Wednesday, December 28, 2022 – New Year’s Day

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” (Matthew 6: 33, New Living Translation)

[I have been writing this blog for over seven years. I am constantly surprised and humbled by those who reads these blogs and how many read them. As we enter a new year, I want to say thank you to all my readers. I will continue to try and do my best to lead us in the quest to follow Jesus.]

            One of my favourite computer games is the “hidden object” game.

In the story line (usually a fantasy), one comes across a scene in which I am given a long list of objects to find. Some are obvious and quickly clicked away.  Some are hidden behind other objects and I must move whatever is hiding the object to get to it and click it away. Sometimes, I have a picture in mind of what I am looking for but I can’t find it. That is because my idea of the object doesn’t fit the real object in the scene. Or sometimes, I think I am looking for something quite small and keep overlooking the rather large object right in front of my nose (and visa versa). There is even a type that gives me the objects and I need to place them back into the scene in the right places – also tricky. Sometimes, I simply can’t find something and I have to use the hint button.

We are at edge of a New Year. The future might be compared to that hidden object game. We are looking for something in the year ahead, something that helps us to accomplish our goals and tell our stories.

There are going to be some things that come easily or I hope so, at least. Loving our families. Being truthful. Respecting others. Helping others.  Doing our best.

But sometimes, the good things we seek may be hidden by obstacles and obstructions.  Somebody’s harsh or judgmental words. Illnesses. Setbacks. Worries and fears.  We will need to work a little harder to find the good and the answers we seek.

Then, there will be those times we will be looking for one thing which we think is really important and obvious and discover that the solution is not what we pictured at all. God works in mysterious ways and we will have to trust to look for and find God’s answer to our puzzles, not our own assumptions.

The answers may be under our noses but we refuse to see them, to own them, to let then shape our vision. We fail to recognize the Good News that God has for us.

There are going to be times when we have to put back and not just take away. We need to give back in order to discover the satisfaction of finding answers and solutions.

I only wish we had a hint button in our lives that we could push when we are at a standstill, some crossroads, at some crisis, at some turning point. That would make life so much easier. Far fewer mistakes. Far fewer mis-clicks.

But it comes close in our text above.  “Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.” (The Message)

It comes down as to how you and I follow Jesus into our futures and how we find Jesus in our stories. Our choices are important and even critical for the storyline which we are living. It is easy to get stuck or incapacitated and choose to make no choice. But in the long run that is in itself a bad choice and leads us no where close to the Kingdom of God.

Trust God and seek God’s Love in all that we choose to do. Look for Jesus and follow him where he is.

Make that your New Year’s resolution.

“For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:8 NLT)

Dale

Wednesday, December 21, 2022 – Christmas

“And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.” (Luke 2: 6 -7, New Living Translation)

                So this is Christmas.

                Without the glitter, the coloured lights, the fancy decorated tree, the pretty wrapping paper, the groaning board of food, the Christmas parties and family celebrations.

                So this is Christmas.

                Plain, simple, raw, meagre, poor, barely noticeable – tucked away in a manger.

                So this is Christmas.

                A fresh voice crying in the wilderness of Bethlehem, of all places. A baby’s first cry meant to save the world. Meant to begin a unique sacred initiative to bring us Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.

                Seems impossible, incredulous, presumptuous for something so small to do so much. A wee, small voice to break the silence of darkness and impose a divine, burgeoning Love in a world of shadows and monsters under the bed.

                So this is Christmas.

                God’s sense of irony at work, daring the Herods of politics, power, wealth and fame to come and take a look.  God’s spirit of audacious enterprise matching such meagre beginnings with the false promises and empty hopes and vain boasts of the world. God’s bold but preposterous Word made flesh to rise above the din and cacophony of hate, war, prejudice, injustice and just plain stupidity.

                We celebrate Christmas – we need to celebrate Christmas. But do we get Christmas? Or better yet, does Christmas get us? Does it capture our imaginations, our hurts, our fears, our anxieties, our wrongness and deliver us into God’s Love once more?

                Will this Christmas remind us again that in the face of raw beginnings that there will be New Life beating in this child’s heart?  Will this Christmas give birth to our own  New Life, born anew in our remoteness and out-of-the-way circumstances to remind us that God is not stymied nor disheartened by our human condition. God takes delight in showing us a New Way, incarnating a New Look, lifting the most ordinary and mundane into Good News.

                So this is Christmas.

                Plain and simple. Not much glamour except for angel song. Nothing fancy. Nothing elaborate. Nothing ostentatious. Nothing particularly newsworthy except it is the Good News which nestles into straw and swaddled rags.

                So this is Christmas

                God at work turning the world upside down and inside out. Using the least likely ingredients for establishing a new foothold in a broken, divided, complicated world. Then and even now. Even still.

                It is a long way from Bethlehem to here and now. We, too, long to see that which has come to pass and know for certain that it is truly of God and meant for us. We, too, ponder in our hearts what all this means and does and how it applies to ourselves. We, too, grasp at Mary and Joseph’s robes and see ourselves in their humble humanity and insert ourselves to be part of this drama.  To our amazement – we are!

                So this is Christmas. Jesus is born!

                Hallelujah! Yes, this is Christmas!

 

Dale

Wednesday, December 14, 2022 – Advent Four

“So the Lord must wait for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion. For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for his help.” (Isaiah 30:18, New Living Translation)

               Waiting for God seems to be a human condition.  Waiting for God to answer our prayers. Waiting for God to intervene in some circumstance. Waiting for God to show us the way. Waiting for God to grant us some boon. Waiting for Christ to come again.  Like children waiting impatiently for Christmas morning, we wait for God to act. “Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14 NLT)

                But in our text above, we discover the rather unusual idea that God is also waiting for us, rather than the other way around. God is waiting for us to make an appearance so that God can show us his Love and Compassion.

                I am reminded then of the nativity shepherds who were told, “The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!” (Luke 2: 11, NLT). It might have been the last place on earth where one would expect to find Love and Compassion, but  the shepherds took the hint: “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” (2:15)

                We are always expecting God to come to us, but sometimes we have to get out of our big blue comfy recliners and actually make the effort to see what God is doing somewhere else.  There is no point in complaining that we never experience God at his best, i.e. Love and Compassion, if we are the ones who stubbornly sit by our campfires and tend our sheep and ignore angels who tell us a brand new story just waiting for us to discover.

                Some of us tend to wait in our homes and churches and think God should meet us there. But we need to get out, get moving, get looking and see what God is already doing in our communities, cities and world. Despite all the bad news, there is a whole lot of Good News, of people practicing, exampling, revealing, enacting the Love of God in so many ways.  Check out your particular Bethlehem and see what is being done to make this world a better, more loving place for so many. You just might decide to do something yourself. Why wait?

                I have always been a keen advocate of the idea that churches, for example, should seek and find what the Lord is already doing in our world and go join in. Too often, churches decide on what they want to do and wait for the Lord to bless it. I am not saying that this can’t happen but the more sure-fire way to be in the Way of Love, whether as churches or as individual Christians, is to go and find Jesus and hear what he wants us to do and actively join in.

                To find Love, one must practice Love. “Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before.” (1 John 2:7, NLT)

Or as Jesus would say, go and do likewise.

Go – don’t hang around here. God is waiting for you by the manger, by the cross, by the empty tomb. Love is at work. It is not always pretty, facile, simple, comfortable, convenient – just ask Mary about what it took to become Jesus’ mother.  We don’t always get to choose where to find Love or to whom we give Love.

But God is waiting for us to show up at the meagre mangers of our world and discover the Love which is not only for a few of  us, but everyone, all of us, no matter our status, no matter  our poverty or riches, no matter our skin colour or gender.

Go and take a peek in the manger – it says it all. How God so loved the world…

 Dale

December 7, 2022 – Advent Three

“You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, (Psalm 30: 11, New Living Translation)

             One of my favourite songs is Charlie Chaplin’s poignant Smile. "Smile, though your heart is aching. Smile, even though it's breaking. When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by.”

             Some would understandably argue in this era of mental health awareness that one shouldn’t plaster over one’s feelings with a façade of superficial and insincere bearing.  We need to face our fears, worries, anxieties if we are to work our way back into health and well-being.

             Nevertheless, I am drawn to this song: “If you smile through your fear and sorrow. Smile, and maybe tomorrow You'll see the sun come shining through for you. Light up your face with gladness. Hide every trace of sadness Although a tear may be ever so near.”

             To me, it is about not giving up, not giving in.

Joy is the similar  spirit of resistance to the outrages in life. Not denial. Not sweeping bad things under the rug. Not pretending everything is hunky-dory.  Joy is the courage to confront our demons and hear the Sacred Laughter of the Holy Spirit assist us in the hard work of prevailing and finding victory.

Paul, of course, encouraged us to always be joyful, always rejoicing. If it was anyone but him, we might write him off as Pollyanna, a hyper-positive fool. But Paul knew severe sufferings and brutal hardships. We might think to ask how is it possible that he could maintain anything like a joyful spirit. Yet he prevails and clings to his joy which is in Jesus Christ.  “But I will rejoice even if I lose my life, pouring it out like a liquid offering to God, just like your faithful service is an offering to God. And I want all of you to share that joy.” (Philippians 2:17, NLT)

Jesus arrived with promises of joy. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.” (Luke 2: 10, NLT). Although the news of a birth usually puts smile on our faces, it may be hard to imagine how a birth of a baby boy to a peasant couple in the middle of nowhere is a joy to you or me. Advent is over in a blink of an eye and then we are back to the same old world with the same old problems, with the same old issues and difficulties. Joy seems fleeting at best.

                Yet this same Jesus made a promise, a commitment, an assurance: “So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy.” (John 16:22, NLT) Yes, some of this is heavenly destined, but it also a Joy that permeates the present. It is a Joy that dares to sacredly clear away the somber notes of sorrow, death, pain, suffering, despair and invites us to find a New Song of triumph, hope, peace, holy laughter, and wrap ourselves in the Joy of Love that God shares.

                "You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy.” (John 16:20, NLT)

                The Joy of the Love of God through Jesus Christ is what sustains us in crises, adversity, chaos, doubt and failure. It is finding a light-heartedness in the best sense of that word. It is a Joy which comes from remembering blessings, celebrations, relationships and successes. It is a Joy which comes knowing that you and I are loved by God, no matter what. It is a Joy which comes from being in the embrace of God’s Holy Laughter, God’s deep pleasure that we are God’s daughters and sons. We are not the brunt of God’s jokes, but the source of God’s Joy as God is of ours.

                “But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them sing joyful praises forever. Spread your protection over them, that all who love your name may be filled with joy.”  (Psalm 5:11, NLT)

                We know how this Holy Laughter culminates: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” (Revelation 21:4, NLT) But may we each catch some of this Joy today, finding it in the cracks and crevices of our daily living, bursting out of the dark, catching us unawares, showing up in the stables and straw in which we find ourselves.

                “That's the time you must keep on trying. Smile, what's the use of crying? You'll find that life is still worthwhile If you just smile”

Dale