Looking to Him

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." (Isaiah 49:15-16, NIV)

  In all of us there is a struggle to know things, to retain experiences and yet peer into the future.  We struggle to ascertain all the facets that make up the way we understand life.  Why do certain things happen to us and why or how are they good or bad? Why do some goals become reality and others remain impossible to attain despite our best efforts?  There is sense in most humans, as we live, that we expect mostly good things and times in our lives.  Non-religious people generally don’t expect negative things to come their way and Christian people expect that somehow inherent in God’s blessing of their lives is an indirect promise to exclude them from bad things and suffering. 

    When people are healthy, have job security and their marriage and family are generally warmly interacting in loving ways, we assume this will be our normal and everyday pattern in our lives.  Sure there are little inconveniences and some stressful times but generally we live expecting little that is earth shattering or terrible to come our way. If there are some shocking upheavals, pending disasters or even tragic losses ahead in our lives, we think we would like to know about them before they were to happen.  On the other side of the spectrum are our anxieties over the situations we tend to imagine as of much greater significance than they actually are. The reality is that we as humans aren’t that great handling the future whether it is real or imagined and although humans can rise up to deal with most occasions of difficulties, we struggle from time to time understanding them.

    The truth remains … we cannot see into the future, we cannot understand the whys of painful occurrences nor do we really know what we really can handle until the difficulty is directly in our path.  As we enter a new year, we at times try to come up with a few resolutions about changing our lifestyles patterns or setting new goals for the coming year. Healthy lifestyle changes, giving up non-essential things, setting new priorities in our lives are good things and it is a good thing to strive to be better and live in healthier ways in any New Year. These are important but the growing in our faith and becoming more like Christ in all our ways and showing His love to all those around us should be our greatest desire.

     Still beyond resolutions is the reality that although we all “see in a mirror dimly” (1Corinthains 13:12) and this is little shaky at times.  Beyond our human condition is the rock solid security of our Shepherd’s love.  In that love we know we are in “etched in God’s palm” (Isaiah 49:16), “redeemed and called by name” (Isaiah 43:1) and “blessed Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). There are literally hundreds of other promises from our God, who is “faithful in all His words and kind in all His works” (Psalm 145:13).   May we see these promises in a living way and cry out to Him when we cannot understand what we are facing (Psalm 142) knowing that “His love endures forever” (Psalm 118).  That is not an iffy New Year’s resolution but an eternal fact. Trust in Him in the new year and trust in Him all your days.

Suggested Reading ... Isaiah 49

The empty manger …

“Who, being in very nature God,  did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8, NIV)

  The manger was full of God’s promise but only for a short time.  The child who brought favor and grace was laid in the manger was the one of the first testaments of God’s gift to all of the world.  In some ways, we understand the manger was part of God’s way of showing the humility of Christ coming amongst but what do we see in the empty manger?

      In simple ways, we understand the Son was the gift of favor and grace and He could not be left in the manger because His purpose was to be found in His living and showing the Kingdom of God. This gift from God as grace was ultimately fulfilled in the giving, dying and rising again of the Son.

     The manger is empty to some because people don’t realize there is a gift in the manger.  They don’t understand the gift is free and available to them.  Instead of reaching out for the gift, they push the gift away. Others mock the manger as empty of value and substance. Some people believe the manger is empty because the manger that held a baby for the world is just a myth and it would be foolish to believe in such a story.  To others the manger is empty because the real event of God redeeming the world through His Son, is unreasonable or nonsensical and they reinvent a more appropriate story to their liking.

     There are other people who would empty the manger of any significance replacing the power of Christmas with their cultural myths of goodness by believing in a magical round man in a red suit. In reality, the power to live a good life and give goodness away, comes from the goodness of God. Our goodness comes He gives the Son as Living Christ through His Spirit to empower us to give His forgiveness, redemption, grace and love to those around us.

     Of course the manger is empty,  because my Lord and Savior didn’t stay in the manger, He went to the cross and rose from the grave.   In fact, every place where Jesus was born and lived is empty of His physical bodily form.  The physical form and presence of Jesus is gone from these places and they are empty, but He is not gone because He has sent His presence and power through the Holy Spirit now comes in far greater ways.  The stable is empty, the manger is empty, the carpenter’s shop is empty, the roads are empty, the boats are empty, the great temple is empty, the cross is empty and the tomb is empty.  In the end of all matters, it is not the emptiness that has meaning but what He did in those empty places and who and where He is now.  Without the empty cross, there is no salvation and without the empty tomb, there is no Holy Spirit.  All of this emptiness is redeemed into salvation and joy in the Living Savior.  He is there at every empty place with the new life He gives to all who believe.

       Yes, the manger is empty but the Christ that first was laid there; now fills every empty place with Himself.  Come to empty manger, the empty cross and the empty tomb and you will find the Living Risen Christ.  The Jesus who came first to a Bethlehem manger; emptied Himself that we might be saved. From the humble stable and manger … empty of respect and honor, He opens the door to the gifts of favor and love He brings through His grace.  It is in the emptying of Christ that we are saved and it is in the emptying of ourselves that we proclaim the Living Christ, able to redeem all emptiness in all people and for all time.

“But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7, NIV).

He comes for everyone.

"You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9, NLT).

  There is an incredibly powerful reality in the coming of our Savior to the earth to redeem the peoples of the world.  It is what we truly celebrate in the Christmas season and it is the joy of our salvation.  It is a most incredible thing, that the Christ who existed and reigned in heaven would be willing to come to earth to redeem a world lost in sin and self-centered existence.  It took the ultimate sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son to reach to the lowest realms of wickedness. In the reach of His great love, He lifts any and all who would believe in Him to the heights of heaven and eternity. It is a reach beyond our comprehension as the Holy God moves beyond every dominion of human sinfulness and every other power of heaven and earth, to love and save us by His favor and grace.

      God’s love reaches to the lowest places.  His love reaches to the fatherless, the poor, the outcast, the forgotten, the lonely, the neglected, the brokenhearted, the miserable, the used and misused, and even to the cynical and the prodigals. His love is truly incomprehensible in its reach to all those who are hurt and damaged by sin.  Sin attacks all good and all virtue, maiming people and their relationships, but our salvation in Christ redeems pain and brokenness. No one on this earth ever escapes the damage and stain of sin and because of this common fallen state; we all need a Savior.  We are all in a lowly place and since our Christ comes to all of us in our lowly condition ... no one or no damage is ever out of the reach of His love.

      This powerful reality of Christ giving up His heavenly place and coming to redeem the world, even coming to the lowest in the lowliest of places is born out in the tangible and physical aspects of the Incarnation and birth of Jesus.  Jesus was not born in a palace. The rich and powerful religious and political classes do not even notice His birth nor were they invited.  The proclamation of His birth, which bursts from the heavens with such glorious excitement is not seen or witnessed by royalty but rather by members of one of the lowliest and common of all occupations. As He came to the Shepherds, He comes for everyone. Shepherds were not respected and they were disregarded as ceremonially un-clean and unwelcome worshipers in the synagogues and in the Jewish Temple. It was to these poor and lowly caretakers of the flocks in the fields, that the heavens were opened with the shattering announcement that God’s favor and peace had come to the world.  They were the first to see and worship the new born King. In their humble worship, we see that the lowliest are remembered and would be redeemed by the heavenly Son, now born into the world.

      What does all this mean to each of us?  How does the mighty reach of Christ to the poor and lowly, translate into joy in our lives? Joy comes as His redemptive love reaches all of us. He comes to every place. He comes to every way that we have failed and covers all the sin of our lives. It means there will never be a lowly place where His presence will not be with us through His Holy Spirit. He will always come, never abandoning us in the low points of our lives. He comes, lifting us up from the places of pain and suffering and giving us His peace.  Christ coming to the lowly … means nothing can separate us from His love as we believe and follow our Savior.  The coming of Christ; is real joy to the whole world. To the lowly, Christ will always come. Thus no one is beyond the reach of God’s love through the grace of Jesus Christ. His coming to be born in the lowly manger was the first moment of His coming to the lowly but it was only the beginning of the incomprehensible myriad of times Christ will come, again and again through His death and resurrection to save the world. The message of the birth of Christ is simple … Jesus comes to save and give life, now and forever.  Thanks, be to God.

Thought and Scripture Reading  … God’s generosity towards us, should move us to be generous to others. 
 2 Corinthians 8 & 9

A busy day much like this one.

"But when the right time finally came, God sent his own Son. He came as the son of a human mother and lived under the Jewish Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might become God's children" (Galatians 4:4-5).

  Amid the dusty roads that lead into a small non-descript little village, a young couple journeys to a place assigned them for taxation and holy purposes, one known in detail and one unseen.   Amid all the noise of the boisterous city, full of the normal life and activities was now added more visitors than all the inns could handle.  Amid the chores and business of the daily routines, an inn keeper has in front of him, a woman needing shelter in a precarious position. Amid the demands of that moment, the tired host moves with the compassion to direct the mother to a quiet place even if it is not fitting the event of an impending birth.  Amid the ill, tepid and pungent smells of this paradoxical lowly and holy quiet place, could life even burst forth? Amid the hopeless of the age, could a God of love bring a hope that will matter and be transcendent to the reality of the days? Amid the conflicts and turmoil of the time could there be any peace in their hearts that would ease the ache and sustain them amidst this uncertainty?

      Amid the busy plans that many have at the busiest time of the year and on a busy day much like this one ... He comes. Yet how much time is focused on the holy purposes that are yet unseen as grace is given unto us? Amid the noise of the boisterous season and our normal life and activities, it seems we cannot handle anything else.  Amid the chores and daily routines can we even take the time to see the young mother giving birth to the Holy Child on this day?  Amid the demands that we have put upon ourselves, do we sense the compassion that is truly cast upon us and seek a quiet place to say thank you? Amid the ill, tepid and pungent smells that somehow fill our lives with their non-essential trivialization and disregard for the holy favor which is the true basis for this season, can life even burst forth to take us to the truth?  Amid the falseness of our senses in our self-made securities do we even desire the hope of a God that loves? Do we even want a hope that matters and transcends the reality of our time?  Amid the uncertainty and turmoil of our lives can we find any peace in our hearts that will conquer the ache and sustain us during this uncertain time?

      A vulnerable but holy child was born long ago in that nondescript village amid the noise, busyness, pungent smells and paradoxical stable house.  This child is a powerful gift who overpowers our hopelessness with grace and favor in amazing and unfathomable ways as He becomes the Savior of the world.  This same Savior comes to us beckoning us with salvation … gently, humbly and yet amazingly and powerfully amid the common, the noise, the busyness and the falseness to favor us and grace us in the unfathomable life He brings. 

     The Christmas season does not bring real and lasting peace, it is  Jesus Christ our Savior who comes in this season that truly gives us real  and lasting favor and  peace for all time.  “Glory to God in the highest” is what the angels proclaimed so long ago and   “Glory to God in the highest” should overflow from our hearts during this season because He has truly come to us.

“And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father.’ Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.” (Galatians 4:6-7, NLT)