What Child is This? - December 25, 2021

 

What Child is This? - December 25, 2021

 

Merry Christmas! Jesus is born! Emmanuel God with us!

 

Galatians 4:4-7, NLT - But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.  God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child.[e] And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.

 

This is my favorite Christmas carol.  Here is a paragraph from Wikipedia about the song:

 

“"What Child Is This?" is a Christmas carol whose lyrics were written by William Chatterton Dix, in 1865. At the time of composing the carol, Dix worked as an insurance company manager and had been struck by a severe illness. While recovering, he underwent a spiritual renewal that led him to write several hymns, including lyrics to this carol that was subsequently set to the tune of "Greensleeves", a traditional English folk song. Although it was written in Great Britain, the carol is more popular in the United States than in its country of origin today.”

 

This has been my favorite Carol since childhood.  I remember the moment it became my favorite although the details are a little fuzzy now.  What I remember was that I was in church singing this song and at some point in the singing, I realized that this Jesus story that I always heard at church wasn’t a story at all, but history.  Jesus really was born and He really was the Son of God:

 

“This, this is Christ, the King,

Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:

Haste, haste to bring Him laud,

The Babe, the Son of Mary!”

 

I had answered the title question for myself.  And that is a significant moment for anyone.  At some point your faith in Jesus has to become YOUR faith.  You have to decide for yourself “What Child is This?”  For millions of people, this day is a day of presents and family togetherness and nothing more.  For others, this Child is acknowledged as the reason for the day, but is forgotten after the presents are opened.  For others, this Child is a Sunday relationship.  But for others, this Child becomes a lot more.  For still others This Child is everything.  Their entire life belongs to This Child.  What about you? 

 

Question:  What is your answer to “What Child is This?”

 

Prayer:  Jesus, we welcome your birth to us this day and every day.  You are so many things to so many!  May we be clear not only who you are to us in this moment, but who you want to be to us moving forward.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for Jesus to be known by more people this year.

 

Song:  Chris Tomlin (ft. All Sons & Daughters) - What Child Is This?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jroBAl3WW8

Joy to the World - December 23, 2021

 

Joy to the World - December 23, 2021

 

Psalm 98

Sing a new song to the Lord,

    for he has done wonderful deeds.

His right hand has won a mighty victory;

    his holy arm has shown his saving power!

The Lord has announced his victory

    and has revealed his righteousness to every nation!

He has remembered his promise to love and be faithful to Israel.

    The ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.

Shout to the Lord, all the earth;

    break out in praise and sing for joy!

Sing your praise to the Lord with the harp,

    with the harp and melodious song,

with trumpets and the sound of the ram’s horn.

    Make a joyful symphony before the Lord, the King!

 

Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise!

    Let the earth and all living things join in.

Let the rivers clap their hands in glee!

    Let the hills sing out their songs of joy

before the Lord,

    for he is coming to judge the earth.

He will judge the world with justice,

    and the nations with fairness.

 

The great hymn writer Isaac Watts is the author of this great Christmas Carol. He based it on the above Scripture (Psalm 98) as well as excerpts from Psalm 96 (verses 11-12) and Genesis 3:17-18.  The hymn was published as part of a collection of hymns called “The Psalms of David: Imitated in the language of the New Testament (1719).  Watts saw the psalms in a new light when seen from the point of view of the life of Christ.  If you compare Watts’ verses with the scripture, you will have to admit that great interpretational license was taken.  In any case, it is unique, to say the least, that we have in this great hymn, a Christmas carol inspired by the Old Testament. 

 

Another unique feature of this carol is that it speaks not only of Christ’s birth, but also of His Second Coming.  It speaks of Christ’s birth and Second Coming simultaneously, which is powerful.  The birth of Christ is not just a past event to be remembered and celebrated, but is also a foretaste of what is to come.  It paints the picture of Christ’s victorious birth and life, but also his ultimate victory that is yet to be seen.  Perhaps this is the reason it is such a faith-inspiring song that I look forward to singing at the end of Christmas Eve service every year. 

 

In Christ, all that came before is reinterpreted with new depth AND our future victory is secured and promised to all who believe.  Praise be to Christ and JOY TO THE WORLD!

 

Question:  Are there ways in which your past is now seen differently as a result of your present faith in Jesus?

 

Prayer:  God that is beyond space and time, we join heaven and nature that sings your praises.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Take time to name 10 things you are thankful for to God.

 

Song: Joy to the World – Whitney Houston

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHhA-R0netY

Silent Night - December 18, 2021

 

Silent Night - December 18, 2021

 

John 1:4-5,12 – “In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

“…to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

 

Here is the story behind “Silent Night” as recorded on Wikipedia:

 

“Stille Nacht" was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village in the Austrian Empire on the Salzach river in present-day Austria. A young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to Oberndorf the year before. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, he had written the poem "Stille Nacht" in 1816 at Mariapfarr, the hometown of his father in the Salzburg Lungau region, where Joseph had worked as an assistant priest.

 

The melody was composed by Franz Xavier Gruber, schoolmaster and organist in the nearby village of Arnsdorf, now part of Lamprechtshausen. On Christmas Eve 1818, Mohr brought the words to Gruber and asked him to compose a melody and guitar accompaniment for that night's mass, after river flooding had possibly damaged the church organ. The church was eventually destroyed by repeated flooding and replaced with the Silent-Night-Chapel. It is unknown what inspired Mohr to write the lyrics, or what prompted him to create a new carol.

 

According to Gruber, Karl Mauracher, an organ builder who serviced the instrument at the Obendorf church, was enamoured with the song, and took the composition home with him to the Zillertal.  From there, two travelling families of folk singers, the Strassers and the Rainers, included the tune in their shows. The Rainers were already singing it around Christmas 1819, and once performed it for an audience that included Franz I of Austria and Alexander I of Russia, as well as making the first performance of the song in the U.S., in New York City in 1839.  By the 1840s the song was well known in Lower Saxony and was reported to be a favourite of Frederick William IV of Prussia. During this period, the melody changed slightly to become the version that is commonly played today.

 

Over the years, because the original manuscript had been lost, Mohr's name was forgotten and although Gruber was known to be the composer, many people assumed the melody was composed by a famous composer, and it was variously attributed to Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven.  However, a manuscript was discovered in 1995 in Mohr's handwriting and dated by researchers as c. 1820. It states that Mohr wrote the words in 1816 when he was assigned to a pilgrim church in Mariapfarr, Austria, and shows that the music was composed by Gruber in 1818. This is the earliest manuscript that exists and the only one in Mohr's handwriting. [end quote from Wikipedia]

 

Although Silent Night is the nearly undisputed favorite Christmas Carol of all time, we know that that night Jesus was born was anything but silent.  We know that all was not calm.  And the world in which Christ entered as a helpless babe could hardly be described at bright.  Deep in our souls we want it to be that sentimental serene nativity that sits on our mantle (or wherever it sits in our home) because deep in our souls we need Christ to come into our anything but silent, calm, and all-is-bright lives and bring that serenity.  Perhaps we need that more this year than any year before. 

 

The good news is that Jesus can and does do that.  But we have to make room to receive this gift.  In the midst of the noise all around us, in the midst of all our chaos, and in the midst of our darkness, we have to make space for Christ to make his home within our soul.  We have to intentionally invite him to come in.  And then we focus the whole of our being on the light and warmth Jesus brings when He takes up residence within us.  It isn’t that the noise, the chaos, and the darkness has gone away; it’s that we’ve chosen to focus on something else – Someone Else to be precise. It’s in the midst of that focus that we can sing “Silent Night” and know that it is true.  

 

Question:  What could you intentionally do this Christmas to “make space” for Jesus?

 

Prayer:  Jesus, we know you are the Light that is the “life of all mankind.” Shine into our darkness, bring calm to chaos, quiet us in the midst of the noise.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for all our elected officials at the national, state, and local levels.

 

Song: Five for Fighting - Silent Night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHoVlIrLJx4

Did Baby Jesus Cry? (Away in a Manger ) - December 15, 2021

 

Away in a Manger - December 15, 2021 

Luke 2:7 - “…and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

 

In our exploring the Carols of the season thus far, we have pointed out some of the dramatic license hymn writers have taken with the biblical accounts of the events surrounding Jesus’s birth.  Today we encounter a hymn itself that has apocryphal (meaning not in the bible) stories surrounding it.  Away in a Manger is sometimes called “Luther’s Cradle Hymn.”  This is because the first time it showed up in a published book, it was reported that this Carol was composed by Martin Luther himself and he would sing it to his children every night as they went to sleep.  This was on March 2, 1882, in the "Childrens' Corner" section of the anti-masonic journal The Christian Cynosure.  Under the heading "Luther's Cradle Song", an anonymous author contributed the first two verses, writing:

“The following hymn, composed by Martin Luther for his children, is still sung by many of the German mothers to their little ones”

It would take too long to go through the process of how it came to be known that most likely, the first two verses and the tune were written by an unknown American author in the mid-eighteenth century.  The third verse was most likely added by Charles H. Gabriel in around 1892, but Gabriel also gave Luther credit.  I guess the sentimental idea of the great reformer Luther singing his children to sleep with this song was too hard to confront.  

The other issue that I have always had with this song (and I’m not alone) is the line that reads, “But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.”  I understand the sentiment.  This is the Son of God; he should be above crying.   However, this actually feeds into a belief about Jesus that has been deemed heresy repeatedly by the church – the heresy of Docetism.  The word Docetism comes from the Greek “dokein,” which means “to seem like.”  The idea is that Jesus, while he was here on earth, only appeared to be human.  He was always God, and thus, he never actually felt pain or experienced suffering of any kind.  God is above such human things as the theory goes.

If you object to that, I say “awesome.” because that means you have had some good solid teaching on Christology, or the nature of Christ.  The church, since it’s beginning has held that Jesus was “fully God” AND “fully human” simultaneously.  Hundreds of thousands of pages have been written by theologians over the centuries to try explain how such a thing can be true, but here’s the bottom line for me.  I don’t think we can ever truly know how it is possible to be fully human and fully divine at the same time, but I still believe that is the truth about Jesus.

That’s a long explanation to say that I believed that the dear baby Jesus did actually cry.  That’s how human babies communicate and Jesus was a human baby.  We worry about babies who never cry because that usually means something is wrong.  Jesus got hungry and cried to be fed.  Jesus got scared and cried to be held.  He got hurt and cried to be comforted.  He needed a diaper and cried to be changed.  He experienced everything all babies experienced. 

I love thinking about that because it reminds me that Jesus also has experienced everything I experience now.  He knows what it feels like to feel brokenhearted, abandoned, depressed, angry, jealous, jubilation, excitement, nervousness, and every other emotion I can think of.  Because He knows all of that AND because He is God, he can help me with whatever I’m going through. 

I think about all of that when I sing “Away in a Manger” and it comforts me. 

 

Question:   What do you think about the fact that the Creator of the Universe submitted to become a helpless human baby?

 

Prayer:  Emmanuel, thank you for being with us and being one of us.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for children who cannot live with their parents and are “in the system.”

 

Song:  Lauren Daigle - Away in a Manger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-9vCZXEb4M

Love Came Down at Christmas (Pearl Harbor Day) - December 7, 2021

Love Came Down at Christmas (Pearl Harbor Day) - December 7, 2021

Philippians 2:5-8, The Message -Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

 

Today is Pearl Harbor Day.  80 years ago, we lost over 2,300 troops in just a few hours.  The attack officially engaged us in World War II and would over cost the US over 405,000 deaths.  Today we remember people like 102 year-old Navy sailor Mickey Ganitch who fought that morning in Hawaii still wearing his USS Pennsylvania football jersey and pads as he was preparing for a football game against the team from the USS Pennsylvania when the Japanese attack began.

 

A year ago, the deaths in the US were roughly equaled to a Pearl Harbor every day (2,200+ deaths 7-day moving average) and it got worse than that before it got better.  Before the 1-year anniversary of the first US death from COVID-19, we experienced more US deaths than the four years of World War II.  And just like World War II, it will be years before we are able to wrap our minds around just what this war with the virus has done to us.  Right now, we just know that our world will never be the same.  And we’re very aware that Christmas this year will not be the same for us and 790,000+ families and counting whose family members will not open any presents this year.

 

In 1941, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, there were talks about compelling all those who were furiously manufacturing supplies to continue to work on Christmas Day because the need was so great.  President Roosevelt convened a Cabinet Meeting to discuss it.  At that meeting, one of the President’s advisors (unknown who exactly it was) made the following comment:

 

“Christmas Day; that is not our day or the day of those who bomb us; Christmas Day is Christ’s day – the day of the grown-ups, and the day of the children”

 

Roosevelt would quote his advisor a few days later at the Annual Christmas Tree Lighting at the White House as the reason it was decided to still set aside Christmas Day as a holiday.  The tree used for the lighting that year was a tree that was moved and replanted on the South Lawn at Roosevelt’s request.  It served as the White House Christmas tree until 1953.  That tree is still there and actually has a red light installed in it that serves as a beacon for the Marine I Helicopter when it lands at the White House. 

 

No matter what is happening in the world, we celebrate Christmas because as our carol for today proclaims, “Love Came Down at Christmas.”  It is that divine love that sustains us in days like these. Hear Rossetti’s poetic third verse

Love shall be our token,

Love be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and all men,

Love for plea and gift and sign.

 

When we light the third Advent Candle (the candle for love) this coming Sunday,  we remember that Love is our everything – our token, our plea, our gift, and our sign.  As another scripture says,

 

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!  But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. (1 Corinthians 13:12-13, The Message)

 

Question:  How will you celebrate the Love that came down at Christmas this year?

 

Prayer:  God, keep us inside your love during this season.  Keep us loving you and loving each other in spite of temptations to do otherwise.  May Love be our token, plea, gift, and sign.

 

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the surviving veterans of Pearl Harbor and World War II today.

 

Song: Love Came Down at Christmas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIr5th0d44Y

"Be Born in Me" - December 3, 2021

Be Born in Me - December 3, 2021

 

Luke 1:30-38, NIV - But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,  and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[b] the Son of God.  Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month.  For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

 

Today I share a reflection from Ronald Rolheiser that was shared with me by Richard Rohr:

 

Looking at how Mary gave birth to Christ, we see that it’s not something that’s done in an instant. Faith, like biology, also relies on a process that has a number of distinct, organic moments. What are these moments? What is the process by which we give birth to faith in the world?

 

First, like Mary, we need to get pregnant by the Holy Spirit. We need to let the word take such root in us that it begins to become part of our actual flesh.

 

Then, like any woman who’s pregnant, we have to lovingly gestate, nurture, and protect what is growing inside us until it’s sufficiently strong so that it can live on its own, outside us. . . .

 

Eventually, of course, we must give birth. . . .

 

Birth, however, is only the beginnings of motherhood. Mary gave birth to a baby, but she had to spend years nurturing, coaxing, and cajoling that infant into adulthood. The infant in the crib at Bethlehem is not yet the Christ who preaches, heals, and dies for us. . . .

 

Finally, motherhood has still one more phase. As her child grows, matures, and takes on a personality and destiny of its own, the mother, at a point, must ponder (as Mary did). She must let herself be painfully stretched in understanding, in not knowing, in carrying tension, in letting go. She must set free to be itself something that was once so fiercely hers. The pains of childbirth are often gentle compared to this second wrenching.

 

All of this is what Mary went through to give Christ to the world: Pregnancy by the Holy Spirit; gestation of that into a child inside of her; excruciating pain in birthing that to the outside; nurturing that new life into adulthood; and pondering, painfully letting go so that this new life can be its own, not hers. . . .

 

Our task too is to give birth to Christ. Mary is the paradigm for doing that. From her we get the pattern: Let the word of God take root and make you pregnant; gestate that by giving it the nourishing sustenance of your own life; submit to the pain that is demanded for it to be born to the outside; then spend years coaxing it from infancy to adulthood; and finally, during and after all of this, do some pondering, accept the pain of not understanding and of letting go.

 

Christmas isn’t automatic, it can’t be taken for granted. It began with Mary, but each of us is asked to make our own contribution to giving flesh to faith in the world.

Reference:

Ronald Rolheiser, “Mary as a Model of Faith,” reflection on Luke 11:27–28 (December 7, 2003).

 

Question: What can you point to as evidence that Christ is being born/formed in you?

 

Prayer:  Be born in me Lord, Jesus.  Amen

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for healing people for whom the Christmas season is a painful time.

 

Song: Be Born in Me – Francesca Battistelli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsXOP7aQeqQ

Isaiah 9:2 - "In The Bleak Midwinter"

 

"In the Bleak Midwinter" - November 28, 2021

 

Isaiah 9:2  The people walking in darkness

    have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of deep darkness

    a light has dawned.

 

Most scholars believe that Jesus was not born in December.  Some of the most compelling arguments are for March or April.  The bottom line is that we just don’t know for sure.  Despite that uncertainty the church eventually co-opted a previously pagan holiday and set the yearly celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25^th, in the bleak midwinter.  After hundreds of years of tradition, it seems most fitting to celebrate God entering the world during the harshest of seasons, a time when we would long for such a celebration.  And this year, it seems especially well timed in the bleak midwinter where we find ourselves still in the midst of a global pandemic.

I love today’s song for at least a couple reasons other than it is sung by one of my favorite artists.  It paints the picture of the dark and bleak time that Jesus entered the world.  The Word of God had not been definitely heard for four hundred years.  The people lived under the thumb of the ruthless Roman Empire.  Factions within Israel fought for influence but were mostly corrupt.  Poverty was widespread.  This is why I like it to be bitterly cold at Christmas.  It reminds me that the world did not offer Christ a warm welcome.  This tone, lyrics and Taylor’s voice singing this song captures that truth so beautifully. Listening to this song often elicits tears for me.

 

But in spite of its sad tone, this song offers hope.  It does so not by suddenly changing the tempo and tone to one that it joyous and upbeat, but by uttering powerful words of hope in the midst of minor chords and tear-jerking notes:

 

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.

 

Hope often comes not in the contrived “don’t worry, be happy” way.  Often it comes as a quiet divine “I’m here” in the midst of the harshest times of our lives.  I am thankful for that because that is the kind of hope we need this year.

 

Question:  What darkness do you need Christ to shed some light into this season?

 

Prayer:  God, you are welcome here.  Bring light to our darkness.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people struggling with depression and/or grief right now.

 

Song:  James Taylor - In the Bleak Midwinter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=278y1yTr83w