12/25/12 Tuesday
For there is born to you this day in
the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign
to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising
God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill
toward men!"
Christmas is here. As I read that
scripture, one that we have all heard so many times, the question comes up “Where
is this “Peace on Earth” it speaks of? I sure don’t see it”. I will address
that further down in this post.
It
is a strange holiday for us in that we don’t get all caught up in the hoopla and just watch as others do. For
me Christmas is for children, at least the presents and pageantry part of it.
We don’t have children and the two boys I helped raise are in their late 20’s,
or maybe even just hit 30. (I know, it’s sad I don’t know how old they are, or
even their birthdates) The oldest has one or two young children but because we
don’t talk I’m not sure if it’s one or two of them but know there is at least
one baby. Children was one of the things Cherie and I were robbed of due to the
first divorce and missing the childbearing years. But let’s not go there.
A storm blew in about 8:00 this
morning. It dropped the temperature right away and there is a strong wind
blowing out of the north. Sadly we got no rain out of it but the sand is
certainly blowing. Instead of a white Christmas we have a West Texas brown
Christmas. Cherie bought a nice steak for us to have for our Christmas meal. I
had planned on cooking it out on the grill but with the wind, cold, and blowing
sand that won’t happen. Would sure be a gritty steak in this stuff.
The blanket we have nailed to the top
of the bedroom window is blowing as the wind finds its way through all the
cracks and crevices these old leaky windows have. I opened one of the windows a
little and put a kitchen towel in the crack and then closed the window on it to
get a better seal. The other window has the air conditioner someone gave us in
it. I had stuffed insulation around it and tied a plastic garbage bag around it
to reduce the air coming through. So we winterize the best we can.
I am not sure we will have enough wood
to stay warm all winter. We’ve already burned about have of what I was able to
cut but if it gets bad I know where there are some dead trees I can go cut up.
Had it all planned out regarding wood but then someone decided to cause
problems with me and the sweet little old lady I was helping anyway I could. She
had 40 pecan trees that are mostly dead I was to cut and trim. With this wind
blowing cold through the house the back room where the wood stove is stays almost
too warm while the bedroom with its leaky windows is cold. We dress warm in the
house.
The wind is blowing hard this Christmas day.
This Christmas, as we celebrate the
birth of Jesus, the son of God who came to earth to pay the price for every
wrong we have ever done, my thoughts are swayed to focus on division. Jesus
came to show us the way to get along, to unite us under His banner of love, but
He knew that there would be strife despite that. In fact one time he said "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not
come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to 'set a man
against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law'; 36 and 'a man's enemies will be those
of his own household.” (Mathew 10) How strange this must sound to many, how
opposite of the common perception of the Christian faith it might be. And it
seems to contradict what Jesus said in Mathew 5 “Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God.” “How do you explain that Bob?” I’m
sure someone would ask.
There are always the realities of how
things are, versus how nice it would be if they were not such a mess. Jesus
knew, and still knows, exactly what will happen. The scripture above describes some serious
division within a family, lots of fighting between relatives. Lord knows I’ve
seen and experienced plenty of that. When you read the whole chapter you can
see that Jesus was instructing His disciples before sending them out to preach
to the surrounding communities. As is often the case when Jesus talked, He
prophesies the future as well and the words he spoke to His disciples He knew
we would be reading 2000 years later and thus are for our instruction too.
Jesus warned the 12 disciples that they would run into lots of opposition not
just on this journey but in the future as well.
And what about that “Peace on Earth”
thing the angels were singing when Jesus was born? There has been little if any
peace on the earth since that happened, though at the particular moment Jesus
was born and during his lifetime there in fact was an unusual period of peace
in the known world. It was called the “Pax Roma” for this was the moment that
Rome had pretty much whipped everyone into submission so for this short period
of time there were no big wars between nations. But we know that did not last
long.
What you need to understand is that
God does not see things the way we do. God knows the end from the very
beginning and He does not have the sense of time we do. We are born, live, and
die. We get up in the morning, go to work or whatever we do, and the day comes
to an end where we must sleep. God however has always been and will always be.
He has no beginning or end, does not get tired or sleep, so He thinks
eternally. God knew and planned when Jesus was born that the long term end
result of Jesus’ birth and death on the cross would be the final end of all
that is bad and a new beginning for all who choose to believe. The start of
eternity where there is no more suffering, no more pain, and no more tears. But
the path there will be one of fire and turmoil, through which all will be
tested and tried to see what is true and what is not. So peace is coming but there
will be hell first.
So what about Jesus not coming to
bring peace but a sword? What Jesus knows is how we are. People are proud, get
jealous, envy the others who seem to be better off, covet what they have, and that
whole list of our weaknesses. James said “What causes fights and quarrels among
you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want
something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you
want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When
you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may
spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know
that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a
friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (James 4)
Jesus is God and represents all that
is pure and holy. The problem is that none of us are pure or holy. Now I
understand that for those who are true believers all their sins have been
washed away and they are thus, in God’s sight, as clean as fresh snow, but the
reality is we are still a mess. When James wrote that letter we just read a
part of, he was writing to Christians. Being a Christian does not make you
perfect or better than anyone else, what it means is that you are forgiven and now
must work to be a better example to the rest of the world. We are sometimes the
only Jesus anyone will ever see, and they judge God by how we act. Being a
Christian means you understand you are a mess, and in need of God’s grace and
mercy. Being a Christian requires you to humble yourself and work to serve
others instead of serving yourself.
Sadly,
there are many who wear that Christian label but act quite contrary to what it
means. There are many who reject our faith because of what they have seen done
in the name of God. Throughout history there have been wars fought and tens of
thousands of people killed under the banner of Christ. This has been thrown up
to me many times as I strive to explain God’s love to others. There have been
(and still are) people killed as they fought over different interpretations of
what it means to be a Christian, and of course this disgusts those who watch.
The atheists are quick to point out all these faults and use them to justify
their rejection of God. What they fail to understand is that these people,
groups, even nations miss and do not follow the basics of our faith. That is to
love your neighbor as you love yourself. You don’t have to love what they do
but understand and have compassion, knowing they will stand before God and be
judged, just as you will.
There's not much left of the corn we grew. We'll mow this down and disk it under
Jesus once sat a child in His lap and
said “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would
be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be
drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks ! For it
is inevitable that stumbling blocks come ; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes ! (Mathew 18)
We all need to understand that
judgment comes to us all. If, through our words or actions, we cause someone to
despise the church or decide it is all a big fraud, their blood is on our
heads. So many do not get that. They think that because they had an emotional
experience, or go to church, or simply say “I’m a Christian” they have their
get out of hell free card. I’ve got some bad news for them. Jesus, who is the
judge on that final day, said "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he
who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will
enter.
Many will say to Me on
that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we
not prophesy in Your name, and in
Your name cast out demons, and in
Your name perform many miracles ? And then I will declare to them,
'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME,
YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'
Talk is cheap. We are not saved by our
works, but we are judged by our works, for what you really believe is displayed
by what you do. God judges our hearts, for He sees the innermost workings of
our minds and knows our thoughts. Jesus quoted what the prophet Isaiah wrote
hundreds of years before when He told the religious leaders “Hypocrites! Well
did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 'These people draw near to Me with their
mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in
vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' "
(Mathew 15)
Christmas last year. What a rare snow that was.
But in regards to the sword Jesus
brings, that sword is the reaction of others to the truth. The fact is no is
comfortable when faced with the truth that they live a lie. Everyone I know
believes they are right, or justifies their actions. But none of them enjoy
having their lives exposed. This is the eternal battle of light and darkness,
and in the face of God’s pureness we all understand how far from the mark we
fall, or at least some of us do. There are many who revel in their darkness and
as a result hate with a passion all that is good. How well this is spelled out
in the gospel of John,
For God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn
the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in
Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because
he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is
the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone
practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds
should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds
may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."
As it was in Jesus’ day, so it is
now. After Jesus died and then, three days later, rose from the dead the early
church exploded. Many became converts to the faith but it caused great rifts
between families as the religious leaders fought what they labeled as a
religious cult. At first it was the Jewish leaders, who tried to stamp out this
movement through persecution and even by killing those who had converted, but
as the church grew it became a “threat” to the Roman government. So the words
of Jesus held true, not just then but even today. In Egypt there is a reward
offered for anyone who learns of a Moslem converting to Christianity. Often
those collecting the rewards are family members who turn their own blood kin
in. We know of many who died there and other places because of their faith.
In the Roman empire there were
definite periods where persecution of the church was ramped up and even made
official Roman law, but this often was followed by a period of somewhat eased
up persecution. Around the year 202 AD in Carthage there was a young woman
named Perpetua. She was pregnant but came to the attention of the Roman
governor. It was a time when all someone had to do was deny their faith and
throw a pinch of incense on a fire as an offering to the emperor, who was seen
as a god, and all would be fine. The governor wrote to the emperor asking
advice regarding these Christians. They were seen as a superstitious sect, not
a real religion, for in the Roman mind all real religions had to be ancient.
Today we have much the same attitude,
in that because we don’t do what everyone else does, we don’t accept practices
that we feel are wrong in the sight of God, but maintain our moral code, we are
increasingly seen as a threat to those who choose to not live that way.
Unfortunately many churches now are compromising, bending to be more “acceptable”
or “tolerant” and thus those who choose to maintain the biblical standard are
seen as a growing minority of kooks.
So tell me, why are we so bad? Jesus
said “Blessed are the peacemakers” because that is what a true Christian should
be. We are to love our neighbor, give them the shirt off our back, turn the
other cheek when struck, and forgive those who treat us badly. Interesting
thing about the Roman persecutions is that the Bubonic plague struck that
kingdom in many localities, wiping out sometimes as much as 80% of the
population. But while everyone was fleeing in terror it was the Christians who
stayed, caring for the sick, helping those who died till they passed, and risking
their lives as they displayed the love of Christ in truth. The empire took note
of this and persecution eased up. People saw and when compared to their other
religions realized that there was a truth here, an eternal truth and a real
God, not one that others had made up long ago.
I have facebook friends who have
posted derogatory remarks about “Christians”. I understand that they, like I,
have seen much hypocrisy from various churches or factions that wear the Christian
label. But a true believer learns to be humble, not arrogant, learns to
forgive, and learns to love in the true meaning of the word. The key is “Learning”,
a process that takes time and practice, and none of us are perfect. In the
church there are many problems but the reality is we all will answer to God in
the end, and it is that fear, a healthy fear, which keeps those who truly believe
conscious of how they act.
Time to go. Feel free to message me
if you have any questions and feel free to comment and let me know what you
think.
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