The Savior Who Weeps

It was a tumultuous time.

In the movie Castaway, Tom Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a Fed Ex official from Atlanta whose plane goes down and he ends up stranded alone on an island. While Tom Hanks is a good actor, he does betray himself on one occasion during the film. At one point there is a storm, and a porta-potty washes up onto the island. The location of the company the porta-potty belongs to is written on it. As Hanks character reads the word Bakersfield, he says it with a touch of disdain, which only a Californian would know to do.

But I knew. Me—who never thought I would live in California. But we ended up in Bakersfield, where we went through one of the most difficult periods of our lives, which had nothing to do with that city—It just happened to be where we were at the time.

But the story begins a few years before that, in Haiti.

After we had been married a few years, we decided we would like to have some children. But Ingrid was not getting pregnant. We decided to seek medical help to try to figure out why. We started out by going to some doctors in Haiti, where we were living at the time. But we were not successful there.

Some Haitian people we knew suggested a different approach. They said we should each sleep with someone else. That way, either Ingrid would get pregnant with another man or I would father a child with another woman. That technique did not seem too appropriate to us.

Instead, we ended up consulting with a physician in Connecticut who had successfully helped my brother and sister-in-law with infertility issues. We made a few trips there and Ingrid ended up having two surgeries to try to correct some problems but, in the end, it was not successful. That was in 1988.

We thought about adopting. Being that we were in Haiti at the time, we figured if we did adopt, it would be a black, Haitian child. We contacted the pastor of the last church we had attended in Alabama, asking it this would be a problem if we were to do so (as many in that town did not approve of mixed race families) and eventually end up back in the church. He said it would be okay.

But neither Ingrid nor I would feel like adopting at the same time. I might feel like pursuing adoption at one point, but Ingrid would not. Or she would feel like adopting at one point, and I would not. Eventually we decided that children were just not going to be a part of our family, and we eventually grew comfortable with the idea.

Now for a bit how our theological journey fits into this. Before coming to Thailand we each had varied church experience. Ingrid's background was Lutheran, Christian and Missionary Alliance, and a brief foray into Pentecostal. Mine was Conservative Baptist and Presbyterian. We had most recently been a part of a Southern Baptist church. These churches tended to follow either a Dispensationalist or Reformed/Calvinistic theology. But in my own Bible reading I became disillusioned with both of these. My Bible School was of the dispensationalist stream but I had also read theology texts of the Reform writers.

Both Dispensationalism and Calvinism/Reformed theologies are systematic theology systems. The problem I have with systematic theologies is that the systems end up becoming the end rather than the means to the end. They are meant to help us understand what God is like, but end up being used to define what God is like. If a particular scripture didn't seem to fit the system, it was taken out of context and/or its meaning twisted so that it would. I wrote more about that here. But I didn't know what to do with these thoughts. Was I alone in thinking like this? Was I a heretic in my brain?

In 1989, a woman had been part of our team the first time we had gone to Haiti in 1981 sent us a couple of books: Power Evangelism by John Wimber and Power Christianity by Charles Kraft. (Though I didn't get around to reading the latter until a couple of years later.) John Wimber espoused Kingdom Theology (beliefs that are also held in the Anabaptist churches we are now a part of) and he used a phrase that kind of pieced everything together for me: The kingdom of the already and not yet. Suddenly it all made sense to me—Wimber had summarized in a few words how I was coming to understand the Bible. John Wimber helped launch the Vineyard Movement in Anaheim, California which had grown into the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Churches. (Several years later joined about a dozen other people to learn more about this Theology in a Vineyard Bible Institute class taught by John Wimber.)

By 1993, we knew something needed to change—either we had to move someplace else in Haiti or we had to leave Haiti. I arranged to take an Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at UC Santa Cruz. It was a six-month program and it would give us time to process what we should do next. We arranged all our belongings, separating what we would not keep if we were to leave. During the time we were in California, we would make up our minds. In September, about a month before the apprenticeship program was over, it was clear to us that we should not continue to work in Haiti. After the program was over in October, we went back to Haiti to finish up things with the Baptist Haiti Mission and then moved on to California.

While I was taking the apprenticeship, Ingrid got a job in home health nursing out of Atherton. She was staying with my sister and family in that area while I camped out on the farm at UC Santa Cruz along with the other apprentices. In the meantime, we joined a Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church in Palo Alto because we wanted to explore more about what we read in the books while in Haiti. It was a time of healing and refreshing for us. After the apprenticeship was over, I got a job landscaping in the Bay Area.

In January, 1994, I contacted the Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service) in California about job opportunities to do work similar to what I did in Alabama in the early 1980's. I found out there were possible job openings in Bakersfield and possibly the Mojave Desert area. So I applied for a job with them.

The following month, there was a conference on Healing at the Vineyard Church in Anaheim. The keynote speakers were John Wimber and Francis Macnutt. We would take the opportunity to visit Bakersfield and also visit a cousin who lived in the area whom I had not seen in 18 years. (More about that here.)

On our drive through Kern County for the first time we saw Nicolls Peak
We decided then that we would climb it one day,
though it was several years before we found the way up.

We had an amazing time at the conference, and it is really hard to describe what was going on inside us spiritually. At one point, there was a prayer time for those struggling with infertility, and Ingrid decided to receive prayer for that. We were convinced that God was at work. I even had a name for our daughter to be.

A couple of weeks later we found out that if Ingrid was going to get pregnant, it wasn't yet.

That same week we got a phone call from a couple we used to work with in Haiti. They had left before us and settled in Alabama. They were calling to tell us that their teenage daughter was pregnant and their daughter was wondering if we would be willing to adopt the daughter when she was born in two months.

If they had called just a few weeks earlier, we would have said no without hesitation. But now we were thinking about children again. We said we would pray about it and get back to them soon.

Soon. We did not have a lot of time if we were going to process everything. We prayed and got others to pray. We consulted with others. In the end we felt led to go ahead with it.

About this same time, I got offered the job in Bakersfield, starting the beginning of April. The baby was due at the end of that month. When I told my coworker we were moving to Bakersfield he said to me incredulously, "Bakersfield!? You're moving to Bakersfield!?" I did not know it had the reputation as the armpit of California. When I saw the scene in Castaway several years later, it reminded me of this conversation.

Since this was to be an out of state adoption, we secured a lawyer in Alabama to help us. Bethany Christian Services was handling things on the California side. We had to do a home study that we began in Mountain View but finished in Bakersfield. We even had to take an infant first aid course.

We found an apartment in Bakersfield kitty-corner from my office. We connected with the Vineyard Christian Fellowship that met in the school across the street. I made the trip to find the apartment by myself, because Ingrid was busy working. It was a bit scary, making that kind of decision without my wife present, but she was happy with my choice.

We shared our apartment with some doves

About two weeks after I started work (thirty years ago, this month), we got the phone call that the mother was going into labor. We quickly made arrangements for Ingrid to travel, since I was not able to leave my new job. So Ingrid packed our baby carrier and flew to Birmingham, then rented a car and drove to the hospital. There, she was able to hold the baby. But in the end, the father refused to sign the adoption papers, even though he had previously said that he would. We were devastated.

Ingrid returned to California with no baby. She left the baby carrier with the birth mom. We were left with trying to make sense of something that made no sense. It's not like we had been looking for any of what had just happened. So why did our hopes have to get raised so high only to be struck down so low? It seemed like God was leading in all of this. Did we—and many others—mis-read it all? And if we weren't misreading it, what was God doing to us? It felt like God betrayed us. There was the temptation to quit God. But where else do we turn? When I think of my life before I met Jesus, I had no desire to go back to that.

So rather than use this occasion to give up on God, we used it as a time to get closer to Him. And while the pain did not immediately go away, the presence of Jesus was there in the pain.

One day, I was riding in the car and I heard this romantic song playing on the Christian radio station in Bakersfield, KAXL, called "I Still Do." I called the station to find out more about it and find out it is by a guy named Vince Wilcox. Somehow, I got hold of the CD it was on, which was entitled Reconciled. We didn't have internet in those days, so I am not sure where I ended up getting it—I'm guessing I must have ordered if from a music store or Christian bookstore. However, there was one song that we ended up listening to, and singing along to, even more than I Still Do. It was a song that really resonated with what we were going through. (Click the song title below to watch a You Tube video.)

The Savior Who Weeps

by Vince Wilcox and Don Pardoe

VERSE 1
“Our brother is gone,” her words cut like a knife
into the heart of the Lord.
“If You had been here, then he wouldn’t have died,”
she cried to the light of the world.
So they went to where Lazarus slept
And realized as Jesus wept… that

CHORUS
He shares every heartache.
He bears every grief.
He is there when your heart breaks
And you can’t find relief.
When the pain is relentless
The darkness so deep;
He is right there beside you—
The Savior who weeps.

VERSE 2
What can you say when the prayers have been prayed
And no miracle comes along?
How can you comfort a mother and dad
Now that their baby is gone?
But there in the darkest of hours
The tears of God mingle with ours… ’cause

CHORUS

BRIDGE
One day every tear shall be dried,
But till that day He cries when we cry, ‘cause…

CHORUS TAG
Crying beside you,
The Savior who weeps.

Recently, I read the book Echoing Hope: How the Humanity of Jesus Redeems Our Pain. The author, Kurt Willems, went through significant suffering as a child, and the book is partly as result of his processing all of this. As I read the book, I was reminded of the adoption that didn't happen and other valleys we have walked through on our sojourn on this earth. In the book, Kurt writes:

Jesus is what it looks like when God shows us how to be human. Immunity to pain is something that cannot be claimed of God since in Jesus we have a God who experienced excruciating suffering. In Jesus, God suffers with us all.

And because of his presence, suffering doesn’t get the final word. Love does.

Kurt also shared a quote from author Sarah Bessey that I can relate to. After reading the quote, I acquired the book it came from and, once I started reading, I had a hard time putting it down. In Miracles and Other Reasonable Things, Bessy writes:

Like most of us, when I walked through my own valleys of darkness and suffering and loss, God was often revealed to me in the darkness rather than in the light. The valleys were where I became intimate with God, far more than the mountaintops.

I don't always understand why we go through all the messy stuff that life brings us. There are many occasions when I ask, "What was that all about?" or "Why did I have to go through that?" I may not get answers to those questions in this life. But when those hard times come, I seek refuge in the loving arms of Jesus, who suffered pain and sorrow far worse than I have and which He did not deserve. As the controversial Super Bowl spot this year stated: He gets us. Jesus has been there. Jesus has done that. And now Jesus is here for us when we go through tough times.

Notes:

Willems, Kurt. Echoing Hope: How the Humanity of Jesus Redeems Our Pain (p. 209). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Bessey, Sarah. Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God (p. 132). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

This blog took a long time to come together. I first got the idea when I started reading Echoing Hope more than a year and a half ago. Somewhere in there I put a title on an empty blog for whenever I might get around to writing it. But then we were so busy with ministry and preparing to leave Thailand and all the stuff that goes with that, that I did not finish reading the book until last fall. After reading the book, I started writing the blog. But then I felt I should read Sarah Bessey's book first. After that I finished the draft. In January, I made most of the final edits, but I wasn't ready to publish the blog yet. But this month came along—the 30th anniversary of the failed adoption. So, I made the final edits and published the blog more than 1-1/2 years after I started.

A Call for the Return of Jesus

I'm not a great fan of San Francisco. I had been there twice in the 1990's and figured that was enough for one lifetime. But my niece had moved there with her husband, whom I'd never met, and she was also a new mom, so we braved the the streets that never seem to end up going the same direction they started. After dropping of my wife and brother at my niece's house I drove around...

...and around...

...and around... (you get the point)

...until I found a parking spot.

At least by that point, the rain had let up so I didn't get too wet walking to the apartment, which is located in the shadows of UCSF where my nephew is attending medical school.

My niece found us a hotel for the night that wasn't too far away with a Groupon that included parking—a $35 value just for that latter part. The hotel was in Berkley, a place I had perhaps driven through once in my life. I had not realized that Berkley went all the way to San Francisco Bay. The hotel was beautifully situated adjacent to the marina.

The next morning we went out looking for some affordable breakfast, a challenge in Berkley, but possible with the help of coupons and fast foot restaurants. Driving back to the hotel, we stopped at a small park that had a handful of parking spots and a short path along a spit reaching into the bay that afforded views of San Franciso, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other places I don't know the names of. There were a couple of park benches, the condition of which said that they had only been recently installed. But even more recent was the editorials scibbled in permanent marker. The message on the left side was in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. The message on the right side I interpreted as a prayer for the return of the Messiah...

Park Bench in Berkley

"FREE ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE" the writer exclaimed on the bench. The co-location of the message with the one mentioned earlier suggests that it implied that the Palestinians in Gaza were among them.

When I read these words, I immediately thought of Jesus words when He announced his public ministry. Jesus had gone into the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. On this occasion, he was invited to be the guest speaker. He was given a scroll to read, which just so happened to be some words from the prophet Isaiah, who was writing about the Messiah to come.

     “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
  because he has anointed me
  to proclaim good news to the poor.
     He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
  and recovering of sight to the blind,
  to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke 4:18, 19 (ESV) quoting Isaiah 61:1, 2

Jesus then inferred that these verses applied to Him. Jesus will begin proclaiming good news to the poor. Jesus will proclaim liberty to the captives. Jesus will give sight to the blind. Jesus will set at liberty those who are oppressed. These things are the marks of the Kingdom of God. But Jesus did not finish these things before He went to heaven. But He said that He will return and then He will finish establishing His Kingdom.

In the meantime, he charged those people who follow Him to continue to bring the Kingdom of God to the earth. We are to continue to proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives, bring sight to the blind and set at liberty those who are oppressed. We won't finish the task, but we should keep at it until such time as Jesus returns to do so.

So this bench in Berkley is a reminder that the church still has work to do as long as there are still oppressed people. It is also a prayer for Jesus to come back and finish what He started.

Maranatha.

Come, Lord Jesus!

A Christmas Symbol

What is the symbol of Christmas? A Christmas tree? Santa Claus? A snowman? A stocking? A manger scene? An angel?

On the first Christmas there were shepherds abiding in the field—at least that's how the King James Bible puts it. Some modern translations render it like this: "there were shepherds living the fields." (Luke 2:8) Anyway, there are a bunch of men hanging out, perhaps sipping wine out of goatskins telling stories of heroic sheep rescues from lions and bears and such. Or maybe they're telling of close encounters with vipers. But then the darkness is suddenly broken. An angel appears, and the glory of the Lord shines around them. It's an awesome light, enough to scare a bunch of men, toughened by years of protecting sheep from the hazards of the wild. This angel tells these men that a Savior has been born and is lying in a trough filled with hay in nearby Bethlehem. "Go check it out for yourselves," the angel suggests.

Glorious Light.

Meanwhile, in a country far to the east, a group of nerds is hanging out together. Rather than trying to impress each other with their acts of bravery, perhaps they are sipping wine out of goatskins while playing brain games to see who is the smartest. When, suddenly, up in they sky they see a star shining perhaps a bit more brightly than usual. This is not your ordinary star. Or perhaps it is just an ordinary star with extraordinary meaning. Somehow they knew that the appearance of this star meant that a new king of the Jews had been born.

Starry Light.

About a month after the Savior-King is born, Joseph and Mary bring Jesus into Jerusalem to present him at the temple. While they are there, they run into an old man named Simeon. God told Simeon that he would not die until he saw the Messiah—the Christ. And then Simeon sees baby Jesus and God tells him that this infant is the One. Simeon breaks out in praise:

Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
  according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
  and for glory to your people Israel.
Luke 2:29-32

The Savior-King is also Messiah/Christ

Light of revelation to the Gentiles.

About 30 years go by, and we don't hear much more about the light. But then John the Baptist makes his appearance, followed by Jesus. After Jesus is baptized by John and passes his wilderness exam, He begins his ministry with an announcement. He quotes the prophet Isaiah, written some 750 years earlier.

The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
  the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
  the people dwelling in darkness
  have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
  on them a light has dawned.
Matthew 4:15, 16

A Light that dispels the darkness.

Later on, Jesus tells us more about who He is. He says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12 ESV)

A life-giving Light.

By believing in Jesus, the light of the world, people become children of light. Jesus said, "While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” (John 12:36 NRSV)

Eventually Jesus ascended to heaven, but He didn't want people to be without light. He called on his followers to take on His role of being light to the world. He said to his disciples, “You are the light of the world," (Matthew 5:14 ESV)

The apostle Paul reiterated this, "that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Philippians 2:15 ESV) And again he says, "For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness." (1 Thessalonians 5:5 ESV)

And the way we are to light up the world is by loving people. The apostle John writes, "Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling." (1 John 2:10 ESV)

Light, then, seems to be an appropriate symbol for Christmas, and love the demonstration of that light. I'm not saying we throw out the Christmas tree or cease putting up longer and longer strings of lights (though it might be environmentally friendly to do so). But if we decorate our houses and fail to love one another, we miss putting up the true symbol of Christmas. For the mark of Christmas is not so much what shines out of our windows, but rather what radiates from our hearts.

Streets of Gold

And the main street was pure gold, as clear as glass.
Revelation 21:21b (NLT)

I was exploring a new path on my morning bike ride, when I glanced to the side and spotted a farm shed at the end of a dirt track. It looked photogenic, but I was moving fairly quickly, so by the time it registered in my brain, I had already passed the sandy lane and had to turn back.

I parked my bike at the beginning of the field road, and walked a bit closer to the shed. As I got to where the grass on the side was a bit taller, it looked almost ablaze in the morning sun. The colors were a bit redder than usual because of the low sun angle combined with all the smoke in the air from the seasonal burning of the recently harvested rice paddies. The gleaming gold ribbon of tinsel lining the sides of the modest track immediately reminded me of John's description of the New Jerusalem in Revelation, where he writes about the streets being made of gold. (The colors may be a bit exaggerated in the photo, because I was trying to adjust for the washed out image taken through the age-worn lens of my phone camera.)

The gold also is a reminder, a few days before Christmas, of one of the gifts brought by the Magi to the young child Jesus in Bethlehem. Gold marked the beginning of Jesus life on earth and will also be present at the beginning of His reign in the New Jerusalem.

While we may not have the experience of a white Christmas here in Thailand, at least we can have a golden one.

This Christmas season, you may find yourself surrounded by white snow, green grass, or even desert sand. Your Christmas tree may be a spruce tree or a palm tree or a branch painted white, like we used to see in Haiti. You may find yourself surrounded by family and friends or you may be all alone. These trappings are just reminders of the time when God chose to identify with the humankind He had created by sending Jesus into our world as one of us. And this same Jesus will one day return to be among us while we walk the streets of gold.

What's in a Name?

A popular thing to do for exercise in Kamalasai is to go for a walk. The government encourages this by putting in walkways around some lakes and even putting some fitness equipment along the way.

Fitness Equipment at the Pond East Side of Kamalasai

There are three lakes of various sizes around Kamalasai with walkways and fitness equipment. The largest is on the west side of town. It's 3.6 km (just over 2 miles) to go all around it.

Lake on the West Side of Kamalasai

The lake closest to us is on the east side of town. The walkway there is still under development as they reconfigured the pond this past year.

Sunset Over the Lake on the East Side of Kamalasai

The lake that seems to be the oldest, based on the nature of the trees growing around it, is on the south side of town. The name of this one is Sa Bua, which translates "Lotus Pond." Sa Bua is the smallest of the three lakes.

Sa Bua or "Lotus Pond" on the South Side of Kamalasai

One thing you may notice in the picture is the dearth of lotus plants growing in the lake. As far as I know, there aren't any. Maybe at one time there were some of the pink blossoms dotting the lake, but there aren't any more. The only pink blossoms to be found are those of the water morning glory. A type of morning glory that not only grows in land, but in water where it will develop swollen, air filled stems that enable them to float.

Water Morning Glory Plants in Sa Bua

It's not like lotus plants don't grow in this part of the world. The Sacred Lotus is commonly planted. In fact the sacred lotus is a good source of food. The inflated stems and seeds are eaten.

Lotus Blossoms in the Lake East of Kamalasai

A few hours drive from here is a water body called Red Lotus Lake. At least that place lives up to its name.

Red Lotus Lake in Udon Thani Province

It's interesting how names often seem to be based on some fantasy dream rather than reality. We used to live on River Mist Avenue in Bakersfield. The house was in a subdivision called "Silver Creek". Good luck finding that glimmering stream of water. There was no river there. We were three miles south of the often dry riverbed of the Kern River. And that was Bakersfield, California—a place that qualifies as a desert with an average annual rainfall of less than six inches. No river. No creek. No mist.

At least Lotus Pond may have once had lotus plants in it.

In the Bible, names often have significant meaning. God gave Abram a new name—Abraham—which means "Father of a Multitude," because he would have many descendants (Genesis 17:5) When the nation of Israel came to a place where the water in the springs was bitter, it was named Marah, which means "bitter". (Exodus 15:23) In Hosea's prophecy there is a place mentioned called Beth Aven (Hosea 4:15; 5:8; 10:5). Beth Aven means "House of Wickedness" and some think this is a sarcastic reference to Bethel (which means "House of God") because of the idol worship that was happening there. Even Hosea's children were given significant names. For example, God told him to name is second child, a daughter, Loruhamah which means "No Mercy," because God was not going to show mercy to Israel (Hosea 1:6). Imagine having to go through life with a name like that!

Soon it will be Christmas. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. The child is given the name Jesus, which means, "God saves," because He would save His people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21) Jesus is given the title Christ, which means "anointed one" because Christians recognize this Jesus as the anointed one or Messiah predicted to come in the Old Testament.

When Isaiah prophesied about the Messiah who was to come, he listed the following names for Him (Isaiah 9:6):
Wonderful Counselor
Almighty God
Everlasting Father
Prince of Peace

-Jesus is a Wonderful Counselor—He has the best advice as to how I should live my life.
-Jesus is Almighty God—He is no ordinary person and He has extraordinary power with which to do miracles.
-Jesus is the Everlasting Father—even though He is called the Son of God, He existed from the beginning with God and will live for all eternity.
-Jesus is the Prince of Peace—He makes it possible for us to be reconciled to (at peace with) God, even though in the past our sins made us enemies of God. (Colossians 1:21). And through the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in all believers, we are able to love even our enemies and be peacemakers in the world. (Matthew 5:9)

God, thank You for sending us a Savior, Jesus, who is a Wonderful Counselor, the Almighty God, an Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace.

What does Jesus Look Like To You?

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.

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 2:11-14 (NIV)

Earlier this month, while we were in Connecticut, we went to the Abbey of Regina Laudis in
Bethlehem, Connecticut. It seemed appropriate to visit a village by that name during the Christmas season.

At the abbey, they have a Neapolitan crèche dating from the 18th century.  The crèche is interesting in that it tries to depict how the people of the time would respond to the birth of Jesus.  So there is a large village scene, with Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus and company in one part, while much of the rest of the village goes about their business.






Then, this past week, we had the opportunity to visit Reformed Church in Edmonton, Alberta.  Each year the church puts on a display of nativity scenes that people have collected from around the world.  There is a great variety in both the construction of the nativity scenes and how the characters are represented.






The baby Jesus ends up with various shades of skin tones.  While normally he is pictured laying in the manger on His back, some scenes depict him on his stomach.  One display has him in a canoe instead of a manger.



There are even some displays which use animals instead of people, and in these sets he may end up as a mouse or a moose.




One wonders why God chose to send Jesus at a time when technology was such that no one really knows what he looks like.  If God were to have sent him in this day and age, his birth would have been quickly recorded for all on social media.  But maybe it’s better that way.  With no photographs or realistic paintings to depict what Jesus looked like, we can focus more on other aspects of His life like his activities and teachings.  For in the end, it is not so critical as to what kind of facility the manger was in and exactly who and how many people were present.  The more important thing is, as depicted in the nativity scene at the Abbey, what are we going to do about it?

What are we going to do now that Jesus has come into the world?  What are we going to do about His teachings?  How will we respond?  Will be believe the testimony of the shepherds and angels?  Or will we just go about our lives as if nothing of consequence has happened?  Will we believe and obey?  Or we celebrate the season of materialistic indulgence that Christmas has become?

Thailand is not historically a Christian country.  Few people there could tell you what the real meaning of Christmas is.  Yet all the malls are full of Christmas carols and Christmas displays.  Christmas has become a money-making opportunity for merchants.  Unfortunately, this commercial Christmas is the first one many Thai people learn about.

It’s probably not much different in North America anymore.  There is Santa Claus and Christmas trees and reindeer, but I don’t think most children are learning the story of the first Christmas—the story of when God came to earth to show people what He is like.

It is up to us who believe in Jesus to celebrate Christmas like God did.  To go about humbly demonstrating the love of God to people who are desperately in need of it while telling them the good news that the Kingdom of God is here.  To focus less on stuff and more on the people around us.  To be less concerned with ourselves and more concerned with others.  For Jesus came not to accumulate things in this world but to lay down His life for others.

This, I think, would be the best Christmas present we could give away—and not just one day per year.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:45 (ESV)

Tear Down This Wall

I was reading somewhere that today is the 25th anniversary of Ronald Regan’s famous speech at the Berlin wall where he challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

President Regan giving his speech at the Berlin Wall 6/12/1987
from the National Archives: http://arcweb.archives.gov (ARC Identifier 198585)

Walls.

People like putting up walls.  There are the walls you can see and the ones you can’t see.

Many walls are physical walls designed to keep our enemies from attacking us.  The thing is that these kind of walls don’t often protect us.  Sure they may prevent enemies from getting in.  But they also keep us from forming relationships that might keep us from having enemies in the first place.

The there are the walls we put up in our lives so that people won’t know what we’re really like because we’re afraid if people knew what we were really like they would not like us.  The problem with these walls is that if people knew what we were really like, they might realize how much we’re alike and they might like us even more.

But worse than the walls to keep people out are the walls that keep people in.  The folks in East Berlin might have said that the walls we’re to keep people out but they were really to keep people in.  The leaders knew that if people could leave easily, many of them would and then there would not be much left to govern.

But the communists aren’t the only ones who do this. The church has often done a very good job of this.  People can get so accustomed to all the programs going on inside the church they forget how to relate to people outside the church.  After a while the people outside the church think of church members as a bit strange, and the church does not do a good job of communicating the good news of Jesus to those who need Him the most.

After the crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples were huddled behind locked doors.  They did not look like likely candidates for communicating the good news about Jesus. Jesus somehow had to go through the walls of that locked room.  He had to get inside to give them a message to go outside

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)

The church is not about staying—it is about going.

We in the church need to tear down the walls that keep us in just Gorbachev needed to tear down the walls that kept people in.

A few years ago I wrote a song about this:

Tear Down That Wall
© Edd RussellFresno, California 11/2006

You are a God without borders,
You stepped out from heaven for us,
You reached in the dark, lonely places;
Illuminated us with Your love

You tore down all of the fences
That kept us from coming to You.
You opened the doorway to heaven
When Jesus stepped into our lives.

But we’ve erected some fences
To keep all Your love to ourselves.
We hide Your light under a basket
So everyone stays in the dark.

We want to tear down that wall.
We want to tear down that wall.
We want to tear down that wall.
We want to tear down that wall.
Jesus help us tear down that wall.
Cuz we’ve got to tear down that wall.
Yes, we need to tear down that wall.
We want to tear down that wall.

Life in the bubble

Recently we had the opportunity to visit the island of Phuket in southern Thailand for a retreat/conference with fellow MB Missionaries that are working here in Thailand.  As is my usual habit when I am traveling, I like to get up on the early side and enjoy the sights before the crowds of people arrive.  On one morning everything had a more sparkling look because of the drops left behind from the evening rains.  As I peered through a drop on the end of a branchlet/needle of a Casuarina tree I was able to see the path in front of me—but it was upside down.

Imagine if you had to live in the drop.  In one sense you would think you had a clear understanding of the world around you, everything would be sharp and in focus and there would be an order to everything that you could make sense of—except it was upside down!  We would not have a true perspective because we our perspective would be from the limited world of life within the bubble.

That is kind of like what life is like for us humans.  We see the world around us and there is an apparent order to everything and everything seems to make sense.  But we don’t see everything.  Our perspective is limited by our humanity.  God’s perspective is is much bigger than ours.  And our perspective is often upside-down.  Here are just a few examples from the words of Jesus about how God’s perspective is often opposite from our perspective:

• For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. (Matthew 16:25-NIV)
•  Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."  (Mark 9:35-NIV)
•  When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."  (Luke 18:22-NIV)
• Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. (Matthew 5:11-NIV)

One day some of the limitations of our perspective will be removed.  The Apostle Paul writes of that day: Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12-NIV)  But even before that day comes, the Holt Spirit can help us to see things as God does.  Jesus said,  But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. (John 14:26-NIV)  The Holy Spirit enabled the disciples to remember Jesus’ word that they might record them for us who would follow after them.

God, I thank you that you have chosen to reveal yourself to us through the prophets, through the scriptures, through Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit.  I thank you that you did not want us to live our lives with the distorted view of life from the inside the bubble.  But I confess that there is a lot of pressure to conform and I often give in and choose to life my life as though there is no more to the universe than what can be seen with our eyes or comprehended by our brains.  By Your Holy Spirit help me to see things as you do and respond to things as you would.

Terryville Tunnel

Not far from where I used to live, there is a mile-long train tunnel called the Terryville Tunnel.


One night when I was a teenager, some friends and myself decided to go visit the tunnel.  It was quite dark, no lights anywhere around.  We entered the tunnel with our flashlights and walked to about the halfway point—which we estimated by when the dark gray openings (which we could barely see) on either end of the tunnel were about the same size.  It was a strange feeling to be in such a dark place where the light was not much brighter than the dark.  Kind of like this image I made here—see if you can even see the light colored spot.

Last night I wake up and was not able to sleep for a bit.  So I decided to pray for Isaan, that part of Thailand where we may one day bring the light of the good news of Jesus.  As I prayed, the image of our night-time visit to the tunnel came to mind.  This is a part of the Thailand where in most places no one has heard the the name of Jesus and in in a few places there are only a handful that have found hope in Him.  It is a dark place where even the bright places aren’t very bright. This makes me think of the words of Jesus, “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Matthew 6:23 (ESV)

How grateful we are that God provided a way out of darkness: the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned (Matthew 4:16-ESV)