The Great Revelation

Luke 2:15 NIV

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

My earliest memory of Christmas was when final proof came that Santa Claus was real.  I was perhaps four or five years old and Christmas Eve, I heard a loud banging around on the porch, a boisterous, “ho, ho, ho” and a firm knock on the door.  My mom urged me to open the door and go out on the porch and I found the most beautiful tricycle in the world sitting there.  I shouted with glee, jumped up and down and gazed in wonder at what Santa had left for me.  The joy of Christmas was gloriously physical, encompassing, radiating.  Of course, my take on Christmas is much more sophisticated now and so is yours but, I wonder if that makes us better.

Christmas was not always Christian, at least in regard to the time of the year we celebrate it.  We know that it was first a pagan holiday, a time of drinking and carousing.  Yet, it did not immediately “clean up its act” even after the Christian community took it over and made Christmas a time of celebrating the birth of Jesus.  There was much about the reveling that made it a fearful time for good families who avoided the drunken mobs running the streets during Christmas.  It really was not until the Protestant Christians of Germany embraced Christmas fully as a time of honoring the Christ child that Christmas took on its holiness and wonder.

The night Jesus was actually born a great split in the cosmos occurred as the supernatural met the natural in a spectacular display.  Rarely do we see the supernatural beings of God’s universe; they remain almost entirely hidden from us.  Abraham came upon them.  Elisha did too, along with Samson’s parents and Jacob.  They are generally spotted only in dreams if at all.  Of the many billions who have come and gone, only a handful have ever seen God’s angels and knew they had.  However, that one night, whose date has been forgotten by the world, a small cadre of shepherds were stunned by their sudden appearance.

Only Luke records the moment.  The other Gospel writers and apostles failed to mention it when they wrote their parts of the Bible.  There was nothing notable about the night to warn the shepherds of what was coming as far as we know.  No meteor showers, lunar eclipses or bright Christmas stars paved the way.  It just happened without warning; a split second the shepherds were tired and bored and maybe even hungry and the next, the heavens exploded before them.  And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. (Luke 2:8-9 NIV) A single angel was enough to throw the shepherds into panic.  We certainly must not skirt quickly past the included note that the “glory of the Lord shone around them”, but, it was the solitary angel that shook them violently.  This consideration should not be taken lightly.  When the supernatural crashes down upon the natural, there is shock and amazement.  The senses are almost always dazzled and overwhelmed.  The spiritual core of humanity cannot take in the supernatural casually.  A violent eruption occurs within that shakes the ground of those who come upon it.

We know that the presence of the angel did not bring this to a conclusion though.  More of the night exploded with wonder as the shepherds took in the glory of God.  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." (Luke 2:13-14 NIV) Imagine the spectacle of it and how shook they all must have been by what they witnessed.  Not a single shepherd could have been unmoved.  Before the sky filled with supernatural though, the first angel announced happily to the shepherds, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." (Luke 2:10-12 NIV)

How would you have responded to this declaration?  What would you have done if you heard this strangely electrifying news?  Would you have continued to stay with your sheep that night?  Would you have kept watching your show or checking Facebook?  Would you have worked on your dinner or gone through your emails or maybe even headed off to bed?  Not everyone who comes upon the supernatural is transformed by it.  Plenty, like the Israelites who gave little thought to the God who revealed Himself to them in a cloud with lightning and great glory, simply go on with the day as if nothing much happened.  Such was not the case though with these shepherds!  When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. (Luke 2:15-16 NIV)

When God reveals Himself to you, it is a supernatural event.  No one comes to Christ without the Spirit of God intervening.  It is not an intellectual exercise, not a logical conclusion, this matter of being born again.  This is always a work of the supernatural Presence of God who makes it clear that you must come to Christ for salvation.  It never is just you and your mind making this connection.  Always God must be there for you to trust Him, want Him.  Any other religious or political or intellectual consideration can spring from just you but not this.  Jesus must enter your mind if you are to ever become actually Christian, truly a new creation in Christ.  The conclusion of the text is one of the most heartwarming accounts found anywhere in literature.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.  The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. (Luke 2:17-20 NIV)

When the supernatural meets you; when God invades your heart, you are stirred with either resentment toward Him or devotion to Him.  Satan and the Israelites who rebelled against God each did so because the glory of the Lord was frustrating to them and felt like a hindrance to what they wanted.  For the shepherds, it was the beginning of eternal life, the start of joy.  What does God do for you?  Does He stir up resentment and disappointment?  Do you get aggravated by what He expects of you or are you thrilled by His love for you, captivated by His presence in you?  Have you the pleasure of the shepherds in you; joyful that He is there with you?  You can quickly tell who has your heart, the devil or supernatural Jesus.  If it bugs you that Christ seems to expect so much of you, wants more out of you than you are willing to give, then Satan is more your friend than you might be willing to admit.  But, if there are no boundaries to how far you will go to glorify and bring honor to Jesus, then you are close to where the shepherds were, to where Jacob was and where Mary was as she sat with the crucified Christ in the tomb.  What sort of reaction does the presence of God here stir in your heart as you come before Him now?  Are you with the shepherds in this, full of joy at what the Lord has done in you or are you a bit cranky that He expects too much of you?

Mary’s Gift

Luke 2:19 NIV

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

What Sort of Gift Are You Expecting?

This past week I was talking with some children and one of them asked what I was going to do for Christmas.  I gave her a brief summary of our Christmas day plans and told her also that we would go to a church service on Sunday also.  Quickly one of the children stated she too was a Christian and commented that several others of them there were also Christian and they all nodded their heads and smiled.   The girl pointed at another child and asked her if she was a Christian too and she smiled broadly and said she was.  One of the children then gazed deeply into my eyes and asked me if I would be drinking at Christmas.  I admitted I wouldn’t, that I didn’t drink at all and she then solemnly confessed that both of her parents drank and then paused.  “I wish my dad didn’t drink so much. I have tried to get him to quit but he won’t.  I got my grandpa to stop smoking but my dad won’t stop drinking.”  Dumbfounded by this child’s openness and deep sadness, I gave no reply.  What sadness there is in this world!  What brokenness and heartache!  I wonder, if that little eleven year old girl has a Christmas wish that goes beyond toys and games and cool vacations.  I wonder what sort of gift she wants this Christmas day!

Recently I spent a bit of time pondering the circumstances Mary the mother of Jesus faced as she went through her nine months of pregnancy.  Was she aware of the internal struggle Joseph her betrothed was enduring?  Did she know just how heartbroken he was upon discovering Mary was pregnant?  Of course she must have seen it in his eyes, in his frowning, in the tension that hardened his smile.  Mary got to take a break from the public scrutiny for a while.  She went to be with her pregnant cousin Elizabeth and celebrate the child she would soon have in her old age.  There was a gift awaiting Mary that she would always treasure.  When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.  In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!  But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. (Luke 1:41-45 NIV)

The comfort Mary felt at Elizabeth’s reaction to her walking in the house breathed hope into the young and tenderhearted Mary.  After three months though, she returned to Nazareth, pregnant and unmarried.  Soon the whispers began; the rumors, the gossip, the frowns, the withering stares as she passed.  But then came a second gift, a stunning surprise.  Joseph had a dream and in it an angel told him not to be afraid of Mary’s pregnancy.  “Stay with her,” he was told. “Believe her”, the angel insisted.  It was too good to be true.  Joseph was going to still marry her: he trusted her and believed her story.  But as the day of the baby’s birth grew near, a stupendous demand was made of her.  Mary would have to walk all the way to Bethlehem from Nazareth with nine months of baby in her belly.  In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world… And everyone went to his own town to register.  So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. (Luke 2:1-6 NIV)

We always picture her riding on a donkey as they trudged along but none of the accounts in the Bible say anything about a donkey…or a horse…or a mule…or even a Shetland pony.  Ninety miles they trudged along.  Up steep hills and along dry and weary valleys they plodded.  This could not have been in any of Mary’s dreams of how this would go.  They say that it is good for women to walk a bit the final days of their pregnancy…but not ninety miles.  It was unreasonable.  Miserable!  Swollen ankles and a heavy belly throwing her balance out of whack added to the wretchedness of it.  They made it though…somehow.

Finally in Bethlehem where Mary was bursting with baby and ready to give birth, no place could found where they could stay.  Famously there was, “no room in the inn.”   Where was Mary’s baby to be born?  We say it was a stable but we don’t really know.  A stable isn’t mentioned, just a feed trough where Jesus was placed after He was delivered by Joseph.  Imagine the disappointment Mary must have felt having to deliver Jesus like a sheep delivers its lamb, like a cow its calf, like a doe its fawn outside or in a stall or some cave somewhere.  Alone with her husband and the baby at her side, it would seem Mary may have felt forgotten, certainly weary, and perhaps unwanted.  At the same time as Mary was giving birth to her baby Jesus in some dirty and forsaken place in Bethlehem, shepherds scattered along the hillsides with their sheep drearily kept track of the flocks they managed.  Every night a lonesome watch!  Shepherds may not have been as despised in Israel as they were in Egypt during Jacob’s time but they were certainly shunned by most people.  Dirty, smelly, poor, uneducated, socially awkward, having all the unique personality traits of those out by themselves for hours and weeks and months at a time, they were no one’s role model, living on the bottom rung of the social order.

But then without warning, the sky exploded with supernatural wonder.  And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  (Luke 2:8-9 NIV)  The angel was not alone though.  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." (Luke 2:13-14 NIV)  The message to all those shepherds in shocked amazement was astonishing.  But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." (Luke 2:10-12 NIV)

Off the shepherds scampered scattering about the town of Bethlehem in search of this wondrous baby.  When they found him, the mob of filthy shepherds and their dumbfounded expressions as they approached Mary and her newborn baby Jesus must have been quite a confounding sight for the young disheveled mother and her husband.  Can we imagine what alarm and dismay they might have initiated in Mary’s heart?   What else could go badly she may have wondered!  And yet this was the great Christmas gift, an astonishing one.  As the shepherds, perhaps all at once, blurted out the sight of the great host of angels and the message they gave, Mary may have at first listened in stunned disbelief but then, having experience with the supernatural workings of God, realized that it was the Lord who was once more comforting her, once again giving her peace and encouragement.  Over and over the shepherds may have repeated the message.  "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.   With all the chaos and disappointment and hardship this birth brought, Mary had this amazing gift to consider.  The Scripture says that Mary, " treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19 NIV)

The expression “treasured” is the translation of a Greek word that means “to keep safe” or “to protect carefully in mind”.  “Pondered” likewise means to “continuously cast about in mind.”  In other words, Mary thought about this message from the angels over and over again and never forgot what they said.  In a time of great upheaval, loneliness and troubling thoughts, God presented Mary with a lovely gift that carried her past all her doubt and fear.  God, wrapped in the packaging of dirty shepherds who were outcasts from much of the world, gave Mary something to treasure.  “I am with you.  I am in charge and I will take you through this.”  On this very day and in this one place, do you have a gift that God has given you that you have not noticed, that you have not given much thought, not grasped its great value?  Maybe you have not thought enough of what God has done for you, not yet fully seen what a lovely and great gift He has given you.  Perhaps you could wait just a moment with Christ beside you and consider what gift you have that is precious beyond measure.  Do you see it?  Do you have it fixed in your mind?  What great gift has God given you that you can never repay?

Praying or Fantasizing

Mark 11:24 NIV

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

How Confident Are About Praying?

A number of years ago we went to Disneyland and our daughter was only three.  She loved to dress up in princess outfits and she had a number that she brought for our trip there.  One day she could dress as Cinderella, another as Snow White and the next she was prepared to be Belle.  In fact she could change in the middle of the day and be a different princess at lunch and dinner.  Her face would light up when she spotted Arial or Belle or Pocahontas mingling in the crowd.  We had to wait for Rachel to stand in line and greet each of the princesses she came across. There was even a lunch meet and greet that Rachel attended.  Rachel was mesmerized by the parades when the princesses all came together in one place and she stared at them all wide-eyed.  Reality and fantasy came together in a mystical union.  That is until reality rose up and trampled fantasy one cloudy afternoon when Rachel spotted one of the Disneyland princesses standing out behind a building smoking a cigarette.  She was stunned and she never forgot the disappointment she felt at the unexpected sight.

Many have given up on Christianity because they believe it is like the Disney princesses; it is all a dress up that in the end is a sham.  Perhaps you have struggled with believing the Bible.  There is much about it that is interesting and helpful but some of the stories in it appear to be too good to be true.  The promises about prayer in particular hang you up as it does not seem like God holds up His end of the bargain.  You pray but the outcome is not what you had hoped.  Or worse, your praying seems to have been a waste of time and left you discouraged and feeling snookered by empty promises of God’s help.

Two case studies found in the Bible shed a bit of light on our discussion.  When Lazarus, a good friend of Jesus, became deathly ill, his sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." (John 11: 3 NIV)  When Jesus did not do anything about Lazarus’s condition and he died, both sisters were dumbfounded by His lack of help.  When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." (John 11:32 NIV)  How closely this mirrors the experience of many who have prayed and been disappointed by the results!

Prior to the birth of Christ, an elderly widow lived at the Temple and spent her days praying.  There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. (Luke 2:36-37 NIV)  We have no idea what sorts of matters were on her prayer list but we must say she had to wait an awfully long time before meeting the Messiah.  Not only that, should we just ignore the fact that this woman of prayer lost her husband after only seven years of marriage?  How much disappointment with prayer was locked up within the heart of this elderly widow for all those years!

Our problem, when it comes to praying, is not just the seeming slowness or even lack of responses to prayer.  We face a much more daunting task when it comes to believing in God.  We lack a physical connection to Him that can make trusting in Him more reasonable and sustainable.  We can’t see Him, hear Him or touch Him and that is not normal when it comes to relationships.  It can be argued that we don’t, hear, see or touch those we meet online and yet believe they are who they say they are but experience with fraud makes many such “encounters” impossible to trust completely.  When it comes to God, we don’t even have a picture profile to consider!  Yet, is it insane to believe in a God we cannot see, touch or hear?

Author Philip Yancey suggests we should consider the case of the woman who has been blind since birth who has never seen light and cannot see it.  How would you prove the existence of light to her?  You could present her with products of light such as heat or plant life but that does not prove light to her.  Light is real and not at all imaginary but to the one who has no sensitivity to it, light is just hearsay, only taken on trust.  If everyone in the world is blind from birth, men, women and children, light as described in books is to the entire crowd “religious” or “unscientific”.  It might be considered “mythological” and yet it is as real as the birds chirping in the trees.  The doubt in the minds of those who cannot see that light exists would not mitigate the reality of light.

We certainly lack the Spiritual sense needed to scientifically “prove” the presence of demons and angels, God and Satan but that is what we must accept when we speak of God and prayer.  Jesus did not try to pretend something else was the case.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24 NIV)  Rarely does God make Himself available to our physical senses.  Yet He has done so and many of the blind in our world just won’t believe the accounts given of His presence being seen, heard, touched or smelled. There is something else we must consider when it comes to knowing about the existence of God and believing in prayer.

The American Journal of Psychiatry reported a study of Harvard students who had experienced a “religious conversion.  They discovered that these students showed a dramatic change in their lifestyles.  Their use of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes went down spectacularly.  What is more, they did much better academically than they did before their conversion and were less likely to suffer from depression and despair when compared to the rest of the student body.  What does it mean when an internal transformation which is attributed to God results in an externally proven outcome?  Religious Americans are proven to be more likely to give money to someone homeless, spend time with someone depressed, return excess change to a clerk, help someone find a job and donate blood.  At what point do those who do not have the sensory equipment to see or touch God begin to consider the facts regarding the accomplishments of the God they cannot see?

Faith is the operating system of our relationship with God and that is not going to change!  We live by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV)  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)  Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6: 29 NIV) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)  This is the way God works with us.  We must have faith in Him that He exists if we are to have a relationship with Him that transforms our lives.  It will not be altered; this plan of God.  No amount of complaining that God does not let us see, hear or touch Him will change His mind.  The Lord will do in us and through us what our faith in Him permits.  It has been shown that with God operating in people’s lives, crime, drug use, violence and gang activities go down.  What proof do you need to recognize that you pray to a God who changes people’s lives and literally is a part of what they do?

When you pray, the Lord will transform your character, create in you a hatred of your own sin and generate a growing desire to be close to Him.  He will guide you so that you will be able to make sense of what to do.  He will work in others and change them too.  God will alter your circumstances so that in the end all you face and encounter will turn out for your good.  To pray, you must have faith to pray.  To communicate with God who is real, you must believe that He is real.  You will never be certain that God exists or that He is part of your praying until you actually decide to believe He exists and then pray.  Once that transaction takes place, the Lord will move Heaven and Earth to keep you close to Him supernaturally and coherently.  You may not yet believe God loves you fully but that will come as you trust Him enough to pray.  Faith opens your mind to pray; miracles always follow faith…they don’t come before it.  A miracle is nothing more complex than this.  It is the discovery that God is in actuality a part of your life and giving you the very best He has to offer in response to your praying.  So pray.  Pray often.  Pray with your mind on God and your heart open to whatever He gives you.

The Worthiness of Jesus

Mark 1:22 NIV

The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

What Do You Think of Jesus?

I make it a regular practice of weighing myself on our bathroom scale.  Recently it started indicating that I weighed 120 pounds, 17 pounds and 3.8 pounds.  Now I am more than glad to lose weight but that was a bit extreme and so I changed the batteries but it continued to give me similar readings.  Why it was so important to me to know precisely how much I weighed as if where my belt notched did not give me all the information I needed, I can’t say.  Maybe it is a mild form of masochism; perhaps I needed a fresh dose of bad news each day.  I was determined to get an accurate measure of my weight though, so much so that I bought a new scale.  I was very happy to read that with the new scale, I apparently had lost 75 pounds.  Unfortunately, my belt told me that could not be the case.  Off I went back to the store to return my new scale so that I could have an accurate measure of one important area that I judged myself.

One of the characteristics of being human is that we regularly measure not only ourselves but more often others on a wide range of scales.  Is he smart?  Is she unsophisticated?  Is he creative?  Is she strong willed?  What is she really?  Talented?  Funny?  Depressed?  A good conversationalist?  Honest?  Caring?  Egotistical?  Full of love?  When it comes to Jesus, there is perhaps no one in history who has been categorized as often.  Yet, what do we really know about Him?  If you were hanging out with Jesus at Starbucks, what sort of impression would He leave you?  He was a carpenter and perhaps poor.  Would that be what struck you?  Would you have considered Him charismatic or witty or quiet and thoughtful?  Today we will consider just one aspect of Jesus and that will be His mind.

Early in Jesus’ life He famously camped out in the Temple of Jerusalem for perhaps an entire week and met with the Jewish teachers there.  Luke described Jesus’ conversations with the teachers as being eye-opening for all who were a part of the discussions.  Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover.  When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom.  After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.  Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends.  When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.  After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.  Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. (Luke 2:41-47 NIV)  Clearly, Jesus was a mentally sharp young man who gave great thought to the Scriptures and had a well-organized mind.  The best teachers in all of Israel were at the Temple and they were impressed by Jesus’ thinking.

Nearly two decades later Jesus taught on a hillside and a large crowd came to hear what He had to say.  This extended teaching session became later known as the “Sermon on the Mount”.  At the time, Jesus’ fame was growing but not many yet had heard Him speak.  When He got finished, the crowd was in awe of what they heard.  When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law. (Matthew 7:28-29 NIV)  No one, as far as we can tell from ancient writings, came close to Jesus’ insight into ethics and moral decision-making.  His teaching that day was pure genius.  Like the crowds, we too are amazed by how He interpreted Scripture and the way He presented a complete approach to life.

The Gospel of John gives a similar assessment of Jesus’ effect on others.  Temple guards who had been sent by the priests to arrest Jesus were not psychologically prepared for the task.  Their “mistake” was they took the time to listen to Him preach.  When Jesus finished, rather than arrest Him, they returned to the priests with genuine awe at what they heard and reverence for the one who delivered the message.  When asked why they had not seized Him, their response was not what the priests expected.  "No one ever spoke the way this man does," the guards declared. (John 7:46 NIV)  The Pharisees who had sent them were not impressed by the guards’ assessment of Jesus’ sermon.  Certainly we can guess that the guards themselves were not expecting to come away as captivated by Jesus’ words as they were.  The guards were not “spiritual groupies”.  They were full-blown skeptics who found Jesus’ mind captivating.

There is a fascinating response of Jesus in Matthew 22 to those who did not believe in a resurrection from the dead. The ones who argued against a resurrection were influential and no one had been able to refute them because they refused to turn to anything other than the first five books in the Bible as authoritative on the matter.  Bible scholars at the time who believed in the resurrection could not find a scintilla of evidence for it in Genesis to Deuteronomy.  Jesus however quoted from Exodus God’s arresting call to Moses at the burning bush as proof of life after death.  But about the resurrection of the dead — have you not read what God said to you, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."  When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. (Matthew 22:31-33 NIV)  And why not?  Who would have ever considered such an argument as that?  Jesus did though.

Let us look at one final example of Jesus’ mind at work.  John 8 is the explosive account of Jesus being brought the woman caught in adultery.  The background of this is fascinating.  The text in the Greek indicates that the woman had been caught in the very act of adultery; as she and her “lover” were in bed.  To catch them so, especially given the very delicate circumstance of committing adultery and not wanting to be caught indicates that somehow the Jewish leaders who brought her to Jesus knew in advance what the pair were about to do and where.  At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.  The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.  But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."  (John 8:2-7 NIV)

If we strip away all the maneuvering of the teachers of the Law to get Jesus to say something that could land Him in trouble with Roman authorities for promoting an execution or cause Him to lose face with the Jewish crowds who would rebel against Jesus allowing for sexual immorality, we come to these two primary aspects of this report.  First, are we not impressed with Jesus’ shrewdness to give permission to whoever was without sin to begin the stoning of the woman!  Not a man in the crowd dared say he was sinless.  What sort of great mind is able to turn the tables on a crowd out for blood?  It is simply spectacular how quickly Jesus thought of a solution to the dilemma He faced.

Let us though turn to the second revelation we have in this passage of Jesus’ mind.  At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.  Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"  "No one, sir," she said.  "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin." (John 8:9-11 NIV)  What is most illuminating in Jesus’ response to the woman is how Jesus’ mind worked.  Mercy saturated His thinking and His decision-making.  If He was going to have to choose between condemning someone and being merciful, He decided upon mercy.  He made this clear in the Sermon on the Mount.  Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. (Matthew 5:7 NIV)  That is how Jesus thinks.  I will be merciful.  I could criticize.  I could judge.  I could condemn and be justified in blowing up a person’s life for what she has done.  That though is not how I think.  I will be merciful.  What about us?  How do we think?  Will our first choice be mercy?    Will we think like Jesus?  Will we give up our right to judge and criticize and condemn and like our Savior, be happy to show mercy?  What kind of world might we have if just Christian people (we won’t concern ourselves with any other sorts of people) would live by this one approach to life, “If I will err, I will err on the side of mercy.”

Stable Baby

There is an amazingly casual quality to the description of the birth of Christ.  It is just there without fanfare or histrionics.  The child was delivered and no bright light struck the stable with golden hues, no blast of trumpets heralded the emergence of his arms and head, no earthquake shook the stable as the baby was softly given over to Mary.  It was a birth and in the moments immediately before and after there was a commonality to it...it was like your birth, like the birth of your parents before you and their parents before them.  Christ came as one more birth in a long line of births and the glow of it was as stupendous as when every other wanted and joyously anticipated child has emerged.   Nothing is so small and seemingly insignificant as when the Christ is born in you, when He makes you His home and yet the supernatural nature of it will awaken soon enough and your life will come alive with Him just as it did for the shepherds, the Magi, the Disciples, his mother and Joseph.  It may be silent now and even a bit dark;  it may be mundane and paltry as it gets lost in the uproar of the world's business, this coming of Christ to you but He has come and it will be astounding what He has done in you and through you soon enough.  The Christ will work His way out of you at home, at work and in all your studies.  He will clear out the darkness and His sun will shine brightly wherever you go.  You will become a light for the world because the Light of Christ will manifest itself in you at every point along your way.  Bethlehem may have been a dirty little town and the stable where Christ was born smelly and confining but soon enough His Presence exploded into the world with all the glory of God manifested.  It could be that you feel you are a mere stable for the Christ child's birth but nothing is so noble as the one who has Him born in her soul and the angels cannot contain their joy at seeing  Christ at home in you.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  Luke 2: 6-7a

Real Time Christianity

Have you ever been confounded by some lack of a particular spiritual experience…felt impoverished some way in your life with God?    No one is quite so dumbfounded by “missing parts” as the believer hoping to move rapidly through the stages of Christian faith.  It feels unfair that some have this great encounter with God and others that divine revelation that super-charges them.  We seem to be the only ones stuck in the humdrum, jammed into a cubicle spiritually.  Consider the elation Christ felt as a young boy of twelve in His Father’s house.  The scriptures were there before Him, every letter of the Law available to His twitchy finger tips.  He was free to probe the greatest of the rabbis and test their mettle with His questions.  Day and night He was able to breathe in the Father’s words without the commonplace distractions of mundane Nazareth; did not have be interrupted by the roar of his brothers and sisters constant badgering and harassment.  No dishes to wash, no cabinets to repair, no fussy parents to please.  There in the Temple He was free to suck in the full majesty of the Jewish religious experience…but if He had stayed there even a moment past His mother’s press to return home, it all would have spilled out upon the ground like a cracked nightmare.  Jesus went home and in the poverty of an academically barren village, He lived the life given Him and He lived it well.  He gained what visions and ecstatic experiences could not provide Him; a grown up view of Kingdom life.  There is no record of Jesus miracles during the next eighteen years of His life, no burning bushes, no chariots of fire.  It was just weekly trips to the synagogue, daily having to trudge to the well to get water jars filled, nightly sleeping on the same worn out blankets.  Oh, he had the glow of the stars to brighten His evenings and the stir of the crickets to awaken His slumber but everything was always very much the same…the sunrise and the sunset, the musty sun-scorched breeze that never really cooled.  Did Jesus speak in tongues then…did He get slain in the Spirit…did He “prophesy”?  We have no record of any of that.  We simply have Jesus learning obedience in what He suffered so that when His time of glory came, He was ready to follow it through to the end.    Nothing will sanctify you any more than simply doing what God gives you to do and being thankful for the extreme mercy of the Father in showering your heart with the love of Christ.

Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

Luke 2:51-52 NIV