So This is Christmas

            I must admit that as I entered into last Sunday’s service, I had lofty expectations.  I know that Pastor Nate’s message is titled Give More, and my inner advocate for social justice is ready for the hard hitting, no-holds-barred assault on self-centered “me”-ism.  I am anticipating a focus on charity and a good Christmas-themed giving message.

            As the teaching begins, things are progressing nicely.  God is a giver of good gifts.  Amen.  He gave humanity his greatest gift, his son, Jesus.  Got it.  The world is full of evil and awful things. Wait… what? Did I miss something?  Are we really going to tackle the problem of how a good God allows evil to happen… in a Christmas message?  I am ready for a comfortably predictable talk about helping the less fortunate.  This is bit much! 

            The question of evil has plagued the minds of mankind for our entire collective history.  It is no doubt fresh in the minds of many as recent events in the news continue to showcase human suffering.  While unexpected, a message like this could not be more timely.

            How can a good and loving God allow so much suffering in the world?  I have heard the question asked, and I have heard several people attempting to answer.  Outspoken atheists take to Twitter to ask “Where is your god now?” while members of the Westboro Baptist Church (the “God Hates America” group) proclaim, “God sent the shooter.”  With all of these competing and confusing voices, we are in need of some clarity. 

            We believe that God is good and is the giver of good gifts.  We acknowledge that we are sinful and fallen.  Despite our sinful and fallen state, God continues to bless us with gifts.  Evil is a result of the collective sin of mankind.  We continue to do what we think is best, instead of following God.  But, contrary to what the Westboro folks would have us believe, God is not angrily smiting mankind for one or two specific sins. God is still good and is still the giver of good gifts.

            So how does all of this fit into Christmas?  When we see suffering around us, our tendency is to feel hopeless.  It is in that hopelessness that we can find hope.  God gave us the gift of Jesus.  That is the essence and message of Christmas.  We were hopeless, and we received the gift of hope. 

            I did not hear the predictable Christmas sermon about giving that I expected to hear on Sunday. I suppose my lofty expectations were set a little low. But any time I can get some answers to one of life’s major questions, I’ll take it! 

Blog entry by: Jeff Hyson

Surrender to the Adventure

I don’t like surprises. Even good ones. As a child, I would cry when well-meaning relatives would have the servers in a restaurant sing “Happy Birthday” to me. I’d probably do the same thing now.  I like my restaurant meals and life in general to be safe, predictable, and steady.

In short, I am not one of those people who joyfully embrace the surprises God gives us all from time to time.

Mary and I have that in common. I’ve never thought of us as on the same page. Me and one of the great women of the Bible? Yeah, right.

Mary was planning a very ordinary, safe life for herself as a carpenter’s wife in Nazareth, a completely accepted and expected life for a young Jewish woman of the time period. When an angel showed up to tell her that God had bigger plans for her, she cheerfully accepted, right?

Not exactly. Like so many great figures of the Bible, Mary has become larger than life in our eyes, a human above and beyond our feelings and shortcomings. A look at Scripture usually reveals that those used by God are a lot like, well, us.

Mary was “greatly troubled” at the news she received. She needed to think about it.

She reacted just like I or all the other play-it-safe people in the world would. With anxiety. With fear. With questioning.

To live an extraordinary life as earthly mother to the Messiah, Mary had to let go of her ordinary expectations.

Letting go is hard. It means saying “yes” to the unknown, the adventurous, the threatening. It means saying “yes” to faith and hope and trust in the unseen.

Mary said “yes” despite her doubts because she knew Who was in charge of this great, exciting journey of life.

She had the wisdom to know she wasn’t in charge.

Saying yes didn’t mean the easy life. Mary had to face the shame of unwed motherhood, the questions, the rumors, the stares. She faced childbirth alone in a barn far from the comforts of home.

About 33 years later, she watched that innocent firstborn get crucified.

But she also watched the miracle of humanity’s redemption come to pass when that same firstborn conquered death and walked out of that grave alive and triumphant.

What’s better? The safe life we crave or the adventure God has in store for us?

It seems like such an easy choice. But it isn’t, when strong desires for a comfortable life and secure relationships with others stand in the way of Godly wisdom and surrender to the unknown.

Saying “yes” is a journey and a sacrifice, one the mother of our Savior knew well.

Let go of safety and let God take the reins. At least take the first step with a tentative “yes” to God’s will, not your own. Follow Jesus step by step, because He will never send you down the wrong path.

Go ahead, the still small voice of our loving heavenly Father says. You can do it. One step, one moment at a time.  We are His beloved works in progress.   

 Blog entry by: Nancy Vasquez

God With Us: From Bethlehem to Newtown

Twenty little kids slaughtered with an assault rifle. Mostly first graders, the medical examiner said on television. Shot by a twenty-year-old for reasons not understood.

The events in Newtown, Connecticut have horrified our country and the world. The brutality of the mass killing of innocents has shaken us to the core. We can’t help but ask, Why? Even Christians wonder how a loving God could allow such a thing to happen.

For a world in grief, the Christmas story provides some clarity. Jesus wasn’t born into a world of easy circumstances, free of pain. As a part of the Trinity, co-equal with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, Jesus IS all-powerful, all-knowing God. He could have chosen many routes to save a sinful world.

But He chose to be born as a human baby, living a human life with all of its pain. He was born in a barn with filthy animals. He lived in a land under oppressive rule. The king of this land was so threatened by Jesus’ birth that he ordered all children under two years old to be killed. Jesus’ earthly parents had to flee to another country to avoid the slaughter of those innocents.

It was hardly an easy way for God to choose to live. But He chose it with purpose.

Often the Christmas story has been reduced to a pretty Nativity set on a shelf, or to Linus reciting Luke 2 in A Charlie Brown Christmas. In reality though, it is a story about God’s sacrifice, of choosing to live in a world full of darkness and be its Light. He came to live among us with all of our sinful ugliness and brokenness. He wasn’t coming to give the divine answers from a distance.  He came to give us abundant life right here among us, relating to our struggles, Immanuel, truly being God With Us.

The story continues. During Jesus’ earthly ministry, his message was ignored and mocked and hated. It seemed that His ministry ended when God was crucified like a criminal to the mockery of a crowd. It was suffering and injustice at their most powerful, a Messiah preaching love and peace executed in the most humiliating way possible.

This was how God purposefully chose to redeem humans from sin: through pain and suffering and sacrifice.

Did God’s Son take the easy, painless route? Hardly.

The good news is that Jesus conquered suffering and death in the resurrection! The life begun as a baby in a manger became the ultimate demonstration of God’s power and love for a world of sinful people.

The work of that infant Savior isn’t done yet.  He is among us and knows what it is like to hurt and question, but He also knows that He will have the ultimate victory over sin and death. Until that happens, we will continue to live in a world where tragedy and sin seem to rule, where small children can be killed on a quiet Friday morning for no reason that we can fathom.

But His Kingdom is coming. Jesus even said it’s already at hand. So we must follow Jesus’ example of being Light to a world filled with pain. We must let the world know that a baby born in Bethlehem, fully God and fully human, understands our suffering because He lived it. God chose the difficult path to bring hope to a seemingly hopeless world. And just like Him, our purpose is to bring this Light and this Hope and this Love to a suffering world. He changes lives. He redeems souls. He restores broken and grieving hearts.

He is Immanuel, God With Us.

Blog entry by:  Nancy Vasquez

A Christmas the Grinch Can't Steal

"Spend less." It's easy to say, isn't it? Rolls off the tongue quickly, almost effortlessly. It's so simple that it's almost trite this time of year. To tell you the truth, if I hadn't heard it from the pulpit on Sunday, I might've been tempted to dismiss it altogether. Sure, I'd tell you, I'd love to spend less. Nobody wants to be wasteful. But I have gifts to buy for so many people, and there's so little time to get all that shopping in, and of course I have to get the perfect gift for everyone, and really how much should I be spending on gifts anyway? And then I walk into church and we start talking about giving to the poor instead, and I just feel guilty about Christmas altogether. It's like I can’t win, no matter what I do.

I imagine you've felt this same hopelessness before. And after Sunday, I'm left pondering a question that continues to bug me year after year: how can we ever hope to practice "Spend Less" in a healthy, responsible way?

Any time Jesus wanted to convey a truth about how to live, he told a story. He could have given us a field manual, or a systematic theology textbook. But he knew that the best way to teach us about life was to speak in terms of things we already knew, like construction or gardening. I like that He did this because it’s easier for me to follow, and stories are way more interesting than textbooks anyway.

 So let me tell you a story.

It's one of my favorite Christmas stories, and one I'm sure you're familiar with: "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," by Dr. Seuss. It's a simple story that asks a simple question: what happens when there aren’t any presents on Christmas? You know the tale: the mean, old Grinch steals all the presents in Whoville on Christmas night, only to find them singing together on Christmas morning, "without any presents at all!" This baffles the Grinch. And at first, it ought to baffle you, too. The Grinch has taken everything even resembling Christmas: "all the ribbons, the wrappings, the trimmings, the trappings." No presents. No food. It's all gone. And yet the Whos wake up singing.

Why? What's left to sing about? “Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small” joins hands and sings the one truth of Christmas together. So what are they singing? Well, it didn’t have anything to do with sleigh bells or shopping, I can tell you that. Because if all you have to sing about on Christmas is presents, decorations, and the "Christmas spirit," then you have a Christmas that the Grinch can steal. Christmas has to be about something bigger than presents, bigger even than your loved ones, for it to inspire you to sing all by itself.

Which is why I'm inclined to think the Whos were singing something you and I might know.

O come, all ye faithful,

Joyful and triumphant,

O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem

Come and behold Him,

Born the King of angels

O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him

O come let us adore Him,

Christ the Lord.

That, friends, is a Christmas the Grinch can't steal. It's the truth that keeps the fire of Christmas burning: that hope doesn't come from a department store. That the King has come, in the most unlikely of fashions. And there's a rumor going around that He's going to change everything.

When we stop worrying about things that are less important than Christ, everything falls into place. That's the secret of "Spend Less." Like Jesus' friend Martha, we are worried about many things; "all the ribbons, the wrappings, the trimmings, the trappings." We can't begin to think about slowing down because how will anything get done if we don't work like crazy through the holiday? And I can promise you one thing: until we shift our values to focus on the "Christ" part of Christmas, we will always rest dissatisfied. We can make every excuse in the book, but it comes down to our willingness to follow Jesus into every area of life, even the uncomfortable places like how we spend our money.

So stop for a minute. Quit worrying about your to-do list. Remember to sing. Remind yourself why you’re doing all that cooking and cleaning. Spend time in the presence of God for an hour instead of browsing around endlessly on Amazon. Make room for Jesus every day, and watch Christmas take on a whole new life. Because when Christ comes, everything changes.

Blog entry by: Dominick Baruffi