Tears for Christmas

The timing of the way the Lord sends His word is always perfect. I always hear what I need to hear at just the right time. This Christmas is shaping up to be a rather painful one. My sister and I arrived home to Missouri last evening. There was already a cloud hanging over us due to my dad’s cancer, but the Lord has been gracious to keep our heart and hope in Him. My personal hope was that this Christmas would be more pleasant than the last. So far this is not the case. I knew my mom had not been doing very well. My dad took her to the ER last week and they said she had something viral and refused to admit her into the hospital (they made this diagnosis without running any tests). The extent of her condition was not communicated to me, so I was not prepared for what I came home to. When I walked in the door, she was sitting in her rocking chair – pale and rigid with wide eyes full of fear. She can barely move and barely speak. She has suffered more than anyone I know and sometimes it’s hard to see God’s good purposes in that. Even now she is writhing in agony as she tries to sleep, and my heart is breaking…

There have been a few other things that have happened– disappointments and hard conversations – that have added to the sorrow. As I was journaling last night, I told the Lord how much I needed Him to meet me in the pain. I have not the strength for these things, but He says that His grace is sufficient. I needed a fresh wave of His mercy and grace. God heard my prayer. In my inbox this morning were two emails that met me where I was. One was a blog post from Dr. Mohler about those who mourn during Christmas time. He says:

Christmas is especially for those who mourn and suffer grief, for the message of Christmas is nothing less than the death of death in the death and resurrection of Christ.

Yes. Christmas gives us hope for the Man of Sorrows entered our suffering and sorrow to secure for our everlasting joy and healing. The other was a blog post from my pastor about believing in Jesus’ ability and willingness to heal.

Do you go through your day as if the miracle you need is just too much to hope for let alone ask for?  Do you find yourself continuing to ask for the supernatural, but not believing in your heart that God can actually do it? 

I can all too well relate to this. The circumstances have been bitter as of late and under of the weight of them I am struggling to cling to the truth that God is working in these things for good (Romans 8:28), that He intends to answer and heal and restore. But this is what Scripture teaches us about His character. He longs to show grace and mercy (Isaiah 30:18) and He is good and does good (Psalm 119:68). Christmas is the ultimate expression of God’s disposition toward us to do us good. In the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God meets our deepest need and gives us our greatest hope. So even though circumstances may be hard and painful, I can still have joy because it was secured forever by Jesus Christ when He chose to take on flesh forever in order to save us in every possible way. The night may be dark, but morning is coming and there is joy in the dawn.

So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. John 16:22

Pondering Christmas

I can’t believe Christmas is upon us and this year is almost over. This year, and these past few months in particular, have flown by. December is passing just as quickly, but not without some reflections on the reason for Christmas. Each year the Lord teaches me something new or takes me deeper into the depths of the incarnation of Christ (for that is what this time of year is supposed to be celebrating).

For the past several years, Christmas has been different in my family. In actuality, it’s not as pleasant and fun as it used to be and many of our traditions (what little we had) have slowly died away. My sister and I, however, have started our own traditions. We try to be intentional each year about fixing our minds and hearts on Jesus Christ, and the Lord, in His wisdom and abundant grace, is more than willing to give us resources and creative ideas in pondering the birth of the Son of God. This year my sister and I have been going through John Piper’s free advent book called Good News of Great Joy. It contains 25 short little devotionals meant to prepare your heart to purposely (it doesn’t happen by accident) see Christ during the Christmas season, and I believe it is helping us just do that.

Besides that, the Lord has gripped me this year with the purpose of His coming. He came to die. It is no secret that we are all going to die some time (Hebrews 9:27), but His purpose for being born was to die (Matthew 20:28; Hebrews 2:14). And that’s why there is Christmas.

And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life...Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour...Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. John 12:23-25, 27-28a, 31-33

At Rolling Fields, our pastors are preaching on the necessity of Christmas. This past Sunday, Pastor Aaron preached from the familiar passage of Philippians chapter two, but in doing so he focused not only on verses 5-11, but he included verses 1-16 in order for us to grasp and feel the weight of Paul’s main point. While verses 5-11 teach us much about the humility and reason for the coming of Christ, the Apostle Paul did not write them in isolation. It’s easy (for me anyway) to break up the paragraphs and forget they are one continuous thought. In the original Greek, there were no paragraph breaks and no paragraph headings. The text was meant to be read as a whole. Pastor Aaron was talking about church unity and how we are commanded to consider others as more important than ourselves (which is counter-intuitive). This is the point Paul is driving towards; it is the reason he includes the example of Christ’s humility. Christ, being in the very nature God and in the very presence of God (John 1:1), did not consider His own rights, but humbled Himself by taking on human flesh, by becoming one of us, by becoming like us so that He could identify with us in every way (Hebrews 4:15-16) and thus save us. Jesus Christ considered our needs (He considered us!) as more important that Himself so that He might save each of us. He emptied Himself of the glory His deserved in order to enter our mess of a world and save us wandering and hostile/indifferent sinners.

"There is nothing about us that makes us deserve to be in the presence of God, and if the One who did deserve to be in the presence of God would empty Himself, be found in the form of a man, come as a servant - why did Christ do it? For our greatest need! Life. We are dead in our sin and our trespasses apart form Christ's work." Pastor Aaron

Another thing that I have been pondering is this: we all too often question the goodness of God, but never think twice of questioning the goodness of humanity. I know a friend that is having trouble getting a job in the healthcare profession because when asked on a psychiatric test required for employment if she believes that human beings are innately good and she responds no, she is rejected for employment and told “her values don’t line up with theirs.” When you look at society, the assumption seems to be that humans are innately good and that God’s goodness is questionable. But that is not what Scripture or experience teaches. Scripture says that our hearts are deceitfully wicked (Jeremiah 17:6), that we are tempted by our own evil desires (James 1:13-15), and that there is no one that is good (Psalm 14:1-3; Romans 3:10-18). The truth is that we are all innately evil, but because of God’s grace the expression of that evil is restrained. The same sin that is so readily apparent in heinous crimes (like that of last Friday), is in each of us. It is only by God’s grace that we aren’t as bad as we could be. But that’s why there is Christmas. We need new hearts. We need new desires. We need a remedy. And the bad news is that that remedy is not something we can conjure up. As Pastor Andy says, “God is not concerned with making bad people good, but with making dead people alive.” So we are dead and cannot help ourselves.

This is where Christmas comes in. Christmas is the remedy. God the Father saw our helpless state and decided to send His Son. Jesus Christ left His rightful place in heaven where He was worshiped by countless angels. He left the place He deserved and belonged in order to come to us – to enter a womb, to take on human flesh, to be born in human likeness, to obey God’s law perfectly, to fulfill all that God requires of us, to be perfect for us, so that He could die for us and take our punishment, so that we would be united with Him and God the Father forever. This is the message and hope of Christmas. Jesus Christ was born for the purpose of dying so that you and I could become the righteousness, the children, the inheritance of God. He came to make us, who were dead, alive to God. And this is very good news. This is the hope of Christmas. Oh, taste and see that He is good!

Hard Things

Frodo: “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Tomorrow marks two years since I graduated from seminary. That’s crazy to think about. A lot has happened since that time, and it doesn’t seem like I am that much closer to going overseas. There have been a lot of delays, and disappointments, and bad news. In short, there have been a lot of hard things. And while this year has been better than the last, this continues to be the general theme. But even the hard things are from God.

“Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil [or disaster]?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job 2:10

This truth is very comforting and gives me hope because no matter what happens in my life, I know that it has first passed through the sovereign and always loving hands of my Savior. It means that there is a purpose for the hard things. Namely, a deeper and more intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ, and conformity to His likeness – things that I desire and things that God is more than pleased to give me.

It’s sometimes very easy, though, to lose sight of this hope; to get stuck in the muck and the mire of present circumstances. Honestly, these past few weeks have been rather rough. My dad and my uncle were both diagnosed with cancer in the same week. One of my very best friends and one of the leading families in my church (with whom I’m close) are both moving away in less than a month. Then there are the daily burdens of ministry, the delays to getting overseas, and fighting sin that add to the weight. It has been in the midst of these things that the Lord has been pleased to expose the rebellion and pride and selfishness in my own heart. I am daily reminded of how limited I am in strength and wisdom, and how much I need God’s sustaining grace.

When the cares of my heart are many,
        your consolations cheer my soul. Psalm 94:19

And His grace is more than sufficient for these things. He has not left me alone in these struggles. Instead, He is persistently pursuing me and beckoning me to fight for joy. Of the latter, I admit, I have not been doing a very good job. I have found it quite easy to overlook the many evidences of God’s grace as I focus on the painful circumstances that have been flooding my way. But Christ never lets me stray to far before he resets my focus and attention back to Him. He did so this week through a number of friends and teachers in the faith. The Lord showed me during a Bible study that I have not been taking thoughts captive. And when I say this, I mean thoughts toward myself (what some people like to call “self-talk”). I have been listening to myself a lot more than I should be. And when I was confronted with this through a book our group is studying, I could clearly see the lies for what they were and how they were further adding to these burdens. In this book, the author talked about how we need to remember that even though things may not be going well with us, things are well with our souls. In fact, things will always be well with the soul of a believer because he/she is forever right with God and can now choose to say “no” to sin and do what’s right. There are many times when my soul doesn’t “feel” well, so I have to believe it is well by faith. So, basically, I need to be preaching the gospel to myself instead of listening to myself…which is a full-time job.

The Lord graciously reminded me of His glorious gospel through the preaching of His word this morning at Rolling Fields. Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, my victory and deliverance is secured. There will be a Day when there will be no more tears or heartache or brokenness or disappointments or delays or bad news (Revelation 21:1-8). There will be no more hard things. But even now there is victory and deliverance. For those in Christ, we are secure and safe. We have a new song right now to sing. The hard things are still very much present and real, but Jesus Christ has secured for us indescribable joy in Him. He has freed us to be who He created us to be. He has destroyed the power of sin, so that we no longer carry the burden, guilt, and penalty for sin. Even when the odds are stacked against us, Christ is for us, so we ultimately win. So that we can say in faith and with confidence, "Even so, it is well with my soul."