Beginnings

Beginnings are such painful things. When we begin the new year we are reminded of our failed resolutions from last year. When we begin a new job there may be a great deal of satisfaction and excitement, but, mixed with that, there is a leaving behind of the old job, maybe even moving to an entirely different city.
The thrill of beginning to drive the car wore off soon after it also became our responsibility to fuel the car, insure the car, and maintain the car!
Beginnings are seldom simply adding something to life. They signify the completion, fulfillment, or ending of one life stage and the start of something different or new, something that represents a change over what was in it’s place before.
When it comes to marriage, I tell couples coming for their pre-marital counseling sessions that they are beginning a new and radically different relationship, even those who have lived together for an extended period of time. They are giving something up and starting something new. They will have to get acquainted all over again in this new relationship.
Matthew 4:17 says, From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Two things are new here. The first is that Jesus began a public ministry. He put aside any hope of a private life and took up the role of Messiah and Savior.
The second is more exciting than the first, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This whole idea of repentance is something of a new beginning for us as people of God. We are called to leave behind an old way of life and to take up a new way of life. This is an old way of life that many of us had grown quite accustomed to living. It won’t be easy to just lay it down and walk away. We may have to find new friends who will assist and encourage us on our new journey of becoming. That will be hard. We will adopt new and different priorities. We will, hopefully, purge ourselves of behaviors not in keeping with our new way of life and build in behaviors that reinforce the new life path we are travelling.

What are the results of this new thing Jesus began and continues to this day? Verse 24 of that same chapter in Matthew tells us that people talked. They told other people. Good News that is REALLY good can’t be kept a secret. It bursts forth from our own lives and begins to change the lives of this around us. May our beginning, begin something in the lives of the people we meet! Amen.
Pastor Craig

Lessons Learned in the Atlanta Airport

I am writing this from my parent’s house in Winder, GA. Those of you older than I, may possibly have heard of it before as the home town of Senator Richard Russell. That is the one thing of national recognition for which we might be known. But for me, it is a place of memories and comfort.

I ended up here on my way to Philadelphia. I was to leave DFW after church last Sunday afternoon. With the snow, it was a risky trip. However, my flights were early afternoon and, if I could just get out of Dallas, I stood an excellent chance of staying ahead of the weather as it moved east towards my connection in Atlanta.

I arrived at the airport in plenty of time, got checked in, and waited, and waited, and waited. I wasn’t quite sure what I was waiting for. The flight crew was there. The plane was there. It had actually stopped snowing and the runways were clear. However, it was going to be a bumpy flight and they had already announced that the usual beverage service would not be offered. Instead, we were waiting on bottled water. Bottled, I assume, so when the plane makes that several hundred foot drop and your head hits the cabin ceiling, at least you don’t spill your drink.

We finally left, 45 minutes late. That meant I would have a maximum of 20 minutes to make my connection if we stayed on schedule. Add in the time for people to pack their mules with all the stuff they drug on board so they wouldn’t have to pay the $20+ baggage handling fee and it meant I was going to be on the run.


What I learned in Atlanta is that I am too old and too fat to run through airports anymore. I learned that you can’t beg, buy, plead, or threaten your way past a gate agent once they have decided that you aren’t going to get on the plane. It doesn’t matter if the plane is still at the gate and the jetway is still connected to the plane. I learned to take the rental car that is offered because it just might be the last one available in the whole city. I learned that I can still drive on ice. I learned that after 30 years away, I can still find my way around Atlanta to bypass traffic when the need arises. Most of all, I learned, yet again, that God works in mysterious ways. I learned to be patient, to go with the flow, to enjoy the 4-day blessing snowed in with my parents. I was detoured, just like the wisemen of old, and I learned, as they did, that God’s plans and priorities are different than our own, but far more fun and better for us.



Pastor Craig

LAVISHED

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

When was the last time you had something lavished on you. For me, the thought that comes to mind is about Christmas. We are at the end of Christmastide, as it is called, so we can still talk about it without being “out of season.” Picture the Ghost of Christmas Past when old Ebenezer first encounters him in what appears to be a mighty banquet hall.
My parents were not incredibly wealthy, but they were wise with their money and every Christmas they seemed to save it up to spend on my sister and me. The gifts were piled around the tree. They circled the whole thing. As children, we didn’t realize how blessed we were. We took way too much for granted. Oh, we appreciated what we received, even the clothes. But, I think, we thought everyone had a Christmas like we had. I know quite well now that most did not. I realize now that there were those who had nothing, not even a tree, on December 25th.
Now take one of those children who had nothing on Christmas Day and put them in the house of my childhood with every single one of those packages that we spent most of the day opening with their name on it! That, my friends, is what it means to have something lavished on you! Or maybe it speaks more to the excitement we should experience when we recognize the “riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.”
Think of it! Now I am one of those that believe every child deserves a present on Christmas Day. Yet, I am not one of those, nor are you by the way, who deserves the grace of God lavished upon him. I am a good person by human standards, and so are you, but neither you nor I deserve the grace of God. Still, for some reason, God decides, not just to gift you his grace, but to gift it to you in portions of which you and I are not even able to comprehend.
Sometimes the best thing to do is to sit in the grass, surrounded by God’s marvelous creation, and just be in wonder of his amazing gifts to his children. God’s gifts come in only one size, infinite, because that is how much he loves you!
Pastor Craig

The Empty Manger

Where did Jesus Go – It is an easy thing to find Christ in Christmas. It has gotten a little more difficult to find him in the public square with political correctness taking hold and Santa Claus, or modern society’s version of the original saint, taking center stage. It’s easy because that baby is just so loveable. Certainly, Jesus would have avoided much of the trouble he encountered later in life if he just would have stayed in that manger.

It is when Jesus leaves the manger that trouble starts. He grows up and starts to say things that make people uncomfortable. Herod was the only one who wanted Jesus dead in the days that followed his birth, but by the time of his crucifixion it seems that there was only a handful that wanted him alive.

We don’t think of babies as challenging the established order of things. They are little bundles of joy to be cuddled and tickled and have much fuss made over them. It is always the adults that cause the trouble.

Jesus grew up and began to expect things of people. He began to proclaim and call for the world to change, but the world is made up of people – We are the ones who make the world the way it is with all its hurts and wrongs and injustices. That means we must change in order for the world to change. That means things must be different first and foremost in our own lives before we can expect anything or anyone else to be different.

Those who showed up in the days after the birth looking for the child in the manger would have to go find him somewhere else. In the years that followed, especially Jesus’ adult years, we hear nothing about his miraculous birth. All of that has been overshadowed by his eating with sinners and fellowship with tax collectors and condemnation of religious hypocrites.

There is a big difference between that cuddly babe in the manger and the adult Jesus who, from some people’s point of view, went a little overboard when he cleansed the temple. But, Jesus must leave the manger behind if he is to save us from our sins, and we must leave it behind as well if we are to grow up into his disciples.

Pastor Craig

Why Christmas Eve?

Why Christmas Eve? Unless I have been sadly out of touch, we think of Jesus as being born on Christmas Day. Yes, I know, the date is probably not exactly correct. But, why mess with extended tradition. So, I ask again, why Christmas Eve?

Do you have a celebration of your birthday the night before you were actually born? Most of us do not. Birthday parties, if possible, are celebrated on the day of the person’s birth. However, most Protestant churches, even most churches I know of, have no Christmas Day celebration unless Christmas does indeed fall on a Sunday. Yet, many of the churches I am aware of, maybe even a majority, have some sort of Christmas Eve service.


Is it that we simply don’t want to get out on Christmas Day? Do we keep Christmas Day to ourselves for feasting and gift opening? It is true that many Christmas Day services are among the lowest attended services of the year. So, what is the point of the Christmas Eve service, I mean other than a “that’s-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it-service?”


I think I have some insight, if not the real reason, at least a possible explanation that might make us feel a little better now that I’ve accused us all of bailing on Jesus’ birthday party. We live in a post Christmas Day age. We know that Christ has been born. The shepherds had no clue Christ was coming that night until they were told. The innkeeper didn’t know who it was that had been born in the stable that day. The majority of the town probably didn’t know and didn’t care. Oh, they may have felt sorry for the poor girl who had to have her baby there among the animals, the manure, and the dirt, but that was the end of it.
We, however, live after the birth. We observe advent. We go through those four mournful Sundays when we sing those sad and longing hymns, the ones that make us want to jump ahead to the upbeat Christmas hymns full of joy and angels and shepherds and peace on earth, good will towards men. Maybe our Christmas Eve service is, in a way, like a New Year’s Eve service, but on a MUCH grander scale and with much more eternal significance.


It is Christmas Eve that marks the dividing line. It is Christmas Eve that ushers out the old and escorts in the new. It is Christmas Eve that is the last day in darkness before the bright hope of Jesus Christ, Immanuel (God with us), enters the world. Christmas Eve is the day we remember all those Old Testament heroes and their time of longing. It is a time when we give thanks for being born on this side of the first Christmas. It is the recognition that we have, in plain view, what they longed to see.

Tonight we remember the darkness of ages past. We celebrate the coming of the new day, like the watchman standing on the wall gazing towards the east and seeing the first rays of the sunrise break the horizon and signal the new day that has dawned for us all!
Pastor Craig

God's Patience

Has God ever lost His patience? There are those who would say “No” in their attempt to keep intact the image of the ever loving, ever compassionate Deity. Granted, the times we think of first as a time when God might have lost his patience with the people of Israel were really just attempts to influence them back into his loving and compassionate arms. There is nothing like a taste of reality to remind us just how good we have it in our little, protected lives.

However, there is a time I think of when, if it is indeed possible for God to lose His patience, God may have lost patience with an individual. Yahweh wanted to demonstrate His gracious, powerful, and compassionate nature to King Ahaz. You see, King Ahaz was worried. Two nations, Aram and Israel, much stronger than the kingdom of Judah had declared war against his tiny country. Their desire was to destroy Judah and divide it between themselves. The very announcement of war sent Ahaz’s knees knocking and his spirit into a freefall of depression.

Yahweh responded by sending Isaiah to King Ahaz with words of encouragement, but it seemed to do little good. Yahweh sought to strengthen the faith of Ahaz and told him, “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or the highest heights” (Isaiah 7:10). Ahaz was told, “Ask for anything because nothing is too great for the LORD your God. As surely as I can perform any task you could possibly assign, I can protect you from these two kingdoms!”

Ahaz, in a moment of self-righteousness, proclaimed, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.” God gave Ahaz an opportunity that many of us wished we had, a chance to ask God for absolutely anything! Ahaz, whose faith was teetering, could have put God to the test. In fact, God even ASKED Ahaz to test Him. Ahaz is basically telling God a HUGE lie, “I have no need to test you. I do not doubt. I am righteous and holy.”

That’s when God lost it! HEAR NOW, YOU HOUSE OF DAVID! IS IT NOT ENOUGH TO TRY THE PATIENCE OF MEN? WILL YOU TRY THE PATIENCE OF GOD AS WELL? Sometimes our self-righteousness gets in the way of the possibility to witness a tremendous event God wishes to do in our lives. Yahweh proceeds to put an impossible task upon Himself, a task which no one could do, a task beyond human comprehension, a task that has become one of my favorite advent passages. The Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin shall be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel, meaning: God with us. It must be noted that the “you” of the passage is plural in the Hebrew. The sign is not just for Ahaz! The sign is for you and me as well. Yahweh says, “Do you need proof that I care for you? Do you need to know that I watch over you? Do you need confirmation that I love you? Would you like to know that you are the most important thing in all of my creation? Do you want to realize that when you seek me with all your being, I will guarantee that you will find me?” Well, be anxious no more my friend, for God Himself has come down to assure you of your place with Himself. The Virgin has given birth. Immanuel is realized. Christ has been born.


Pastor Craig

Third Sunday of Advent

Advent has rushed past. This Sunday is the third Sunday of advent. It has gone by far too quickly. Our preparations are not complete.

When we say that, most of us mean our shopping, decorating, card writing, and cooking preparations. Most of us don’t take near the time we should with spiritual preparation. There’s always time for that once the holidays are over.

However, once January 1st rolls around it is quickly back to business as usual. Then it is time to lose those pounds we gained with all the holiday food. Life chews up our spiritual time, doesn’t it?

For some reason, this season more than others in the past I have noticed the absence of Christ in Christmas. Don’t worry. This isn’t going to be a call for a boycott on whatever store is saying “Happy Holidays” as opposed to “Merry Christmas.” It doesn’t seem to be a removal of Christ from Christmas but more of an ignoring that he was ever there in the first place. We forget that St. Nicholas was just that, a saint, a person trying to live out the call of Christ to make an difference in the world through his Christian faith, a man obeying the Great Commission. Somewhere along the way following Santa became more attractive than following Jesus. No, I am not a Santa basher either. I love the Jolly Old Elf. I watch Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer almost every year. I love Miracle on 34th Street, The Santa Clause, and many of the other holiday favorites.
Face it; the Santa stories are more interesting than the original Christmas story, unless you happened to be one of the actual participants in the original. I mean, really, babies are born all the time. As far as we know there wasn’t anything spectacular about the actual birth of Jesus, I mean the actual birthing process. No Hallelujah Chorus sounded as Christ was laid in the manger. I do think it would have been a nice touch though, don’t you? Certainly, God could have arranged an angel chorus to back up the birth of Christ rather than just sing to a few shepherds.

It is hard for us to grasp the idea of God being born in a barn. It is so other worldly that it seems EXACTLY that, something from another world. Somehow Santa seems more personal, but I can’t possibly comprehend how someone breaking the bonds of time and space, bridging the gap between the divinity and humanity, taking our ugliness and transforming it into something worthy of a seat at the Christmas feast of our Creator could be anything other than personal.

Imagine, a person shows up at your door after you have done some the most horrific things possible to them and they want to tell you how much you mean to them. They want to show you in the most meaningful way possible. How could that be ordinary? Certainly, one of the details about Christmas is that Christ is in the details. Christ is wrapped around every aspect of Christmas. He isn’t the center of it. Rather, he is the whole thing. Our preparation involves giving him exactly that place, allowing him to wrap himself around every aspect of our lives and holding us in his ever-loving arms.

Pastor Craig