King of the Mountain and Christmas

When I was a young boy, if we ever found a pile of dirt, then the game was on to see who was the king of the mountain.  As I watch my grandson and the boys of the neighborhood play I don’t think things have changed much.  There is something innate in us to want to rule.  

The Christmas story has a stark contrast to the common neighborhood pecking order.  This story tells us about a King who is born in the barn.  His crib is the feed trough.  He is wrapped in scrap clothes.  Hardly the picture of a baby born as King.  The inn is full so the King goes to the barn.  In ordinary life, the King would be in the inn and someone else would be in the barn with the livestock.  

This story is not trying to gain our sympathy or move us toward compassion for the poor.  And nothing wrong with that.  But there is something more to this story.  

The shepherds are interesting key characters in the story.  Shepherds were the most despised class of people.  Often they were criminals or at least considered the same as criminals.  They were not allowed to observe the feast and sacrifices.  They could not give testimony in court cases.  They were outcasts.  And yet, these outcasts were chosen to find and witness to the newborn King.  

Earth may not have known about this “Savior, who is Christ the Lord,” but heaven sure did.  For the angel sent from heaven to the shepherds was accompanied by a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and proclaiming “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”  

The Christmas story centers around those who abide in barns and those who abide in fields. We should be careful not to think the story is about God preferring we live in poverty. It is a poverty of spirit is that matters to God. 

So what is this Savior to save us from?  His mission is to save us from our nature that wants to be the king of the mountain. He wants to give us His nature. The nature of a King who would be willing to be wrapped in rags and lay in a feed trough.  A nature in vast contrast to ours.  The Christmas story is not about the new king of the world who has come, but a King who can give us a new heart. The greatest gift of all.   

The Christmas story says the shepherds made the story “known abroad.”  My hope is that we will not give up saying  “Merry Christmas” for we are joining the heavenly host and the shepherds in making the story known.  We now have a Savior “born unto us” who can save us from our sins.  

Merry Christmas to all!  (Luke 2)

Never Move On

 Granted, movement looks like life.  However, there is one thing we should never move on from.  That one thing is the gospel.  I never will forget that day all alone, I bowed, I repented for my stubbornness,  I made Jesus the Lord of my life, and in a simple moment, another sinner was born again.  

I am sorry to say that Christian fads have allured me through the years.  There seems to be this tug to move from one fad to another and call that growth.  I have found that truth growth is when we grow deeper into the gospel.  As J. Knox Chamblin has said, "the Spirit does not take his pupils beyond the cross, but ever more deeply into it."  

The Cross was for me.  His love was given without any merit. I am accepted.  I am a child of God.  I am forgiven.  I have eternal life.  

In the book of Revelation, heaven is looking for someone worthy to open and execute the final plans of God.  When heaven saw the Lamb of God they sang a new song, "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain, and with your blood, you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."  

Heaven never moves on from the gospel and neither should we.  

Go, Stand and Speak

A current news reporter has just called for a “cleansing” of people who support the President of the United States. Ethnic or political cleansing is not new to our world.  Wikipedia defines it this way-- “Ethnic cleansing is the systematic and systemic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and/or religious groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, often with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. The forces which may be applied may be various forms of forced migration (deportation, population transfer), ethnic dilution, intimidation, as well as genocide and genocidal rape.” Wikipedia goes on to say,  “Ethnic cleansing is usually accompanied by efforts to remove physical and cultural evidence of the targeted group in the territory through the destruction of homes, social centers, farms, and infrastructure, as well as through the desecration of monuments, cemeteries, and places of worship.”

I am not predicting what will happen but I find this rhetoric by a major news network disconcerting at the least.  However, let us not fear.  Let us find instruction and strength from the first Christians.  They were persecuted as the party of the Sadducees wanted them out of Jerusalem.  They arrested the apostles and later told them they could not speak in the name of Jesus and later wanted them killed.

So cleansing is not a new method in producing a homogeneous society.  However, the question we must ask is what did the first church do?  An angel of the Lord came to them in prison and let them out with these instructions, “Go stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.”(Acts 5:20) And so they did. 

We need to understand that political change was not possible in their world.  They depended entirely on the favor of the Lord to complete their mission.  The mission was to preach about the Kingdom of God.  As the church, we need to be reminded that there is only one opportunity to enter the Kingdom of God, and that is during our lifetime.  We can not enter after death.  We must enter now, “today is the day of salvation.”  Though we as Christians are to be nice, the mission of the church is not about being nice.  The mission is--go, stand, and speak.  

So what are we to do as the church in a hostile world--go, stand and speak.  Speak “all the words of this--Life.”  The apostles knew exactly what “this Life” meant, for they had experienced and found the Life only Jesus can give.  

They beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus...” and every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.” (Acts 5)