Innkeepers and Guest Rooms

This afternoon, my sister and I left my mother's house.  We spent a large part of "Boxing Day", December 26th, visiting, talking, laughing, eating and getting into various mishaps.  While at mother's, I stayed in one of her guest rooms, the one in which Hubster and I (or, in this case, just I) always stay.  Ironically, it was never my bedroom as a child but was instead my brother's and then later, my sister's.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7 (KJV)

We had a very merry Christmas.  I had wanted to blog on Luke 2:7 yesterday, but got off my trajectory due to all the family celebration.  Late last night, after everyone had gone to bed I watched a couple of Christmas videos on YouTube.  One was by Nabeel Qureshi, who made the point that "the inn" was actually likely not an inn at all, but was instead the home of a relative.  The Greek word Luke used was only used by one other person, Jesus, in the New Testament.  In those other two occasions (Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11) where the word is used, it κατάλυμα (kataluma) was translated "guest chambers" or "guest room."  So, in actuality, a more accurate rendering of the story would be like:  "Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem for the census and had planned to stay with relatives, but all the guest rooms were taken.  The only place available was the stable, which is where they ended up, and where Jesus was born."

One thing of which I'm sure - - - there is no part of the Bible IN the Bible by accident.  What does it matter whether it was stranger (an innkeeper) or a relative who had no room for the little family? Why is this detail even important?  It is one thing for a merchant to tell you that there is "no vacancy" or that the last faddish toy of the season has been sold.  It is another to be treated shabbily by family members.

At a Christmas Eve party I was listening to friends discuss sleeping arrangements for that night and the next few.  The three adult children and their children were on the way.  There was never any talk of putting anyone into the "unfinished basement" or "the garage".  (They had no stable.) . I guarantee you that the homeowners would have given up their own bedroom before that occurred!

Yet, here we have this very, very pregnant, first-time about-to-be mother, a frightened teenager, and her slightly less young, probably bewildered husband, who were relegated to the family's stable for the night.

How do most decent people treat guests?  We warmly welcome them and give to them our best, right?  The guest room is usually pristine and clean, smells good and is very comfortable.  We want our guests to feel valued and respected.  Even...loved!

It was a not-so-warm welcome from the family of man to the Savior, wasn't it?  Not a lot of hospitality from the very ones He created and then became one of, in order to save.

My little friend, Wyatt, made this ornament in his Christian school, shortly before Christmas.  The message is so important as we wind down from Christmas and head into the new year.  Quite a while back I heard a preacher say that if Jesus is not Lord OF all, then He is not Lord AT all.  What that preacher meant was that Jesus doesn't want to reside merely in a guest room of our spiritual house, but that he wants to permeate all the rooms of our "house".  While that is true, I dislike the statement he made because it sets up an almost impossible standard, especially for those who are considering following Jesus, who are contemplating inviting Him in.  It is a warning that nearly says, "you must be perfect to become a Christian or to follow Christ."  Some will respond, "Well, just forget it then!" Most of us have a drawer or closet in their "house" they would prefer Jesus just keep His nose out of, thank you very much!  We adore the concept of total Lordship, although the consistent practice of it is quite a challenge.

I'm more concerned about those who refuse to let Jesus into their houses at all, those who are like the relatives in Luke 2:7, sending the "infant holy" to the stable.  If we welcome Him into our "guest room", then follow Him by giving Him our best, He then leads us into deeper devotion to Him.  He gently shows us how to let Him become Lord of all our house.  The most urgent question, the one which must be answered first, is this:  "Is there room for Him AT all?"

Innkeepers, I hope each one of you has answered or will answer "yes".

The Fix Is In

Today I learned that one of my beloved ones received some disheartening news.  He is discouraged about it.  I wish that I could "fix things" for him in this situation.  It hurts my heart to see him suffer, even though some of it is of his own making.  Especially since that is the case...

When I was a child my daddy would sometimes get a "switch" (a small tree branch for you uninitiated out there) and give me "a switchin'".  I never wanted it, always deserved it (being quite the headstrong child) and still remember it, all these days later.  The sting of the switch was short-lived, but there is one thing about those occasions that lives on in my memory.  My daddy would almost always say, "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you."

I never believed him then.  In fact, it made me mad, because I thought it a ridiculous statement!  But, as a parent now, I truly understand.  It hurt him to see me suffer, even in that small way.  It hurt his heart more than the sting of the hickory switch hurt my little, scrawny legs.

When Adam and Eve so horribly messed things up for all mankind in the Garden of Eden, don't you know it hurt God's heart terribly, even though He knew they were going to do it?  And, don't you know that He said to Himself, "One of these days I'm gonna fix that."  In fact, He proclaimed that He would, as early as Genesis 3:15.

Many, at Christmas, find the seasonal celebrations unbearable because they have been separated from loved ones.  Sometimes a loved one has died, for instance.  When man sinned, a horrible breach occurred between God and man.  The pain we feel when separated from a loved one is only a taste of the pain God felt when our sin destroyed the fellowship He had formerly enjoyed with mankind.  Oh how He must have grieved that loss...after all, our race was created for fellowship with Him.   And, we had so broken, so blemished that relationship.  Not even "a switchin' " could fix it.

When it was time for Jesus to be born, do you think God may have said something like, "Finally, the time is now right for the ultimate, total solution to be given!"  All those centuries between Eden and Bethlehem, God interacted with mankind in various ways, knowing that only one way could fully reconcile all mankind to Him.  Jesus' birth was the commencement, in our time-bound world, of that eternal plan.

I watched a good, but weird, movie today.  A friends of many decades and I get together every now and then for a meal.  Today, it was a movie and a meal.  Anyway, the movie was weird in that there were aliens (weirdness assured when aliens are involved).  Beyond that, though, there was an aspect of the movie in which Time was fluid.  Time was not the linear, orderly, irrevocable thing to which we are accustomed, to which we are bound in this earthly life.

God is not bound by Time.  For God - - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - - the "fix was in" before creation occurred.  Before Time was created, God had decided "I'm gonna fix that."  At Advent, we celebrate The Fix that came, as we anticipate each year the birth of our Savior, Christ, the Lord.  I'm so glad He came and made things right.

4But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

Galatians 4:4-6 KJV

Hallelujah!  The "fix" is in!

God's Sister

Well, good afternoon!  I had to take a brief hiatus, in order to create a 25-page document for a friend. That intense and time-intensive project used up all of my writing mojo!

Do you have a sibling?  I have two.  When I became pregnant with our first child, I knew immediately I desired to have at least one more.  My husband and I became parents late in life.  I didn't want an only child to have the additional burden of being "alone" in this world at an early age, should God desire to take my husband and me on home to glory.  God graciously blessed with two sons, and now each has the other to call "brother".

There have been times when they have wanted to cheerfully kill each other!  Well, you can't choose every member of your biological family... Hopefully, in the end, they will love and support each other, if they allow the Holy Spirit to rule and reign in their lives; such is my daily prayer.

In our Hebrews passage today, Jesus Christ is called the "brother" of those who belong to Him. Doesn't that add an interesting dimension to our relationship with our God and Savior, Jesus Christ?

Consider these verses from chapter 2, especially verse 12, and let's look a little more deeply at what this term "brother" means.  The three Old Testament quotations in today's passage correspond to the Father's proclamation of Jesus' divine Sonship in 1:5-14.  Hebrews 2:12, in particular, corresponds to Hebrews 1:5.

10For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.^b That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,^c 12saying,

“I will tell of your name to my brothers;

in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

13And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”

And again,

“Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

"Children of God" is perhaps easier for us to grasp, and we'll most likely look at that verse tomorrow.  But, brother?  Here is what Bruce had to say in his commentary:

The quote in verse 12 is from Psalm 22:22, a psalm which early Christians all attributed to Jesus Christ as speaker.  Why?  Because he quoted from the earlier part of Psalm 22 on the cross.  So, it logically follows that Jesus would be the prophecy fulfillment, the speaker, in the second part of the psalm also.
"And since those who are sanctified to God through his death are sons and daughters of God, the Son of God is not ashamed to acknowledge them as his brothers and sisters - - not only as those whose nature he took upon himself, but those whose trials he endured, for whose sins he made atonement, that they might follow him to glory on the path of salvation which he himself cut."

I want to put down a comment here from Cockerill, concerning the "For it was fitting...." aspect of verse 10.  Cockerill says it so beautifully!
Christ's suffering was neither a logical necessity forced upon God, nor a mere decision of his will, but an appropriate expression of the divine character.  Thus his incarnate suffering was integral to the Son's person as the ultimate revelation of God's nature."

Had Jesus Christ not assumed the flesh and blood of humanity, He would have been unable to redeem it!  Unlike us, His brothers and sisters, who are being changed by His Holy Spirit who lives within us, Jesus Christ did not go through a period of "moral development".  Instead, He assumed the human nature and lived a life of perfect and complete obedience, even under the worst kind of suffering and, ultimately, the most torturous death.   Praise His Name forever!

By confessing His brotherhood with us, His people, He thereby extends an invitation for us to rest in and to enjoy that filial relationship with God which has been made available for us by our Brother, the Pioneer.

Dear Triune God, Your magnificence is past comprehension!  You have made me Your daughter, and Your sister.  I just can't even begin to fathom that.  But, I thank you with all my heart for choosing me and for allowing me to choose you.  I look forward to an eternity of exploring more fully what that means.  In Jesus' name, amen. 

Sources:

Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1990. Kindle edition.
Cockerill, Gareth Lee. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2012. Kindle edition.

Frankensteinian Spirituality

You may be familiar with a fictional novel, Frankenstein, written in the early 1800s, by a young Englishwoman, Mary Shelley.  It was a short work of gothic horror and science fiction, one of the earliest, and has become an American classic1.  The story is of a young scientist, who is able to create a "living" man from the various parts of other dead humans - - - a brain here, a torso there, you get the picture.  Grotesque, isn't it?

The modern day parallel is the immensely popular television series, The Walking Dead.  Man has for centuries been fascinated with bringing the dead to life again, and has tried many different approaches to make this happen.  I'll spare you the gory historical and deeply-buried (if you'll pardon the heinous pun) details.

Since death is our enemy, we try to slay it in our own power.  And, especially in the realm of the spiritual, again, the results of such misguided attempts are grotesque.

1And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Ephesians 2:1-3 (NET)

Here, Paul describes what it is like to be spiritually dead, by using the analogy of physical death, something every human comes to understand, sooner or later.  Let's decompose it (sorry...my macabre humor is out of control).

• First of all, what killed the spirit of man?  Answer: trespasses and sins.  "Trespasses" or "transgressions" in some passages, means to "wander off the path" or "fall off the wagon". "Sins" is a word Paul uses in the general sense to mean "falling short of God's standard" or "missing the mark" (Benson)2  We are told in Romans 6:23 that the consequences of sin is spiritual death.
• Second, what does spiritual death mean?  It means that the human, although physically alive, is living under the control and rule of the evil one and/or his minions/demons.  Now, I predict that, at this point, some of you are going to "bow up", raise your hackles, and disagree with that last statement.  The Bible is plain, however.  Each person alive today is either serving and following Satan, OR he/she is serving and following Father God, Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit.  There's no other option given or allowed.  Serving the former leads to eternal spiritual death, the experiencing of God's wrath; serving the latter leads to an eternity of life and joy.
• Third, what does this "walking in death" look like?  It is demonstrated by a life disobedient to the ways of God, habitually, as one's custom, indulging the desires of the body and a dead, corrupted mind.  It is evidenced by rebellion, going one's own way, by a careless disregard or disdain for "the Way, the Truth, the Life", Jesus Christ.  Look how The Message version described that old, stagnant life-walk of spiritual death.  "You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.  We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, whenever we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat." 

Pretty damning, isn't it?

So damning that most people will not accept this truth, even though acknowledging it is a foundational prerequisite for becoming spiritually alive.  How can one be made alive, if he or she will not even accept that he or she is dead?!  It is impossible, just as impossible as it is for a person to make him or herself spiritually alive.

Oh, but we try.  We make our spirits Frankensteinian!  (I'm told that adjective is not a word; but, I'm ignoring....)  We put on masks to hide the depths of our sin and despair.  We use techniques like "self-improvement" or "social justice" or "charity" or "service leagues" - - - and we make of ourselves spiritually-dead zombies.  None of the "good works" mentioned are bad things, unless they are used in attempts to "raise the dead" soul. Properly used, these things are OUTWORKINGS from an alive spirit; they flow out of the abundance of the transformed, Christ-follower!  Look....

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away.  Behold!  All things have become new!"

2 Cor. 5:17 (NKJV)

In the original King James version, the word "creation" is "creature" - - a beautiful, new, alive creature, not a cobbled-together horror show.  Only the true, living Savior, Jesus Christ, can bring the dead spirit to life.  Only He can make this transformation. (John 14:6)

Lay down your bone saw and scalpels, Dr. Frankenstein, and open your arms to the Living One, the only One who gives eternal life!

Dear Father, I was bemused to see when I googled the word "Therefore", the first word in 2 Cor. 5:17, that verse immediately popped up.  Probably, it is the most important "therefore" in the entire Bible.  I praise You, the only One who can raise the dead, the only One who can give life eternal.  I thank You for giving it to me, and I pray for those reading this who may have seen themselves in a Frankensteinian state and who long to be re-born, made new, re-created, made alive by Your almighty hand.  I pray that they will put their hand in your outstretched hand today, Lord.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Sources:

1  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein

2  http://biblehub.com/commentaries/ephesians/2-1.htm

Mercy Me!

{No pic today; laptop has crashed; same reason today's post is late. :( }

The more I study about God the more I realize He is foreign to me.  I make that statement, fully realizing how asinine it sounds.

What do you think it means, that man is made in God's "image"?  I don't think any of us truly know, except that the general consensus is that, because man was created an eternal spirit, this is the point of convergence, the point of similarity - - - how we have God's "image".

I wonder sometimes how different Adam and Eve were from the rest of us, before The Fall.  What must it have been like to live as a human, in a sinless state, before the ultimate act of rebellion, of disobedience, which resulted in the eating of the forbidden fruit!  To live for hundreds of years with a sin nature, after having formerly existed in human form "without sin"!  Perhaps mankind most closely resembled God at that point, for that incredibly short window of time.

Today's topic is God's mercy and the text is Psalm 136, if you want to go ahead and turn there.  I'm not going to reproduce the verses here.  We have finished Romans, but I was just not hungry for more of Paul's writings this morning.  Our next foray will be into the book Ephesians, followed by Philippians, Colossians and 2nd Colossians (also known as Philemon).  But not yet.

Think about this.  Had Adam and Eve not sinned, could we know of God's mercy?

In their short-lived sinless states, Adam and Eve had no need for the mercy of God.  Mercy, you see, is all about God withholding the judgment that we deserve because of our sinfulness, that sin nature we inherited from Adam and Eve.

Southerners have an exclamation that goes, "Lord, have mercy!"  It is usually used by one human to express dismay over the antics of another.  The exclamation is a plea for God not to strike the other person down for his or her foolish behavior.

Although we want God to be merciful humans are not generally concerned with extending mercy to others.  The Assyrian Empire, which was the dominant world power for approximately 1900 years was a brutal, merciless regime.  They were not interested in melding their culture with that of conquered peoples; they simply mowed them down.  Merciful they were not.

In the Old Testament, the two Hebrew words that occur most often as English translations to "mercy" are "has-dow" and "hes-ed".  These are also often translated "lovingkindness".  According to the Englishman's Concordance the first term occurs 58 times in the Old Testament, and of those, 26, nearly half, occur in Psalm 136, our text for today.  ("Hes-ed", according to the same source, occurs 66 times.).

There's a principle in scriptural interpretation called "the law of first mention".  In other words, how is a word used when it is first mentioned in the Bible?  We first see the word "mercy" in Genesis 19:16, where the angelic beings God had sent to Lot in Sodom took hold of the hands of him and his family, transporting them outside of the city.  In so doing, Lot's family was delivered from horrific judgment; they were spared.  "Mercy", then, is a "compassionate act of love which spares the loved one from judgment/punishment/disaster/destruction".

Now then.  Let's look at Psalm 136.

The repeated refrain in this song is as follows (various translations of same Hebrew text):

• For His lovingkindness is everlasting (NASB)
• His love endures forever (NIV)
• His steadfast love endures forever (ESV)
• His loyal love endures (NET)
• His mercy endureth forever (KJV)
• His love never quits (MSG)

Interesting, isn't it?  One commentator I read today made the observation that these translations which translate "mercy" as "love" lose something in translation, most notably the connotation of deliverance from earned consequences.

At any rate, the psalmist is praising God for ....what?  His generic love?  No.  The psalmist is praising God for His mercy which over and over again delivered His people from almost-certain horror.  With a strong hand and an out-stretched arm, The Supreme, Matchless Creator, who formed the universe in perfection, snatched His beloved people from the brink of disaster.  Following is a list of the events the psalmist is most thankful for in this song:

• (Vs. 10) He delivered the firstborn children of Israel even as He killed the firstborn of every Egyptian family, in order to deliver the Israelites from the slavery of the Egyptians.
• (Vs.13-15). He parted the Red Sea, allowed the Israelites to walk over on dry land, and destroyed Pharaoh's army.
• (Vs. 16) He sustained His people during their wilderness wanderings. 
• (Vs. 17). He destroyed great kings on behalf of His people.
• (Vs. 21-22). He gave the Israelites The Promised Land as their heritage forever. 
• (Vs. 23). And this is prophetic - - - He "remembered  their low estate".

How could that be prophetic, you ask?  Do you remember Mary's Magnificat, in the book of Luke?
Let's revisit it again.  Luke 1:48 KJV

For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

When God so loved the world, when He "John 3:16ed", He made His ultimate act of mercy.  He regarded humankind's "low estate", and in His mercy, He stretched out his arm to put on flesh, like putting on a coat; and then, about 33 earth-years later He stretched out both His arms, to be nailed to a Roman cross.  This God, who knows and has ever known the end from the beginning, His changeless character overflows with mercy.

O give thanks unto the God of heaven: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Psalm 136:26 KJV

Dear Father, thank you for extending mercy to us, your fallen creation.  Our sin is a gulf only You could cross, a blot only You could wash clean.  I'm so grateful to be the recipient of such mercy, which is an unalterable part of your perfect character.  And so, Your mercy endures forever.  That's certainly worth singing praises about!  In Jesus' name, amen. 

My God Who Chases

I remember playing tag as a child.  On summer nights, at community or church gatherings, we children would burst out of the adult conclave and run with the fireflies.  How wonderful it felt to be chased, joyful screams of laughter bursting out of us when caught!

If you ever went to church as a child, you most likely heard the story of "Jonah and the Whale". You may have even worked on a coloring page about it, as this is a mainstay of children's Sunday School. On the face of things, it seems like just one more fantastical tale.  However, I believe it was chosen for inclusion in the Old Testament (Jonah 1:1 - 3:5) for the purpose of teaching us rich lessons.
Here are facts:

1.  Nineveh was a huge, rich, wicked city, the capital of the barbaric Assyrian Empire.  (Think Las Vegas, for example.)
2.  God instructed Jonah to go preach to Nineveh's inhabitants a message of repentance:  "Repent or be destroyed".
3.  Jonah refused to obey God.  Didn't like the message; wanted none of it...
4.  Jonah ran from God in an effort to escape this assignment.
5.  God chased Jonah, using a mighty storm and a huge fish for his purposes.
6.  Jonah (many believe) died in the belly of the whale.  Regardless, he was there for 3 days and 3 nights.
7.  The fish, heartily sick to its stomach, spewed Jonah out onto the seashore, alive.
8.  God re-issued the assignment to Jonah.
9.  Jonah obeyed.
10.  Nineveh repented.

That is not the end of Jonah's story, but we'll stop with the above facts for today's post.
Now, so what?  What does this have to do with Advent, after all?

Jonah was a real man, but he represents so much more!  I find myself resembling him way too much for my own liking.  Have you ever said, "No!" to God?  I have, on many occasions.  Essentially, any time we choose to act out, we are saying, "no" to God.  There are reasons we do this.  I don't need to list them here, because you know them.  Just like me, you've thought them or done them.

Imagine you are able to go back in time to Bethlehem and have the privilege of approaching the stable to kneel at the manger.  Can you picture it?  Can you see yourself?  What are you wearing? Are your clothes spotless?  Is your body clean?  Do you smell good?  At Advent, this is something we do: in our hearts, we approach the Manger, to worship the King.  And, this is good and right.  Many times, though, as we come to worship, we have manure on our shoes, and our pits stink.  There are food droppings on our chest from where we've been careless in our eating.  Our hair is tangled or our beards are nasty. There is crud under our nails.

The latter is a picture of our sin, our personal running from God.  It dirties us up so that, when we approach His presence, we are soiled, stained, ruined, in need of salvation, in desperate need of grace.

Ann Voskamp points out that repentance "is the only way to be ushered into grace."

Repentance means literally "to turn around and go in the opposite direction".  In Jonah's case, it meant to cease from running from God, then turning around and going toward Nineveh.  In our situations, it means to come to a full stop, turn around and move toward the God who chases, seeking His will in our lives.  When we move toward Him, our hands cannot bring our beloved sins with us. No, in our turning, we must lay them down and leave them behind.  Only cleansed, covered by His grace can we truly bow at His feet in worship.

Jonah not only represents us.  He also pre-figures, foreshadows Christ.  We read Jesus' own words in Matthew 12:40 - - 

"For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish (Greek: κήτους ) three days and three nights,

so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights."

It is because of these words of the Lord that many Bible scholars believe that Jonah drowned before being swallowed up by the great fish, and that after being dead for 3 days, God resurrected him.  I will not debate this point; I merely offer it for your consideration.

Whether at Advent or not, we often find ourselves drowning in life's stormy waters.  We cry out, "I can't handle this!"  So true.  We can't.  But God can.  No storm of life can submerge me beyond where His goodness, mercy and grace can resurrect me!

I am so glad that God chased after Jonah.  I am so glad He passionately chases after you and me.  He does so ... not only that we may carry out His perfect plans, but to rescue us, to wash and restore us, to resurrect and bring us out onto dry land.

It's right there in Psalm 23:6 (The Message) - -

Your beauty and love chase after me, every day of my life.

False gods expect us to perform, to measure up.  Our God comes down to us, in the form of a Baby, and He chases and chases and chases us.  The Hebrew word for "chase" in verse 6 is "radaph", which means "to pursue", "to hunt down".  My God, the Lover of My Soul, never gives up on me.  He chases me to repentance, pursues me with His love and grace.

Stop pursuing your image of "a better life".  Recognize that the Author of Abundant Life is pursuing you.  Stop running.  Allow yourself to be caught today.

If you have time, you will be so blessed by watching this adaptation of Francis Thompson's classic poem, "The Hound of Heaven".

Here is a link to the poem:
http://www.bartleby.com/236/239.html

And here is the wonderful video adaptation:
https://vimeo.com/89705938


Additional Sources:

Voskamp, Ann. The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas. 

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/08/when-you-are-finding-it-hard-to-keep-up-chased-by-grace/

Sledgehammer Seasons

Today’s post comes to you from the interior of my car.  No, I am not typing and driving, though some of you would not put it past me.  Hubster is at the helm, and we are traveling to the funeral of one of his long-time friends, a dear one he has known for over 45 years.  A dear one who now rests in the arms of his Savior.  And to Jim’s friends and family today feels like a sledgehammer day.

What is a miracle?  Some would say that it is some grandiose event that causes people to gasp in amazement at the sheer goodness of it.  These are flagrant, outrageous miracles.  Some miracles ARE like that…stupefying.  Often, a miracle is defined as God doing what we want Him to do in a situation that threatens to beat us into the ground, leaving us lying there, a bloody mess.

The greatest majority of miracles, though, go unrecognized, unseen.  Ann Voskamp reminds us of Naomi as an example of a sister who had been so hammered by the heart-rending events of her life, she was blind to the miracle unfolding around her.   I can’t self-righteously condemn Naomi because I have reacted the same way to adversity, haven’t you?   Been so wracked with pain that I could not see God’s hand of redemption, could not see how He was using my situation for His glory, could not see how He would ever, ever restore what had been lost?

The other night I watched the autobiographical movie, produced by Dolly Parton, called Coat of Many Colors.  There was a Naomi story, for sure.  Dolly was about 8 when her mother became pregnant with her 9^th child. (I may be misremembering the numbers...) She and her husband had been very fertile, and Mrs. Parton had birthed a new baby just about every year for several years.  Still, the family was very excited about the new baby on the way.  Mrs. Parton had told Dolly this baby would be “hers” to help raise.  They had guessed he would be a boy, and they had named him “Larry”.  God, in His sovereignty, chose to call Larry home, before he could fully develop.  Larry died shortly after birth.  What a sledgehammer moment!  In addition to that, the Partons were, as Dolly’s daddy described it, “the second poorest family in Sevier County”.  But, the truth which dragged Dolly’s mother down the most was the knowledge that her beloved husband was not a believer in Jesus Christ.  All of these circumstances conspired to throw her into a deep depression and to rip apart her relationship with her husband and family.

When she began to emerge from this, she took the baby blanket she had made for Larry, ripped and rearranged it, and made a “coat of many colors”, a patchwork coat, for Dolly.  Such a beautiful picture of how God takes the most broken pieces and weaves them into something new and spectacular.  Dolly had her own Naomi road to walk, as she grieved for her baby brother.  It took her a long time to see God’s hand at work.  What Satan meant for evil, God transformed for good.  Mrs. Parton’s gifted daughter went on to become the songbird God had created her to be, one who has inspired millions.

God delights in doing His greatest works with the least “resources”.  I’m reminded of that verse, “He has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the mighty.”

For many, the “holiday season” is particularly brutal; the hammer hits particularly hard.  JOY is abundant, swirling around the broken like a suffocating mist.

 It is in our own personal weaknesses that we must look for His miraculous power.  He has not left or abandoned us in those Naomi times.  Just as Advent is the promise of His coming, just as He brought Great Light to a hopeless people, those “who walked in darkness”, He is busy, doing His impossible, perfect work.  Ann says, “Brilliant people don’t deny the dark; they are the ones who never stop looking for His light in everything.”  I don’t think she means “brilliant” in the sense of “extremely smart”.  I think she is referring to those who are so radiantly filled with Jesus, the Light of Life, that they shine brilliantly, resplendently, exploding with God’s Spirit, the Divine Sledgehammer who is able to break all darkness into pieces.

Father, I love the story of Ruth, Naomi, Boaz, Obed, Jesse and David.  Out of one woman’s greatest loss, your blessings came rolling on, like a tsunami wave.  And now, she is known not as Naomi the Bitter, but as Naomi the Blessed, Naomi the Great-Great-Grandmother of David, the greatest king the Hebrews had known, the one who was only eclipsed in glory by his descendant, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  What redemption!  What restoration!  What glory! May His blessed name be forever praised, amen.

Source:

Voskamp, Ann. The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas. 

Hope Rope

I wonder who decreed that the colors of Christmas should be red and green: red, the color of blood and often of death, green the color of life and growth?  Somehow, I don’t think the designation of these was any accident.

In Matthew 1:5, we see the name Rahab, and we read that she was the mother of Boaz, and mother-in-law of Ruth.  Looking further down the list, we see that she was the great great-grandmother of King David, that her blood was in the ancestral line of Jesus Christ, our Messiah.  But, just who was Rahab?

Her story is recorded in Joshua 2.  Wow, it is an amazing one!

The two spies mentioned in the story are not named, but I have wondered if one of them was Salmon, the Jewish man who eventually married Rahab.  Both of those men had to have been impressed with her moxy.  Rahab was an astute businesswoman, even though the nature of her business was ungodly.  Her house was part of the city's wall.  

Have you ever ruined something, seemingly beyond repair?  Ruination carries with it a sense that whatever was messed up can’t be fixed. 

Rahab must have felt a bitter sense of futile hopelessness - - that her life had been ruined far past redemption.  It is extremely hard for many of us to accept the love of God, not because He is insufficient, but because we do not see ourselves as lovable, as "worthy"!  We see no way out, no hope.  Ann Voskamp tells us that the word “cord” in the Joshua passage, that same red cord Rahab threw out the window of her house-in-the-wall, is tikvah, which means “hope”.

And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

Joshua 2:21b (NIV)

I am simply amazed at how Rahab, when she HEARD the truth of the one God Jehovah, saw hope.  She grabbed hold of that lifeline, that hope rope, and held on!  She threw herself "all in" with the God of the Hebrews.  When God opened her ears, she switched her allegiance.  She was obviously a talented, passionate woman before switching sides. No doubt God used those talents in her new life as well.  He saw fit, in His amazing grace and redemption, to weave her into the ancestry of his Son.  Y'all, are you "getting" that she was a "madame"?  She ran a whorehouse, for goodness sake!  

But, don't miss this: sin is sin is sin.  Rahab's sin - - - it is no worse than mine.  All sin separates us from our God, and He hates it - - - all of it:  the pride, the lying, the cheating, the slander, the hatred of people, the immorality....all of it separates us from Him.  This is why we need a Savior!  Yes, after we accept Jesus, all of our sins (past, present, future) are forgiven; but, we still need to come to Him for cleansing (confession, repentance, forgiveness) every day (and usually all during the day!)  We are never turned away, hallelujah!

Such is the unfathomable grace of our God!

It's no mistake that the cord was red.  The spies told her: the red cord is a symbol by which you and your family will be spared, as long as you stay inside your house during the upcoming raid and conquest.  

That red cord represents the blood of Jesus Christ.  It is a foreshadowing of what God would do through the sacrifice of His Son centuries later and what He will do for anyone today who comes under the blood sacrifice of Jesus for forgiveness of sin and for protection.  When we accept Jesus' blood sacrifice for our sins, we are "in God's House" of protection.  Spiritual destruction will never come near us again.

Notice that it was not Rahab's own merits which saved her; in that Jewish culture, she would have been stoned for her sins of harlotry.  It was her obedience and acceptance of the gift, the grace of the Hebrew God that saved her.  The same revolutionary, redemptive offer is available today!

A couple of years ago, I attended an event where a former prostitute spoke.  She told us about the hopelessness of The Life, as those in the sex trade call it, how she felt forever trapped, unable to escape.  That was, until a Christ follower told her about the red rope, the saving blood of Jesus.  All she had to do was accept it.  Now, she is free, and has been for 12 years.  Additionally, as He did for Rahab, He has given this woman a loving husband, children and a successful career.  Praise His name!

“He took my feet from the miry clay, yes He did, yes He did,

And placed them on The Rock to stay, yes He did, yes He did.

I can tell the world about this.

I can tell the nations that I'm blessed,

Tell them how Jesus made me whole

And He brought joy, JOY to my soul!"

                    Traditional Spiritual, based on Psalm 40:2

Just about anytime you hear a Christian talk about Rahab, they refer to her as Rahab the Harlot. Well, I understand why they do that; it's because they want to illustrate just how awesome the saving power of GOD is.  But, because her story does not stop with her left in her sin, it is more appropriate to refer to her as Rahab the Marvelously Redeemed, or Rahab the Great Great-Grandmother of King David. When we come to Christ, God obliterates the sin debt of our past.  We become a new creation in Jesus Christ.  (2 Corinthians 5:17 - - - If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation: old things are passed away; look!  all things have become new!)  Harlot to princess!

Do you understand that THIS is the theme of the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments … the love story of God pursuing fallen mankind.  It is a scarlet thread, a hope rope, which runs through and unites the Holy Scriptures.  Beginning with the animals’ blood spilled in Eden, so that their skins could cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve, it runs on through millions of animal sacrifices.  It is seen running through the blood of the Passover lamb, that blood painted onto the doorposts of the Hebrews in Egypt.  It runs on through the story of Rahab, into the Garden of Gethsemane, where the blood of our Savior eeked from His pores.   It pools at the cross of Calvary, where He was broken and spilled out….for you, for me.

There is no stench so great He cannot dispel

No filth so putrid He cannot cleanse

No mire so deep He cannot free

No situation so desperate, no sinner too hopeless.

He rescues, redeems, restores.

Grab hold of The Hope Rope today.  Tie it in the window of your soul.

Father, thank you for the sacrifice of Your precious Son, for me, to save me from my filthy, dirty sin.  I am incredulous that You opened my ears as a nine-year old girl, but miraculously, You did.  "Thank you" does not begin to cover it.  Your grace is amazing! Thank you for The Hope Rope.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Sources:

Voskamp, Ann. The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas. December 10. Print.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCdm9MNBmfI