A Fresh Start

There really is something about starting fresh that is so appealing. It's why so many of us cram the time between Christmas and New Year's full of...making space. Getting rid of clutter. Making new schedules. Purchasing new exercise equipment. We spend the time trying to make our lives accommodate our goals. After all, who wants to fail by February...again? 

But that's kind of the thing, isn't it? That's why Christmas is so much better as a new beginning than New Year's is. That's why we ought to spend this time, these few days, embracing the manger more than chilling the champagne. 

Because whatever promise you've made to yourself this year, the odds are that you're not going to keep it. Whatever you've decided to change, there's a high probability that by the time a few weeks have passed, you probably won't have changed it at all. You'll be right back where you started. 

We do it every year. Some of us do it multiple times per year. Those of us who are very skilled can fit several backslides into a single week. I'll just be honest and confess - the things that I don't love about myself have a way of rearing their ugly head right about the time I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm a good person after all. It's just the way that being human goes...in our own power. 

When we hinge our change, our growth, our maturation on something like the calendar, this can be extremely discouraging. And defeating. 

We make a resolution around New Year's to do this or that thing, to be better about this or that, to stop or start this or that. By February (and that's being generous), most of us are back in our old patterns, our old ways, our old defeats. And we look at the calendar, and we say, well...I failed. Totally blew it. This year isn't going to be the year. 

We throw out the whole year around the fortieth day of it. We throw away another three hundred twenty-some days because, according to the calendar, we didn't make it very far. We'll try again next year. Some of us start making our new year's resolutions as early as March because we're pretty sure that we have figured out why we failed this time and what we'll need next time to do it better and actually succeed. Now, all we need is for the calendar to change again. 

Contrast that with Christmas. Here's a baby in a manger who has come to change everything. We can come to see Him; He bears grace. Something about the incarnate God gives us hope. Something about it inspires us to be better persons. We want to be worthy of the condescension of God, that He would come to us. We don't want anything in our lives that would make us go, say, jump in a bush. (Just for an example.) Something about the baby Jesus stirs us. 

Then, we mess up. We always do. It's our fallen nature. We fail. We fail ourselves. We fail God. We break our own promises that we made, to ourselves and to others. 

Because of Christmas, though, the promise is right there. We can come back to Jesus in the flesh any time. He's here. That hope, that inspiration, that stirring...it doesn't stop just because the calendar turns. It doesn't wait for it to turn again. Jesus was born and now, He lives. Every single day. We never have to throw out tomorrow because we messed up today because there's nothing so special about it - today is tomorrow is the day after that because our Lord is come. He's here. For the new day that is dawning.

And the one that is dawning after that. 

Christmas, friends, is the change we've been seeking. It's the hope we can hold onto. It's the gift that gives us the option to actually change our lives. 

Even if we mess it up a few (thousand) times. 

And

After months of build-up, here we are, in the last breath of the calendar year. And we certainly try to do it all in just one breath: 

Merry Christmas and happy new year.

In one breath, there it is - it's all over, and it's about to begin. Just like that. 

I have a couple of problems with this. 

First, I just want there to be time. I want there to be space between one thing and the next. I don't think our days have to run so close together that big events come in the same breath, even though I know that it feels like that, especially for the last couple of months of the year. Everything rushes together. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and bam! It doesn't feel like we get to breathe until January 1, but by then, it's time to jump back into the hamster wheel and start running again. 

I want space. I want things to be their own events, their own days, their own breaths. I want Christmas to breathe, just a little bit, before we jump right into new year's. I want to bring resolution to one thing before we start trying to wind down another. 

I don't want to feel like I'm running through a hallway slamming all the doors behind me at the end of the year just because that happens to be how the calendar falls. 

Second, it just seems silly. We just had a new beginning, but here we are, already looking forward to the next one. Most of us probably didn't have time to even really appreciate it.

But what greater new beginning is there than when the Lord Himself comes to walk with us again? 

In the beginning, everything was formless and void. Then, God created everything with a word. Then, He created man with His hands. Then, He breathed the breath of life into him and began walking with His creation. Until sin. Until figs. Until rebellion. Then, there was a fiery angel to guard the space between us and life. 

Until now. 

Now, there is God with us. God among us. God walking our streets, pouring our water, breaking our bread. Taking breaths of our air. 

If ever there was a new beginning, that's it. That's the one I want. I want the new beginning that Christmas is, and I want to stay with it awhile. 

So when you tell me "Merry Christmas and happy new year" like some great big amazing opportunity for starting over is coming...it's silly. That great big amazing opportunity for starting over has already come. 

He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger because the inn was full. You might have just been too busy and missed Him. 

But I don't want to miss Him. 

So this season, take away that and. Wish me a Merry Christmas. And yes, wish me a happy new year, too. 

Just...not in the same breath. 

 

The Table

At the beginning of this year, I committed Fridays in this space to meditations on the Table. Communion. The Eucharist. The Last Supper. 

This is something I am used to celebrating every week; the cup and the bread are part of my regular diet. And I have been humbled for nearly 12 years to routinely offer reflections on what this remembrance means, on what we're doing here, on how it connects to our day-to-day life and faith. 

It's been a running joke among my brothers and sisters that I "always have one in my pocket" and I could "offer this devotional every week." Sometimes, I have wondered about whether that's true. To be honest, though, I have wondered it about this blog rather often, too. Doesn't there come a point at which someone who shares regularly...eventually just runs out of things to share? 

Does there come a day when I run out of things to say about God or about this Table? 

I confess that the possibility has made me nervous on more than one occasion. 

Sometimes, I think maybe I've said everything I can say about it. About this space. About this sacrifice. About this remembrance. Yet, every time, the Spirit steps in and provides me something. You know why? Because I'm hungry. 

The truth is, I never get tired of this Table. I never get tired of breaking bread, of pouring wine, of remembering. I never get tired of reclining next to Jesus and laying my head on His chest. I never get tired of being in close fellowship with my Lord, as well as my brothers and sisters. I never grow weary of being fed. 

So bring me to the Table. Bring me to the beach, where there's fish on the griddle. Bring me to the hillsides, where there are baskets of leftovers out of His abundance. Bring me to the pasture in the midst of my enemies, where He's laid a spread for me. Bring me to the wilderness, where quail rains down from heaven and manna springs forth out of the ground. Bring me to Passover, where the lamb is cooked and the blood covers the doorways. Bring me to Jerusalem. Bring me to the Upper Room. Bring me to the Table. 

Bring me again.

I will come to every meal that Jesus wants to share with me...and I will come to every Table I want to share with Him. 

I will come to every picnic blanket, every late-night snack, every on-the-go breakfast in the car. I will come to every offering. 

When Jesus lifts His hands to bless and then break, I will be there, taking every single crumb I can get. 

I never get tired of this Table. 

Thank You, Lord, for sharing it with me. 

And thank you, brothers and sisters, for sharing it, as well. 

Linger

Christmas is over. 

Or is it?

If you're like many Americans, your family is already packed up and headed to the airport or back in the car, headed for home. The trash is out at the curb. The new things are finding their new places. The old things are piling up in the corner. And you're probably wondering to yourself if it's too early to start taking down the decorations. (Especially if you're in one of those places that is unseasonably warm this year, and it seems like as good a time as you're gonna get to take down those outdoor things.) 

For as much as our culture thinks we're ready to unbox Christmas in August when the stores start rolling out their displays, it seems just as certain that come December 26, we're ready to put it all away until next year. 

Maybe because we've made such a big deal about the next big thing, which is right around the corner: New Year's. We're ready to put everything away and simply start over. A great big sigh of relief, one giant breath, and hello to happier tomorrows. 

But can I ask you something? 

What honestly changes more with the calendar than has already changed in the manger? 

What does the simple date on the wall do for us that the Christ child does not? 

If you're looking for a new beginning, for a reason to sigh a great big sigh of relief, to take one giant breath, and to greet a happier tomorrow, what makes that more possible than the Son of God in the flesh, born to come into the world to walk with us and eventually, to cleanse us and take away our sins so that the life we live on Christmas morning, the breath of God piercing through the darkness, we get to live for the rest of eternity? 

Friends, linger at the manger. 

There's still a baby Jesus this morning. 

All that hope you had for a day like yesterday, it's still here today. It's fulfilled. All that promise you were hanging your hat on, it's right in front of you. The word of God wasn't just fulfilled yesterday; it is still fulfilled today. There is still a baby in a manger. 

In the Greek, the word for this is the "perfect tense" - an action that was performed and completed in the past but with an ongoing effect in the present (and possibly, future). It's done, but it's not over. It is finished, but still to come. 

It is now and not yet, and yet, for all the waiting that we still have to do, there's a real live baby boy we can experience with all of our senses. God is with us. Not just yesterday; He's still here today. He will be here tomorrow. And the day after that. And the one after that. And a thousand million trillion more after that one. As we used to say as kids, "times infinity." He's here. He's still here. 

And that changes everything. 

Friends, linger at the manger. You don't have to hurry up so you have time to get ready for the next thing; this is the best thing. Nothing is gonna top this. Especially not turning a silly ol' little page. 

The new life you're dreaming of is here. All you have to do is go down to the barn and hold it. 

A Christmas Present

The day is here; it's Christmas. 

The cookies are baked. The presents are wrapped. The tree is aglow. The star is in the sky. The inn is full. And there's a newborn baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, taking His first physical breaths of the world. 

It's a scene, as I said yesterday, that we're so familiar with. It's cozy down in our bones. We look around at all that this season is, and something about it feels like home. 

As it should. 

Today, I want to encourage you to wrap yourself in this moment. Let it be all around you. Pull it in close like a cozy blanket. Snuggle it in around your shoulders and wrap yourself up. 

Make yourself...present. 

Be with the moment. Be with the season. Be with your loved ones. Not on your phone. Not on your social media. Not glued to the television screen. Be with your people, your place, your person. Be with the baby Jesus, God in flesh, come to dwell with you. Yes, even today. Even all these years later. 

Wrap yourself in Christmas and be present. 

God bless us, every one.  

A Sanctified Imagination

As we draw near to Christmas morning, we remember that we started this journey a few weeks ago by talking about waiting. About anticipation. About how to engage the time between now and the day we know is coming, and now, that day is almost here. 

There's something interesting about the Christmas story - it's the number of small details that we know. 

Just off hand, I'm betting you can answer a few questions about the narrative. You know what town it was in. You might even know what town Joseph and Mary traveled from to get there. You know where Jesus was laid. You know about a star in the sky. You know which two groups traveled to see Him. You know what three gifts they brought. (You know there might or might not have also been a little drummer boy.) You know who was the leader over the Roman region at the time. You know who Jesus's cousin was. 

Can you name any other biblical character's cousin? 

The point is this: we have so celebrated this day, this moment, captured it on postcards and paintings, wrapped it in our own swaddling clothes that it's no stretch to say that our holy imagination is sharpest this time of year. We can, for the most part, put ourselves in the stable in the inn. See everything. Smell everything. Hear everything. Sense everything. 

We look at Christmas morning, and we have a sense that we know what it was like. It wraps us in a warmth that is strange for so many of us, and yet....

Why? 

We read the words about Christmas the same way we read any of the other words in the Bible, and there are plenty of cool, visual stories that we can pick out. But how often do you envision what it must be like to stand on the edge of a valley and face a giant warrior? To look out over a desert of dry bones? To build an ark? 

Okay, here's the thing about that one - there is a replica ark somewhere in Kentucky, I believe, and it's supposed to be built-to-scale and every time that I talk to someone who has been there, they are completely wowed by its size. They couldn't have imagined, reading the story, that it would be so big. 

But put us in a barn with a little bit of hay and a star in the night sky, and we're like, "Yeah...this is exactly how I imagined it." 

Some might say that it's because we have multiple accounts of Christmas, so we have read the story more than we have read many of the others. But there are plenty of stories that are recorded for us in multiple gospels, and we don't have the same imagination for those. Ever felt in your bones what it must have been like to be in one of the many crowds that followed Jesus? To cry out from the side of the road? To see a lame man walk? 

No? 

There's something about the Christmas story. 

But there doesn't have to be. 

What if we used the same sanctified imagination we use at Christmas to put ourselves into the rest of God's story? Into Eden. Into Canaan. Into Mount Moriah. Into Calvary. Into this holy moment right now. Yes, this one. 

The way we vision Christmas, so much more rich and vibrant and full than any other story in all the Bible, can teach us how to treat the others the same way if we'll just pay attention. 

How would that change our faith?

Emmanuel

Ask any pregnant woman, and she will tell you that one of the most frustrating things about being pregnant is the number of complete strangers who believe they have the right to just come up and rub your stomach. Ask a new parent, and they will tell you that one of the most frustrating things about having a new baby is the number of complete strangers who believe they have the right to just come up and get right in your baby's face, kissing them all over, and cooing over how wonderful they are. 

And yet, most of us can't help but feel that tug in our hearts when we see a baby - in the womb or out of it. Even if we understand social tact and are able to control ourselves, most of us see a baby and something inside of us instantly lights up with a different kind of life. 

Then here we are at Christmas with a baby in a manger who was born in our flesh for the express purpose that we might have a physical relationship with Him - that we could touch Him, smell Him, hear His voice, see His eyes - and most of say ooh, don't touch. 

That baby is holy. 

And somehow, we're able to stop ourselves. We're able to stand further from the manger than we are from the stranger in the grocery store and convince ourselves that it is right and good for us to do so. We're able to stand at a distance and marvel, so far outside the stable that we can still look up and see the star. In fact, we spend most of our Christmas looking at things and not touching when God Himself said here He is: 

Emmanuel. 

God with us. 

Not God in a museum in a still-life painting for us to look at. Not God on a postcard for us to send in the mail. Not God in some pristine, picture-perfect, totally clean bed of hay for us to marvel at. 

God in the dirt of a barn full of weary animals and weary travelers and servants and shepherds and a young set of new parents trying to figure things out and camel spit in the hay and donkey excrement in the corner and God with us, that we might draw near in all the mess and the muck of our own lives and light up with a different kind of life ourselves. 

It's the weirdest thing about Christmas, isn't it? Walk right up to Santa and sit in his lap. Break off a piece of the gingerbread man. Pet the reindeer, with both hands if you want. Build a snowman. Dance with a sugar plum fairy. 

But don't touch the baby Jesus.

Friends, touch the baby Jesus. Walk right up to Him and take Him in your arms. Hold Him while you listen to the cry of His heart. Look into His eyes and see the love. Fawn over Him. Bounce around. Dance. Light up with the life that you can't help but feel when there's a baby near.  

What else would He possibly be here for? 

Emmanuel. 

God is with us.  

Miracles

When we gather around the Table, we remember the sacrifice of Jesus - His body broken for us and His blood poured out. And we often think that perhaps the choice of elements was just a matter of convenience. Of course when Jesus was around the 1st-Century Jewish table, there would be bread and wine. Of course, 2000 years later, around our own tables, there is grain and a fermented drink. 

But I don't think God ever does anything out of sheer convenience. I think everything He does is divinely orchestrated to be deeply infused with meaning. 

So the wine, I think, is not merely a convenient fluid to remind us of His blood pouring out. I think it's also meant to point us back to His miracles. 

Remember the first time that Jesus enters the scene as something special. It was a wedding in Cana, which He attended with His mother. The wine ran out early, and His mother was concerned about how the rest of the wedding was going to go (which means, by the way, that they were not merely guests at this wedding, but that they were somehow part of the family at this wedding because otherwise, why would she care so much?). So His mother tells Him to do something, and He has the servants fill the jugs with water, then dip it out as wine. 

Not only wine, but the finest wine the wedding guests have ever tasted. 

A few years later, He will pour out that wine again. 

Having tasted it myself, let me tell you - it is good. 

When we drink it, we're not supposed to remember just the sacrifice of Jesus. It can't be. When Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me," He hadn't gone to the Cross yet. It wasn't just His final act that He wanted us to remember, but His very life. His goodness. His grace. His glory. 

His miracles. 

The first of which was that He came to us at all. That God wrapped Himself in flesh and let us wrap Him in swaddling clothes and came to walk among us in human form. That He was even here in the first place to turn water into wine. And, friends, He's still doing that. 

He's still taking our plain things and making them glorious. He's still taking our boring things and making them good. He's still taking our empty things and filling them up. He's still coming in when the party seems to be over and starting it back up again. 

Remember, Israel waited in 400-some years of silence between the end of Malachi and the birth of Christ. Four hundred some years. The party was over. The vats were empty. The wine was gone. 

And then, Jesus. A baby in a manger. The Son of God in human flesh. 

Immanuel. 

New wine is being poured out. For us. 

Take this cup and drink.  

The Christmas Story

Here's the hard truth: when we let ourselves get wrapped up in these Christmas myths, no matter how nice they seem, no matter how plausible, no matter how neat, then one of two things happens: 

First, we become so wrapped up in the myth that we defend it unto our death, refusing to even consider any evidence that they might be myths, fictitious accounts made up by persons with any number of motivations for doing so. (Admittedly, many might be pure motivations, but still.) So we cling to a Christmas story that is not the Christ child, and we hold to it forever because it's just too cool to let go of. And we feel like we lose something of Jesus if we ever let it go. 

Second, we let go of the whole thing. Maybe we come into the evidence that tells us that that really cool thing that we were so willing to believe was actually made up, and all of a sudden, we don't know what the real story is any more. If the candy cane doesn't signify the blood of the Savior, then was there ever even a baby in a manger? If the sacrificial lamb wasn't wrapped in cloths and laid in a stone trough, then what do we make of the swaddling clothes we're told about? 

Believing the myth can corrupt the story. 

And again, let's be clear about what the story is: the story is that God Himself put on human flesh and came into the world to walk with us, talk with us, eat with us, wash our feet, and redeem us. Period. 

I'm not saying there aren't layers to this that we don't understand. There are. I'm not saying there aren't things that are true about this moment that we don't understand. There are. I'm not saying the Bible is exhaustive in its description of the birth of Christ. 

I'm saying it's sufficient. 

Remember that just a few days ago, I proposed the presence of a servant in the stable. Given everything we know about how the Jewish world operated at this time, this is not some far-fetched idea. It takes a little bit of a sanctified imagination to picture it, but it's consistent with what we know to be true. 

By contrast, the theory that's floating around about the shepherds and the sacrificial lambs...simply does not have historical evidence to support it. It proposes a fact that cannot be proven nor even suggested by the overwhelming testimony of history, and as such, it is not imaginative; it is fictitious. 

The presence of a servant, on the other hand, has firm grounding in the cultural history of the time and so, though not specifically stated, extends an invitation to imagination and does not propose a missing "fact" that must be taken wholly. 

That said, the presence of a servant is not necessary to the birth story of Christ. That is, it doesn't really add anything to our understanding of the moment. It doesn't change the fundamental nature of how we read the story. It is a supplement, but it is not foundational. It invites us to dance with the story in a new way, but it's the same story. 

The story of the sacrificial lambs demands that we layer this fictitious narrative onto our understanding. Thus, it aims to change the story. It aims to define the story for us. We have to stop doing that. 

The story is the story of God, wrapped in flesh, taking His first breaths in a barn, crying into the formless and void in a new creation, a new covenant, the fulfillment of His promise. And it is sufficient.

Understanding that, and only that, we have captured the heart of the Christmas story.  

Christmas Myths

I recently heard on the radio a Christian personality talking about a story he'd recently heard or read about how Jewish shepherds would have taken great care with a firstborn lamb who was meant to be sacrificial, wrapping it in cloth so that it wouldn't hurt or blemish itself, and putting it into a stone manger for safe keeping until it could be sacrificed. 

I recently saw on social media, as most of us have seen nearly every year, the "story of the candy cane," how the red stands for the blood of Jesus and the white stands for the cleansing of sin ("white as snow") and the curved shape is the shepherds' hook. 

A few years ago, the "star of Bethlehem" appeared in the local December sky, causing quite a heightened interest, and all kinds of stories came out about this star and what it would have meant 2,000 years ago. 

No one has, as yet, proposed a theory as to why Christmas supposedly smells like cinnamon and not, you know, myrrh. 

But I digress.

The point is that everywhere we turn this time of year, there seems to be someone who has a story to tell that we've never heard about the story we all think we know so well - a baby born in a manger, but what have we been missing? In a time in which we have invested ourselves deeply in historical criticism (trying to place the Scriptures into their accurate historical context for "better" understanding), there's something in us that wants to latch onto it every time someone says, "You know, to the people who were living back then, this would have meant _________." 

But don't buy it. 

Some of these stories are cool. Don't get me wrong. There's a reason so many persons love to read fiction. When well done, it feels so real, and it can help us to think about things more deeply. And it would be awesome if some of these stories were true. Of course, as Christians, we want to see Christ reflected in our world. We want there to be a blood-sacrifice story behind the candy cane. We want there to be some powerful meaning in way He was wrapped in the manger. We want to keep discovering new things about Christmas, things that draw us deeper into this story. Closer to Immanuel. 

But what could possibly bring us closer to God this Christmas than God Himself putting on flesh and coming to walk among us? 

That's the thing. At least, for me, it is. We have all of these stories that are cute and cool and might be nice to think about, but the truth is that 2,000-some years ago, God Himself came in human flesh to dwell among us. He was born as a human child, wrapped in blankets the way that any newborn babe would be, laid in a bed of hay because that's all that was available, and came to walk our streets, eat our food, wash our feet, and redeem our souls. 

Friends, I don't need a cooler Christmas story than that. 

I don't need the neat little stories that, if you haven't caught it by now, are completely made up. They're not real. They're just stories, meant to go viral to get you talking about something else. But the talking point of Christmas is the Christ child. Period. Do you really need God to do anything more than that?  

The Servant

There was another witness in the barn that night. Not only was creation watching as the Lord came down, but so was the lowliest of men - the servant. 

The Bible doesn't tell us about any servants in the stable, but it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to find them. We're talking about an inn in a time when hospitality was a major cultural value. We're talking about a man with enough room to house others, who made his generosity and hospitality a hallmark of his existence. We're talking about a place where high numbers of visitors were prone to come through every year, and a high number of visitors in a time without motorized transportation means a significant number of animals were coming through. 

Remember all of the laws that the Jewish culture had, through the Bible, about protecting someone else's assets and property. About how to take care of your neighbor's ox. About the duty you owe to your neighbor when his animal is loose. The innkeeper knew he would have to provide for the animals that came into his care as much as he provided for the human beings. 

So there had to be at least one servant in the barn that night. Possibly more. 

There had to be someone whose job it was to make sure there was enough hay in the trough, enough grass, enough water. There had to be someone who kept refilling the buckets as they became empty. There had to be someone shoveling away the waste, piling it up in the corner. There had to be someone standing guard, stationing himself at the entrance to the stable so that no predators - wild or human - could come in and so that no animals, entrusted to his care, could wander out. 

There had to be someone...preparing the manger. 

Think about that for a second. 

Mary is crying out in labor pains; Joseph is holding her hand; the animals can't figure out what in the world is going on, so they are making their own noises. Everything is in a ruckus. Everything is all confused. Something is happening, but there's no time to think about anything except what is actively happening right now. 

And quietly, in the corner, a servant is preparing a manger, knowing that when the labor pains are over, the baby will need somewhere to lay. A servant is taking care to make a bed of straw for the Lord of All Creation to rest on. A servant knows that in all the commotion, there are things that Mary and Joseph aren't really thinking about right now. 

But the servant is thinking about them. 

The servant is always thinking about them. 

Bearing Witness

You've heard it said that Jesus is the "second Adam," the recreation of man in the image he was always intended to take. The first of a new order. Something altogether special, on whom the future of all humanity hinges. 

No wonder, then, that He was born in a barn.

Think back for a minute to the first creation, to the first Adam. Start a little bit before that, with the formless and void. 

In the beginning, everything was formless and void. Then, God spoke. And creation filled up. There was light and dark, night and day, mountains and valleys, birds and fish, creatures that roam across the earth, and finally, man. When God bent down into the dirt to form Adam from the dust and breathe into him the breath of life, it was creation - nature, animals, heavens - that were the witnesses. When God breathed out, creation gasped and breathed in. 

Something altogether new was happening. 

Fast forward a few thousand years to a little stable in Bethlehem. 

A few days prior to this moment, that stable was almost empty. There were no travelers; just the regulars passing through, probably. If that. But over the course of just a few days, the place really filled up. The animals of travelers came walking in, being led to their stalls, being fed from the earth. The spiders and mice started scurrying around the floors. The birds came in to nest in the rafters. A veritable zoo was building in that stable - donkeys, camels, sheep, livestock, birds, bees, bugs, rodents. The water was flowing to keep them all watered; the grains were being forked into feeding troughs. All of creation gathered together. 

And then....

And then, a baby. The Lord Himself took His first breath. 

And when He did, creation exhaled. 

Something altogether new was happening. 

Peace on earth. 

The cattle lowed, the donkeys brayed, the birds began to sing, the stars pointed the way, and the heavens sang holy, holy, holy. Healed and whole, for just a moment, in a single breath, with the cry of a new creation, a new Adam. A new Eden. 

Redemption is here. 

Let heaven and nature sing. 

Together

There's something about the Table, isn't there?

So many of the memories that I have with family are wrapped around food in some way, shape, or form. Especially this time of year. Especially when I think about all of the Christmases that I spent as a child running from one house to the next to the next. Seeing all the relatives, sure, but also, eating all the food. 

We would wake up in the morning and go to my grandmother's house, where she always had stockings overflowing with snacks. I'm talking good snacks. Apples, oranges, beef jerky, candies, all the things. I always looked forward to digging through that stocking, which often times was an actual men's extra-long tube sock. 

Then, we'd go to my great-aunt's house, and the smell hit you as soon as you walked in the door. Ham, falling off the bone. Beans (gross, but you could still smell them). Pies. Macaroni and cheese by the panful, one of my great-aunts standing there putting the crumbs on the top, fresh out of the oven. 

We would come home, and there were cookies. There had been cookies for days, honestly. All kinds of them. Sugar, wedding cakes, chocolate chip, chocolate crinkles. 

'Tis the season.

Am I right?

I think a lot of us think about the food when we think about this time of year. But it's not really because the food is something special. There's not really a time of the year when you can't have a ham. Or macaroni and cheese. Or beef jerky. Or cookies. (Did you know you can totally have sugar cookies in June if you want them? You can!) 

No, it's not the food that's special. 

It's something about the way that food is spread, the hands that prepared it, the voices around the table. It's something about the way that food makes us feel like we're home. 

Ah, yes. Home. 

The same is true today, and every day that we partake of this Table. Maybe that's one of the reasons that I love it so much. I walk in the door, and I see the Table set - bread and wine, fellowship, love - and there's something in my soul that just exhales and says, I'm home. 

Home. 

Right where I belong. With all of the folks who love me most. With the smells coming from the kitchen and the table spread thick and the ham and the cookies and the macaroni and cheese. And a tube sock with my name on it, stuff with fruit and beef jerky and all the good things. 

It smells like bread and wine in here, and it gets me every time. 

This is home. 

Lowing Cattle

By the way, if you thought that the first Christmas was somehow as still and silent as the paintings make us think that it was, I have news for you: 

It wasn't. 

We know there was hustle and bustle in the inn, filled to the brim, bedding piled in every conceivable place, guests tripping over each other, families reuniting and trying to share moments together, the luggage getting in the way, folks trickling in from wherever they've spent their days. 

Then, we go down to the barn where a young Joseph and his precious, very-pregnant Mary, are in labor, and we have all these images of a beautiful little manger with the hay all spread out nice and neat, a woman smiling, a baby sleeping peacefully...and I'm telling you, it wasn't like that. 

There was screaming. Mary, in labor, screamed. She took Joseph's hand and squeezed it, and he screamed. That woke up the animals, who started making their own noises, trying to figure out what was going on in their environment. The barnhands would have been close, would have come running. Trying to calm the animals. 

Donkeys braying. Camels spitting. Cows lowing. The song even tells us that cows were lowing. It's almost like it was a barn in there or something. 

It's not, then, that noise itself is a problem at Christmas; the question is really, what are we listening to? 

Can we hear the woman crying in labor? Can we hear the Christ child take His first breath? Can we hear creation - the animals, nature - singing out their song? Can we hear the noise they make when disturbed by the inbreaking? 

Sometimes, I wonder if this is what it was like in the beginning, when the whole of the universe was formless and void until the voice of God broke through. Until the Word spoke.

Until the Son cried out. 

And then, everything woke up. The world came to life. Something new was happening. The hay was scattered, but in a breath, it came together, ordered into the manger, put in place, postcard perfect. 

Ah, yes...postcard perfect. 

Have you ever heard the birds chirping in Eden?

This is what I think we miss out on so easily. We have these images of Christmas as quiet, as still, as...a silent night. But it wasn't silent, just like the Garden wasn't silent; it was abuzz with life, filled with sound. Not noise, but sound. (Do you know the difference?) 

Can you hear it?

It's the sound of a newborn baby crying in a manger...

...and the whole of creation responding in kind.  

Missing Christmas

We all do it - we live our lives, going about our day, and then, we get back home at the end of it all and something strikes us: a moment we totally missed. A word that someone said that we didn't latch onto, a question we should have asked but didn't, an encouragement we should have given but held back. The list goes on and on. We come home with regrets that, honestly, we weren't even aware of in the moment most of the time. Only later does it occur to us what that nagging feeling was, that tug on our hearts, that preoccupation in our minds. Only later do we see what we missed, but by then, it's too late. 

So it is, too, with Christmas. 

Many of us are so busy doing all of the Christmas-related things that we look up sometime in late December, take a deep breath, and realize...we missed it. Again. 

We're shopping and baking and traveling and cooking and wrapping and unwrapping and decorating and singing and dressing up and going to parties and visiting the family and attending church services and donating our time to serve others and driving around to see the lights and having family portraits taken and...and then, it's almost January and we look up and wonder where Christmas went. 

We were so surrounded by all of the accoutrement that we missed the moment, and now, it's gone. Again. 

Whatever happened to a silent night? 

Where was our holy night?

It's one of the things we look most forward to in the Christmas season every year: the stillness. At least, I do. When the darkness settles in a little bit early and the lights come on and there's a twinkle in the air and there's just this quiet that doesn't exist in the rest of the calendar. Maybe it's because unlike the spring and the summer and the fall months, there's no low-grade hum in nature. No chirping of the crickets. No warbles of the birds. No buzzing of the bees. Around Christmas, when all is still, all is really still. 

(Okay, yes, I know it's not, but it feels that way because it's just quieter. Measurably quieter.) 

And yet, so many of us go through the season without any of that quiet in our souls. None of it. We don't get that moment that we've waited all year for, that we prepare for months for. We put up our tree, having that little gnawing in our hearts that knows what it will be like when we finally get to just plug it in and sit down in its glow...but we can't sit down. 

We bake our cookies, thinking about what it will be like to take a long, slow bit of a still-warm sugar fresh out of the oven...but we end up shoving one in our mouth while we're rolling the next batch for the oven. Because there's just no time. 

We wrap our presents, then we pile them under the tree, and what seemed like an empty, inviting space now suddenly feels crowded and is so loaded with anticipation that we mistake it for worry - will they really like it? Do they already have one? We can't wait until Christmas comes and we get to watch someone we love unwrap something that we loved for them. And all of a sudden, that inviting space has filled with this weird sense of pressure....

'Tis the season, isn't it? 

This is the way the world has taught us to do Christmas. So it's no wonder we look up when it's all over, when we finally get our stillness, when all is finally quiet...and realize we missed it again. 

The baby in the manger? Already on His way back to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph.

Shucks. 

A New Eden

The world wants us in the inn, away from home for Christmas, but home is exactly what's happening just a few breaths away in the manger. 

In the basement of that too-full inn, where the animals, too, were packed in tight and sharing some hay and grasses, there comes to us a baby. Jesus. The Messiah. 

Immanuel. 

Do you know what Immanuel means? It means "home." 

Okay, technically, it means "God with us," but in the grand scheme of things, it means home. 

It means home because this is the way that it was meant to be. Remember all the way back in the beginning, there was formless and void. Then, there was darkness and light, earth and water, night and day, mountains and valleys and oceans, birds and creatures, then man...and God. In the beginning, after God formed and filled the earth, He walked with us in the Garden in the cool of the day. Adam and Eve, when they sinned and ate the fig, hid because they heard His footsteps. God cast them out of the Garden, and they no longer walked with Him. 

But that was always the plan. The plan was for us to walk with Him. 

When sin separated us, we no longer walked together. Christmas...changes all of that.

Look at it - here is a baby in a manger, the Son of God, God Himself incarnate. He has a body, a physical body. He has a voice and eyes and ears and feet. He's come to walk with us again. 

In the manger, there is Eden. There is a perfect creation once more, if only for a single, crying breath, and all of a sudden, God is walking with us again, and we with Him, and there is this overwhelming sense of home. Of the way things were meant to be. Of the space that is ours to inhabit. Of things being just the way we like them, the way we function so well. 

We are right where we are supposed to be. 

That's home. 

And if the world can keep you so busy and so overwhelmed and so noised-out and shouted-down in the inn for this season, it knows you'll never make it to the manger and you'll never know what "home" feels like, even when it's right there in the flesh, and when the calendar flips just that one more day, that one small, seemingly insignificant day, and the noise settles down and the inn starts to empty, you will settle - happily - for what you always had: a very small space in this great big world, complete with chores to be done, bills to be paid, miles to be driven, and prayers to be prayed. You'll settle for your cozy bed and your tiny cubicle and your little car, and you'll be happy with it because it will feel so much like the very thing you've been longing for this entire season from the inn. 

But it will still be such a shallow substitute, and in the depths of your soul, you'll know it. You'll know you've missed something, something important. 

Won't you?  

Away from Home

We've said that the world wants you in the inn for Christmas - with all the noise, the hustle and bustle, living out of a suitcase, crammed into a small space with far too many other persons for comfort, unable to really find rest. And it's true - the world wants this for you. 

But what it wants most is simply to keep you away from home. 

That's what being in the inn means. It means you're not at home. Two thousand years ago on that glorious night, the inn wasn't full because everyone was exactly where they wanted to be; the inn was full because so many folks were away from home that the innkeeper was desperate to find space to put them all. 

They had traveled, sometimes fairly long distances, to come back to Bethlehem for the required census, to make themselves present for the ruling authorities. Their feet were dirty; their backs were bent; their bodies were weary. There was barely enough space to stretch out and get a little bit of rest, but with all of the noise, there was no rest. 

They were away from home. 

Have you ever been on vacation? Like, packed yourself up, gone away, stayed somewhere else - a hotel, an air b&b, whatever - lived out of a suitcase, felt like a stranger? Everyone always talks about how refreshing vacations are, but if we're honest, we also say that we need a vacation to recover from our vacation. 

Why is that? Because when the vacation is finally over and we come home, there's something in our soul that just breathes the air in a new way. We think it was the vacation itself that gave us a new way to breathe, but actually, it's coming home. It's coming back to the place where we're settled, where everything is just the way we like it, where our lives function in a way that they just don't when we're living out of a suitcase. Yes, the most refreshing part of vacation is the way it renews for us this place called "home," this place where we actually rest and rejuvenate. 

As long as you're still in the inn, you never feel that. 

That's what the world is really trying to make sure happens. 

It's also why, by the way, we feel such a sense of relief when the Christmas season is finally over - because we get "home" back. We get to clear our space, clear our heads, close our doors, be in our own place, have all the things of our life back around us, stretch out...and rest. The world tries to tell us that we're glad the season is over, but it's not that; we're just happy to be home. (But don't tell the world I told you.) 

Can you feel it? Is this resonating with your heart?

It's not supposed to. Cultural Christmas doesn't want it to. But it really is the true gift of the season.  

Christmas Ham

I'm not really sure where the tradition started, but many of us will have ham around our Table this Christmas. At my house, we start the day with bacon and waffles. 

But the irony is not lost on me. It strikes me every year - and I laugh - at how commonplace it has become to celebrate the birth of our Jewish Savior with pork. 

Unclean!

There would have been neither bacon nor ham around the Table at the Last Supper. These will never become the elements that we pass in the plates or break at the front of the sanctuary. As faithful Jews, the disciples would never have imagined it. Pork? Really? 

Didn't Jesus send that legion of demons into a herd of pigs for a reason?

And yet, here we are, 2,000-some years later, with ham around our Table and bacon in our tummies. 

I laugh, but you know what? I love it. 

I love it because it reminds me that the Table Jesus sets is big enough for all of us. It's bigger than our rules. It's bigger than our regulations. It's bigger than our preferences. It's bigger than the Law. 

It's grace-big. 

It's mercy-big.

It's welcome-big.

It's love-big. 

And I love that. 

I love it because it means we don't have to be kosher - we don't have to get everything exactly right. We don't have to follow a bunch of strict rules. We don't have to have our lives perfect. We don't have to severely restrict and limit ourselves. 

We are free to be who we are, who God created us to be, who He wants us to be, who He needs us to be...who this world needs us to be. 

Every year, when we eat pork on Christmas, I think about the ways that Jesus - Immanuel - set us free for such even as this, to bring bacon to the manger and munch on ham while beholding our Jewish Savior. 

That is what Christ has done. 

In the Inn

If it feels, then, like you're spending this season of Advent in the inn, you're not alone. 

Away from home, a few things packed, living out of a suitcase, surrounded by other folks who have also traveled far from home with a few things packed, living out of a suitcase, bumping through the hallways, trying to get where you're going around all the other folks who are in your way while trying not to be in their way, candles burning all times of the night, music playing, impossible to escape the noise...

This is Christmas. 

In the inn. 

This is what it's like when there's always somewhere to be, something to do, someone to meet up with. When there is always some sort of stimulus around you, no peace and quiet, no room. 

Do you know what it meant to have no room at the inn? It meant there was not another single space in the entire building to stick someone else. It didn't mean that all of the 40x60 rooms with big, queen beds were reserved by nice couples and families with children who had paid months in advance and were probably only using half of that space, but it was theirs anyway; it meant there was not another single place to lay another single cot for another single person to squeeze into the inn for the night. 

So if you're thinking, sure, but when the Jews were done with the census, at least they could go back to the hotel and relax, think again. There wasn't space at the inn even for the persons that were staying there. There was room, but there wasn't space. 

That's what the culture does to Christmas. 

The culture keeps you away from home, unsettled, in a place where there's room, but no space, so you're constantly bumping into something or someone, always somewhere to be, something else to do. There is no refuge from the noise, from the lights, from the smells (WHY does the world think Christmas smells like cinnamon?). There's something about this season that always seems to keep us from being able to put two feet down at the same time or stretch out our arms a little bit. We curl up to sleep like we used to sleep under the Christmas tree as kids, but now, we're curling up just because we're exhausted and an actual bed seems like a luxury...like a space we don't have. 

I won't say the world has planned to do it this way; it's just sort of happened. Over the years, as we've put more and more emphasis on the season, as we've taken away the waiting and the anticipation, as we have excessively Christmased ourselves out, we have simply...moved into the inn. 

Many of us have forgotten there even is a manger. 

This year, it's time we take back our Christmas - our real Christmas. 

Let's move back out to the barn. 

Christmased Out

In a world in which we don't have to wait for Christmas (it starts all the way back in August, when the stores start putting up the trees) and where we don't have to live in anticipation (having enough to do to keep us busy throughout the whole season), by the time Christmas morning actually gets here, most of us are already Christmased out. 

We're done. We're tired. We're over it. We're glad that the season has finally ended and we can start packing things away and get a little breather before the new year starts. 

Think about it: how many holiday parties will you have this season? How many times will you watch Elf or National Lampoon's with your family? How many days in a row will you move a supposedly-magical elf from place to place around your house? How many creative backstories and how much full-scale scenery will you create for said elf? How many houses will you visit? How many cookies will you bake? How many will you eat? How many times will you make "one more" trip to the store for "one more" last-minute thing? 

How many Advent calendar boxes will you open, and partake of whatever activities might be inside - jigsaw puzzles, cheeses, coloring pages, candles to light? How many presents will you wrap? Unwrap? How many bags of trash will you take out? How much ham will you pull off the bone, and how many pots of macaroni & cheese will feed your clan? How many Christmas services will you attend, at how many churches? How many candles will you burn...and how many are you burning at both ends?

And...are you exhausted yet?

This is what the Christmas season does to us. It's no wonder we're so happy when it's all just over. 

The thing is, Christmas for us ends on Christmas day. It ends in the hustle and bustle of the inn to the point that most of us don't even remember there's a baby crying in the manger. We are so busy with the noise of our own celebrations that we don't hear Him. We are so blinded by the lights of all of the decorations that we couldn't see the star guiding the way even if we remembered to go outside and look up, even if we had the time. 

There's something about going to the big box store down the road and seeing the garden center filling up with hoses and weedeaters again that makes something inside of us just exhale and say, "Thank God." 

Thank God, indeed, but did you remember to?

For Christians for many years, Christmas Day was not the end; it was the beginning. It was the beginning of a new adventure with God with us - Immanuel. It was the beginning of a new covenant. It was the beginning of a fulfilled hope. It was the beginning of the promise come to life. On Christmas morning, Christians have always exhaled and said, "It's beginning. Thank God."

That is, until culture got hold of it. 

That's why the waiting, the anticipation is so important. That's why setting our eyes on the manger early is so important. That's why it's the key to all of this - learning to wait, learning to anticipate. So that when we get to Christmas morning, we're not already Christmased out. We're not too exhausted and over it and done to hear the baby crying in the manger. To remember what all of this is about. 

The day is coming, friends, not when this will finally be over, but when we will remember it is begun. 

Thank God. 

Anticipation

As we enter into the Advent season, we're talking about waiting - something that our culture doesn't really teach us any more. And one of the reasons that we're so poor at waiting is because we don't know how to live with a sense of anticipation. 

Anticipation is a building excitement for what is coming. It's dwelling in the unknown and enjoying the imagination of what might be. 

We don't have to do that. 

We have trailers for movies, spoilers for TV shows, pre-release versions of songs. The ads for Black Friday, as I said yesterday, started coming out in September. Companies drop new products like they're hot, but they drop them when they're ready to launch. Heaven forbid anyone say, "Coming soon" and not mean like, in the next week. But fear not because someone with insider knowledge will publish an entire full-color, ridiculous-length spec on whatever it is long before we can get our hands on it. Product testers will "leak" (on purpose, since that's what they're paid to do) their opinions of things. 

We always know before we think we're supposed to know, but honestly, even that is part of the plan. The whole world wants to make us feel like insiders to something that's still a little far off by putting it in our hands before they told us they would and then, wow. What a world we live in. 

No building excitement. No dwelling in the unknown. No imagination required. 

No wonder we struggle for Advent. 

We are celebrating Christmas all month long. As soon as the clock strikes midnight after Thanksgiving, the radio stations all flip over to their Christmas mix. Restaurants are serving egg nog and candy cane and peppermint flavors. Sugar cookies abound. There are decorations and lights and presents. And parties. Everything you could ever want. 

I remember when I was a kid (which was longer ago than most persons think, but not all that long ago in the grand scheme of time) and Christmas was Christmas. You didn't get three or four family parties leading up to the big day; you hit everyone's house on Christmas. Sometimes, Christmas Eve. You couldn't stalk your wish list and know what you were getting; it was a surprise. There was not buildup of gifts - on day three, you get a book; on day four, you get a snack; on day five, you get pajamas. None of that. There was simply Christmas. 

You circled it on the calendar and counted down the days and that was the only day you got. Christmas was a single event. 

I don't even know what this generation does with Advent calendars - count down the days with some new little something every day to whet your appetite. 

Because we can't stand having to wait. We don't know how to embrace anticipation. We have entitled ourselves to not have to build our excitement; this generation says they are either excited or they aren't. We don't have to dwell in the unknown, and we don't have to use our imaginations. 

There is nothing more magical than the Christmas imagination of the holiday movies 30-40 years ago. The North Pole in The Santa Clause? Magical. Just look at how that north pole changed even throughout that franchise - it became more mechanical, more dull, more blah. Something lost its magic. 

Because we lost our sense of anticipation. Christmas itself became mechanized instead of wondrous. 

Advent is a time when we become intentional about getting that wonder back. And wonder...begins in anticipation. 

Waiting

We are entering again into the holy season of Advent, and I think that a large part of Christianity misses out on what this season means. With the growing number of non-denominational churches and churches outside of the deeply liturgical denominations, there's a certain sense of only a partial understanding of the season. And with a culture around us that barely lives the breath it has before it's two or three breaths down the road, a season like Advent seems...let's say "quaint." 

That's being polite. 

See, Advent is a season of waiting, and our world has taught us that we don't have to wait. 

This past week is a prime example of that. Remember when you didn't know what was going to be on sale for Black Friday until two days prior, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving? You couldn't even start your shopping until some poor soul unlocked the doors on Friday morning and got trampled to death by shoppers losing their minds over a good buy. 

Today, "Black Friday" sales start right at the beginning of the month, you can sneak-peek the ads as early as September in some cases, and you don't even have to go to a physical store to get a good deal; it's on the other end of a click of a button at your greatest convenience. 

Because why should you have to wait for $10 pajamas? 

Why should you have to wait for anything? 

Our world is filled with the instantaneous - the microwave, the world wide web, the streaming services, the on-demand content, Spotify, internet shopping, the list goes on and on. And listen, I'm not immune to this. I will start the microwave for thirty seconds and stop it with three seconds left to go because that has to be long enough. I live in the same world that you do. 

But this world has made us lose our sense of waiting. We have no patience for anything. 

A few weeks ago, I noticed an item that I might like to have. It was a bit pricey for my tastes ($50), and someone who loves me lovingly told me to go ahead and buy it - I have money. But that was not the point. I figured that if I waited, the price would probably go down, and honestly, it wasn't an item I needed (still don't need it), so why does it bother someone else if I decide to wait and price-watch for a little bit? But the world we live in has told this other person, buy it now. 

There's even a button for that. 

So we come to Advent, and it is a season of waiting. A stretch of weeks leading up to what we, this side of the Incarnation, already know is coming It's been coming since August when the big box stores put up the first Christmas trees. And we don't know what we're supposed to do with ourselves. We don't know how to wait. 

Most of this generation has simply never had to. 

But I...love the quiet space of the waiting. 

Welcome to Advent. Let's talk about it.