we’re close, but not that close). We have family who helps us (we have a beautiful, safe, clean place to live – thanks mom!), and cars that get us where we need to go; I have a job and my husband sort of has a job – sometimes; our children are healthy and happy and safe. We’re not hungry or unable to buy the basic necessities like clothes for the boys or toothpaste. We may not have much, but we are still blessed. It’s hard to remember that sometimes because I get freaked out looking at our bank account and trying to figure out how all the bills will get paid. It’s especially scary since we have to pay our COBRA bill, multiple doctors and hospitals… and still figure out Christmas. But, God has always been faithful in the past. He’s always come through; He’s always provided and made it all work out. Remember. I cling to His promises and I remember His past reliability. And, even though we’re in dire straights, I’ll also try and help someone less fortunate than I am. Shalom.
Luke 1:11 Zechariah was in the sanctuary when an angel of the Lord appeared, standing to the right of the incense altar. In church on Sunday the pastor talked about the song the angels sang to the shepherds and it got me thinking about this whole angel thing. 1. Why did God make people if he already had angels? I mean, angels are beautiful and perfect. Was it because they couldn’t choose to love Him or something like that? I mean, really, humans are messy and disobedient and fickle. God knew full well that when He made us He’d have to come save us from ourselves. Why bother? Why not have a relationship with the angels instead? Or is it more fun to have unpredictable, crazy humans? 2. In the book of Daniel the angel tells Daniel that he was sent by God the minute Daniel started praying but that he was delayed by demonic forces. I wonder how often God sends us an answer but it is delayed by demonic forces. I think I’ve covered this in a previous post. 3. Were the angels jealous when God created man? It’s kind of like the older sibling thing. They had been created but it wasn’t enough. Did they ever wonder why they weren’t enough or why God felt the need to have a relationship with something as problematic as humanity? Just sayin’… 4. When the angel appeared to the shepherds in the fields after Jesus’ birth he calmed them down and told them about what had happened. I wonder if the angels were extra bright that night because they were so excited and awed about what God had done. Anyway, the shepherd finally start breathing again and suddenly a vast host of angels appears in the sky. They have another heart attack. I didn’t think about it until the pastor mentioned it but a vast host is something like millions of angels. I always pictured 20-30 angels, but this is a whole different picture. Can you imagine?! Millions of angels singing in the sky! Did anyone else see this?! Seriously, a million, brilliantly shining angels appear in the sky singing the Hallelujah Chorus… That had to light up the fields like the day! Of course, I suppose they could have only been visible to the shepherds… But, wow! That had to be incredible! 5. When Zechariah questions the angel on the validity of him and his wife having a child when they were way too old for that to happen (sounds like Abraham and Sarah!), the angel says, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news!” (Luke 1:19) Dude! I’m an angel! Why would I lie about this?! In this translation, and several others I’ve read, Gabriel sounds like he’s just smacked his forehead in shock that this guy is questioning an angel. It shows some emotion from the angel and is an interesting reminder to me that the angels did have feelings and emotions. I wonder how many times they shook (and still shake) their head at humanity wondering how on earth we could be so monumentally stupid and so incredibly loved by God. So, those are, randomly arranged of course, some of my thoughts on angels. I’m sure there are other thoughts running around in my head, but these are the ones I can remember at 5:00 in the morning.
Matthew 12:21 And his name will be the hope of all the world. This is actually Jesus quoting from Isaiah (42:1-4) regarding a prophecy made about him. I thought it was fitting because during this time of year (Christmas) the name of Jesus is heard more often (since that’s the real reason we celebrate). His name is hope. Hope is good, especially right now when things are so decidedly bad with our economy, wars, government and all the little details that stress us out. Hope is that flickering flame that is the last thing to get extinguished. Hope, no matter how tiny, holds on through even the worst of times. Jesus is there all the time, even when there’s no money in the bank and no jobs to be had; when there’s corruption all around and no one to help you; and when the world has come crashing down and your heart is shattered. He is hope. His name brings hope because He is bigger than the storm. He has the power to calm the storm. He has conquered all these things and more. He is the rest of your heart, the quiet place to grieve, the safe harbor to weather the waves, the hand you can hold, and the champion of your cause. We all need hope to keep moving forward. Jesus is that hope. Have you tried Him lately?
Matthew 7:11 If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. It seems like we have a theme going these last few days, about giving and receiving! Maybe it’s the Christmas season, or maybe God’s trying to pound something into my head. I’ve always heard it said that if God doesn’t give you the thing you ask for it’s because there’s something better He has for me later. I don’t know if that’s true or if He doesn’t give me the thing I ask for because I’m asking for something that’ll hurt me. However you want to look at it, God loves His children and isn’t going to give bad gifts. Look at Jesus, for example. You can’t get a much better gift than freedom, salvation, and eternity with God! But the ephemeral aside, He does give good gifts to us on this side of heaven. I recently watched a TED talk by the guy who followed all the rules of the Bible literally for a year (or at least most of them). Aside for the fact that he’s agnostic and he’s hilarious, the one part of the talk that stuck out to me what when he talked about thankfulness. He was referring to the verse that says to give thanks in all things. As he went through the year giving thanks for everything he said it made him realize how much he had to be thankful for. Whether you believe in God or not, we are far more blessed than we often realize. There are so many things to give thanks for, and that’s even more obvious in this season where we (hopefully) focus on giving to others. I love Christmas for the lights, the beauty, and the time off of work, but I also absolutely love buying Christmas presents! As difficult as it can be sometimes, I love finding and picking out presents that make people smile. And I think that’s what Christmas is partially about – loving the act of giving to others, which reflects God’s joy at giving to us. And, like this verse says, His gifts are good. I may not understand how it’s good right now (especially if it’s not what I asked for), but in the long run I will understand more, and hopefully appreciate the gifts He’s given to me.
Matthew 2:11 They entered the house where the child and his mother, Mary, were, and they fell down before him and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I think it’s funny that Jesus is always shown as a little baby in pictures with the wise men. If the star appeared when He was born, then He was about 2 years old. I have a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old, and let me tell you… those painters should have painted Jesus running around playing instead of sitting quietly on Mary’s lap! Granted, He was God, so maybe He knew that He should be still and thank the nice wise men for his gifts, but I can just see Him stopping what He was doing and looking at the gifts, then at his mother, and then at the wise men, raising his eyebrows and going back to his games. Gold, frankincense and myrrh? Dude I’m a 2-year-old boy! Can I have a truck? (Yes, I know they didn’t have trucks back then) But, then again, since He was perfect, maybe He politely jabbered some nonsense (unless He was also linguistically advanced), smiled and sat like a good boy until they left. It’s kind of funny to think of God as a 2-year-old. Granted, since He was perfect and sinless, He probably behaved quite a bit better than my 2-year-old, but I think He was still a little boy who wanted to do little boy things and wrestle with his dad and touch every, every tool on the workbench – twice! It gives some humanity to His deity. It also helps me remember that He really did experience a lot of the things that we, as humans, experienced. I know I normally think of his experiencing human things as something that happened as an adult, but I wonder if Jesus ever had a crush on a girl? Or did a girl ever have a crush on Him, and He has to politely and kindly let her know He just wasn’t interested… What must it have been like to have a been 10 and known the thoughts and feelings of everyone around you? Or maybe that was something that came up gradually. Who knows. It’s an interesting thought to me, though. Okay, enough rambling. There are the random things I think about at 5am.
Matthew 1:18 Now this is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. I finally made it to the New Testament! YEAH!!!! I’ve been working my way through the prophets for what seems like forever (because I couldn’t remember if I’d ever read them all, and I wanted to read them all). And now, just in time for Christmas… we have Matthew! Whew! I think verses like this mean a lot more to me now that I have children of my own. It’s crazy enough being pregnant when you know how you got that way and who the father is and all. I can only imagine what it must be like being pregnant with God! I wonder if she got morning sickness or heartburn or he kicked her a lot… But then again, he was a baby complete with poopy diapers and runny noses and grubby little hands and cheeks. I can’t imagine a child who was perfect though… I mean, Jesus never sinned (not even as a baby or as a child). At least she didn’t have to worry about disciplining Jesus… I’ll bet it was quite a change when baby number 2 came along and he was quite different! Did the others get jealous that their older brother was God incarnate? (I can hear it now…. “Why can’t you just be a good boy like your brother, Jesus?!”) But I digress… If I had been Mary this would have been a very conflicting time. I would have been simultaneously terrified (of getting stoned to death for adultery – although if I were carrying God, I suppose it would be easier for me to believe that He’d protect me from something like that) and completely awed (I’m pregnant with GOD for goodness sake!). Can you imagine trying to explain this to your parents?! I wonder if she had to explain it to Joseph or if the angel did the trick. Mary really had to trust him because I think he found out about her being pregnant before the angel came to him. This is one of those moments that is legendary, and we often just skim over on our way to the “more important” aspects of the story – the angels, the shepherds, the wise men and crazy King Herod. But I like to think about how Mary was just a girl (probably around the age of the girls that I teach), and her life changed overnight. She had emotions just like me and fears and hopes and dreams, too. She was engaged to a good man and was probably really excited about getting married. But I can only imagine what things must have been like, what her thoughts must have been, to be that close to God, so intimately connected with Him, for those months that she was pregnant. I wonder if it was like that time when God was so close to me so long ago (if so, how did she function… that small taste was overwhelming). How amazing and incredible is that?!