Joy to the World

Hey guys!  Sorry about recent lack of Advent posts- I’ve been quite busy and was out of town last weekend.

Anyways, this has been an interesting Advent season for me.  I started out wanting to make sure and share the heart of Advent and Christmas with you all, and it turns out that I’ve needed to be reminded of the Joy of Christmas myself.

When we are young, the Christmas season is a time of unexplainable excitement and wonder. December takes about a year and a half to pass by,  everyone you meet seems full of the Christmas spirit, you could pass a whole day just talking about what might be under the Christmas tree, and every time you hear the Christmas  story or look at a manger scene, you get the feeling that you were old friends with Mary and Joseph and played an important part in that story.  And in the blessing of that season, you are fully aware of the fact that God loves you.

So what happened?

Just when and where and how did we lose that childhood view of Christmas [or the world for that matter]? Why are we just a little more reserved in our excitement? Why are our hopes a just a little less wild? Where did the childhood wonder and joy go? Am I the only one who feels like my heart is two sizes too small once in a while? What’s the deal?

 Some people call it growing up, some people call it real life, some call it experience, the way things are, a dose of reality, or site any number of other reasons for things “just not being the same”.

God calls it a fallen world.

You and I and every other human being on this planet are born into and grow up in a world that is full of sin, and heartache, and hopelessness, and strife, and tears, and lies, and pain. Childhood innocence is quickly replaced by grown-up “reality”. At some point we have all had our bodies, our trusts, and our hearts broken. It is a part of life in a broken place. Our mistake though is not realizing that there is evil and hurt in the world, but that as we mentally adjust to the people, places, and circumstances around us, we sometimes re-think our perspective of God [or His perspective of us]. 

It’s the “What-does-God-think-about-when-He-thinks-about-me?”question. If this life isn’t exactly what we’d hoped and thought it to be, is God maybe not everything we hoped and thought Him to be? Satan wants to put a little wedge of doubt in our hearts about God’s heart toward us; and he tries to get us to look at God in light of our fallen world- instead of looking at our fallen world in light of God. Satan has used the tactic of calling God’s heart into question ever since the garden of Eden. 

Part of what led Charles Darwin to look for a worldview that left out God, was his idea that all the pain and suffering in the world proved that God wasn’t loving. Charles Darwin was a man- and no stranger to heartache. His mistake was using his pain and sorrow as his lens when he looked at God, not letting the Comforter be the lens with which he viewed his world.

So how can we really know God’s heart toward us? 

I’ve heard it said that a lot of the time our perception of God’s heart toward us is subconsciously based on our own heart toward ourselves. If we are having a good day and pleased to see that we are doing the right thing, then it’s easy to believe that God loves us. If, however, we are struggling on a given day and falling short and feel worn down etc., then it’s a lot harder to believe that God loves us. 

Thankfully though, God’s heart doesn’t change. Our moods, minds, hearts, and circumstances change, but God is constant- the one being who will never let us down, never be in a bad mood, never be too busy for us, and never stop loving us.

I love to remember God’s message to us on the birthday of His Son:

“Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel of the Lord said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you: You will find the Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.’ 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, goodwill toward men!’ So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.”

What incredible and healing words for a broken world to hear. If we can get past the Bible-eese of these verses that we sped through as kids, we will find a treasury of blessing in the major statements of God’s heart toward us on that night in Bethlehem. 

God sent his message not to the priests- not to the king- not to somebody the son of somebody the son of somebody- but to some shepherds out in a field. I don’t guess these guys were on the Pharisee’s top 10 best Jews list either- they were regular guys. They were broken, they were disenchanted with themselves and with the world, and they desperately needed a Savior. 

God loves us enough to be that Savior. 

He didn’t resign Himself to have to put on His boots and help us [again], His whole world plan ever since man was first broken, was making ready the coming of our Redeemer.  

Jesus. Emmanuel. God with us. 

In case you’ve forgotten, in case you never heard, in case you just need to be blessed by the realization once again, allow me to remind you [and me] that God desperately, madly, wonderfully,  fully, securely, strongly, foreverly, unchangingly, unstoppably, unexplainably, undeservedly, completely, and amazingly,

Loves us.

That’s why He came. That’s why He still comes. That’s why He gave and still gives. And that’s why we have 

Christmas.

Thanksgiving, 20, and on to Advent

Hey everybody! Good to be back on the bloggy screen again! I must apologize for my inconsistency with posts, but I have been quite busy in several areas this fall. The last time I posted was in October at when I was going to Illinois for the SAT. [Which went very well by the way; God blessed and our candidate, as well as many other GenJ candidates won! :) It was an altogether pretty encouraging election as far as I'm concerned. As we continued into November, I don't know about the rest of you but we had one of the prettiest Falls I've ever seen. It's been very beautiful and long-lasting around here. You all may know this already, but November-February is one of my all-time favorite parts of the year. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is the holiday we celebrated last Thursday called Thanksgiving. In a day and age where our country as a whole has all but forgotten God's blessing and amazing Providence in and on our nation, it was a privilege to take some time last week with a group of our extended family to gather and focus on the true story of the Pilgrims in the 1600s who's example we follow today with our national  Thanksgiving.

Has anyone ever read George Washington's Thanksgiving proclamation? It's very inspiring and boldly claims the fact that we are a Christian nation. The writings of William Bradford and Mr. [John?] Carver do the same. In the attempt to "secularize" our country today, humanists have launched an all-out assault on our country's yesterdays. If they can write books that neutralize and leave God out of His own story, than the next generation of Americans will grow up at best very befuddled about what really happened. The revisions of history that happen today are complete nonsense of course, but if there's no one who knows the true story, than how will we expose the nonsense for what it really is? Anyways, that's why I love reading the writings of the great men and women of God who's lives make up the glorious fabric of God's work in

America's history.

After Thanksgiving, I had the honor of taking my sisters and cousins out to do some Black Friday shopping with some friends and our N.Y. Uncle and Aunt. Very fun :) The next day [Saturday] was a special day to me as it was my 20th birthday! :) So I had a real good time, and was blessed by the support of my family and friends. Thanks guys!

But with all that other fun stuff last week, yesterday marked the start of a time of year that is incredibly special to me and our family. It's the time during the last days of November, and the first 3 or so weeks of December, that we look forward to, prepare for, and remember the coming of our Savior who was born a little over 2,000 years ago as the final piece of God's plan of redemption that had spanned the whole of world history after the Garden of Eden. It's a time when we re-open and re-look at and rejoice in the glorious, wonderful gift of the first Christmas. It is hard for me to put into words the joy and excitement of this season that has been called 

Advent.

Last year around this time, I did some posts related to this season of Advent, and it is my desire to do the same sort of thing this year. With God's blessing we will all be blessed as we look once again at His plan and sacrifice and heart toward us- His creation that has rejected and sinned against Him, but who He loved enough to come down from Heaven to walk this earth as one of us- though fully God at the same time. It's the story of Christmas.

 

O Holy Night

O Holy night, the stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Savior's birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees, oh, hear the angel voices!

O night divine,

O night when Christ was born!

O night! O Holy night!

O night divine!

Hey everybody. Sorry it has once more been too long since my last Adventish post. I have been, getting home pretty late this week, and that hasn't been conducive to writing Advent posts. Oh well, so now let's get on with it. You are probably pretty familiar with "O Holy Night", but it, like some of these other songs we've been through, has [to me] a much more mysterious, joyful, and wonderful, message than we might normally realize. The beginning of this song starts out simply enough be describing the "night of our dear Savior's birth". The next sections here are my favorite parts: "long lay the world in sin and error pining", ever since sin entered the world, we live in a place of sin, broken hearts, broken lives, and lost and confused people desperately trying to make sense of it all and find a place of rest and comfort. Too often, we are deceived into looking everywhere and trying everything to feel good about ourselves, or to "get it right", and we miss the Lord's heart for us and our lives; in fact, what we miss is the whole heart of Christmas. Jesus knew all about this world of sin and error, and then some. He knows how distraught and distressed we feel when we are trying to jump through enough spiritual hoops to reach that ever-elusive place of "okay-ness". While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And to do that; while we were yet sinners, Christ was born for us. All of this is because; while we were yet sinners, Christ desperately loved us. That's why we have Christmas. Still, it is a very realistic assessment of us and this world to describe us as, "in sin and error pining". If this song ended right here, it would be more depressing than "Auld lang syne"; and we wouldn't have much to celebrate. We know, however, that this is only setting the scene for the most glorious story ever heard of. Take a look at the at the next part of the song, "'til He appeared and the soul felt its worth". What's that talking about? Well, we were at a Chris Tomlin concert last week, and Louie Giglio was talking about this very line. Basically, he made the very good point that our fallen souls have never felt "worth" anything [if anything, we'll tend toward a dooming sense of worthlessness in our own fears and failures], until we hear of the amazing, incredible, unending love of our Savior Jesus Christ. We certainly want to be worth something, some of us dare to hope we are, but we can have no concept of our true worth to until we come face to face with the wonderful reality of God's love. When you begin to understand even a little glimpse of this astounding truth, what can you do but "fall on your knees, oh, hear the angel voices!" and know that this was indeed a Holy Night.

What Child Is This?

"What Child is this

Who, laid to rest

On Mary's lap is sleeping?

Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,

While shepherds watch are keeping?

This, this is Christ the King,

Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;

Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,

The Babe, the Son of Mary.

Hey everybody. How's it goin? Sorry I haven't posted for a good while now, alot of you probably know that we just had my graduation last Sat. [which I'm going to do a post about, I just was thinking I might wait for the pictures that are coming], and we've been real busy getting back into the routine of work, house, etc. Anyways, I'm back and excited to continue with this Advent post series! O.k., the verses that you see above come from the classic hymn, "What Child is This?". Though we can sometimes get caught in the "hymn-sing mode" [where we just kind of rattle off the song without taking in the words], this song has a very powerful and beautiful message. The events surrounding the birth of Jesus were anything but ordinary; pregnant women are not usually visited by angels, fiancees are not usually given divine dreams, old women are not usually told that they are going to have babies who will prepare the way for their Savior, shepherds are not usually visited by the hosts of heaven on otherwise silent nights, enormous stars are not usually used as birth announcements, newlywed taxpayers are not usually housed in stables, eastern kings are not usually prompted to travel miles to bring expensive gifts to small children, but, on the other hand, I guess the Lord and Savior, the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful Counselor, coming down to live with us in our sin-ridden, hopeless [without Him] world, is anything but usual. What Child is this? This Child is the long-awaited answer to a promise hundreds of years old. What Child is this? This Child is the Son of a carpenter. What Child is this? This Child is the Son of God. What Child is this? This Child is the Creator of all time. What Child is This? This Child is your maker, who loves you enough to die for you so that you could have peace and be with Him forever. What Child is this? 

"This, this is Christ the King;

Whom shepherds guard 

 and angels sing;

Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,

The Babe, the Son of Mary." 

O Come All Ye Faithful

"Yea, Lord, we greet Thee

Born this happy morning;

Jesus, to Thee be all glory given;

Word of the Father,

now in flesh appearing.

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

Christ the Lord!

Hey everyone. Sorry I didn't get to knock out a post last night; but things are very busy [in a good way:) Anyways here I am now. Okay, the lines above are the words to the second verse of the well-known Christmas hymn, "O Come, All Ye Faithful". After the greeting of the verse, it says, "Jesus, to Thee be all glory given;". So this seems to lay out the idea that Jesus is [of course] worthy of all glory. I think that we all believe that, but what struck me was the next statement in this song. "Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing." Jesus was God's Word that had been promised centuries ago. The fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham and Sarah, the True King of Israel, the "Savior, who is Christ the Lord". This promise had been in the hearts of the nation of Israel for years and now, in the strangest and most wonderful of ways, it had been fulfilled. Who could have ever guessed that the King of Kings would make His "royal debut" in a small-town shed? Jesus is the "Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing"! We call the birth of Jesus the Incarnation- God in human form. It follows that he is also the incarnation or missing piece, or outcome, or whatever you want to call it, of the holy promise of God to send a Savior to His people. Our God is the definition of "Faithful". He never once "re-considered" or "thought better of" His promised plan. No. It was His Joy, His favorite thing to do, to come and rescue us from the pit we had jumped into. This Advent, may we remember this; and just as a Christmas dinner brings together family, as a pile of presents around a tree bring children with eyes full of excitement and expectant wonder, I pray that the manger would irresistibly draw our hearts, minds, and thoughts to the Wonder that it holds.

"O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

Christ the Lord!"

Welcome to Our World

"Tears are falling, hearts are breaking;

How we need to hear from God.

You've been promised, we've been waiting,

Welcome holy Child,

Welcome holy Child."

These lines are from one of the most beautiful Christmas songs I've ever heard. It's called "Welcome to Our World", and it's by Chris Rice. As we move through the Advent season, I pray that we all are filled with awe and wonder as we're reminded of what we celebrate during this time. This world is a place full of broken hearts, broken lives, and people who desperately need a Savior. Left to our own sinful nature, our default action is to self-destruct. We grow attached to our bitterness and anger and eventually become afraid to live without it. We try to fill a hole that can only be filled by the love of Christ with any number of things, people, places, etc. The result is a complete "lostness" that wounds us and others. It was into this world that our Lord chose, even desired, to come. He loved us so much- though not because of anything we had done- that He brilliantly crafted the most intricate and selfless rescue operation of all time. This plan would involve the King of Kings being born in an outbuilding, the Creator of the universe living as a carpenter, and the Author of Life being tortured, mocked, and murdered by the beings He breathed into existence. The miracle of Advent is that all of this vast plan that started before the birth of time, was made for.... you. And for me. The heart of a King who loved and cherished His subjects gave us "A Babe, wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger". This is the heart of Advent. This is Christmas.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

"O come, o come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel.

That mourns in lonely exile here,

Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee

O Israel."

Hey everybody. How's it going? For those of you who read yesterday's post, you may have noticed something at the end talking about Advent. I am sure that some of the readers here have heard of Advent before; and may even celebrate it. For those of you who have never heard of Advent, or don't really know what it is, allow me to explain. It started in the year 381 A.D. Back then, it was a three-week time of fasting and prayer before a holiday celebrating the revelation of Jesus to the Wise Men from the east. Around the year 600, Gregory the first refined the time to its present form. Advent starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas [today] and it is not so much a time of fasting now as it is a time of prayer and worship all leading toward the celebration of Jesus's birth. There are many different Advent traditions, but one continuous thread that you usually find is the lighting of candles as a way of counting down to Christmas. Mom and Dad have done "Advent time" with us for as far back as my memory can reach. In our family, we have a time each night of the Advent season [until Christmas day], to read a devotion [there's a enormously wonderful series of books for Advent by a man named Arnold Ytreeide], and sing Christ-centered Christmas carols. At the beginning of each devotion time, we light the next candle on our Advent log. It's a log about 5 feet in length with holes drilled along the top to hold a candle for each night of Advent. On the first night we light a candle on far end of one side, and the next night the far candle on the other side. We keep switching back and forth lighting one more each night as we make our way to the center of the log.[When we light the next candle, we also re-light all of the ones we've been through.] The very center candle is lit on Christmas morning. It is usually a special color to signify Christ's birth. So every night by the light of the candles we have gotten to so far, Mom reads the next chapter of the devotion story, and we sing Christmas songs of worship. Over the years, we have treasured this time more and more. While it might seem to be "just another thing to do during the busy Christmas season", for us it has become a huge blessing to be reminded every night of our Savior's love for us and His masterful and wonderful plan that gave us a Baby in a manger. It is my hope to be able to share with you some of the joy and excitement we have during this season of Advent. I think I'll try to get at least some sort of post off every day, though we'll have to see if I make it every time. By the way, the word "Advent" basically means "coming" or, "the coming of". So when we celebrate Advent, we're really celebrating the Advent [coming of, or birth of], Jesus. Okay, now that I have done my best to explain what Advent is, I will proceed with this series of posts.

"The people who walked in the darkness have seen a great light.

Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,

Upon them a light has shined." (Is. 9:2)

"For unto us a Child is born,

Unto us a Son is given;

And the government will be upon His shoulder.

And His name will be called Wonderful,

Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace." (Is.9:6)

In church this morning, we talked about how Christmas started long before a lowly stable in Bethlehem. The prophet Isaiah spoke about this Coming hundreds of years before the shepherds met the angels. The fact is, the birth of Jesus is the "on switch" of God's masterful and daring rescue plan that He had in place since the beginning of time. Bethlehem was in our Lord's heart even as the first bite was taken out of the forbidden fruit back in the Garden of Eden. Even as His words created space and life, the lives of a certain young girl and her Baby were ever in the mind of our God. The groundwork for the manger included 12 tribes, 10 commandments, the giving of the Law, faithfulness, treason, Divine Love, sinful hatred, righteous kings, wicked tyrants, and the other parts of the saga of the One True King and His love and heart for His people despite their constant rejection. The cries of prophets and the screams of raging hearts, the chants of Baal worshipers, and the songs of a repentant nation, were heard in Israel long before the crying of a newborn broke the stillness of a starry Bethlehem night. It is my prayer that during this Advent season, we will realize more and more the love of our Father as we remember and think about His coming into our world.

"Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel

Shall come to Thee

O Israel."