What Are you Doing New Years? 12.26.2024

     For a lot of people, the week between Christmas and New Years is sort of a limbo. What to do? Some must work. For others, the time is filled with family and extended celebration. I write this the Monday before Christmas. I will send it off on the 26th, so this very essay is emblematic of the transitional nature of the “holidays”.

    I have enjoyed the season so far and look forward to Christmas Eve and Christmas day. For we who wear His name Jesus is celebrated year-round. It is nice to hear others, some with no faith some with flickering faith, others with anxious faith sing simple songs regarding the coming of Jesus. Some sing to fan the flame of faith. Others will sing, using their own voices to drown the pain, or longing, or pressure which has come to define their lives. In a sense, and in any season, Jesus has the answer for both crushing doubt and renewed clarity. It is the business of the Church to keep the message of Christ resonating within our culture. We do that by proclaiming His gospel and living like His disciples. Perhaps that is the best way to spend the time between December 26 and January 2. 

    There is an old Harry Connick Jr. Song which asks the rhetorical question “What are you doing New Years, New Year’s Eve”? For some the whole season is nothing but a party. An opportunity to drown cultural, social, and spiritual sorrow with making merry. Now, I like parties just fine. I like gathering and celebrating. Honestly, there is a pretty good chance that I will “Ring in the New Year” sleeping. Let’s consider ol’ Harry’s question. What are you doing in the New Year? Are you going to make tweaks to your worship, devotional, or service schedules? Is there something new to learn? Do you need to make a hard call or knock on a door? 

    You see, a new year is always a new start, even when it doesn’t feel that way. Our world does not revolve around seasonal changes—except for this one special time of year. From Advent to New Year’s everyone is driven by some seasonal concern. Parties, programs, presents, and caroling, and cookies, and cakes. And concerns. 

Take a deep breath. Close your eyes and Pray. 

“Father, What are YOU doing New Years…

     New Year’s Eve.”

Nope 12.19.2024

     It seemed like a good idea to write about snow when it snowed on the last day of November. It was cold last week, though no snow. On Monday morning I awoke to thunder. It rained hard. It was 58 degrees. There was no snow in the forecast. I seemed like a fraud, an imposter when I tried to consider a “snow theme” for this week. That’s what happens when you select a weather-driven concept for a month’s writing. It sometimes just doesn’t work. 

    So here I sit, roughly a week before the big day trying to come up with an idea (or two) for the last blog-essay before Christmas. I’ve been in the text this week. Studying the Magi for 12.22.2024, duly noted in Things and BusyCal as “functionally Christmas Sunday." Actually, I kind of like Christmas back in the middle of the week again. It gives me some “first of the week” next week to get some work behind me before the holiday. As of 10 minutes ago, upon finishing my Christmas Eve sermon, I am “ready for Christmas.” I’ve noticed as I get older that the time passes much more quickly. It only seemed like yesterday we were celebrating Thanksgiving. And now we are a week before Christmas. 

Is there snow? Nope. 

Is there joy? Yep. 

Is there hope. Yep. 

    The Magi didn’t make the trip to Judea for the weather. It was not a vacation that brought them to Bethlehem, and it wasn’t really a business trip. Despite our creative derivation of abundant riches for decorating our houses they did not accumulate their Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh for their own enjoyment. They may have been ignorant of the time of this Kings birth, the city where it occurred, and all that it signified but they did know what needed to be done upon their arrival and they certainly did it. 

“saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”” (Matthew 2:2 ESV)

“And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.” (Matthew 2:11 ESV)

What a refreshing approach to life. They set out from their homeland intending to “worship” this new-born King, and when they got their bearings straight that is exactly what they did! Imagine that. They did what they intended, and their intent was direct, practical, and doable. They did not appear to know exactly how to worship a “King of the Jews”, so they brought what they thought of as appropriate gifts—gifts that were fit for a king.  

    I love the holiday season. I love Christmas sermons and Christmas Eve services. I love sitting in the evening with the living room illuminated only by the sparkling tree. I, umm, have not wrapped any gifts yet. I will. And I will giggle when they are open by my beloved. The house has been filled with the smells of baking bread, Chex Mix, and pie. The Christmas season is awesome. 

There may be a point (after we travel!) when I sashay to the window or open the door and wistfully look outside thinking “Snow might be nice.” Of course, Christmas is on a Wednesday this year so a White Christmas would mean kind of an uncomfortable Thursday. Sometimes it’s better to wish and hope that get and shovel! 

    I don’t think that those Magi, those wise men, those supposed “Kings of Orient Are”, bantered amongst themselves about how picturesque it would be if there were fluffy flakes floating down when they knelt and opened their beautiful, worshipful, valuable, but impractical gifts. They did not ponder the purity and beauty of a well-timed, gold-encrusted, tree. They did not think of Nativities past, or how the old-fashioned trips to Bethlehem—like they took when they were kids—were so much better than these modern trips to Bethlehem. They did not argue the overt commercialization of their trip, the political fallout of the tyrants hissy-fit, nor the geo-political ramifications of Kingdom asserting itself against Empire. Their intent was not starting a movement, but to pay simple homage to a King whose presence they did not grasp, whose divinity they did not understand, and whose salvation they did not comprehend. 

    They may not have known much. But they did the right thing. And here we are, twenty centuries later getting all teary eyed about a snowy landscape, a perfect turkey, and a well-trimmed tree. When, if we sit still in the silence, we may be allowed to hear the lilting tones of “Angels on High” and the profound promise of eternal salvation. A Christmas which makes our hearts white as snow is so much more satisfying than a White Christmas, don’t you think?

Snow White 12.12.2024

    Fairy tales are a part of our culture. Even as adults we are not immune from them. We read them and enjoy them, we read them to our children and grandchildren, we watch the motion pictures “based” upon them, and we preachers often use them to illustrate sermons. 

    Yes, the Disney folk often transform them. If you’ve ever read some of the original tales in Grimm and compared them with what you listened to on some loved-one’s lap, you find no fault with such a procedure. Most of the tales we loved as children in the 20th century had already been through the transformation from rustic, realistic, and rough stories to the more domesticated fare one reads to children. 

    Disney’s adoption of Snow White was a watershed in colored, animated film making. While we still treasure the story one imagines contemporary parents being shocked at some of the actual content. Greed. Jealousy. Evil. Anger. Murder. We don’t typically tuck our children into bed with such adult themes. In our world we use the basics of the story to inculcate the virtues of Snow White in opposition to the vices of the evil queen. “Night Night!”

There is another way to understand the story. 

    Once upon a time there was a beautiful bride. She was made pure, not by her own innate virtues but by the loving intervention of her bridegroom who provided a kiss of life that restored the prospects lost to her in competition with the powers of evil let loose in this world. 

    Now, the endgame was years, centuries-even millennia in the making. The evil the princess experienced was personal, institutional, and communal. She was a victim both of her own innocence and her own self-will. While she sheltered and was sheltered by those she knew and loved; her place in the world was forever changed by the evil she experienced. The final act of fatal evil was a seemingly harmless apple which, though sweet to the taste, was deadly to consume. 

    Her prince came to her, not on a noble charger but upon a humble donkey. His intervention was not a literal, physical kiss but his own embrace of her fallenness and failure. To end her suffering and wake her from seemingly eternal suffering, he took that suffering upon himself. Thus, having released Snow White from her prison of death, he was able (some graces are not susceptible to simple explanation) to claim her has his newly awakened bride. White as Snow. 

“…and his Bride has made herself ready; Revelation 19:8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” (Revelation 19:7-8 ESV)

    This is not a fairy tale. It is not a romantic children’s story. This is our Gospel. Snow White is awakened by her Lord not from simple slumber but from lingering death—a death caused by the poisoned apple of sin. Snow White has been awakened not to testify her own virginal purity but to the purity of the one who undeservedly tasted of death to redeem her. Snow White has been called to bear witness to her Bridegroom by using her renewed life to describe His love, live for His purposes, and to indulge in His blessings. This is no fairy tale. This is the reality we celebrate at Christmas. 

  that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, Ephesians 5:27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:26-27 ESV)

    When the babe was born His disembodied Church was mortally afflicted. While His own mother nursed and nurtured Him the crushing wheel of Imperial hatred bore down not only on His people, but all people. His life of loving ministry, the words of life preserved in His Gospel are the clarion call to His bride to join Him in a renewed garden to partake only of refreshing, redeeming fruit. 

Snow White is not a Christmas story. We have lots of those. We will watch them, tell them, sing them, and celebrate them. In hearts aflame with faith we will be given, perhaps just briefly a full look at the redeemed bride, whose snow-white gown has been cleansed by the shed blood of Jesus. Prince of Peace. Lord of Lords. Redeemer of His Snow-White Bride. 

“Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from    God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” (Revelation 21:2 ESV)

White as Snow 12.5.2024

    When I started learning how to play White Christmas three weeks ago, my goal was not to be able to play and sing it while it was actually snowing. Things here alongside the mighty Wabash have changed a bit. Some might say things have gotten out of hand. That particular hand might be extended with a snowball. Snow arrived here before December.  We had several inches on Saturday, and today (Monday) it seems to keep on falling. 

    For many people snow is an acquired taste. For others—Mrs. Beckman for example snow is ironclad proof of the love of God. She loves the stuff. I can make do. The issue for me, and others, is that we have to get out and go while it is coming down, and when it stops, if there is enough (too much) of it, it must be moved. This is the story of winter here in the Midwest.  Right now, it is disarming if not aggravating. In a month we will wear shorts to take the trash to the curb. 

    During the Advent and Christmas season snow is less a weather phenomenon and more of a romantic enhancement. When the snow is falling, and you are putting up decorations one relishes the ambiance. Interestingly, I was driving around town Sunday morning about 6.00 a.m., relishing no ambiance. I was simply trying to determine whether or not, on December 1, the roads were safe to travel. Not exactly a romantic morning, but part of the process of a snowy December morning, hoping against hope for a White Christmas.  

    Most Decembers we wait much longer. The month rolls in with hope and anticipation, we hit a couple of days nearing sixty degrees, we see someone at the Casey’s wearing shorts and we think “No White Christmas this year!” Some are sad. Others (silently) rejoice that the events of a busy month will not be impacted by snowy roads and slippery parking lots. Some sit by their windows and long for some idyllic past when our days were all merry and bright, and all Christmas’s were white. 

    Longing is an interesting emotion during Advent. Longing during this season reminds us that in the far-off past people had more on their minds than snow. The time between the closing of the Old Testament canon and the first appearance of Jesus was a time of longing. Rather than our yearly renewal of Advent hope, God’s people looked for the appearance of a long-anticipated deliverer, an anointed one who would announce jubilee and Kingdom to a desperate world. Much of their anticipation was wasted on forlorn forecasts of military might and earthly dominion. Little did they know that Immanuel would come not robed as overlord but swaddled and diapered. 

    They learned the hard way that what we hope for determines what we are able to see. Because they entangled their hopes and dreams with promises of earthly power, they could only be disappointed. Their disillusion was not because our Jesus lacked anything, but because their vision of the future was shaped by longing for the wrong thing. They looked for certainty in a world defined by uncertainty. They wished for knowledge when much of life requires trust. They wanted to see, when faith itself is Kingdom’s substitute for sight. 

    And every year we have the opportunity to reconsider our ways and reconfigure our thinking to more fully align with what we find in Scripture. That is what advent is for. Yes, the texts are familiar, and the hopes might seem melodramatic. However, if we allow ourselves the time and distance necessary every advent is an opportunity to reignite our faith in that promised Savior who came not to meet our expectations—but God’s. 

    We will sing familiar songs and inhabit well-worn traditions. I’ve been wearing Christmas ties and soon will deploy a sweatshirt or two. We look at the calendar and try to figure how and when to get there and then with those that we love. Lists are made, and some checked twice all presuming that this season is about more than the tinsel, the decorations, the gifts, and yes—about more than the snow.