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.