Our Certainty

1Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.–Luke 1:1 – 4 (ESV)

Christmas Eve, the beginning of the beginning. Mary and Joseph are coming up on Bethlehem, they know they are running our of time. They are trying to get there early enough to find some food, water, and shelter. Mary is going to need it soon. I am reminded of Luke’s Gospel where he begins with a note to his publisher. It may seem superfluous to us if, after reading the Gospel’s in order, we come to Luke after reading Mark who got right to the point. But important things happen just before the ‘beginning’ that need to be told. Otherwise, we would have missed this important piece what may seem like trivia. Luke writes to Theophilus so that he would have certainty concerning the things he was taught. And I think it’s a note to us as well. The Gospels are for our certainty too. They are letters to the whole church concerning the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Luke tells us they were eyewitnesses from the beginning. They followed Jesus and ate with him and watched him die on a cross…then saw him again, resurrected and glorious.

So here we sit not seeing yet believing because we’ve heard the Gospel and the Holy Spirit opened our eyes to see and our ears to hear. We have the Bible and the Spirits witness and that’s about it.

But that’s enough isn’t it? Our assurance, our hope, our Lord and Savior Jesus and all he did that we need to know written down in these few books. Our ‘certainty’ as Luke tells us ‘concerning the things we have been taught.’

The Word of God is not bound…

Are you?

A Digression

39In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be£ a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”–Luke 1:39 – 45 (ESV)

I don’t usually have a lot to say about Mary. I think the Catholics get carried away enough with her as it is. She’s dead and in the dirt somewhere just like everyone else who knew Jesus, just like the rest of us are going to be someday. I knew some folks who were firm adherents to the ‘Cult of Mary’ which is what a good number of Catholics call it. I had some friends who were solid Christians who happened to be Catholic who were concerned about the effect it had on the church at large especially all the ‘Saint’ sightings. St. Doodad’s image was found on a hamburger bun and now it’s a relic. They’re selling it on eBay, I’m sure, and the current bid is around $5K. I don’t know, when I hear stuff like that I’m fairly certain I know what an atheist feels like whenever they get cornered by a bunch of Fundy’s during a revival week—but I digress.

In spite of what anyone else has said about Mary, I think this passage is important. Not because Mary is in it but because it’s in the Bible. It links John and Jesus early and makes me think of Aaron and Moses. “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—Deuteronomy 18:15 (ESV)” But like most images it only goes so far. John and Jesus together here for the first time causes us to look forward to Jesus baptism. Aaron and Moses, think did the same thing but I’m not going down that road right now.

John is leaping at the sound of Mary’s voice because he knew who she was carrying as well. Mary was special in this: that she believed and obeyed. Something beyond her comprehension happened to her but she believed—in spite of the consequences. (Truly that is no more than is expected of us. We are to hear the Word and believe on Jesus. Woe to you if you do not.) It was an awful thing in those days to just ‘turn up pregnant’. She was engaged to Joseph which was as good as being married minus the consummation. It says a lot about his character that he married her anyway. I suppose the angels and the dreams had something to do with it too. God made sure they knew the score. But no one else did. The little old ladies in the square and the tut-tutting family members—now days, to our shame, it happens so often that it isn’t that big of a deal. We live in a small town though and you still hear the rumors and the whispers. I don’t know which is worse…Let’s just be thankful there weren’t any abortion clinics in those days…but I digress again.

One final thing: in v.45 we are reminded of something we often forget. When the Lord speaks, it happens. When we read something in his word, its true, and when we believe it? That’s the blessing.

Non-Christmas Posts in Mark

I’ve been working on my series I’m planning to do in Mark and I came up with some really good ideas for non-Christmas posts on the verses in Mark. Then I forgot them and it made me sad because those would have been some really good posts. Truly though, thats absurd because all of the verses in Mark are non-Christmas. The book starts with Jesus Baptism. So I’ve essentially torpedoed myself before I even began.

Not that I’m very concerned about this but the truth of the matter is that it means more Bible study. I am going to have to work up some things to do between Christmas and Jesus Baptism now. There was plenty. There was John’s “In the beginning…” passage which takes the eternity of Christ into account. There’s the part where Mary goes to visit her cousin and John the baby jumps in the presence of his Savior and Lord. Could it be that John even unborn was more mature than some Christians I know? There’s always the time Jesus stayed back to teach in the temple when he was 12. Or…well, you get the idea.

I’m open to suggestions at this point.

The First Day of December

The first day of December.

That’s twenty-four shopping days till Christmas Day where our Festival of the Free Market Economy will draw to a close. Tearfully shall we open those credit card bills. No wonder people drink so much at New Year’s parties.

Got your Wii yet? Good luck on that.

Honestly we did the same thing we usually do, presents and probably too many. We just watched the cost, shopped at sales, and fortunately got some pretty good deals on some of the things we were asked about by the kids. I think we’ve shown a lot of restraint this year, though.

“In the beginning was the Word” John tells us at the beginning of his Gospel “and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”

Eternal God made man, born in a stable and bedded down in a manger for the single purpose of fulfilling his Fathers desire to redeem a people unto himself for His Glory. How is it possible that can move us to greater deeds of shopping?
Focus people. It’s not CHRISTmas for nothing.

Studies in Mark

I started looking over the Book of Mark last night and I think, if I can get it worked up, I can work up a post on it every day from Christmas until Easter. Mark just seems to fit right into that period this year ~three months or so. I’m looking forward to it.

Breaking Down

It seems like everything I own is breaking down this year. The mower, the fridge, the…pick something. I had to replace a florescent light fixture in the kitchen. I mean come on…I had to replace my computer, which is a big part of why I haven’t been writing very much lately. Add that to the other things and it makes for a very interesting holiday season.

Holiday season? Of course it must be the holiday’s. Walmart is playing Christmas carols and we’re just past Black Friday. This year was the first time I ever heard that term. I guess it fits considering what a nightmare the stores are just after Thanksgiving. It almost seems to be a holiday in and of it self, at least to retailers.

Which reminds me…something else about the holiday’s that is bugging me this year: Macy’s Day. We were watching the ‘Macy’s Day Parade’ on Thanksgiving because it’s fun for the kids and keeps them from realizing that they’re starving to death waiting for the turkey, et al. I heard a lot of commentators call IT the ‘Macy’s Day Parade’ and they only corrected themselves a few times. It was probably just a slip but it’s bothersome. It’s Thanksgiving for a reason. We are supposed to be thankful to the Lord for the way he has blessed us this year. Instead we have Macy’s Day which is a saturnalia of spending and getting and buying. A day of squandering the blessings God has given us by running up huge credit card bills—yes I know the sales are good. I’m not saying they aren’t and yes spending less to get things is good stewardship. But just spending isn’t.

It’s kind of like the difference between an electric car that was designed and built to be insanely fuel efficent and one that was built to capitalize on some of the horsepower benefits of having an electric boost in your takeoff speed.

Probably this is just me rattling but it is something to think about. When the holiday’s break down it’s a bad sign. When our concept of what it means to offer ‘Thanksgiving’ is reduced to gluttony, football, and shopping its worse.
Be Thankful this season, especially if you didn’t already spend all your ‘extra’ income for next year.

Sweet Liberty

Liberty. It’s something we take for granted in this country…

Or that’s what I should be writing. I can’t muster up the ire this morning. Yesterday was the Fourth of July and I should have written an inspiring post about the wonders of the ‘Sweet Land of Liberty’. Don’t get me wrong, its wonderful to be able to have dreams and try to fulfill them and to pursue happiness. To live in a place where life and liberty are so abundant that they are most of the time in the background. It leaves me speechless this year.

So I just played with my kids. We bought some poppers and some little tanks and things. My niece stabbed me in the leg with a lit punk. I taught her some new words.

Hey, it hurt OK?

Liberty. Sometimes we misuse it. Am I concerned about my soul because I said ‘shit’ in front of seven, six, and five year old kids? Not at all—they’re in public school. They’ve heard much worse. I don’t like that it happened but it’s a fact of life. It’s not even that old liberty vs. license thing because nine tenths of the people who read this are not going to understand liberty from the biblical perspective anyway. If you’d like to do so, read this. It’s as good of an explanation as I’ve ever read.

The point is that in celebrating our liberty we have diluted its meaning. We take a day out of the year and suddenly its OK for the kids to play with fire and explosives or both simultaneously. My goal for the day: avoid the burn unit. It’s not about being free from oppression or free to worship however we please or even indulge in our capitalist mindset, or not anymore. It’s about time for me. Its about an extra day off from work so I can go to the lake or do nothing.

And that’s freedom of a sort I suppose.

Santa Baby

“Santa baby” the refrain begins, “I want a yacht, that’s not a lot” it says in the middle and ends with a proposition to the Man in the Red Suit. The seductive tones of Earth Kitt’s “Santa Baby” go on to describe the American Holiday of Christmas better than any thing else. “One more thing” she sings “a ring”. I want it all for Christmas and when you get done maybe you and I can get together. A message that is, startlingly, not so different from Satan’s bargaining with Jesus at the tip of the Temple, I’ll give you all these things, all the kingdoms of the world if you give me yourself later.

Christmas as a holiday in America has become the great liberator of our free market economy. That’s fine as far as it goes, but its not free—Christmas is expensive. The merchants, we are told, count on Christmas sales to put them in the black for the year. So we trudge off to the mall and now the Internet to shop till we drop. There are people, I am told, that go far into debt every year just so that their family can have a good Christmas. (Good here is a relative term.)And that means a tree, possibly a real one, with presents piled high. Lights, decorations, and all the trimmings and probably a few parties scattered throughout the extended season from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve. The obligatory celebration that another year has come and gone is probably the biggest night of saturnalia in the world or at least everyone acts like it was the next day. See? Expensive.

The expense isn’t really the problem though. The major issue here is that we have reduced this celebration of the birth of Jesus down to something we can take on our own terms. This is the way we do it round here, you know, in the world. Let me give an example:

The Bible tells us that Jesus was baptized by John and “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 4:17(NASB)”

Preaching was what he did from that time on and we can see from reading the gospels and Acts that even right up until the ascension He was preaching or teaching in some fashion. No one who got near Jesus had any doubt about what His claims were or who those who followed him thought he was. All the Jews had been expecting this Messiah and yet when he came, they rejected him. Judas is probably the most famous of these because his betrayal is so well documented but they were all guilty. They rejected Jesus each time they encountered Him but the word belief was never used until they had him on the cross. “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him.” Matthew 27:42 (NASB) We will believe in you when we feel like it. We will believe in you if you entertain us and give us presents and show us tricks. We will believe in you Jesus—on our own terms.

When we try to meet Jesus on our own terms, chances are we will find something to worship. It won’t be Jesus or His Father who sent him, but we will find something. Probably from Best Buy or Circuit City—a plasma TV or a new DVD player or some computer-majig. “Hey Wal-Mart, tone down that Merry Christmas business, that’s waaaaay to religious for us.” But put big TV’s on sale there’s going to be a fight. A man will commit to mortal combat for a wide screen but decide to stay out of church because of “those hypocrites”. And still the world rails on at Christmas as if its not enough that it’s been twisted into a credit fest, a love feast of things. Something’s just not right when the world can’t even stand the flat watered down image of Christmas and Christ represented by Santa Clause and his yearly giving spree. Still they do with Christ what they have always done, approaching him on their own terms.

You have your traditions. That’s fine with me because I have mine too. Make sure, however, that they honor the One whom they are supposed to honor. The Christ, the Son of the Living God.