ADVENT ENCOUNTERS - JOSEPH AND MARY

A friend of mine, Tammie Gitt, writes a super blog called living 3368.  She makes a guest appearance today on THRIVING IN CHRIST with some thoughts on Joseph and Mary that I found intriguing.  Don't forget to click the commentary link. - Steve

Advent Encounters: Mary and Joseph

Did you ever wonder if Mary and Joseph welcomed the anonymity of the road to Bethlehem?
Think about what the past months have been like for them. It all began with an angelic visit. Then came explanations and tears, misunderstandings and revelations, whispers and rumors. No doubt there were still people in town who didn’t buy Mary’s story of becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit  or Joseph’s insistence on a visionary dream … and the whispers continued.

For a few days on the road, they were just another couple complying with a Roman edict.

One commentary suggested the 90-mile journey would take about three days. They’re the scholars, but common sense tells me it took longer than that. To make it in three days would have required the couple to cover a distance of 30 miles a day — with Mary waddling along when she wasn’t on the donkey — at a pace of three miles per hour.

I’m guessing that didn’t happen.

I’m guessing it was a much more difficult journey, physically and emotionally.

Any comfort they had in being just another traveling couple on an ancient Roman road ended when they arrived in Bethlehem. They found busy streets and crowded homes. And, since this whole census thing was a government operation, there were probably lines and paperwork and surly counter agents.
But something happened in the midst of the chaos.

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
(Luke 2:6-7 ESV)

It was no modern hospital, but it was a decent option overall when you think about Bethlehem that day. It was a warm, private, quiet place where Mary could have her baby without the nosy neighbors complaining about her screams of pain or the baby’s cries.

It was a place where Mary, Joseph and the newborn Jesus could be alone.

In the midst of the chaos in these final days before Christmas, find your stable.

Look for a private, quiet place where you can be alone with Jesus.

Try once again to wrap your mind around the mystery of God with us.

Emmanuel.

FUTURE PLANNING

"The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."

- Abraham Lincoln

New Year's Day is more than a week away but I already have my planning calendar and it has dates written in it as far ahead as next September - 2011, that is.  I actually keep four calendars. One, my sermon planning calendar has been in my possession since early August.  In early September I purchased my long range planner  (the one mentioned above). It contains my daily planner (which is my third calendar) and I have fairly detailed plans written in for the first week of January. The fourth is my office calendar which I produce weekly for the benefit of my Administrative Assistant, Patty. It is on my computer and is printed out for her each Monday.  At the time of this writing, next week has about four confirmed appointments.

Calendars are one of the tools that I use to keep a clear focus on the future and plan to be ready to meet the future,  Such planning can be considered presumptuous.  James writes:

"Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil." - James 4.13-16

If I believed that those calendars defined my future or put me in charge of my future; such planning would indeed be presumptuous.  More than that, it would be sinful.

But not too plan at all would also be presumptuous and even sinful.  I'd be saying, "God, I have no responsibility to be a good steward of my time." Simply going with the flow would give me an excuse to drift along any current instead of following the command, "Redeem the time."

We are warned not to worry about the future. Jesus says very plainly in Matthew 6:34: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."       

Jeremiah 29:11 shares these words from the Lord."For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

Good future planning is to seek the mind of God to discover what those plans are and to plan to follow them.

THE STORY OF AMAZING GRACE

Here's a bonus for those of you who get the on line version of THRIVING IN CHRIST.

HEADING FOR THE MANGER

Reading: Matthew 2.1-12

We are now seven days before Christmas Eve.  People are hustling around trying to complete their Christmas shopping (or grabbing some time to wrap presents). There may be one or two Christmas parties left.  Family schedules are being adjusted so that we can get to all the stops we need to make for Christmas Day.  Many of us in this group will be in church Friday night to celebrate the Birth.

This is the story of the visit of the Magi to the manger. The Magi were royalty who had the time and leisure to be scholars--astronomers, it appears and students of the religious writings of the Middle East. In those days, stars were believed to be signs of momentous events or life messages. It was a bit more substantive than the current day's astrology and horoscopes. They were likely from Persia.  We do not know exactly when this occurred, but given the distance they would have traveled and the response of Herod after their departure, the journey could have been up two years.

By their own report, they started their journey after the saw the Star.  The scriptures leave us to understand that the Star first appeared in the night sky on the day of Jesus' birth.

They also came prepared--with gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh.Gold is a gift for a King, symbolising Jesus' kingship. Frankincense is an incense used by priests, thus symbolising Jesus' priesthood. Myrrh is used in embalming the dead, which prophetically signifies that Jesus was born to die. These are the symbolic meaning of these gifts, but they must have also had a practical purpose. It is likely that Mary saved the myrrh for Jesus' burial; although it is also likely that some of it was used for Joseph's burial as well. The Frankincense may have been used in the home of Joseph when they celebrated te Passover.

The point here is this.  These men rearranged their lives to come to the manger, and they came with gifts that expressed an awareness of what Jesus would need. So here's the question - are you arranging your life to make sure that Jesus remains at the center, not only for this season but the whole year?  And have you asked yourself, what does God want me to offer Him as a reflection of my worship and thanksgiving?

GOD IS OUT OF OUR SIGHT, OUT OF OUR MIND

We live in a world where God is out of  our sight and out of our minds. Too many persons, including many Christians, live as if there is no God or as if He is irrelevant to their daily existence. Craig Groeschel calls the latter “Christian atheists,” persons who say they believe in God but live as if they didn’t.

Why is this the case? I don’t think it is because the true atheists have won us over. In fact, since the beginning of  the postmodern era, there are very few true atheists left. Postmodernism admits that man is a spiritual creature and most atheist’s arguments fall of deaf ears.
I don’t think it’s because God has failed to make Himself known. Nor that He Himself is disinterested in His planet and its inhabitants.
I do think it is because most of us are deists at heart and agnostics in practice.  Deism is the classic idea of the “clockwork God” who sets the world into motion and then steps away to let humanity work things out. God is there, but does not intervene in human events. Agnosticism is the belief that although God probably exists, He is basically irrelevant to human life. Sort of like your grandfather suffering from dementia and confined to a nursing home.

Isaiah calls this state of affairs and its inhabitants “people living in deep darkness.”

Advent is the season when we acknowledge that we are people living in darkness. In fact, if we manage a little honest reflection in between mad dashes to the mall for yet one more present, we admit we are in deep darkness.

That deep darkness confines generosity and good will to a few weeks before December 25.

It excuses our consumption and materialism while neighbors still starve and others have nothing.

It tolerates our intolerance of people not like us and blunts any compassion under the excuse of “being practical or realistic.”

Deep darkness keeps us living as if we are accountable to no one except ourselves, and then justifies our making an exception to all of our sinful choices.
But in all of this, we are not without hope. 

“The people living in deep darkness have seen a great light … for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given … and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9.2-6)

The light is in the world.
The light is on.
The time has come for us to open our eyes and see the light.

(C) 2010 by Stephen L Dunn