|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
“Christ
Presbyterian Church is a worshipping body of believers, grounded in God’s
Word, increasingly gripped by His grace, growing in community, and going
in mission.” |
|
||
|
Letter from Pastor Christmas Unmasked
Christmas Eve Service, 5:30-6:30pm Katrina Women’s Conference, February
20-24 Angel Tree information contact
Marie at 645-7824 Nursery Workers still needed for
Dec. 30 during Sunday School
• Rick Nelson, Dec. 8 • Katie
Nussbaumer, Dec. 15 • Lacey
Trumbo, Dec. 16 • Chris
Graves, Dec. 19 • Katherine McCash, Dec. 19 • Hannah Schwartz, Dec. 20 • Mary Elizabeth Stitt, Dec. 23 • Slate Lee, Dec. 26 • Ainsley Trumbo, Dec. 28 |
“The Angels’ Song”, Luke
2:14 I don’t think it will
come as news to you that there is a great deal of confusion as to this season
and its meaning. You hardly need to
look very far. Begin with the world of
retail. Then there are the television specials. But, sadly, such confusion is in the church
as well. Some of us can find little
reason for celebrating the birth of our Lord.
And so Advent is spent sourly scowling at everyone around us. Yet others of us are indeed celebrating
with all earnest – without any reflection as to why. Is it any wonder then there
is so much confusion in our day about the significance of this season? Is it any wonder poor Charlie Brown cries
out, “Can anyone tell me what Christmas
is all about?” And do you remember
Linus’ answer? He read from the Gospel
of Luke, the second chapter. He read
of Caesar Augustus, shepherds, Joseph, Mary, a child, and angels. And what message did the angels bear? It was twofold. The first, the announcement of a birth (READ Luke 2:10-12).
The second, their response to the news – an explosion of praise
lighting up the sky (READ Luke 2:13-14). They could not contain themselves. They could not suppress it. This erupted from within them. They understood that this really was “good
news of a great joy.” And so they
rejoiced. In fact, their joyous song
points to the reality that we too can and should join in with a joyous song
as well. GLORY TO
GOD The first thing we hear
is praise in heaven itself echoing over the hills of The first had to do with
how all this was coming together in what the Apostle Paul later described as
being “in the fullness of time.” The
stage had been set. Prophecies of old
had pointed towards the Messiah, the Son of David, being born in Yet that wasn’t all they
saw that caused them to marvel. Surely
the other thing that was behind their song was how all this was coming about
in the lowliest of ways. Think of the
way this Savior called “Christ, the Lord” entered into this world. It began with His being born – the eternal
Son of God, present and working at creation itself, coming down a birth
canal. And think of the lonely
circumstances of this birth – no midwife, no extended family to help or to
come alongside. Think of the lowly
circumstances of this birth – laid not in a crib but in a manger, an animal
trough. Think with me though not
only of His entrance into the world but His reception by the world. Without a place – no room for them in the
inn. Without fanfare – no celebration,
no dignitaries, only lowly shepherds – societal outcasts. From His arrival into this world until His
departure, from His birth to His death, the message of the world to Him was,
“We don’t want you here.” Can you imagine how all this
must have struck the angels? “How
could this salvation take place through such means as this?” And so here again, they saw God’s glory
shining through but in this case, not through the greatness of His plan but
through the shocking nature of this plan and His determination to carry it
through (READ Luke 2:14a). PEACE ON
EARTH But yet there was another
glorious part of their song. Not just
praise from heaven but peace on earth.
It’s really a stunning thing when you think about it. “A multitude of the heavenly host” – an
angelic army more powerful than any force we could imagine – coming with an
announcement of peace. What sort of
peace are they talking about? (READ Luke 2:14) It is nothing less than
the fullness of “shalom” – the peace of wholeness, of things being right and
the way they were meant to be. This is
far more than the peace of that day, impressive though it was. The “Pax Romana” – the Roman Peace – road
systems, government stability, judicious courts, the commitment to enforce
the law. It was impressive,
indeed. It was also limited and
external. And so it pointed to a
greater peace, the peace spoken of here – shalom. Peace with God – a clear conscience before
Him and the confidence to approach Him.
Peace with others – unity, genuine harmony, understanding, and
good-will. Peace with ourselves – a
sense of wholeness, contentment, tranquility, order, rest, security. All three interconnected, grounded in peace
with God, and longed for in each of our hearts. It’s what we were made for. And the angels say it has come. But to whom has it
come? “And on earth, peace among those
with whom he is well pleased!”
Clearly, the good will, the good pleasure proceeds from God, not from
man. Which means simply this: God’s mere pleasure is the source of our
peace with Him. His pleasure with us
is our peace with Him. You see, there is great
security in being an object of His pleasure.
He draws us to Himself and will not let us go. And this is why the angels can speak of
peace on earth. This is why they can
bid us not to fear. For we’ve been set
free from fear. How then can we be
silent? We’ve been set free from
fear. The gospel is that sort of
message – so much so that we really do have something to say to the world
around us and to one another when we forget these precious truths. Peace on earth. CONCLUSION You know, when you think
about it, the message itself and how it was delivered that night match up very
well. In the middle of the night,
cutting through the darkness, comes not only the angels themselves and the
glory of heaven shining all around them but this message as well – a message
to a dying and often seemingly hopeless world of salvation – of change, of
renewal, of rescue, of redemption.
These are the starkest contrasts imaginable, truly “good news of a
great joy.” NASA’s
ventures into space capture such stark contrasts. Think of the last of the great moon shots –
Apollo 17. It was a twelve day
mission, three of which were spent on the surface of the moon. It was the mission with the Lunar Roving
Vehicle – “the moon buggy.” It was the
mission in which the only photos were ever taken giving us a full view of Earth
from space. The timing of all the
missions before had taken place during a “crescent-earth.” But the crew of Apollo 17 saw the whole
thing. I heard one of the astronauts
the other day describing it. He said
it was unlike anything you could imagine.
Everywhere you looked you saw not just simply darkness but a deep
blackness. It was all around them
except in one spot. In one spot there
was not just a bright area but a three-dimensional planet of a beautiful
array of colors, set aside so starkly from everything else around it. Isn’t
that what the carols point us towards – when you think of the images so many
of them call to mind – isn’t that what they’re pointing us towards, these
great contrasts? Life and death, hope
and despair, fullness and emptiness. Isn’t
that what the angels are pointing us to as well – the bleakness of the deep,
dark night and the bright hope of the gospel?
May we too – like the shepherds – hear their message, pay heed to it,
and rejoice. For “good news of a great
joy” has come.
By Prof. Zach Eswine
This fictional series
finds a connection with our non-fictional lives. We too can know a kind of
masked living and prospect of loneliness. If only the Lone Ranger had found
liberty to take his mask off and let people know who he was. What joy there
may have been in knowing the life behind the mask. What potential joy for you
and for others to see behind your mask and witness the wonders of what God
has done. In Luke 1:46-55, Mary, in
response to the promise and work of God in her life, hallows the Lord. And as
she does, we are confronted with a God who intends in His grace to pull off
the masks we so easily fight to keep on. There is perhaps no greater time to
reflect on this than at Christmas. The Christmas holidays like no other time of the year
can, amid the laughter and friendship, expose an uncomfortable reality. We
have to interact with people we usually do not have to interact with. We see
family members we do not normally see. Many of these relationships can be
difficult or strained. And we can be tempted to put the mask on, smile our Christmas
smile, and pretend that everything is better than it really is. We know that when
Christmas is over and the music has died down, we will go back to the same
life that we lived before the songs began. Regret as to joys hindered and
forgiveness restrained can haunt us with things we wished we had said or did
not say to God or to our families. How do we move beyond this temptation to
pick up the mask, to an authentic and living joy before God in the presence
of men and women this season? In Mary’s song an answer begins to unfold. The Mask of Religion Mary said, “My soul
magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Lk. 1:46,47).
As Mary proclaims these words she is privately in a house and speaking from
her soul about the nature of the God she worships. She is not going through a
religious exercise in order to look good in front of other people. She is crying
out from her heart to God. And this heart religion demonstrated by Mary
encompasses both doctrine and the experience of that doctrine. “My soul magnifies the
Lord,” Mary says. On Mary’s mind is the objective person and reality of the
God of Israel. And Mary magnifies this truth about God. What does a
magnifying glass do? It enlarges the object under its gaze. It does not
create anything new: rather, it enlarges what is already there in order that
it may be more clearly seen. Mary says, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” By
doing so, she views her soul as a magnifier bringing what is true about the
majesty and promise of her God to a larger clarity and vision before the eyes
of her thoughts. But she does not stop
with these larger views of the objective realities of her God. She goes
further. She says, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices.” What
Mary hallows births in her an experience of joy. Mary actually experiences
the doctrine of God that she magnifies. Contemplation of God brings a rush of
rejoicing to our souls. This balance between the
knowledge of doctrine and the experience of doctrine takes down the mask of
lifeless religion. One kind of Christian is very concerned that we know
doctrine, that we know the truth. He is concerned that faith is not based
merely on experience and likewise that modern worship is not made into entertainment;
and such a fellow is right. But, we who are as these must beware lest we
become so afraid of living heresy, that we daily and inwardly decay in our
orthodoxy. And then there is the
other side. Those of us who are afraid of this decay and want to experience God.
We want practice and application and are afraid of an academic mentality with
reference to walking with God. And it is right to guard against such
deadness. But, beloved, our experience must be rooted in truth. Doctrine
matters. A person can feel a lot of things, but the feeling can be rooted in
lies. Mary’s voice shows that
we can no longer hide our minds from our hearts, nor our hearts from our
minds. This means that there is a story to be known and understood this
Christmas as well as a story that is to be experienced by us in our own
souls. If we find ourselves unaware of the truth of this Christmas story let
us no longer settle for the enjoyment of merely singing “What Child is this?”
Let us, rather, move on to see the reality of the doctrinal truth behind the
song. And if we find our souls numb to the truths we sing, let us then fall
in our quiet moments to beg God to breathe life into our dry bones. The
result of such masks being pulled off will be nothing less than fullness of
joy as truth ravishes the soul this Christmas season. The Masks of Insulation and Isolation Now notice that Mary is
in the presence of When a builder puts
insulation between the beams of a wall, he does so to keep the temperature
and the sound from leaking out. For some reason, we too, can become like
insulation, expressing our lives in such a way that the inward heat and sound
of God’s grace within us is never allowed to leak out into public. We may
even try to become insulatory toward others, keeping them from leaking out
their experience of truth by our frowns or our words. But Mary’s voice pulls
off our insulation so that inward sounds of praise are heard. But how does
she do this? Perhaps a hint for us is given by noticing where Mary’s thoughts
are. Mary addresses God personally. She says of Him, “God my Savior,” “holy
is His name.” As you read through this passage she keeps telling you of what
God has done in her life and in the life of His people. She speaks of God’s
strength, of God’s mercy, of God’s faithfulness in history, of God’s
promises, and of God’s mighty works. But even this, though it gives us the
root of overflowing praise as found in the contemplation of God, is just the
beginning of pulling off our insulation. Mary is responding to
God’s gracious intrusion into her life and world. This is what Mary has said.
God, she says, is her Savior. It’s not just that Mary has known God. More
fundamental is the penetrating earthquake of soul that comes from recognizing
that God has known Mary. Even more, God has known His promises for a people
who were in His thoughts from all eternity. She who was without salvation if
left to herself, was found by Him. I do not know why it is,
but the longer we are in Christian circles, the more plastic we can become. Shouldn’t
the Gospel turn our heart fleshy? Shouldn’t we weep more and laugh more and
fall on our knees more? Why is it that we can become more and more plastic? I
think it is simply because we forget we have been saved and being saved means
that we are sinners. Mary, by God’s grace, calls out and admits that the Lord
is her Savior. She needed a savior just like us. We, who like Mary were
dead, are by His grace through faith brought to life. This is the substance
of Mary’s recognition of the redeemer who is coming. God has remembered mercy
(vs. 54). Such contemplations of
salvation pull off our insulation so that our inward praise of God flows into
public. It is this public expression of soul-enlarging worship that compels
us into a community with other like-souls who feel the thunder of
like-contemplations. Some will respond to this movement of soul before God by
trying to insulate your heart and keep your inward praise quiet. There is no
doubt that such a move has often turned us painfully toward quiet isolation. But
there are always The Mask of Religious Merit But some of us may feel,
still, that we carry no worth that God should be mindful of us. Conversely,
some of us believe that it is exactly our status and position that has God’s
attention. But, when we hear Mary’s voice, the pride of both assumptions is
challenged. After all, who is Mary? About how old is she? If you find
yourself tempted to pride because of your doctrinal knowledge or religious
reputation, remember that these eternal truths in Luke chapter one are poured
out of the heart of a teenager. This teenager declares truths about God that
are so deep that even masters of divinity have to bow before them. And yet,
it is not as if Mary herself was in her blessedness beyond us. Mary does not
say, “God has come to me so I must be great. I must really be something, In verse 52 Mary says,
“He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.” Where
are the rabbis and chief priests? Do they hear the voice of God? No, a young
girl from nowhere hears the voice of God. The issue this Christmas is not
about your status or power to provide. You may feel like a failure. You may
feel like you are failing because you have not achieved according to your
expectations or the expectations of others. Or maybe you feel that because
you have achieved, as long as you maintain your performance level, God and
others will accept you. But, beloved, the good news of the Gospel is that God
accepts you on the basis of Christ, on the basis of His status and
accomplishments, not on the basis of yours. Our masks of religious
merit are taken off and the wrinkles on our faces made visible by God and for
God’s glory. Some of you may watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer this
Christmas season. Near the end of the story is an island of misfit toys
annually forgotten and unwanted because they are broken. When you see that island,
remember that you, like me, are broken misfits who have been rescued and made
useful again. He, who far from coming to us in a fictitious sleigh, came
truthfully to a bloody cross; and, with the name that is above every name, He
became like you, regarding your lowly estate, that like Him, you too, would
rise again. And off, therefore, come the masks of religious merit. The Mask of Happiness Through Circumstances Not so many years ago, my
wife and I visited one very dear to us at Christmastime. Circumstances were
hard and this dear man was alone on Christmas. For him, the lights and the
songs only brought up difficult memories of the pain caused by his
own sin, and the sin of others. For him, songs of Christmas, far from
bringing hope of life, brought only a reminder of loss. Maybe you or someone
you love will hear such sad songs this Christmas. But won’t you, for a moment,
remember why it was that Mary was at there because she had
been sent away. Nobody believed her. Initially, not even Joseph believed her.
Her community, those with whom she has laughed and cried, learned, and loved,
threatened to stone her to death. It is amid this cruel loss of trust and
love and friendship that Mary is crying out this beautiful prayer to God. There is a myth living
among us at Christmas. It is the myth that joy comes because everything is
perfect around the tree. But the Gospel truth is that in Christ, joy
flourishes through tears in the midst of the world’s rejection. Mary was rejected by men,
but not by God. You may go to be with your family this holiday season and
some of your family members may mock you because of your faith in Christ.
They may say hurtful things about you. Likewise at work people may challenge
your decisions. And it will hurt. But there is more to life than the
affirmations and the critique of men. Not too many years after
this first “Christmas,” Mary, then grown, would face a crowd at the cross who
would mock a poor crying mother, weeping for her son. But in the end,
beloved, she will be the one who stands in the presence of God vindicated.
Many of those who gloated that day with death in their voice will, in a coming day, hear, “Depart
from me! I never knew you.” And Mary whose soul magnified the Lord amid a
life she did not plan, and a loss more painful than she could have imagined,
this Mary will hear, “Come Mary, enter my rest.” It must have been sad to
be the Lone Ranger. Some of us know this sadness all too well as we
contemplate life this Christmas season. But oh, the freedom Lone Rangers can
know through the grace of God in Christ. This grace enables us to live
meaningfully, even with visible scars on our faces. It enables us to worship
God and rest secure in Him regardless of our status in life. And it gives us
a joy that does not come from picture perfect circumstances. May this
Christmas season be a time for you to feel the masks you wear begin to loosen
as you realize the grace of God in Christ. This article originally appeared in Covenant magazine, the
quarterly magazine of Covenant Theological Seminary. Reprint permission is available upon request by e-mailing covenant@covenantseminary.edu.
Begin a free subscription to Covenant magazine at
www.covenantseminary.edu/contactus/subscription.asp. ©
2003 Covenant Theological Seminary. |
December
Birthdays
Christmas
Unmasked