Countdown to Christmas: December 7, 2023

JOY to the world, right? Are you feeling it? Maybe not. But maybe that's because it's the place where you have fixed your focus rather than the place from which you have come. I mean, I get it: if you want to hit the ball, your eye has to be on the ball; if you want to achieve a goal, you have to work toward that goal, right? But joy, when it's the object of the game seems to come up short. Joy seems to be a byproduct of a much greater thing.

Since I was a kid, I've heard that if you want to have joy, you have to order your priorities in such a way that Jesus' glory --love for, obedience and service to Him --comes above all else. Then, love for and service to others follows. Coming in dead last is love of self, gratification of our own wants, self-service. Jesus. Others. You. Joy comes as a result of sacrifice. Joy looks back to commitments kept and difficulties endured and says, By God's grace, I made it, and I am better for it. Joy says, I didn't want to do things that way, but the reward is greater than I could ever imagine. Joy is found at the end of sacrifice. Have you ever shown love or mercy toward someone, perhaps someone who has underappreciated your efforts? Have you done that hard thing, forgiven someone who has clearly wronged you? Joy comes at the end of that. As a matter of fact, joy comes at the end of the "extra mile." 

In Matthew 5, Jesus tells those who would follow Him to be different, be exceptional, go above and beyond for those around us. In so doing, we will bring the Light of Heaven to a dark world and imitate our Father in His perfection. Our standards of conduct are to be better than the norm: Not only will I not swear, I won't even use those words we think are innocent, words like "shucks" or "dang." Joy comes when our goal is to obey Jesus' moral code, not aspire to mere social acceptance. 

As with many aspects of Christian life, joy is a paradox: found in sorrows and in mourning with others. Joy is found by being the lowest in our communities, the most willing to do menial tasks in service to others and in service to our King. Joy is found by being merciful and making peace. Joy is found even when we are persecuted for who we are. And it is not only found in unlikely places but joy itself yields unlikely results: joy becomes the rock on which we stand, the foundation for the next selfless thing we will do or the next difficult thing we will endure. Joy becomes a weapon against corruption and darkness and pain. Joy stops the fight that wishes to continue. Joy strengthens those who feel as though they just can't go on. Joy transforms hearts by its humility and transforms nations by its ferocity. Joy has unlikely origins and yields unlikely results. Joy once filled a blackened sky with good tidings and the light of the heavenly host, invited lowly shepherds to the birth of creation's King, and placed a cross at center stage for God's plan of salvation. Joy shouts the triumphant news He is alive! and those who seek Him will spend eternity with Him.

JOY to the world!

Midweek: Search for a Face

Please enjoy this selection entitled Search for a Face, written by Frederick Buechner and originally published in his work, The Hungering Dark:

MANY YEARS AGO I was in Rome at Christmastime, and on Christmas Eve I went to St. Peter's to see the Pope celebrate mass. It happened also to be the end of Holy Year, and there were thousands of pilgrims from all over Europe who started arriving hours ahead of when the mass was supposed to begin so that they would be sure to find a good place to watch from, and it was not long before the whole enormous church was filled. I am sure that we did not look like a particularly religious crowd. We were milling around, thousands of us, elbowing each other out of the way to get as near as possible to the papal altar with its huge canopy of gilded bronze and to the aisle that was roped off for the Pope to come down. Some had brought food to sustain them through the long wait, and every once in a while singing would break out like brush fire --"Adeste Fidelis" and "Heilige Nacht" I remember especially because everybody seemed to know the Latin words to one and the German words to the other --and the singing would billow up into the great Michelangelo dome and then fade away until somebody somewhere started it up again. Whatever sense anybody might have had of its being a holy time and a holy place was swallowed up by the sheer spectacle of it --the countless voices and candles, and the marble faces of saints and apostles, and the hiss and shuffle of feet on the acres of mosaic.

Then finally, after several hours of waiting, there was suddenly a hush, and way off in the flickering distance I could see that the Swiss Guard had entered with the golden throne on their shoulders, and the crowds pressed in toward the aisle, and in a burst of cheering the procession began to work its slow way forward.

What I remember most clearly, of course, is the Pope himself, Pius XII as he was then. In all that Renaissance of splendor with the Swiss Guard in their scarlet and gold, the Pope himself was vested in plainest white with only a white skullcap on the back of his head. I can still see his face as he was carried by me on his throne --that lean, ascetic face, gray-skinned, with the high-bridged beak of a nose, his glasses glittering in the candlelight. And as he passed by me he was leaning slightly forward and peering into the crowd with extraordinary intensity.

Through the thick lenses of his glasses his eyes were larger than life, and he peered into my face and into all the faces around me and behind me with a look so keen and so charged that I could not escape the feeling that he must be looking for someone in particular. He was not a potentate nodding and smiling to acknowledge the enthusiasm of the multitudes. He was a man whose face seemed gray with waiting, whose eyes seemed huge and exhausted with searching, for someone, some one, who he thought might be there that night or any night, anywhere, but whom he had never found, and yet he kept looking. Face after face he searched for the face that he knew he would know --was it this one? was it this one? or this one? --and then he passed on out of my sight. It was a powerful moment for me, a moment that many other things have crystallized about since, and I felt that I knew whom he was looking for. I felt that anyone else who was really watching must also have known.

And the cry of Isaiah, "O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would quake at thy presence... that the nations might tremble at thy presence! . . . There is no one that calls upon thy name, that bestirs himself to take hold of thee, for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast delivered us into the hands of our iniquities."

In one sense, of course, the face was not hidden, and as the old Pope surely knew, the one he was looking for so hard was at that very moment crouched in some doorway against the night or leading home some raging Roman drunk or waiting for the mass to be over so he could come in with his pail and his mop to start cleaning up that holy mess. The old Pope surely knew that the one he was looking for was all around him there in St. Peter's. The face that he was looking for was visible, however dimly, in the faces of all of us who had come there that night mostly, perhaps, because it was the biggest show in Rome just then and did not cost a cent but also because we were looking for the same one he was looking for, even though, as Isaiah said, there were few of us with wit enough to call upon his name. The one we were looking for was there then as he is here now because he haunts the world, and as the years have gone by since that Christmas Eve, I think he has come to haunt us more and more until there is scarcely a place any longer where, recognized or unrecognized, his ghost has not been seen. It may well be a post-Christian age that we are living in, but I cannot think of an age that in its own way has looked with more wistfulness and fervor toward the ghost at least of Christ.

~ Frederick Buechner

Countdown to Christmas: December 4, 2023

IT'S REDEMPTION SEASON! And I thought it was important we celebrate with a little story:

Once upon a time, there were three wise men (and a few more of their friends). These three wise men were minding their business, lying in a box, waiting for the next Christmas when they would be removed and, once again, proudly displayed to celebrate the arrival of the King. As they waited, however, some things took place --a struggle being one of them --between family members. There were harsh words and rebellion, pain --lots and lots of pain. And, for the wisemen and their friends, Christmas never came. They never left their box. Years went by. More chaos. More hurt. More anger. And the chasm between family members grew and grew. All the time and care that had been poured into keeping the wisemen and their friends was forgotten. There had come to be so little regard for them, the box and all its contents --wisemen and not-so-wise men --were sent to a woman who would love some, sell some, and send the rest to a thrift store. 

More time passed, and the wisemen sat for many months out of the year in a box. When carols filled the air and thoughts turned to peace on earth, the wisemen were removed, but not so much in celebration as in hope --the hope that they would find a home once again and be a part of the Christmas joy there. As for those original family members, things were happening. God was moving. Hearts were being changed and a new story was being written. 

Then one year, as carols once again filled the air and thoughts began to turn toward peace on earth, and the wisemen were removed from the box and placed (with a few of their other friends) on a shelf in hopes of Christmas joy, a ransom was paid. A purchase was made. In this case, in exchange for the wisemen and their friends, in exchange for peace on earth (or at least, in a family). Someone walked into that store, paced every inch of it, ducking and squinting and calling out to others to join the search for as many of those items that once occupied a box, in order to return them to their rightful owner. Not a one of those lost hid behind the holly or refused to be taken. All went willingly, quietly but decked in the bright colors and expressions of celebration. And redemption was had.

Beloved, you were created to be with Jesus. Not only in some heavenly realm after leaving this earth, but now and for always. He loves you and desires to redeem you from the prison of sin and death, of uselessness and purposelessness, of pain and angst. He has given each of us hope and has ransomed us with His very own life. Will you go with Him today?

Merry Christmas!