Christmas

 Mary drew her Son close to her breast, the smell of His newborn skin enveloping her senses.  She could feel His breath exhaled in a soft mist rising in the cold air of the manger.  She looked at His face, now locked in a deep sleep she wanted to prolong for as long as possible.  She counted His fingers and His toes, as she had done so many times, enjoying His firm grip on her finger.  Looking at His tiny body wrapped in long strips of cloth, she felt like all the love of the universe had gathered and condensed in a  blazing stream of tender affection that not even death would be able to extinguish.   He was here, and she had grown overnight, her only mission now to nurture and protect the Baby resting in her arms.  How gently He rested in her young embrace, His quiet sleep filling her with new assurance.  She could see the moving of His tiny lungs with each rise and fall of the abdomen, His gentle purr filling her thoughts with wonder.  

Nothing about His origin or His birth was ordinary.  Mary pondered the time the Angel visited her, announcing His arrival.  He would be conceived of the Holy Spirit, the angel told her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her.  "He will be great", the angel said, "and will be called the Son of the Highest".   "You shall call His Name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins", the angel finally instructed.   Mary trembled under the weight of the messenger's words, fear and unbelief filling her tender soul.  For fifteen centuries, the prophets had spoken of the coming Messiah, and every Sabbath in synagogues across the land,  the hearts of her people swelled with the expectation of His coming.  Moses, David, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Micah...  She had heard the prophecies read hundreds of times of God's Anointed One Who would come to save His people.   Burdened by Roman rulers who outdid each other in cruel and barbaric acts toward her people, their expectation for Messiah was at an all-time high.  And now, He would finally come...

A soft cry interrupted Mary's reveries, and she wrapped Him tighter in the meager strips of cloth to shield him from the encroaching coolness of the night.  A few hours ago, wise men from the East had come in an astonishing procession,  driven to the manger in the thick of night by a bright and guiding star.  When they entered the stall, they knelt before the Baby, their aged eyes misting with tears.  They bowed long and deep, their reverence filling the manger with the fragrance of the Holy.  They spoke little and sang songs, their eyes transfixed on the tiny body in Whom the Godhead dwelt.  Then, in a final act of worship, they laid before Him costly treasures:  gold, frankincense and myrrh. 

What a night it had been, Mary pondered in silence as she recounted the coming of the shepherds.  After the wise men, the little manger filled with noise again as excited shepherds burst upon the humble stall.  They had seen an angel in the sky, they said, His light shining around brighter than the day.  "Do not be afraid", he said, "for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.  For there is born to you this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord".  As soon as the angel finished speaking, the heavens exploded with song, and untold choirs of angels heralded the great news.   The entire atmosphere was enveloped in light and in praise, and joy bathed and infused every fiber of their being.  They had to come and see the newborn King,  and, as they left, they loudly proclaimed the news about the Child.

Two thousand years have passed since God entered our world in the most vulnerable form, the body of a Baby.  This Child grew and lived a life without spot or wrinkle - a perfect life.  He never wrote a book, or led an army, or conquered an empire.  And yet, since His advent, our world has never been the same.  He came to save us from the sin that steals, and kills, and destroys.   He came to show us that God knows us, loves us and wants us.  He came to bring peace to a world forever at war.  This Christmas,  He will come again to every heart that makes Him room, and every chamber that is dark will explode with the life and light of His presence.

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

Fall is coming...

 For the last few weeks, fall has been stretching its chilly limbs into our atmosphere, warning us of things to come.  No, we have not experienced an arctic blast or any cataclysmic weather inversion system.   In fact, September has been unusually balmy,  the skies have been blue, the sun darting quiet heat into midday hours.  However, for someone who is highly sensitive to the the first and last embrace of light, the crispy mornings and brisk evenings have been a notably discernible change.  

I seem to be in the minority with this nostalgia over summer's departure.  The internet seems to have come alive with the changing of the leaves and the shedding of torrential heat as summer breaths its last.  The blogosphere is ringing with delight tidings of all things pumpkin and sweater weather.  The young and the young-at-heart are resetting their calendars, shifting focus and priorities with the demands of another school year.  Apples of various shades and blends of sweet-versus-tart are offered where once blueberries filled market stands, and squashes of all stripes are replacing the delicate salad bunches that spelt summer with their chlorophyll.  The bright colors mimicking summer gardens are replaced with hues of autumn's harvest and the earth that yields it.  Even though Autumn is yet to make its official entrance this Saturday, she has marked her crisp territory in the landscape of our lives, some happily heralding the season's arrival for weeks now.  

In climates other than where I live, fall is truly beautiful, turning forests into shades of red and yellow, bringing a welcome change to the dry exhale of summer.  Even here, fall can put a pleasant face for a day or two or some other crumb of time.  But, just as we begin to love fall back, a dramatic change cloaks the atmosphere with no respite in sight for many months to come.  The skies clothe themselves in sackcloth, sending bone-chilling showers for what seems like endless days.  Rain seems to be the only offering on Autumn's menu according to the laws of climate for our geographical location.  I am sure that the west coast is the birthplace of seasonal affective disorder, also known as "I am tired of the rain" syndrome.  Of course, please take my diagnosis with a grain of salt as I have no letter parade behind my name to qualify me for such pronouncements.

As dreary as fall can be on my morsel of the planet, I can still find joy in the rhythms of daily life if my heart is willing to receive it.  A few days ago I baked the first apple dessert of the season, reminding me of the sweet gifts of autumn.  Soft and juicy pears have been filling our fruit basket as Michal is a pear enthusiast, consuming them with the kind of glee I consume chocolate.  Our house is comfortable at night, as previously the summer heat had dissected our sleep with restless tossings.  The office is finally a pleasant haven for work for my extremely sensitive-to-heat husband.   Fall has brought some welcome changes indeed...

I am learning that each season has an allotment of wisdom, and there are abundant gifts to be gleaned with the changing of the weather.  I wish I had arrived at contentment amidst the graying landscapes earlier in life, but, "forgetting what is behind", I chose thankfulness today.  "God has made everything beautiful for its own time", and He has blessed this season with the abundant yield of the earth.  It is the time of harvesting the abundance of crops, of filling our barns with the fat of the land, of preparing and storing the fruit of men's toil and sweat since the scattering of seed.  Thanksgiving is the pulse of this season, marking our calendars with the reminder that God is good, and that He "richly and ceaselessly provides us with everything for enjoyment".  

Thanksgiving is the noble language of Autumn.  

"O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever" (Psalm 107:1)

Lessons from the BC fires

I sat near the window staring at the once blue sky, now stained in particulate gray and orange hues.  The day was young and hot, but the sun was hidden by the particles the fires breathe in their burning furry.  The indoor air was stifling and unpleasant,  teasing my trachea with a dry cough.  Despite experiencing the fires of near and distant forests for a few years now, we were caught again without an air purifier.  My airways were steadily protesting.  "Costco will fix that tomorrow", I made a mental note.  

Even though the air quality index had shifted a few digits to the right, we were in a fairly clean air bubble compared to my family.  My sister's house is in the belly of the inferno, and for days she was left to wonder whether her home would survive the rapidly-encroaching blaze.  In the rush to comply with the mandatory evacuation, she grabbed a few things for an overnight departure - or so she thought.  The one overnight turned into several days, and she is still not home. Her few things proved insufficient for the unexpected exile, and she had to replenish her exile wardrobe with some necessary finds.  

I thought about what I would take if the rush to evacuate came at an equally inopportune time as hers had come.  I looked at my newly-covered Bible, its pages glowing with life eternal and great and precious promises.  The Word will go first -anytime, anywhere - that was for sure.  The books will stay - there might be blue horizons beyond the burning skies where letters and tea blend in a sweet marriage of senses to expand the wisdom of the soul.  I scanned my wardrobe with my mind's eye, and I regretted that my green skirt would be ashes in this imaginary fire.  For the last few years, green had become the color of my soul, and I treasured its hues in living nature and inanimate matter, hence my green skirt.  

I scanned my possessions with my mind's eye, a dull sadness graying my thoughts.  I spent so much time throughout my relatively short life acquiring things that brought momentary pleasure.  I scoured stores and websites to fill an imaginary "need" to complement other imaginary "needs".  And here stood a potential fire, hungry and devouring, waiting to devastate without discernment my life's acquisitions in a few brief hours...

Up to this moment, my sister's house has been spared the deadly tongue of this fire.  Thankfully, the flames that consumed the books and the minutiae of my life remained confined to my imagination.   The fire was a living threat to thousands of people including my loved ones, so it is not a far-fetched exercise to explore the "what" of the "if" happening at my doorstep.  In fact, it seems like the entire globe is engulfed in fire - and the reasons are not as simplistic as the evening news would like us to believe - but that is the subject of a future rumination.

As I sit here writing under the soft hum of our newly-acquired air purifier, I am thankful that the atmosphere is slowly clearing and the air is becoming easier to breathe.  The sky is still an amorphous, ashy ceiling hiding the horizon.  I ventured for a walk tonight, and the absence of a cough confirmed that the air quality is improving, in case I needed a reliable confirmation.  It seems like our area has been spared the way of our faraway neighbors who are still praying for a breath of clean air.

I am thankful that this deeply-wounded planet is not my terminal destination, and this structure that houses my possessions is not my home.  I am made for eternity - made to dwell in a place so beautiful that the outer limits of my imagination cannot touch.  I am made to love and be loved by God - to know His peace that passes all understanding in the midst of untold turmoil and tribulation.  We are all made for Him - to know and to be known by Him.  To be loved without limits in spite of our failings and our deeply-seated insecurities, and one day, when we breathe our last spoonful of air, to be more alive than ever in His presence.  Today, when what we know is continually distorted or erased by the day's agenda, the love of God made flesh in Christ is the best news - and it is for everyone.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life".  (John 3:16)

Voices

Voices. so many voices... They are assailing our souls through the incessant stream of carefully-crafted news reports; through the billboards that tempt us to ignore the tenth commandment; through the violent invasion of media platforms that seek to mold us into the likeness of this age, to absorb us into the stream of this world until we act no longer as the image bearers of God. Voices savage in their call, sirens that lead to death of reason and ultimately eternal separation from God.

Most of the voices that seek to impose their authority on us have their origin in nefarious lords, kings of the underworld who walk among us in human form.  They beguile to destroy, to separate, to confuse. Sure, they may fly their message with the silver wings of a dove, but their inner bellies are vultures of darkness and deceit.  They are citizens of Babylon, and once again are uniting in their pursuit to reach a heaven without God, a salvation without the cross. 

To everyone whose heart is yearning for a higher tune, a small and gentle voice still speaks, still seeks.  This Voice is a call to love, a call to God, for God is love.  Love that still walks the paths of a long-ago tainted garden, Love that replicates itself in sons and daughters of that firstly-blessed couple, Love whose hands and feet are The church.  Jesus the Christ is The Word we are feverishly seeking for, the living water our burning souls thirst for.  There is no clarity apart from His message, no unity outside His banner, no peace away from His rule.  In Him there is no darkness-His robes are not the murky garb of deceit, but the brilliant vestment of truth.  "I am the way, the truth and the life", He said-and to anyone willing to listen, His cross speaks a message of freedom and eternal life.  To anyone willing to know  things as they are, go to the first stream, the first word, the first cause.  Seek Him in the Book that speaks salvation, the Book that unveils the plan of God, the Book that instructs in the paths of life.  The gate is very narrow,  and the road is difficult, but it is the only path to life.  Draw away from the maddening throng, away from the noise, and you will hear that still, small voice, you will hear life -maybe for the first time.


"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." (John 17:17)


"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

Spring

This evening Michal and I took our usual walk through the neighborhood, with no deviation from our usual route encouraged.  Across our complex, pink cherry blossoms with their delicate pastel flowers and liquid scent delight our eyes and fill our pleasure-chest.  Along the way, dark pink magnolias strutting their bold flowers frolic with gentle wind and light.  Red and white tulips with their cup-like flowers line the edges of white fences, intermingled with  blue bell-shaped blooms.   Lush green trees, some shyly revealing their infant flowers while others boldly flaunting large, white fingers of velvet and perfume, decorate gardens and alleys.

I have always loved summer with an unswerving commitment, but lately spring is the color of my soul.  This winter seemed especially dreary with interminable days of rain, chilling atmosphere and flesh with a dampness that seems impossible to shake off.  Months of grey skies have stirred a longing for sunshine, and warmth, and new life.  Our tree was a melancholic tangle of barren branches, sighing along with me for the anthem of spring-the call to flower and bloom again.  And now, after six months of charcoal clouds and liquid chill, the mantle of spring has cast its green breath on plants and people alike.

Probably the greatest symbol of spring is new life.  After months of bareness, nature is bursting forth with an explosion of color and scent, filling the earth with pulse and rhythm once dormant under the deadness of winter.  The occasional bird is warbling its happy melody under the spell of vibrant buds, and cotton-candy clouds are softly treading clear blue skies.  Everything sings and dances its thanksgiving to God, the giver of spring miracles, the Seed of life bursting in every living thing.

To every child of God stopped in their spiritual ascent by the frigid winter of long trials, this is your season of new life.  After every winter spring comes without fail-and as is in the natural, so is in the spiritual.   "Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes with the morning", and our endurance will be richly rewarded with God's promise of favor. For every trial of fire God has a promise of turnaround for good, even if sometimes its fulfillment takes place once this life has played its final act.  God gathers all our tears in a bottle and perfumes heaven with the scent of our unspoken cries and vociferous prayers.  One morning, the dark will give way to the light of His presence and we will walk out of our former prison.  No demon in hell will bar our exit, and no flood of opposition will drown our lapse to freedom's shore.  So stand, my brother, knowing that your Savior is king over every seen and unseen realm, and He is descending in your pit with freedom in His wings.  Stand, my sister, trusting that His promise to give you a future and a hope has been sealed with His blood.   Soon-yes, very soon-our faith will finally be sight, and our eyes will behold The One our souls have adored and our affections  embraced.  As a hymn of the last century affectingly declares, "it will be worth it all when we see Jesus"...

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18)

"To all who mourn in Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.  In their righteousness, they be will be like great oaks that the LORD has planted for His own glory" (Isaiah 61:3).

Easter

This weekend much of the world celebrated Easter.   Although many people did not necessarily celebrate it, most of the world was at least confronted with it by reason of it being a statutory holiday in nations with Christian roots.  In a world unspoiled by COVID19,  little hands would have eagerly hunted for the brightly-labelled chocolate eggs strewn across lawns, dropped down by helicopter (yes, this actually happened), or hidden and revealed by tightly-sealed clues by parents.  Churches all across the world would welcome men and women, the young and the old, for a time of reflection and thanksgiving for the supernatural gift of Passover.  Families would gather around the Passover meal with grateful hearts, experiencing anew the anguish of Good Friday, the victory of Resurrection Sunday, the contemplation of God's display of wrath and mercy through the means of a cross.

Easter is about a love story.  A redemption story.  It is not a clean, sterilized story that sparkles with the pastel colors we associate with Easter.  It is messy, because it involves us, and we are messy, and broken, and utterly incapable of fixing ourselves.  We are all infected with something far worse than COVID19.  It is the virus of sin, and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.  From the moment we are born, we exert a propensity toward rebellion, toward destruction.  The human heart is the wellspring of great evil and suffering, as testified by two world wars, genocides of nations, and countless injustices performed daily by "good" people upon their fellow human beings.  The human heart is anything but good, in spite of what our "enlightened" centers of learning would like us to believe.  This sin-problem is so great that it separates us from our Creator God, a God whose eyes are so pure that He cannot behold evil.  It is just that our sins be punished, and the punishment is nothing short of death-death physical and separation eternal.  God cannot close His eyes and dismiss our lies, our blasphemy, our idolatry, and roll the red carpet into His house we know as heaven.

Why would God allow His Son to be humiliated, tortured, blasphemed and ultimately given over to die the death of a criminal?  It begins with who God is.  God IS love, and love gives, and forgives, and transforms.  God loves every single one of us with a love that is independent of our stature  or life journey, and in His love He yearns to commune with us now and forever.  God's heart holds the perfect balance of justice and mercy and He can administer one without cancelling the other.  When Jesus died, He died the death that you and I deserved for those sins that we so easily dismiss: our theft, our "white" lies, our hate, our lust... He was separated from God upon that tree so that we would not be eternally separated from Him.  He endured God's wrath so we wouldn't have to.  Before He gave up His breath, He cried "It is finished."  We no longer have to build a stairway to heaven (not that we ever could).  We no longer have to torture our bodies and souls in an effort to bridge the  gulf between us and God.  All our work to reach God, all our efforts to atone for our wrongs is finished.  All that remains is faith -faith pure and unadulterated by human intervention.

God's Word says:  "If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9). It takes faith that Jesus Christ is God's final and only provision for our sins.  It takes a spoken confession to make Jesus Christ Lord of our lives.  He is not willing to share the throne of our hearts with other gods, such as materialism or new age philosophies.  It takes humility and repentance to recognize that we are deeply polluted by sin and in need of rescuing, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”  

There is no better news in all the world than the message of Easter.  That we can be forgiven, restored and have peace with God is the greatest gift.  It cost God His precious Son to give, and it costs us nothing to receive.  It will cost us everything to ignore: eternal separation from God in a place called Hell-a place of torment, darkness and unending sorrow.   Look to Calvary, and behold Love wounded and bruised for us.  Look to the empty tomb, and see Love crowned with victory and majesty.  Listen within, and you will hear Love calling, seeking, wooing. 

Daily Word

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." (1 John 18)

The world as a whole seems to be marinated in fear.  Fear of a microscopic virus, namely COVID19, to which much power of destruction has been imputed.  Fear of economic collapse as life has been forced to a standstill.  Fear of loneliness, as small and large gatherings are prohibited.  The fear of death seems heightened as this invisible enemy, this front-stage virus, attacks and infects without predictable pattern or thought-out reason.  This fear has been greatly heightened by continuous news feeds that will not allow us to forget, to rest, to ponder the greater meaning of this season.  And in this murky water of confusion, a clear call emerges.  A call to remember that God loves His children, that He holds us in the palm of His hands, that nothing happens without His knowledge or permissive will.  When we know that God loves us, our hearts can be steadied and pacified, knowing that for every evil there is a Romans 8:28 solution, even if this ultimate good is only materialized in eternity.  God still clothes the lilies and  He still feeds the sparrows.  His eyes are continually upon us, administering His good and perfect gifts, renewing His mercies every morning.