christmas

The Wonders of His Love

Stan Jantz — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:47:24 -0800

There is a reason we call this the most wonderful day of the year: Christmas is truly filled with wonder. Or at least it should be. Somehow over the course of 2,000 years our wonder has become somewhat diluted, if not downright negative.

We consider the miracle of the incarnation--God taking on human form--and we pose a question we might ask of an illusionist: "I wonder how he did that?" Or worse, our wonder is more like doubt, mainly because we buy into the notion--on a practical level, at least--that Jesus was a wise teacher and a social justice advocate, but hardly the supernatural being Scripture makes Him out to be.

Neither of these senses of wonder--speculation or doubt--is anywhere near the wonder that Jesus should incite in us. We should be ashamed when we settle for a pedestrian kind of wonder. Our wonder at Jesus and the day He was born should rise far above our normal human emotions to the place where we are literally frightened at the very idea that the most holy God has identified with us in such a personal, self-sacrificial way.

Whenever the word wonder, or wonders, or wonderful is used in Scripture, it refers to the supernatural. "And His name shall be called wonderful" is no sweet prophecy. Isaiah was foretelling a miracle far beyond human comprehension. When David wrote, "Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done," he was pointing to things too high for the human mind to conceive.

When youi look at wonder in this way, it changes the meaning of the phrases we so flippantly use, especialy today, on Christmas. When we sing of "the wonders of His love," we should think, not of ordinary love, but of a love so incomprehensible so inconceivable, so earth-shattering and humanity-invading, that our knees should buckle at the thought.

I'm afraid in our desire to fit God into our busy lives, to work Him into our story rather than joining the miraculous adventure of His story, we have forgotten the wonder of our God and Savior, who loved us so much that He gave us His only Son, so that our relationship with Him could be restored...forever.

Now that's a wonderful thought!

You were Made for Chistmas - Thanks Mr. Mumford for the Reminder

Christian Buckley — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:19:31 -0800

You were MADE to meet your maker

If you know me then you know that my wife is way cooler than me. No question. One such area of cooler-ness is that she seems to find new and interesting music all the time. This is especially depressing for me because I have been a musician, in one form or another, for the better part of 20 years. Depressing I say - but on with the point.

One such discovered band (update - now super popular and super Grammy nominated) is Mumford and Sons and they have a song Awake my Soul that I love with the following lines:

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life

Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker
You were made to meet your maker

Normally the phrase “meeting your maker” is used around the idea of death and the fact that we all get the chance to meet our maker - like it or not – when we close our eyes that last time. You meet your maker when life runs out – or rather into Him.

But when you put the phrase “you were made” on the front of it, it takes on new meaning for me. Instead of an inescapable inevitability of doom meeting our maker becomes the purposeful point of our existence – it has been knitted into the fabric of our being.

God didn’t just make us to live and die, love and hurt, grow and fail, skin our knees and watch the clouds. He didn’t just make us to be sons and fathers, husbands and wives, dog owners and cat haters.

We were made to meet our maker. We were made with the purpose of, and potential to, meet our maker and in one very tangible way we get the chance to meet Him in a cold crowded barn beneath a bright and shining star. We get to meet Him at His most vulnerable. We get to meet him as a baby. We were made to meet Him there.

We were made to meet our maker this Christmas season. Will we?

The Anticlimacy of Christmas

Chris Tomlinson — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:30:45 -0800

Something’s wrong with me. I’m already feeling like Christmas is anticlimactic, and it’s not even Christmas yet. (And I’m making up words like anticlimacy). Most people reserve melancholy for after the fact, but not me. I like to get a jump on these sorts of things.

I suppose I’m just getting to the point in my life where the years have piled up enough to notice some things that are always true. And for me, I always find the day after Christmas to be a bit of a letdown. I don’t even put all that much stock in the trappings of Christmas, but there are at least 5 things I love about Christmas, and the truth is, they never pay off. Even the good things don’t pay off.

It’s not the things themselves. We can say they are morally neutral. Or we can say they are gifts from God to be enjoyed, if enjoyed in the right way. And both are probably true. No, the issue is my own heart.

As I consider why this might be so, two things come to mind. First, I have unfair expectations. And second, my expectations are misplaced.

I say unfair because the good things of the Christmas season can never truly satisfy whatever it is that I, and probably you as well, are looking for. We desire a sense of peace, and comfort, and togetherness, and love, and acceptance, and joy—and a season like Christmas seems like it might just do the trick. But as happy as this season may be for some (and for others, it’s not happy at all), it never delivers what we think it promises.

I say misplaced for a similar reason. If Christmas can’t deliver what I’m looking for, then something must be able to do so. Lewis picked up on this: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world.” And while he’s right, I would add to this that we were not only made for another world, but for the Person who is the chief reason for this other world.

At the end of the day, the way to avoid the inevitable letdown is to see all the good things of Christmas as the vapors that they are—and to see the One great think of Christmas as the rock that He is. Life is a vapor, and all things exist for Jesus, so enjoy the good things of Christmas, knowing they are passing away, and cling to the Rock who will never be moved.

Seventh Consideration: Home.

Kristin Ritzau — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:39:34 -0800

“I’m not sure if people know what ‘home’ is anymore,” a fellow church member expressed during a conversation from earlier this year.

This comment struck a cord with many as we nodded and contemplated the meaning of home. As the Christmas season is now upon us, I can't help but consider home once again.

Many consider the two to go hand-in-hand this time of year – home and Christmas. Some wait to go home. Others work on creating a home, and more still do not have safe homes at all.

An angel came to Mary in her home, as she was to marry a man from the “home” of David.

Homes aren’t just things we shop for or sit inside. They are legacies, for better or worse, but most of all they are what they are. And instead of listening to the angel's message - Do not be afraid – our fear of what home really could mean and look like, the hard work it takes to create one, drives us to disconnect from our homes whether they be our bodies or actual safe spaces.

However, we keep being inspired by home. We fight for our homes, we look for homes, we move from home to home, we pray for the troops to come home, we sing of home, and we label those without a home.

A home is more than a place though – it should be a foundation, a safety net, a center of tradition. It should be a place of integrity and authenticity.

Jesus’ first home was in a stable. A barn inside a musty cave where animals were housed. This was not a dream home or a cute nursery or even a hospital. We can all huddle in our chicken coop to realize how glamorous this really was.

However, space is important, not with its decadence, but as Mary shows us, as a place to greet angels and strangers. Maybe they are one in the same.

We create homes in our wombs too and welcome little strangers as soon as we know of their anticipated presence. Our wombs also carry our dreams and grief too. A "gut feeling" is a gut feeling for a reason - an inward compass pointing toward home.

The stable became a sacred space not because of the extraordinary or the decadence, but because of the ordinary. Human and beast sharing a moment of time; a birth.

It was then celebrated by welcoming more strangers and not with open fires and chestnuts roasting, but with the miraculous simplicity of new life. The silent night in which hope rested in a new season.

But I caution this jump ahead to the welcoming because so much of the journey home is the waiting and so much of the waiting is the preparing. We try to prepare our homes by decorating and making them look like masterpieces for any arrival be it Christmas or a baby. Yet, we may have forgotten in the preparation and waiting to actually create a home in this in-between instead of just making the outside look really fancy. And in creating a home, we just may find the simplest of gifts – a true safe place of belonging.

Home is a central part of our legacies that really has nothing to with our beds being made or stockings being hung – it is a place where we serve and learn to serve. It is a place we prepare, but mostly our hearts, because as the angel declared, “Nothing is impossible with God,” but the hardest part may be creating and considering a home in ourselves to let God do the impossible.

Sixth Consideration: Traditions (That started in the 80s)

Kristin Ritzau — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:09:11 -0800

The 80s returned last night… in all their glory. My husband’s employer (which will remain nameless to protect those involved) had their first themed Christmas party and it was also the first time spouses were invited.

As I crimped and hair-sprayed, I secretly wondered if this was a cruel joke and if we would be the only ones to show up in a full length sweater dress and neon jump suit. Luckily, we were greeted by side pony tails, animal print spandex, and pop rocks – lots of pop rocks.

What was the bane of my week (“Seriously? 80s? What am I going to wear?” Etc.) became a delightfully fun event.

As I put on two inches of blue eye shadow, I screamed – with a little delight – “I look like my mother!” When my hair creation was done, I was surprised to resemble my first-grade self. A little girl who wanted a perm soooo badly that I believe I had three before I was 10.

When we were driving in the car, I couldn’t help but wonder if this lovely soft sweater tent had been to Christmas parties of the past. If it was fawned over as being “so in” because now it was cruelly and radically “so out.”

The costumes allowed us to let our guards down, to talk about our childhoods, and mostly laugh at the fact that we looked like our parents or characters on Designing Women.

It was a great inaugural tradition.

The 80s encompass my childhood – it was full of Rainbow Bright and Strawberry Shortcake. Jem and Rockers was my favorite cartoon and luckily, I kind of looked like one last night. I remember the Berlin Wall falling on our tiny TV that we had to get up to switch the channel to one of 13 stations. My parents alluded to the fact that times were changing – things wouldn’t be the same any more. Ronald Reagan, my glow worm, and permed hair… I survived all of that.

However, it wasn’t as much about survival as it was about remembering traditions that were started then too. My mother would turn our house into a wonderland, not because she had to, but because this was (and still is) her favorite time of year. Clam Chowder and Swedish meatballs became our meal every Christmas Eve and we looked forward to that meal as the homemade advent calendar ticked the days away until Santa’s arrival.

This foundation included our Christmas pageant at our tiny neighborhood church. The year I was an angel with a crooked halo became something of a Christmas legend and alluded to more about my personality than I probably knew at the time. My brother also singed his hair at the candle light service one year. He was enamored with being old enough to hold it, so he studied this new feature of Christmas intently, while the hair smoldered unnoticed by our family until we were leaving and he had tiny little frizzy bangs. Again, something we will never let him live down.

My mom and I sang silent night, her signing soprano and me alto. My dad would get out the video camera diligently wanting to capture every moment of us opening our stockings.

More traditions came like the mouthwatering tailgate sandwiches becoming breakfast that we only ate at cold football games before. And going to the 11 o’clock p.m. service, so that the first thing we did on Christmas was exit church.

These are my traditions, a foundation of memory, nostalgia, and a hope that I too can share these things with my husband and also give myself permission to build my own.

(Oh yeah, and the Nutcracker too)

Traditions are important. They anchor us to a history, a legacy. They bind us to a community. They also allow for innovation, creativity and re-imagining.

One tradition I wish to continue with is the Winter Solstice event that we are throwing tonight. In the chaos (and fun) of white elephant gifts, ugly sweaters, and cookie exchanges, I really feel called to do something that showcases different kinds of gifts.

“Please come as yourself,” the invite should have read. “And bring your own personal gifts and creativity with you.” Whether that is song, art, photography, poetry, writing, or being an enthusiastic supporter, this event is seeking to partake in a different kind of tradition. One where we acknowledge the changing of the seasons; the hope in the short days turning longer. The promise of something new brewing just below the frost.

Spaces where we can honestly and authentically express ourselves are rapidly losing their well-deserved platform in a society where we normally find our identity in getting more. Hopefully, through being intentional in our gift giving and receiving as well as with how we look at food and faith, some new traditions can emerge that continue to build on legacies of old. Legacies that will not shudder in fear at what feels like a possible threat, but embrace the new with the old; traditions that stand the test of time with ones that need a bit of fresh insight.

Most of all may this be a season that inspires and gives life more than just takes. What a beautiful consideration that tradition would be.

Fifth Consideration: Believing in Santa Claus

Kristin Ritzau — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 13:36:23 -0800

I have reposted the most reprinted letter to the editor in history for number five. It shows that sometimes faith springs up from the most unexpected places. Even though the jolly guy in a red suit gets a bad rap at times for his naughty and nice list and gobs of toys, it is important to consider what this actual man stood for and believed in, so that we to may continue to believe in him.

Dear Editor,
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in the Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West Ninety-Fifth Street

1897

Actual response from Francis Pharcellus Church, New York Sun's Editor from 1897

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be [adult's] or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest [adult] that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

As seen on http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/neh-preservation-project/2010/dec/08/yes-virginia/ Accessed Dec. 14, 2011

Linus Saves Christmas!

Christian Buckley — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:27:42 -0800

Linus Saves Christmas!

Can we stop saying that “Christmas is under attack” or being wiped off the map by the left-wing media? Really, can we just shut up?

Christmas is Christmas and there have been 2,000 of them (give or take) to prove the point. Does calling a giant evergreen tree lit up with lights in the front lawn of The White House or in Rockefeller Center really change the fact that everyone knows it is a Christmas Tree? Does suggesting that one religious tradition shouldn’t dominate others in public spaces really change the fact that our calendar year and system of holidays are predicated around the one named for the birth of Jesus Christ?

It wouldn’t even matter if started calling it, “That One Day Each Year Where Everything Stops Because of the Birth of That Guy 2,000 Years Ago that Has Dominated Human History.”

Fine by me and fine by Linus. Yes Linus.

Every year without fail Charlie Brown Christmas is on national television and every year, without fail, our good friend Linus does more for the Christian faith than 10,000 God fearing men and women complaining about Holiday Trees and people saying happy holidays rather than Merry Christmas.

Take it Boys:

Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?

Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.

Lights, please. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, 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, good will toward men. (Luke 2:8-14)

That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

You can watch the video at this LINK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKk9rv2hUfA

Thanks Linus for dealing with this “complex problem” so profoundly. Maybe we would do best to just send people to him, say thanks to The Peanuts, and wish everyone we meet a Merry Christmas.

If you want some more info on the real history of A Charlie Brown Christmas check out the attached doc! It is worth a read.

The Christmas Word Game

Chris Tomlinson — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:06:32 -0800

The English have the 12 days of Christmas in song. The high churches have the 24 (ish) days of advent. At Crave Something More, and here at Conversant Life, I’ll be writing a series called the “21 Days of CSM Christmas.” Starting December 5 and finishing on Christmas Day, I will write once a day about all things Christmas, in the hopes that we will all continue to see Jesus as the greatest satisfaction to our soul’s deepest cravings.

Day 5: The Christmas Word Game

What words or images do you associate with the Christmas story? Let’s make a list (here’s mine, in order, off the top of my head):

Bright star.

Dark blue sky.

Cool evening.

Angels in song.

Hay.

Shepherds.

Sheep.

Shepherd stick (staff, right, the crooked one?).

Dark streets in town.

Mary on a donkey (was she on a donkey?).

Wreath (??).

Cows.

Mary in blue with a white sash.

Joseph in the dark (kinda obscured).

Manger.

Baby Jesus (but just because I’ve felt guilty for not including Him so far).

So this is craziness. I suspect much of my Christmas imagery comes from some movie I’ve seen or a sprawling imagination. Some of these things aren't in the Biblical accounts, and I'm not sure how the wreath made it into my mind. But I do find it telling that the words I associate with Christmas do not quickly bring up the one Word the whole story is about.

John tells us beautifully: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Question: What words do you think of when you imagine the Christmas story?

For the rest of the 21 Days of Crave Something More Christmas, go here.

The Sacred Conspiracy of Christmas

Chris Tomlinson — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 06:15:42 -0800

Day 4: The Sacred Conspiracy of Christmas

Let’s be conspiracy theorists for a moment. Say you are a guy (let’s call you Joseph), and you’re engaged to this sweet hometown girl (let’s call her Mary), and you have watched this girl for years and years and have finally mustered up the courage to ask her to be your wife. And then she goes to visit relatives for a few months, and she comes back pregos, and you’re wondering what you should do.

The law gives you the right to have her killed, but you are a just man, and you love this girl, and she swears she has broken no law, so you resolve to break the engagement quietly. But then an angel comes to you and tells you that the conceived child belongs to no man, but to God, through the work of His Holy Spirit.

Now let’s say you start to get this devious plan in your mind. You remember your teacher telling you that there was this Coming One, the Messiah who would restore Israel to its former glory, and that this Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, because the prophet Micah foretold it. And you also remember a story about the coming one being born of a virgin, because the prophet Isaiah foretold it. And you have watched foreign occupiers suck the life out of your village and your people, and you want to see your nation restored. More than that, you want power yourself.

So you come up with this plan to take advantage of Mary’s situation, and your family happens to be from Bethlehem, so when Caesar issues a decree that everyone should return to their hometown for the census, you see this is your chance. You can work the situation into fulfilling a couple of prophecies by going to Bethlehem and having Mary deliver this child there. And then you could start telling people that your son is the long awaited Messiah! And then you’d coach your son into fulfilling other prophecies, and as he rose to power, you’d rise along with him.

You could do all of that right? I mean, it would be really strange, and you’d be a megalomaniac, and it’d be a super long shot, but it’s possible, right?

Clearly, Joseph and Mary do no such thing. They probably had no idea that any of these prophecies were actually being fulfilled—they were likely just dealing with the really difficult situation they found themselves in. But what strikes me most in this story is the impossibility of any power-hungry man fulfilling Micah’s prophecy himself. You can maybe ride into Jerusalem on a donkey because Zechariah said the king would come into the city in this way, but you can’t control your birth. You can’t, as a child in the womb, control where your mom and dad go to deliver you (or control that pesky star).

Unless, of course, you’re God. And this is the wonder of Christmas. When Micah, facing the prospect of siege, spoke hope into the crumbling heart of Israel, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient of days,” it meant that the deliverance of Israel was going to be of God.

This is why Christmas was God’s doing. It was the sacred conspiracy, a plan formulated in secret before the ages began, and not one of evil (as conspiracies are), but one of holy origins. Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem, and He would be a ruler in Israel who would “shepherd his flock” of God’s people, and He would be “their peace”, all because God planned it long ago and promised it through His prophet, Micah.

Let us wonder at the delight God has in taking small things (Bethlehem, a manger, a baby; us) and making great things from them (a Messiah who would shepherd His people and be their peace; a redeemed people who are conformed into the image of God’s Son). Let us realize that Christmas was promised long ago, in the midst of great trial, by a God who has our good in mind, and loves to use the weak in this world to shame the strong. And let us feel the love God has for us in this promised Messiah, a love that was made clear some 33 years after that miraculous birth, and a love that gives the substance to our Christmastime today.

For the rest of the 21 Days of Crave Something More Christmas, go here.

Advent Prayer Requests

Brett McCracken — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:41:53 -0800

Oh Jesus, come. The world groans for you.

The streets are bloody and the debts are rising. There are riots all around, anxieties about the future, 72-day marriages, 5th grader suicides, political stalemates, crashes of every sort, too-high heating bills, faucets that don’t work, pencils that smear instead of erase, milk that goes sour, teeth that get cavities, and cancer that keeps coming back.

Messiah, come.

Come and bring justice to the perpetrators of evil: The dictators who oppress, the pedophiles who abuse, the rich who swindle, the thieves and murderers and liars and cheaters and addicts… Basically, all of us. Judge us, refine us, renew us oh Lord. Cast our sins into the depths of the sea. Show your faithfulness to us oh God, as you did to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

Bring a father to the son who’s never known one. Bring a day of rest to the mother who hardly stops. Bring buckets of cold, clear water to the parched lands throughout the world. Bring peace to the places where war has settled in. Bring hope to the suffering in Japan, and Joplin, and every place in shambles.

Oh sprouted blossom from the root of Jesse, come and heal the nations.

Give hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, joy to the lowly. Bind up the wounds of your people.

We are all hurting. Broken feet. Infected cuts. Insecurity. Heartbreak.

We are all sick. Coughing. Contagious. Medicated. Prone to wander.

We are all tired. Of work. Of failure. Of the persistence of disappointment.

We are all hungry. For a community that will last. For love that doesn’t fizzle. For something–anything–of permanence. To know ourselves. To know the truth. To understand how it all makes sense. To see the face of God.

In the midst of all this, Jesus came.

Is coming.

Is here.