Happy Advent and Merry Christmas!

I came across this quote by G.K. Chesterton in blog post I was reading earlier this week. 

A mass of legend and literature, which increase and will never end, has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox:

that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.

Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded...

I mean that all the eyes of wonder and worship which had been turned outwards to the largest thing were no turned inward to the smallest...

It is true that the spiritual spiral henceforward works inwards instead of outwards, and in that sense is centripetal and not centrifugal.

The faith becomes, in more ways than one, a religion of little things.

- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

We are about half through Advent and it really is a religion of small or little things. I think Chesterton should have added that it is about difficult things. It's about celebrating the difficult choices. God came down. Mary said yes. Joseph said yes. The shepherds went to find Him. The Wise Men went to find him. It is beauty in the midst of chaos. It's subversive.

There are Christmas lights shaped like a tree around Jochiwon train station. The squalor and dirt are there but so is this tree shape. This defiant shape stands in contrast to its surroundings. It's beautiful in the midst of Jochiwon traffic and the swarms of moving people. 

I want to be like that tree. I want to be a light in a dark place. I want to be like Mary and Joseph who said yes to the difficult and miraculous thing put before them.

In a world where people choose self-centered lives, where ugly things happen, where sin seems to spread unchecked, where daily assaults take their toll, we need to be able to point to the defiant beauty of a selfless life. We need seek the kingdom of God first. We need to put others first. In this way, we can proclaim the transcendent truth of something great than ourselves. 
​
We need to do more than just say Merry Christmas...

We need to say Merry Christmas and remember what the words actually mean. We’ve forgotten the weight that those words carry. We are saying we also unite with him in his death, his resurrection, and his call to make disciples.

If we really mean “Merry Christmas,” it will cost us something. It may cost us everything.

But am I really willing to make myself uncomfortable for the sake of the gospel?

I say “Merry Christmas,” yet I turn against Jesus again and again, forgetful and unrepentant, and twisted in my thinking. I lose my focus at Christmas. I spend more time with books than with Scripture. Don’t forgive like I should. Demand my own way. Stomp my feet. Get really bossy with God. Doubt. 

Man, have I doubted Him.

Christmas is not a greeting at the store.

Christmas is not a political platform.

Christmas — real Christmas — is not a political party, a certain set of traditions, a tree, a pile of gifts.

​It is not a happy little feeling for an hour at the church.

Christmas is all about Jesus. And it’s positively dangerous. in that we are owning the name associated with a holy God and His only Son. This alone should cause me to kneel — or fall flat on my face.

Here’s what Christmas really is:

Christmas is pick up your cross and follow,
and spend yourself on behalf of the hungry,
and act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.
It is The Way of the contrite and broken.
It is not my will, but Thine be done.
It is “blessed are the poor in spirit,”
and a rejoicing in our suffering.

It is salt and light and fruit of the Spirit.

It is "prepare him room!"

It’s a cup and broken bread.

It is the belief that Christ is our only hope, that heaven is our future home, and that we get to do His work right here, today, before we go there, someday.

Christmas is not a word for your greeting card, but a way to wrap your whole life around a cup and a cross.

It’s not an empty promise for prosperity, but investing our very lives in each other because of an empty tomb.

Merry Christmas is happily agreeing to “love your neighbor as yourself” — even when your neighbor looks an awful lot like your enemy, or someone who doesn’t believe the same things you do. Christmas also commands this: “Go and make disciples.”

It is a walk on water, hyssop on the lips, and a belief that Christ is the central figure of the most radical story to hit planet Earth.

Christmas believes that an enemy prowls, but that a King wins – that the battle isn’t over, but the war is already won.

I won’t deny it: Christmas People believe in crazy things. We believe that God’s Son descended from Heaven to Earth, not so we can have a party on December 25. But so He could die a horrific death and carry people’s sins away.

It’s scandalous, isn’t it?

Scripture whispers that scandalous truth that Jesus wants our ragged, rule-breaking hearts, these hearts that have spurned Him. There’s a word for it: grace. These are the foolish ways of the Christmas People. And so, then, I shall be a fool among them.

Today, I say to you with all the boldness I can muster: “Merry Christmas.”

And when those words cross my lips, I don’t even know the half of it.

​I don’t really know how much it cost my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Someday, I will.

Until then, I’ll say it to you, and I’ll say it out loud for the sake of the gospel:
Merry Christmas.

The Light of the World stepped down into our darkness.

And that changed everything.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I have been counting gifts for over two years now.  I started this on Christmas day two years ago after reading Ann Voskamp's '1000 Gifts'.  With my whole heart, I endorse both reading her book and counting your own gifts over the next year.  Let's celebrate life and all of its beauty together.

Highlights from this month's list of gifts have been very special.  I saw some birds sitting on a snow covered tree singing praises (similar to the picture above).  My sons smiling and laughing are always good to boost my spirit.  My husband's thoughtfulness of a hot water bottle on my aching back.  Playful 'talks' with the baby.  Good meals with family and friends.  

Have you noticed that these things are not big?  These gifts are small things that warmed my heart, caught my attention, and let me notice the beauty in the everyday things.  What richness!

This is not to say that life is always good.  Sometimes I am amazed and paralyzed by my inadequacies, weaknesses, and attitude.  But isn't this the point?  When I can only see myself, I need to look around me to see goodness, light, love, and God.

Christmas day is a yearly reminder that God is with us.  He was born in a barn filled with mud, muck, hay, pigs, and other animals.  He reaches down into our messy, mud-filled lives and does His best to get our attention.  

The beauty of this that I don't fully grasp is that He has chosen me.  Me?  My shame and inadequacies as a mother, wife, teacher, lover, friend, writer, cook, and occasionally, an artist, He knows me very well.  He changes me.  As I count gifts, as I become more and more grateful for life around me.  He transforms me.  He is filling me with love, light, patience, and grace.  He is with me.

Isn't that the point of Christmas? God is with us.

He is with me as I count gifts, struggle with students, interact with my kids, talk to my husband, bake muffins, take walks, and live life!  He is with me.  Just. Waiting. For.  Me.  To.  Notice. Him.  He is here.

He is.

This story brings out Joseph's humanity...

Do you know who reminds me of me these days?  It’s old Job, the faithful, the sufferer. He lived according to the will of the Almighty, yet all was taken away.  I, also, have lived by the commandments.  No one had forced me; it was my decision.

Before that dream, I had other dreams.  Those dreams were without angels.  They were dreams of Mary and children.

In the days after Mary confirmed what I had been told, I thought of the lines from Job’s drama: “Curse God and die.”  If you do not be lieve there were moments when that invitation was tempting, then you make me out to be something I am not. I am just a man.  A carpenter.

But curse the mighty one? I would not, for I‘d had that dream. A carpenter works with what he can see and feel: a corner angle and the heft of wood.  But here, I was chasing a dream.  The afternoon of my life looked nothing like the morning.

So, on to Bethlehem it was.  We had known the census was coming, but the timing was horrible.  While we were there, Mary had gone into labor.  It was time. In that moment my dreams of always being able to provide for my family were snatched away.  I could not find a decent place for her to deliver this child.  Voices of shame raged against me.  “You are just a carpenter Joseph.  Who are you to accompany the only Son of God?  He is not even your son.  Why are you walking away from all you’ve built just because of a dream?”

“No room.”

“We have no room.”

“Look, son. I see your need.  There is room in my stable and that’s all I can offer.  Take it.  You should have made better plans.”

I am dismayed at how that night is remembered.  It was not a production, a staged affair.  That is blasphemous.  It was a birth.  I was scared.  She was scared.   I had witnessed cattle being born, but never a child.  There were no bright lights, no animals moving on cue, no singing. 

He came as all come, bathed in the lifeblood of His mother.  His conception was divine, but his birth was of the earth. 

The dream I chased had my back against a stable wall, my fiancé asleep in blood-red hay, skittish animals as onlookers, and my hands filled with a son not my own.


Adapted from Touching Wonder: Recapturing the Awe of Christmas by John Blasé.

It's been a while since I posted.  One of the reasons is that I can feel the Lord prompting me to write on beauty.  Not just physical beauty but internal beauty.  It's a huge topic, and this has been a challenge. To reflect on beauty and what it means from a Christian perspective, is to be faced with ugliness and sin.  I have been struggling with my own ugliness, my sin.

On beauty.  God doesn't leave us in our darkness, our failure, our ruins, our ugliness.  Confessions of needing Him as Lord and Savior changes us to something else.  Our darkness becomes light and we become a part of that light.  Our failures become something that is used for His success.  Our ruins become glorious as we call on Him.  Our ugliness becomes something beautiful.  

Physically beautiful people, beautiful things these are candy for the eyes.  These people and things have their place and they bring momentary pleasure.  Christ's beauty is not a momentary pleasure.

Christ's beauty is to face our own ugliness, our sin, and redeem it.  As we face our ugliness, Christ faces us with other uglies.  Injustice is all around us.  As we learn to face the ugliness of injustice, we learn to see as Christ sees.  We must look more deeply at something that by the world's standards is ugly and slowly discover that it is gem.  We see beauty as we learn service to others.  Beauty is found in the giving to others.

Christ teaches us sacrificial love.  He sacrificed himself for us. What defines beauty?  The nails on the cross defines beauty.  The broken ways of Christ define beauty.  

A strange, disturbing, and, ultimately mind blowing path to joy.  We have now entered into the Holy of Holies of God's plan, our salvation, the week in which Jesus Christ offered Himself up as the sacrifice for the sins of the world, instituting and giving us His Holy Supper, taking His place in a grave, to take the sting of death away from the grave in which we will one day be. If you haven't been thinking about those precious days, read now, see Him in Scripture, and receive the Gift.

Palm Sunday - Christ rides in on a donkey.  Palm branches are waved in front of him.  People recognize him, crown him.

Monday - Christ overturned tables in the temple.  He was angry.  He cursed a fig tree.

Tuesday - The disciples see the cursed fig tree on their way back to Jerusalem from Bethany.  Christ, unafraid, confronted Jewish leaders.  The plot to kill him begins.

Wednesday - Chief priests, elders, and scribes continue to plot and He continues to teach.  Satan enters Judas.  The darkness of story is about to unfold as Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread approaches.

Thursday - Christ reinterprets Passover. He breaks bread and shares wine with his disciples.  Communion.  A new ritual.

Friday - A death kiss from Judas early Friday morning.  Peter denied him three times.  Pain, hurt, anger, the weight of it almost unbearable, yet he bears it.  The crucifixion, the hanging of the impossible dead.

Saturday - Confusion, grief, and anger for those who loved Him.  He was laid in the tomb.  A guard was supposed to watch to make sure nobody took the dead body.

Sunday - Glorious Sunday.  Mary found an empty tomb.  Emotionally wrought she speaks to Him, thinking He was someone else.  "Rabbini!"  The shock of seeing the risen Lord.  She ran to tell others, she proclaimed, "He is alive!"

Something new was born that week.  Hope. Love. Peace. Mercy. Joy.  All intermingled, wrapped in sacrificial form.  A loving, sacrificial lamb, echoing a Jewish tradition of God saving you, passing over doors, overcame death.  He is a gift that overcame death.

He brings life at its fullest.  He is the Gift.  He is hope.  He is love.  He is peace.  He is mercy. He is joy.  He is.

Joy, humor and laughter should be a part of everyone's spiritual life.  They are gifts from God, and they help us enjoy God's creation.  A good laugh is a sign of love.

11) Humor is Fun
Have you heard this story about Franz Schubert? A long time ago he sat down and played a new composition for a friend.  Afterward the friend said, "But what does it mean?" Schubert sat down, played the piece again, and said, "That's what it means!"  Joy, humor, and laughter are their own rewards.  

Isn't that a lovely idea?  God gives us humor as an outright gift! Fun - a word you don't hear talked about or done too much in some churches - is a foretaste of heaven.  

After all, shouldn't the message of the gospel result in joy?  God loves us, forgives us, and He saves us from ourselves.  This isn't about dogma and sadness.  It's about freedom and joy.  We should respond as Sarah responded to the news of a newborn coming - with laughter.  If God can forgive me, then the least I can do is respond with gratitude and joy.  

Many people throughout history understood this.  The man whose first miracle was to turn water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana understood the need for high spirits in life.

11 1/2) Humor is Often Practical
This half reason has nothing to do with spirituality and everything to do with practicality.  Here is a story that bears witness to this.

A man was speeding down the highway, late for an appointment.  He knew it was the last day of the month, the time when the police were eager to make their monthly "quota" of citations for parking tickets, but he did it anyway.  Sure enough, he saw a flashing red light in his rearview mirror.  The man sighed and pulled over.  

The officer strode up to the car and waved for the man to role down his window, "I've been waiting for you all day!" said the pleased officer.  "Well," said the man, "I got here as fast as I could!"  The officer laughed so hard that he didn't give the man a ticket.  

Sometimes humor can save you money!

Loved this! Has a child ever stumped you with a great question?

Another week has gone by.  I was tired this week, but I laughed a lot! Students are great in creating humor in the classroom.  The highlight this week was a freshmen who asked me, "When was your first kiss?"  This, of course, was his idea of making get-to-know questions a little more interesting! It make the whole class crack up and brings me to another important point on humor.

9) Humor Fosters Good Relations and Builds Community
Humor and community are intimately linked.  In an intuitive way, we get the feeling that jokes are enjoyed only in the company of friends.  We tell them at school, at work, and at home.  They demonstrate intimacy trust, and sense or togetherness among those those who tell jokes and listen to them.  Thus, one of the important elements of humor is the intimate connection it fosters among the members of a community.  Through jokes we also show our affection for the people who are most important in our lives.  By joking with people we are, in effect, taking care of them and simultaneously telling them that we love them.  And in inviting more people to share the same joke, our community expands and becomes more open to the presence of others.

Jokes can affirm a group's identity and, at the same time, make that community far richer.  Yet the important of humor extends farther.  Jokes and humor may also be viewed as evidence of the changes that occur in the community over time.  They point to a shared history, a common past that consists of a litany of dangers, trials, and occasional bouts of real suffering and genuine hardship.  Humor does more than "take the edge off" these rough times.  It literally reverses the sentiment of despair into its opposite: hope.  Humor performs the Janus task of looking backwards and forwards at the same time.  It recalls the past, and it sets it squarely before us.  Humor, the language of hope and joy, turns our eyes more resolutely toward the future.  By telling a joke, we affirm that our relationships are vitally healthy and ongoing, and thus open to change, to development, to continual deepening - in short, jokes open our lives and our communities to God.

10) Humor Opens Our Minds
 Laughing releases endorphins, which helps us to relax.  When we relax and feel less threatened, we more able to listen and to lear.  By relaxing listeners, laughters can help get a message across.  And, it may help us think more broadly or creatively. It may even give us spiritual insight like in the following story.

A pastor is giving spiritual direction to an older man who was practical, hardworking, and efficient.  He was getting older, and he was becoming frustrated.  As aging slowed him down, he felt less "productive."  A big part of the problem, both in prayer and daily life, was an overemphasis on "results."

The pastor asked the older man to pray using the image of Jesus as a young man between the ages of twelve and thirty, before he started his public ministry.  During those years, as far as is know, Jesus was not preaching or performing miracles.  He was simply working in a carpentry shop, plying his trade and living a simple life.

At one point, as the older man imagined watching Jesus working in his carpentry shop, he found himself saying to Jesus, "Why don't you start healing people now?  You're wasting all this time!  You're not very efficient!"

When he recounted this to the pastor, the pastor said, "You told Jesus that he wasn't productive?" The older man smiled and began to laugh.  That moment let him relax, pray in a more relaxed way and led him to see himself and others as a "human being" not a "human doing."

Laughter can be a sign of being freed from old ways of thinking, from being bound to old habits.  It was a sign of God's liberation.

As I continue this little series on humor, I am reminded of the beauty of laughter.  My three year old son went into peals of laughter as I was trying to put him to bed.  "Tuck, tuck," is a tradition that has been handed down over a few generations.  I usually can tuck the blankets in around him until he looks a little like a caterpillar in a cocoon.  Tonight he had the giggles.  Every time I touched him, he would get this wide smile on his face. "Mommy, you're tickling me." What fun it was to put him to bed tonight.

5) Humor shows courage
St. Lawrence showed his courage to his torturers during his martyrdom by saying, "I'm done on this side." It was both a pointed challenge to his executioners and a bold profession of faith.  Similarly, in the 16th century St. Thomas more, the onetime chancellor of England who had refused to accede to King Henry's requests to recognize the king's divorce, was sentenced to death. As he climbed the steps to his beheading, he said to his executioner, "See me safe up; for in my coming down I can shift for myself." This type of wit shows profound courage and conveys deep theological truth.  It says, "I do not fear death," and "I believe in God." It points to something beyond this world.  It is a kind of prophetic humor.

6) Humor deepens our relationship with God
One of the best ways of thinking about a relationship with God is a close, personal relationship or an intimate friendship.  In that light, our relationship to God - like any relationship - can use humor from time to time.  It's okay to be playful with God and accept the idea that God may want to be playful with us.
In Jewish tradition, there is the notion of a playful or loving God.  Many rabbis tell the story of God braiding Eve's hair in the garden, like someone who would help a bride. This is a charming and playful image of a loving God.

I hope this makes you smile. I am continuing with a short and not so serious series on humor and happiness after a much needed vacation. And, yes, I laughed out loud a lot on my vacation.  And it was in Bali.  Here are the next two ways that humor works in the spiritual life.

3) Humor can help us recognize reality
It can get right to the point, and it puts things in perspective.  “Preach the gospel at all times.  Use words when necessary.” (St. Francis of Assisi). That’s clever and even funny, and it’s also a profound truth.

Jesus often silenced his opponents with clever answers and humorous retorts.  When he was asked whether his followers should pay the tradition Roman tax, he had a zinger.  His opponents were aiming to set up a trap.  If he said yes, he would have been encouraging his fellow Jews to accept the Romans overlords.  If he said no, he would have been guilty of sedition.  So he simply said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's." It isn't too hard to imagine his onlookers smiling at this clever response and his opponents realizing that he had escaped their trap.

Humor - an amusing saying, a clever response, or a funny story - can be effective for truth telling where a lengthy argument or discussion simply cannot.  "Humor makes every message stick, whether it's the silly ad that you never forget of the joke that hammers home some important spiritual truth." (Margaret Silf)

4) Humor speaks truth to power  
A witty remark is a time honored way to challenge the puffed up, the pompous, and the powerful.  Jesus was a master at deploying humor, exposing and defusing the arrogance of the some of the religious authorities of his day with clever parables and amusing sallies. 

Here is a story that humor is a weapon in the battle against the pride that infects most of us and often infects our religious communities.  A friend's mother was in the hospital at the same time the local bishop was.  After his operation, the bishop went around room to room visiting all the patients.  When he visited my friend's mother, who was recovering from a difficult surgery, he said, unctuously, "Well dear, I know exactly how you feel."

And she replied, "Really? Did you have a hysterectomy too?"

The mother and the bishop became friends.  After she died, the bishop was invited to preside at her funeral, and he retold the story.  He had learned to take himself not so seriously.