Christmas – A Story of Humiliation

Think back to your most humiliating experience – that face-plant on the school steps, the hot date that was such a disaster, the undeserved dressing-down from your boss.  What was it about?  Your cringing is largely a memory of someone making you look small.

Now let’s visit that baby in a manger in Bethlehem whose birthday we are celebrating.  So cute, but who is he?  He is the creator.  He breathes in worship and exhales stars.  He invented life, light and energy.  He is able to create matter out of nothing.  He knows and understands the whereabouts and nature of every smallest particle in the universe.  Indeed, he directs them all.  And here he is, joyfully taking on the straightjacket of humanity.  He becomes trapped in his creation.  Not only does he confine himself to being human, but he takes it to the extreme of being the most puny person on the planet – a newborn.  Now he is absolutely dependent on others to meet his physical needs, he can’t eat, drink, move or even poop without someone helping.  We would have expected him to come as some sort of conquering ruler. 

Talk about humiliation.  No-one bigger has ever been made to look smaller.

And this is the happy end of the story.  Still to come for him are 30 years of hard work; 3 years of nomadic preaching, an excruciating death, and three days separation from the other members of the trinity, with whom he has had the ultimate in intimate relationships since before they created time together.

Why does he submit to all of this?

To pay a sin debt on behalf of those created people.  Creatures who are far from perfect, and deserve plenty of fire and brimstone.  You and me.  He loved us enough to embrace the ultimate humiliation, in order to dig us out of hell.

So maybe the so-called Christmas Spirit is more than alcohol, glitter, trees, unappreciated gifts that cost too much, fractious family gatherings, carols performed by opportunistic pop artists, or even sermons exhorting us to put Christ back into Christmas.

Maybe it is about us lying on our faces before Him and whispering “Wow God, I don’t deserve this.  You paid a lot.  Thank you.”

 

 

The Other

Every Friday night during fall, in every high school, parents gather in the bleachers and loudly encourage their kids to crush those from the other school.  All in the name of building school spirit.

The unfortunate side effects from this are many, as is evidenced by the incidents getting saturation coverage in the media at the moment.

The more subtle and insidious lesson learned is that anyone outside our team colors is evil, and so the kids are indoctrinated with a message that the “other,” (whomever they may be – other school, college, race, nation, doctrine, eye color, profession, company…) is to be treated with suspicion, hatred and, preferably, annihilated. When in doubt – point a gun at them. A classic example of this is the movie ET. A cute alien comes to visit. The kid’s response is to party. The adult response is to cover the place in plastic and surround it with heavy weaponry. A great way to start a dialogue.

I am also beginning to suspect that this is also influencing the way Christians think about their relationships. It is instilling a perception that might is right. I have been stunned recently by some of my spiritual heroes espousing revenge and resentment in the name of being strong. An example was a cartoon “liked” by a church goer with a US bomber unloading its payload and the caption “The only response to ISIS killing journalists.” The debate about guns among Christians is often built on the right to self-defense. Really? Is that in the Bible?

In turn, when things get out of control, we rage at each other and at God. Now that I am listening for it, I am hearing resentment being expressed a frightening amount of the time, by people that on the surface are the core of the church. This is shredding families, friendships and workplaces. It is 10 AM and I have already encountered three expressions of deep-rooted bitterness covered in a veneer of “nice”. And this in a place that is actually pretty happy.

The biblical principle is simple – love your enemies. And we can do this because we can trust God to drive what happens in our lives. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” means that he will supply all our needs – including those that we don’t like. Resentment is not a privilege or a right – it is sin. Likewise revenge. Matt 6 says that our being forgiven is tied to our forgiving others. This is not because our salvation has anything to do with what we do, but the failure to forgive is a clear symptom of not being a child of God (See 1 John).

So should we roll over and be walked on? No – but the responsibility for protection and justice runs top down, from God first, delegated to appointed authorities, and no further. Being a vigilante at any level never has a positive connotation.

My exhortation then is to examine your words and attitudes. Are you being eaten by anger because of something that happened to you? Are you attacking people because of past wounds? Stop, repent and step away from your “rights” – you don’t have any. It’s not about you. Your injunction is to love.

Football is not entirely responsible, but let’s teach our kids that somebody “different” is not automatically the spawn of the devil.

 

 

 

Faith in a Zipline

We recently went on a zipline tour in the Smokey Mountains. This comprised jumping off a perfectly good tower while strapped onto a narrow cable, to fly at 40mph over the trees onto another, much lower tower.  Six times.  For fun apparently.

Here are the facts: you have no control over speed – no brakes, clamps, gloves – nothing.  Screaming only helps if you are facing the right way; and you have no control over the direction you are facing either.  At the end is a guy telling you to move your head away from the cable so that if he catches you, you don’t get throttled.  Those solid towers come at you pretty quick at 40 mph.  On teeny tiny wheels connected to a thin piece of aluminium from which you hang on a tired old piece of rope.  With no brakes.  And no steering.  And no airbags.  Not even a cup-holder.  And to top it all they want you to do it up-side down, which apparently you can control.

My wife loved it but apparently I did not look excited.

The difference?  She trusted the equipment and the people, and enjoyed the adrenaline.  I am a forensic engineer.  I spend my life looking at broken things.  I don’t trust stuff like that, or the people operating it.  I am also a control freak, so being completely helpless was not life affirming.

It was just like life as a Christian. 

There is little of significance about my life that I actually have any control over: life or death, health, job security, my kids’ well-being.  No brakes, steering or airbags.  It is terrifying.  I wrestle every day with going back to the bible and being reminded that God is actually in control, because:

·       He is good, and so plans good things for me, although we may sometimes differ on what is defined as “good,” or fun

·       He is all-powerful, so he can actually do something about the things that are out of control

·       He is loving, meaning he is not indifferent and facing the other way playing on his phone when I am coming at a solid object at 40 mph

So we have to keep working on learning to actually trust God.  We do that by trying him out, then looking back and remembering that He did keep his promises.  I finally did enjoy the sixth zip-ride.  Now I just have to enjoy the rest of my life, including the things I am afraid of.  By faith.

 

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26 (ESV)

 

 

Navel Gazing

It has been sinking into my awareness that much of current christian writing and teaching is about how we as believers should be responding to the stuff happening around us.  This is necessary and good, but...

The “but” is because our navel gazing, “how do you feel about this,” society is influencing the way we think.  The part we are missing is that we were created to be active in giving, loving, and worshipping, not just contemplating how we feel about life.

 So how do we respond to a life that seems less than ideal?  We typically:

·         Get angry at the people involved, then have to struggle to forgive them and repair broken relationships
·         Get angry with God, then deal with the confusion because God says He is good and He loves you
·         Become an activist, seeking to change the world, until you realize you can't and burn out
·         Become a fatalist, grudgingly "accepting" it all, until someone pushes your buttons and you explode

What we should be doing is celebrating. 

Celebrate bad stuff????  Joking right?  Nope.

Romans 8:28 is an abused passage, but the truth therein applies in every situation.  Everything that comes at you is good, including:

·         Grief: when people we love die or move away
·         Disappointment: when people you trust the most fail you
·         Loss: when you don't get your way, or when the system beats you
·         Failure: when you fall short
·         Broken relationships
·         Blazing success

Lets go back to basics.  What is God's plan for us?

·         Worship him
·         Love others
·         And so find complete satisfaction and fulfillment

Incidents in your life then, are intended by the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God to make you better equipped to do these things.

So when I don’t like life, is it trusting and faithful for me to throw a sulk?

Our sin nature drives us to be self-oriented: we take, keep, hoard and manipulate.  God's nature, and what he created us to be, is the exact opposite: generous, sacrificing, loving, creative.  He steers the stuff around us to make us more like Him.  So yes, we should be celebrating His engagement in our lives and that He is forming us into a better condition.

There is a web-page that says "You have reached the end of the internet.  Now turn off your computer and go out and play."

So my basic point.  Life is not about you. God has only good things for you.  You have reached the limits of your introspection.  Now go out and put your energies into helping / loving others with all of your might. That is what is you were designed to do.  There we will find fulfillment.

What should we be doing and writing about then?  Action, doing, loving, giving.  We are indoctrinated to believe that we have made it when we can put our feet up and be entertained.  That’s just laziness.  Rather, we have made it when we find a way to serve that matches our strengths.

I sat in a conference this week and listened to a corporate president talk with excitement and passion about how proud he was of the people he works with and the fabulous infrastructure that they have built.  It was inspiring.  He showed 1000 photographs of how our industry has changed, and how it has changed the world.  The best part?  It was not about him.  This was shortly after another "motivational" speaker spent an hour telling us that if we believe in ourselves we can do anything, and using his past successes  as proof.  Trouble is that same person is in the press for his very public foibles and failures in life.  Who had the greater impact?

We put a lot of energy into chasing happiness, which is disturbingly delicate.  Anything that goes wrong leads to pain instead.  The better way is to seek joy.  Where is that?  In trusting God and serving him. 

Jesus went to the cross "for the joy that was before him" in agonizing torture and death.  Paul's most joyous texts were written in prison.  Why?  Because he was where God wanted him to be, and his audience couldn't get away from him.  Habakkuk celebrated impending starvation, because it meant God was cleaning up the city.

Remember the parable of a man who sold everything he had to buy a field.  He sold everything?  He must be nuts!  Was that a good deal?  Absolutely, because in the field was treasure.  He came out ahead.  Likewise, ditching stuff, "leisure," and self for real joy is an obvious choice when you think about it.

Who am I to rant like this?  Someone who is struggling to learn and live this.  I have a long way to go.

So let’s go, give and let Jesus change us.