Separated Christmas

 

If 2020 had a theme word, it would be Separated. We’ve spent this year social distancing, quarantined, masked in virtual isolation. Now many of us are uttering the old cliche. “ It doesn’t feel like Christmas”.

The great irony of Christmas is that came because of separation.  Disconnected from our creator, eternally distanced from Him, mankind found themselves waiting and hoping for light to penetrate the darkness. As the years turned to decades, and centuries morphed into millennia, hope either forged into faith or faded impatiently into loss and disbelief.

Then the  Light of the World was wrapped in swaddling cloth as God showed up with an answer to His promises. Jesus said he had came “ to set the captives free”. 

This year, many of us are separated from family friends because of covid.  Some us are starting to feel like “captives”.

Missing out on those precious special events with those we love, that become Christmas traditions over the years, makes us feel like prisoners . In these times, once again hope wanes in the darkness. Only now, those of us who have Christ, don’t feel alone. We remember these words of Paul.

8We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 2 Corinthians 4

Because of what started that first Christmas, we are no longer separated from Him.

Paul was convinced we couldn’t be.

35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...

37Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8

All because the Light of the World was laid in the manger and grew up. And now more than ever we need to be reminded the Light of the World called those that belong to Him “the light of the world”  too. It’s time for us to shine.

May Love and Joy come to you.

Merry Christmas 

In These Uncertain Times

In These Uncertain Times

No words have become cliché faster than "in these uncertain times". We can see and hear them everywhere reminding us just how crazy the world has become in less than half a year. Usually, proceeding the new adage, comforting words of certain assurance in someone or some organization in which we can place our confidence. I get it, we all just want to to get back to “normal” .

But the truth is,  our “normal “ was

never a time of certainty.

Seriously, with wars, diseases, famines, when has there ever been certain times for man?

From long ago, a seduced mankind forfeited their security in a lust for knowledge. Evidence of this is found in the risk of destroying ourselves has increased directly proportional with our advancement in knowledge. We play God and with every benevolent advancement comes sinister applications. Then  declare a God , many can’t believe in, evil for allowing us to play with the universe’s building blocks with a knowledge of evil He warned us not to obtain. So, in losing our trust in God, for our own mistakes, we misplaced our trust into the worst possible place . Ourselves. Now, thousands of years latter, in our diversity, beautiful as it is, we have placed our confidence into everything except the only one who could give it. 

So, if things ever get back to normal, where we might die from anything from mosquitos bites to lightning strikes, the only “certain” time we all have is our check out time. In our normal, everything, even time itself as

we understand it, has a designated ending. 

In the meantime, here’s some comforting thoughts.

The Bible teaches we were made “for such a time as this”. Even if we are uncertain about the times, God isn’t. He designed us precisely for this time and placed us here for a purpose.

These uncertain times were part of His plan. Even if we can’t see it yet, these times will bless His people and advance His Kingdom.

Jesus promises to be with us “always, even to the end of the age”. The end of the age, like when time runs out and can’t be quantified except to call it forever. God never leaves or forsakes His people and is causing all things to work together for the good of His people. 

Jude 

24Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, 25To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

In this life, the world will never provide us with times of certainty. If we follow Jesus, we can have hope in this life for and endless time of certainty in the next.

I pray He holds you up, that you find peace and purpose in following Him, in these uncertain times. 

Things I Don't Know About Easter.

When it comes to Biblical study, conjecture is something I do my best to avoid. In the search for truth, being objective is key. Often, the endeavor’s greatest challenge is to remove, as much as possible, the passions and prejudices that make us who we are, without losing our ability to imagine the details of the events.

Yet, my mind can’t help but wonder about the events on the Saturday between The Cross and The Resurrection. 

Not much is recorded in the Bible about that Saturday. Obviously, being the Sabbath, they would have rested as recorded by Luke Chapter 23. Matthew’s Gospel records that the Pharisees placed a stone and a guards in front of the tomb in a response to Jesus’s predictions of returning from the grave.

Apparently, the disciples of Jesus had forgotten those predictions.

Perhaps, the events of Friday had eroded their faith. In any case, Saturday, must have been heartbreaking for those closest to Christ.  It’s obvious from scripture they didn’t know Lockridge’s sermon “Sunday’s a Coming”.  Jesus had led them on a journey of changing the world. God had already began to use them through their relationship with Jesus to literally save it, but they didn't know that. Jesus had introduced them to hope. They had been sure he was the Christ. All they knew,  their friend and leader was dead. Their hopes and dreams were crushed. Their expectations of a messiah had expired. Once again the world seemed lost. They probably wondered if they had been wrong about Jesus.  Surely, they must have wondered why hadn’t He done one of his miracles to save himself? Jesus had came and left.  The sun had rose and set. He was gone and nothing would ever be the same again.

If you’ve ever lost someone you love and look up to, you know that first 24 hours are the darkest. It’s like you’re heart and mind are playing ping pong with gigantic boulders. Back and forth it comes close and you slap it away. No one can win and you just want to stop playing. So that maybe the boulder would fall on you. Except you’re afraid if you do, you’ll forget something about that special someone you don’t want to. It’s emotionally exhausting.

And none of those people we lost were Jesus. Imagine the sorrow the disciples felt, without the belief of a resurrection.

 The church has the luxury of viewing Friday from victory. 

The thing about luxury is it’s rarely satisfied. Great minds that study the scripture aren’t content with simply knowing about where Jesus’s was Friday and Sunday. 

Great thinkers question where was his spirit and soul on Saturday ? For hundreds of years, brothers and sisters have debated whether Jesus’s soul was in hell or heaven on that Saturday. Men proclaimed two separate mysteries as truth and caused some to question the things we are sure of. 

I know the arguments, the scriptures involved, and even lean more one way than the other, but I don’t know. No matter how convincing theories get explained, I don't know that anyone knows.  And I don’t want what I don’t know to distract me from what I do know. 

I know I never want to  experience my life lived without Jesus. Praise God, I know I don’t have to. I know that some people are. I’ve seen the sad eyes of those who haven’t been set free by God, held captive by the unanswerable mysteries we don’t have to know to belong to Him. Mysteries from the past, or the ones we face now, or the ones we may face before Jesus comes back again, aren’t our salvation. It’s the Truth, He died, conquered the grave, and is coming again for those who belong to Him.

I know He called me to tell those that are living without Him about that Friday and Sunday. Lord willing, I’ll do that today and tomorrow. And everyday after that. 

Happy Easter. 

He Lives! 

He Reigns!