Blamess

Elizabeth and Zachariah

Somewhere in time, approximately 0 AD, the precursor to the Nativity Story happened.  In the Gospel of Luke, before he gets into telling the Nativity story, he tells the story of Elizabeth and Zachariah.  There is a part of this story that always captivated me.  

Zachariah and Elizabeth were both descendants of a priestly division, with Zachariah serving as a priest. There one great sadness is that Elizabeth was barren.  By the time the story opens, they are well along in years.  The Priests were chosen by lot to enter the holy of holies and burn incense on the alter to God.    Zachariah was chosen and he prepared to carry out his duties properly.  While he was making the sacrifice of incense, the angel of the Lord appeared to Zachariah and told him he would become a father.  Zachariah was shocked and he replied that he and his wife were too old.    The angel told Zachariah he would be struck mute because he did not believe the words.  He was struck mute and unable to speak what the angel told him.  His wife Elizabeth did become pregnant and gave birth to the child that would become John the Baptist.  He was the voice calling out in the wilderness to prepare a way for the Lord.

It is an interesting story, but what did I find so intriguing?  Let me give you the description Luke provides of the couple from a couple of different versions of the Bible.

Luke 1:6 (NIV) “Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly.”

Luke 1:6 (KJV) “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.”

Luke 1:6 (The Message Bible) “Together they lived honorably before God, careful in keeping to the ways of the commandments and enjoying a clear conscience before God.”

Blameless – clear conscience – that is what captivates me.  They not only followed all the rules of a Jewish household, they followed the Ten Commandments.  They were human so they were not perfect, but I think they were the type of people that never intended to do something wrong. They chose every day to follow God with their whole being and tried to honor him with their lives. 

I do try to do that, but my human side, my internal diva, takes over way too much.  I'm a nice person until someone cuts me off in traffic.  I don’t pray blessings on them at that time.  I love to encourage and motivate people to succeed, but when they succeed far above me, I become a little jealous.   I don’t think I qualify for either descriptor of blameless or having a clear conscience, but I’d like to.

There are people out there like that still, maybe you know one or two, but I am in awe of them.  I would love to finally get to a place that the same things could be said about me.  I would like for the goal of pleasing God with my life to push its way to the forefront of my life more frequently.  It’s still a goal, someday I will reach it.

After the angel told Mary she was going to give birth to the Messiah, she took a trip to visit Elizabeth and Zachariah.  I don’t know, but I bet she began to wonder if it was only a dream, but she knew there were changes happening in her body.  When she arrived at their house and called out a greeting, the baby inside Elizabeth leaped for joy.  Imagine what that must have felt like.  Elizabeth welcomed Mary as the Mother of her Lord.  They were the second and third people to know that the Messiah was coming.  Joseph was the fourth. 

Jesus gave some of the Priest’s a hard time because they were not serving to honor God, but instead they were serving to honor themselves.  Obviously not all Priests were like that.  There was the humble Priest Zachariah who believed in the Messiah before he was born and knew when He was coming because he had met the pregnant Mary.

I guess it doesn’t matter if we are blameless, all that matters is that we are forgiven.  From this point on, we just need to live for Christ to the best of our ability. 

Merry Christmas

A Virtual Christmas Concert

Somewhere in time, today, December 24, 2011, it is Christmas Eve.  The only story fitting for Christmas Eve is the Nativity Story.  I have decided to present to you the Nativity Story, taken from Matthew and Luke in a way that pays homage to the Christmas Cantata’s.  This will be music that celebrates the birth of Christ along with the words of the gospel telling the story.  I hope you enjoy it.

Mary

Luke 1:26 – 35 (NIV)  “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.  The virgin’s name was Mary.  The Angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his Father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a Virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.

Joseph

Matthew 1:18 – 23 (NIV) “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with Child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

The trip to Bethlehem

Like 2:1 – 7 (NIV) “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.  So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her first born son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Have  Merry Christmas everyone - Thank you for checking out my blog this year!

Santa Claus

A Bone to Pick

I have a bone to pick with a chubby man in a red suit.  How did he weasel in on the holiday designated to celebrate the birth of Christ. 

Luke 1:30 – 33 “But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will be with Child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.””

The creator of the universe, our God in trinity, took the form of a human and came to earth to dwell.  That deserves a celebration.  So how does Santa Claus fit into all of this?

You may be thinking I’m just a little grumpy and that’s why I am questioning Santa Claus, but my struggle with Santa Claus has existed for years. I learned he didn’t bring presents one Christmas Eve when I was six.  I heard some noise in the living room, so I tip toed out and found my father putting together something for Christmas in the morning.  It was then I knew that my parents, not some guy in a red suit, were responsible for my Christmas presents.  Then I knew why the girl across the street got the easy bake oven and I didn’t.  There were fewer children in her family, so I am sure they could afford it easier.

I have lots of brothers and sisters, but I have one sister that is eleven years younger.  When I was about sixteen, I tried to tell my five year old sister that Santa Claus was a fairy tale.  Jesus was real, but Santa was not.  She flat out didn’t believe me.  In a way, she was partially right.

Somewhere in time, approximately 280 AD, Saint Nicholas was born.  He is the person that the legend of Santa Claus came from, for the most part.  I grew up with Santa Claus, as I believe most of us did.  Saint Nicholas was a real person.  He was raised by devoted Christian parents, but they died in an epidemic while he was a teenager.  This did not seem to rattle his faith.  He was ordained into the priesthood at the age of 19.  He led a ministry that was noted for its love and generosity.  He was imprisoned for his faith, but when Constantine came to power, he was finally free to return to his coastal village in Turkey and continue to minister to his people.

There are many stories about his life.  In one story, there were three girls too poor to have the dowry necessary to get married.  The remaining option for them was to go into slavery.  He threw bags of coins, through the window, on three separate occasions, to give each girl a dowry. There were other stories focused on his generosity and caring towards children.  He was a beloved person in his community.  He really demonstrated God’s love by loving others.

He died on December 6^th, 343.  His life was commemorated on that day with the exchange of gifts, one to another.  This was done to celebrate the generosity Nicholas showed during his life.  After Nicholas’s death, the tradition of Saint Nicholas day spread.  The first country to adopt the tradition was Russia. 

When they took the remains of Nicholas and moved them to Italy, the tradition spread.  Before too long, Saint Nicholas day spread to most of Europe. 

So how did Saint Nicholas and the birth of the Christ become intertwined, well the reformation has something to do with it.  One of the changes in the reformation is that people no longer celebrated saints, so that eliminated Saint Nicholas’s day.  The reformers wanted to emphasize the birth of Christ.  Christmas started on Christmas Eve and it was devoted to story of the Christ Child.  The exchange of gifts happen around January 6^th, which was the day celebrated as the day the wise man appeared with gifts for the Christ child.

Despite the reformation, the legend of Saint Nicholas was not easily dismissed.  Every culture added some element to his persona. An American cartoonist created the existing chubby man in a red suit we all know and love.  I think if Nicholas was alive today he would be shocked by all the fuss over a simple priest in a small village.

I don’t think the celebration of Santa should supersede the celebration of the Christ child, but I do think we can adopt some of what Nicholas stood for.  He spent his whole life and his parent’s fortune giving to others as a form of service to his Lord and Savior.  Perhaps that would be something we add to or increase as part of our Christmas celebration. 

The following quote is from the Veggie Tale “Saint Nicholas”.  “I can love because God loves me, I can give because God gave.” 

If that is our focus, to give and love others, than this will be a good holiday regardless of our circumstances. 

This Video features Matthew West, Amy Grant, Operation Christmas Child and Veggie Tales, what could be better than that.

 

Amy Carmichael

The Desire to Serve

Somewhere in time, December 16, 1867, Amy Carmichael was born in Ireland.  Many of us have heard the name and some of us are very familiar with her story.  Amy is best known for being a missionary to India. 

Amy grew up like a normal girl of her time.  She was a little precocious, but that never hurt anyone. One story that I read said when Amy was a little girl, that she prayed to God to turn her brown eyes blue.  When she woke up the next day and her eyes were still brown, she was severely disappointed.  Her Mother told the little girl that God answers every prayer and the answer to that prayer was no.  He had a reason for everything and He had a reason for her brown eyes.  Amy also suffered with what they called neuralgia.  Reading the symptoms, what she had reminds me of chronic fatigue.  She would be weak and achy, causing her to take to her bed for weeks at a time.  The interesting thing is the disease never stopped her.

She was raised in a Christian home, but her faith became her own as a teenager.  Shortly after her commitment to Christ, her father’s business started to struggle and she had to leave school and come home.  Once home, she was not idle.  In her day, there were girls that worked at the surrounding mill.  They were very poor and they would come to church with a shawl over their heads. This earned them the name shawlies.  Many people looked down on the girls, so Amy started holding meetings just for them.  Her meetings were so popular that she had to find increasingly larger buildings to hold her meetings.  Her last building held up to 500 people. 

Her father had died, so her mother moved to England and Amy came along.  She began working with Shawlies there.  It was there that she was called to the mission field.  Everyone tried to talk her out of it. She was a young woman. She was not married. She battled a debilitating disease. She was told it was foolish of her to want to go, she was not strong enough.

I Corinthians 1:25 (NIV) For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God stronger than man’s strength.

She began to doubt the call herself, so she talked to her mother. Her mother confirmed that God had indeed called Amy to mission work. 

Amy’s first stop was Japan.  When she was there, her interpreter encouraged her to dress like a native.  She didn’t want to, she liked her western cloths.  At the home of a Japanese woman, to whom Amy was trying to ministger to, she found out her need to cling to her western cloths hurting her ministry.  The entire time Amy was talking, the woman was completely distracted by Amy’s fur lined gloves.  From that point on, she dressed like a native. 

How often do we cling to things we like and think we need, when God is telling us to let go and see what he will bring to us instead.

The climate in Japan was too hard on her, so she went to India.

She would spend more than fifty years in India.  Sometimes God opens doors in unusual way.  I have read a few different versions of the story, but Amy’s ministry started in an unexpected way.  One day she was in the market and she ran in a little girl named Preena who was running away from the temple.  She had been sold to the temple as a slave.  One story I read said she clung to the cross Amy wore on her neck has her captors tried to take her back.  This began a long ministry to the children in India.

Preena was the first child that Amy began to take care of.  What people in the Western world didn’t know, or care to hear, was that little girls sold into slavery were often also used for prostitution to help fund the temple.  When Amy told people about the atrocities, they assumed she was exaggerating, but sadly she was not.  Amy would darken her skin with coffee and with her brown eyes and the traditional Indian dress, she could enter their temple unnoticed.  She did this and found what Preena told her was true.  From that point on, she made it part of her mission to rescue these girls. 

You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving." This is a quote from Amy.  She really believed this.  At time this caused her trouble, she was arrested for her work with the temple girls, but they could not convict her.  She continued her work, even when she was so sick she could not get out of bed.  During those times, she would write.  She had several book credited to her.  Many were used to train other missionaries heading out into the field.

Matthew 20:28 (NIV) just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. 

I think Amy is an excellent example of someone living her life out fully for Christ.  She truly desired to serve and not be served. 

Joyful, Joyful, we adore thee

A Classic Hymn


Somewhere in time – this week and in 1907. This week I woke up one morning with the Hymn, Joyful, Joyful we adore Thee going through my head. It caused me to really think of Joy. At this time of year, we are celebrating, but are we joyful? I looked up the definition of Joy in Webster’s Dictionary. It says, “a: the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.”

Now consider this verse in James.
James 1:2-3 (NIV) Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

So here is the question, how do we feel joy when we face trials of many kinds? I think the answer is not to look for joy in the people and things around us, but joy comes from God. Consider the last half of the definition of joy, “emotion evoked…by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” If our hope is in Jesus and our prospect is a home in heaven, then we have more than enough reasons to be joyful. I think joy is a choice that we have to make every day and it must be important because it is listed as one of the fruits of the spirit

Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Joy is tied to a complete trust in God, knowing that He is always working for our good and always there to see us through. Our joy is in Him.

This is what Henry J van Dyke said regarding Joyful, Joyful we adore thee:

These vers­es are sim­ple ex­press­ions of com­mon Christ­ian feel­ings and de­sires in this pre­sent time—hymns of to­day that may be sung to­ge­ther by peo­ple who know the thought of the age, and are not afraid that any truth of sci­ence will de­stroy re­li­gion, or any re­vo­lu­tion on earth over­throw the king­dom of hea­ven. There­fore this is a hymn of trust and joy and hope.

Enough said. I have included the lyrics to Joyful, Joyful and the video performance. I think you will enjoy this updated version of this classic hymn.

Henry J van Dyke – regarding Joyful, Joyful we adore the

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day!

All Thy works with joy surround Thee, earth and heaven reflect Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee, center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow, flashing sea,
Singing bird and flowing fountain call us to rejoice in Thee.

Thou art giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blessed,
Wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, all who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine.

Mortals, join the happy chorus, which the morning stars began;
Father love is reigning o’er us, brother love binds man to man.
Ever singing, march we onward, victors in the midst of strife,
Joyful music leads us Sunward in the triumph song of life.