If you would like to see some more pictures from our Xmas Cookie Outreach, click here
It might give you a better picture of what went on. Pun intended.

A church administrator commented to me today, “As I was preparing the bulletin for Sunday, and reading the lyrics to ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem,’ I was struck by the words, ‘How silently, how silently…'” To her, Christmas time has been and is normally anything but silent. She pondered the question, “Where have we gone wrong?”

Its easy to play the cultural blame game, but it is our fault for being influenced by it. So another question to ponder is this: “How can Christmas time be more silent?” Not necessarily silent as in the absence of all noise, but ‘silently’ as in the absence of that noise, activity, that drives our focus away from the celebration of our Messiah’s first coming and anticipation of His Second.

For example, listening to good Christmas music (if you’re a reader of this blog, you know what I think is good and not good; but each has freedom to decide for him/herself!) can be extremely devotional, uplifting, reflective, and even challenging and convicting.

And not all activity is bad; in fact, many Christmas related activities are good. We recently had a Christmas party for our comm group in which we invited neighbors and friends without a church. Another comm group went caroling to elderly members and friends. Even our cookie outreach was stressful to organize, but everyone who participated found deep encouragement and a real Christmas joy in participating.

But there are some potentially (I also think they can be good with proper heart bad motivations) noises/overstressing activities in my opinion. The loudest noise/activity for me is shopping. Don’t get me wrong, I like buying gifts for family. But figuring it all out, running all over town; it never seems to end.

Getting stressed by Christmas shopping for Xmas presents a bad noise, which moves our focus away from joy and onto the stress of figuring out whether you spent enough or how well the gift will be received, or what the next person needs. I really haven’t figured out a remedy for this yet. Is it better to spread out your shopping, or just endure all of the stress in one day? I don’t know.

Perhaps a remedy would be to just draw names. Instead of shopping for small presents for a bunch of people, you might just get one or a few expensive things. That would certainly help my spirit during this busy time.

Today, I’m planning on not listening to any Sports Talk (one day out of the year isn’t too bad, eh?) when I drive and I will simply try to reflect the two important aspects of Christmas: His Coming, and His Return. I’m not punishing myself, nor am I performing some radio-less act of self-flagellation; I simply feel a need for some silence in my busy world. I’ll let you know how this exercise goes.

I would truly be doing the Tampa Bay Bucs a disservice if I did not blog about the extraordinary happening at Raymond James stadium on Sunday. After 1865 kick-off returns, a Bucs kickreturner finally returned one ‘to the house.’ The simple law of averages would seem to allow for this to happen about once a year. But once in 32 years?

Nevertheless, the timing was perfect, or close to perfect. I actually never thought it would happen. It seemed like the Bucs were under some sort of curse, and I really kind of believed it. So whether there was an official curse or not, the ‘curse’ has been broken. And how appropriate because Christmas is a time when we celebrate ‘The Curse’ being broken.

‘The Curse’ started back in Gen 3 when sin entered into this world of ours. The serpent was cursed, the ground was cursed, and both the man and woman had to endure the effects of this curse, because they were both responsible for it (however neither Adam nor Eve were actually cursed by God-look it up if you don’t believe me).

Jesus then becomes the ‘seed’ or ‘offspring’ of the woman who would crush the offspring of the serpent-ultimately foreshadowing a victory over Satan by means of the cross. But Jesus, this ‘seed’ or ‘offspring,’ didn’t stop with His triumph at the cross and resurrection. In fact, He will one day crush Satan under our feet (Romans 16:20). And that is one more thing we can celebrate at Christmas.

What it looks like for Jesus to crush Satan under our feet is captured in the popular Christmas hymn “Joy to the World.” By the way, most Christmas hymns have some incredibly profound, and theologically rich lyrics. Check these out:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

Jesus’ coming was the beginning of His work, and He will one day extend his blessings as far as the curse is found. One day we shall have a world without ‘The Curse’ (what that means for fishing, I don’t know yet). But this the distinctly Christian hope, and one more reason to celebrate, pray, and long for The Return of the King.

On a Christian radio station trying to raise money, my wife heard something a bit unsettling. The emphasis was on the blessing of giving. Certainly giving is a grace of God, and it is also a blessing for the one giving. There is joy in giving, and God gives that joy, and He loves a cheerful giver (II Cor 9:7).

But the emphasis seemed to be placed (I didn’t actually hear it myself) on what you get back when you give. Now I could spend much more time on this, but the ‘advice’ from a DJ took a different turn. If we give, we get back something in return that is of great value. For example, look at God. He gave Jesus and He got ‘us’ out of it.

In case you don’t know by now, you can argue with most things people say, and often find out that the real problem is either semantic, or the fact that the person cannot say everything-and is merely trying to something specific and apropos to the situation. For instance Paul wrote Corinthians and Galatians to different audiences, with two different emphases: one has more emphasis on justification, the other on living consistently with our justification. Its the same gospel applied to different problems in different churches. We can’t say to Paul, “This is true, but you left out this part.” No, he said what needed to be said to that particular audience, and left out what didn’t need to be said.

However, I think this issue is slightly more than semantic and perhaps touches on a deep church cultural problem. God the Father gave up His only Son as a sacrifice. It was a great sacrifice. It was not as though He-though if you want to get Trinitarian and technical, Jesus received the Church (John 10:29)-was getting something of equal or greater value (sounds like a coupon) when He received the church.

A wise person once declared a great error in our normal everyday thinking: “We think we are ‘the SH*T (in case you aren’t aware of this colloquial, it means awesome, or the best). And don’t we? Do we think that God made a fair trade? That we are worthy of this great sacrifice of a Savior being born in a feeding trough and crucified on a cross?

If we fail to see the depth of sacrifice, we fail to see how great we are loved. It wasn’t a fair trade-I can speak for myself. I was not worthy to be saved. However, Jesus would never say I , or you, weren’t worth it.

Instead of hopes of a fair trade, he came out of his great affection for His people and His own glory. And while He would never say anyone was worthy (deserving-before or after salvation) to be saved, I guarantee you he would say “I’m glad I came down to save sinners. It was worth my sacrifice.”

The greater we think we are, the closer it becomes to being a fair trade. The closer it becomes to being a fair trade, the further away from love we get: not only His love for us, but concomitantly our love for Him. He simply, and amazingly, puts His love over His children, like a Father/Mother puts his/her love over a newborn child. And I’m glad He does.

Here is another example of God closing doors which I desperately wanted opened, and opening doors which I hadn’t thought much about. As good as Sunday was with our cookie outreach, Friday was that bad. Well, kind of-but not a ‘serious’ bad, more of a ‘frustrating’ bad.

I invited another young couple from church over to the house to eat some snook (the same snook pictured on this blog). So I had already begun thawing the meat when I get the call that his wife was too sick to attend. With Amy not eating much fish, I didn’t know what we would do with all that snook (it was one whole fillet of a 30 inch fish).

I started calling, and ended up with about 5-6 different “No thanks” for a last minute snook eating invitation. Only one was even close to saying yes.

Then I go to the gym, and I get word that it will be closing down. That day. Where would I work out now? I was actually beginning to meet more and more people there. I wondered why God would just take this away. I had grown fond of the gym I once loathed.

No one knew what would happen. Getting the truth out of the few workers left was about as easy as getting the truth out of a baseball player accused of using performance enhancing drugs. And I had no power to play the perjury card.

I cut my workout short because I was so disgusted with the gym ownership. I really wanted to call the newspapers, the TV News channels, and give this owner some negative publicity.

Then I asked my workout partner if he wanted to come over to the house and eat some snook. He said yes, and then I invited one more person whose wife was out of town. So we had 4 over to the house to eat the snook which I was uncertain how to prepare. This no fried food thing for Amy is killing my style. However the baked snook was world class good. The evening was a blessing for all.

On Monday I drove up to Fusion Fitness to see what was up. It was surely closed. But lo there were Lifestyles employees there to answer questions, and like angels, herald the good news. I am now a Lifestyles member. Lifestyles (aka Glob0-gym) bought out Fusion Fitness (Average Joe’s). Praise God I didn’t cancel on Friday afternoon! Basically I upgraded for free, with the same terms of contract in a nicer place.

I only hope that those I had begun to get to know will see me at the Lifestyles gym. If not, I’ll just meet and build relationships with those whom God puts before me. Closed doors can be frustrating, but they are never truly ‘bad.’

I’m still pretty high right now. Not drugs, not hugs, just kind of an emotional and spiritual high. Yesterday, we had our neighborhood outreach cookie/craft decoration thing. We invited neighborhood kids (we had 2 families come), Amy’s kindergarteners (close to 10, and some of their siblings), a number of our church kids, and those invited by our church folk. It was amazing (25-30 kids).

There were so many little things that God worked out to make it run as smoothly as possible. Amy and I borrowed the pastor’s big blue van and picked up 6 kids at 5 houses. Fortunately Amy called the parents on Sunday, and reminded them that we were coming. Miracle of miracles, they actually called back. Some were surprised, some couldn’t come, others would be coming but THEY wanted to drive them here.

That was great news. Finding these houses was not easy, and took a long time because they were all spread out. It was great news to hear that we would only need to go to 5 houses, not 8! Had we gone to 8 we would not have made it back in time to get some last minute things ready.

But we found all of them-mapquest was actually accurate. We took on some enemy fire when driving through one of the neighborhoods (rocks or something else hard). But those kids were gone when we returned to drop them off.

We used the symbolism of the candy cane to share about Jesus, and offered a possible name change if they only would turn it upside down: Jesus cane. We also tried to teach them “Silent Night.” The other two stations involved making donut snowmen and reindeer cookies, and decorating a bag to house their creations and our Xmas Eve invitation.

Everything ran so smoothly, particularly when you think of 25-30 kids, 15 or so adults, 10 youth, other parents of kids. I bet we had at least 50-60 people in my yard, cul de sac, or house! On Sunday I thought this would have been a good idea if we hadn’t invited Amy’s kids. It would have been more manageable. And it might have. But God ‘managed’ everything, working behind the scenes.

One report from a member came today which spoke of a young girl understanding the importance and symbolism of Jesus and the candy cane. Another neighbor told me how grateful she was that we do things like this and neighborhood cookouts. I spoke with several neighbors and warned them of the activities which would be going on. Fortunately they were cool. Forget Robert Frost’s saying, “good fences make good neighbors.” Communication, community, love, regular prayer, and of course God’s grace and providential involvement make good neighborhoods.

In the mornings I’ve been reading very carefully the Christmas accounts in the gospel of Luke. One thing that really had me puzzled was the difference in angelic reactions to Zechariah and Mary. I mean, it was Gabriel who delivered the message in both cases.

In case you’re not aware, Zech was the father of John the Baptist. While offering prayers, most likely prayers on behalf of the people (not a personal prayer for a son, since he was a priest), an angel appeared to him. Like all people who see, or would see an angel today, he freaked out.

But good news soon came to him that he and his barren elderly wife would bear a son. So he asks, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” The angels response is basically, “You let God figure that out. Just go on home and get on with your marital privileges.” But since he didn’t believe at first, God shut his mouth until the child was born. No talking for 9 months. Wow. Can you imagine that?

Well, Mary asks a question that seems very similar to her, and the same, unsolicited angel: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel obliges her with a simple answer (although it really doesn’t make any logical sense-‘power of the Most High will overshadow you’) and reminds her that “nothing is impossible with God.”

Is this a double standard? Do young lasses get a pass while old priests don’t? Does God expect more out of old priest than young ladies regarding faith? Is this angelic affirmative action?

After looking at the passage in length, and looking up a commentary, which was largely unhelpful (that’s why its good for pastors to have 2-3 per bible book), I will, as George Mitchell did yesterday, report my findings. While the verbiage of the two questions in question look very similar, I think perhaps the heart behind the questions might have looked very different.

With only written words, we are not privy to tone, which I’m learning in marriage, makes a HUGE difference in communication. I don’t know what Zech sounded like when he questioned the angel’s good news.

Ultimately though, I think that what we have is the difference between doubt and a simple question of ‘how’ or “Am I hearing you correctly?” Zech could have been more of a “Yeah, sure, whatever” or “How am I supposed to believe that?” versus Mary’s “How will that happen-I’m still a virgin and I think I should stay one until I’m officially married.”

But another explanation can be found if we simply look at the scenario. An angel brings great news, good news not only to YOU, but to your nation, and to the world. You can imagine the joy in which it was brought. And then the dude you’re bringing it to says, “How am I supposed to believe that?” I’d have shut that joker up for a lot longer than 9 months!

Regardless, there was more a difference in heart than exactly what was being expressed in words. And the issue of the heart has always been what God cares about. It is the heart which God looks at, not simply the words being expressed. The heart. “More than words,” said one early 90’s band called Extreme.

We had an interesting movie discussion on The Apostle last Sunday our during Christian Ed hour (technically 45 minutes-if you’re scoring at home). If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. The plot goes a little something like this: Robert Duvall, a pentecostal preacher/evangelist loses his wife (she divorces him) and church (she convenes a secret meeting), commits a heinous crime, flees to some small town in Louisiana, and plants a church.

There are numerous dynamics which provide great fodder for discussion. Questions arise such as, “Could God use a fleeing, unrepentant felon to plant a church?” I mean he did use Luther who was a raving anti-semite, was physically violent to those underneath him, and is himself one of the reasons why Lutherans don’t look all that much like Luther. I could use other examples, but am fully aware that people could also say, “Well, he used Geoff, and he had anger issues, and he did this or that…….!” So I’ll stop there. There is ‘beef’ on everyone if you look closely enough. There really is. Even on you.

One of the questions we did discuss was, “Is this an accurate/fair/positive portrayal of the church?” Rare do we see such positive depictions of the church from Hollywood, but we agreed this was one. The church was genuine, grew in numbers, had squabbles but sought reconciliation, showed mercy to the poor (by ringing the door bell, dropping off food, and running), had great fellowship, and even stood in the way of a bulldozer trying to destroy the church.

Finally, we did discuss some of the preacher’s strengths. He was genuinely interested in getting the gospel to dying folks (sometimes literally/sometimes spiritually). The movie begins with him pulling over on the side of the road, circumventing the accident scene, and witnessing to the dying couple before he gets run off and ridiculed by a cop. In another scene, he is trying to witness to a guy walking in a bar and almost misses his bus!

In addition His discipleship relationship with a previous church member was a life-on-life relationship that profoundly effected the spiritually younger man. The man was so influenced by Duvall that he regularly visited his mother in the hospital. How many of us can say we have discipleship relationships like that? He did the same with another young mechanic until he eventually prayed with him to receive Christ.

Sometimes movies can really challenge us. Either they can point us toward Christ and His work and Church by way of good example. Other times they can point more clearly to our need for Christ by way of repentance.

Duval was quoted as saying, “This is my church! No one is going to take MY church away from me!” And so he beat a dude up! I see my own sin in this misplaced zealous thinking. Whatever church I’m at is Jesus’ church. So I can relax that He’ll build HIS church, and I’ll be along for the ride. It will not depend upon me.

So this movie actually moved me to repent. Movies, as can all of life, can be quite devotional. It just takes some critical thinking, a framework in which to view them, and sometimes a healthy discussion.

Yesterday at my presbytery meeting I was greeted by a lad who had this to say to me: “You look nice. Have you lost weight?” I was a little taken aback, because I’ve been holding steady at about 210 lbs for a little while now. I’m thankful I’m not gaining more, but feel fine at 210 lbs.

This is weird because this is the first time in my life when the “Looks like you’re losing weight” line hasn’t meant something bad. The last time I heard it, I really had lost weight-down to the 160’s after taking a medication (which is now off the market) that made me lose some serious poundage in seminary. But this time it was a compliment, not a concern.

Nevertheless, it was a bit hard to take, I must admit. Especially since I have had somewhat of a ‘skinnferiority’ complex throughout my life. Let me explain. Now I’ve never been ashamed to be thin, but then again I never like to receive comments like ‘stick man’ or ‘bird cage chest.’ Any comments reminding me of my slenderness have never been well received. No violence, just not well received.

Even though I’m balding and graying, I still don’t think of myself as getting older-though I am 30! It’s strange how times change when you get older. Now “it looks like your losing weight,” becomes a compliment. Of course now is not the best time to lose weight since Amy’s gaining ‘baby pounds’ now.

Getting older is good-I’m going to have to grow up quick in May when the baby comes. Getting thinner is good until I can become sans gut. But its a bit of a mindset change.

At church we are are doing a mini-series on Peter’s confession of Christ (Matthew 16:16). Since Jesus did say, in so many words, “You got the right one baby,” we feel it is a good place to start.
Now we do expect that this mini-series will be famous. How famous, is really up to you (I guess).
Regardless, if you have a spare 30 minutes, here is my sermon. In addition to our sermon series, for advent we’ve created a devotional to go along with the sermons. The last two years I’ve written a study for each day. However, this year, in order not to intimidate people, I’ve just written some questions to cause us to further reflect on God’s word: in this case, the deity of Christ. If you don’t think this is all that important, or practical, then listen to my sermon.

Here is the Devotional that my prove to be helpful. If not, then find someone to blame. Never me. Thanks.

1. Read John 8:48-59
No one knows exactly the precise date Jesus was born, but we can be certain that it was between 4-6 BC. We celebrate the birth (his taking on flesh) of Jesus at Christmas. But how old is Jesus in his divine nature? Who DOESN’T believe in this truth (Hint-J.W.)?

2. How do we know that Jesus really did claim to be God? How is this claim unique among all religions? Why is this so important to believe?

3. People often simply create a God who suits their needs, schedules, desires, interests, etc… Can you think of any ways you’ve done this yourself? Be honest and specific. How can we keep from doing that on Sundays? Is there anything we can do during the week to keep us walking down this well traveled road?

4. How does knowing Jesus is fully God personally bring you comfort? How can it in the future?

5. God is described in the Old Testament as one who is “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling (Psalm 68:5)” and Jesus continually sought after those in need. Is there anyone to whom you might reflect this love? A widow, someone elderly, without family, someone hurting, lonely, depressed, etc…What step might God be calling you to take now? Visiting, baking cookies, giving presents, calling, etc…?

Sorry for the formatting weirdness. I tried like 6 times to correct it, and then gave up. Just because the first questions are the largest, doesn’t make them the most important. Might doesn’t make right, eh?