Christ – FROM THE SHOE

Two Thousand Years Ago

In 2026, we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of our country. Let’s hope we make it. In 2017, Protestants celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Around 2030, we will celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the ministry, death and resurrection of the Greatest Life that walked this “terrestrial ball”. The anniversary of His physical life and death is worth noting, and celebrating, because of Who He was and Who He is.

I am amazed when I think that Jesus Christ, Who Christians believe to be the Incarnate Creator God, physically walked this planet exactly two thousand years ago. The Son of God was walking around Incognito in Nazareth two thousand years ago today. Since the year of His birth is said to be by scholars about 6-4 BCE, then He’d be, in the flesh, twenty something.

There is no written record of what He was doing as a young adult. Before He began His public ministry, He most likely worked as a carpenter like His step-father, Joseph. An interesting, creative, simple, sweat-of-the-brow occupation, one that my family knows very well. Sweat-of-the-brow.. how ironic, that’s not something He should have been doing. That curse was reserved for Adam and his descendants. Yet, within ten years, He would bear more of Adam’s curse, He would bear his sins as well as the sins of all of his descendants. Today we remember that sacrifice, that gift, His Passion.

Today we remember the darkest day of human history, the day when Jesus Christ was murdered for political expedience, so it seemed. He was inconvenient, He was uncontrollable and He was very popular, definitely on Palm Sunday. Unfortunately, the voices, the sentiments, on Palm Sunday – “Blessed in He Who comes in the name of the Lord” – were replaced by the voices and sentiments on Good Friday – “Crucify Him!” Perhaps even by the same voices, how fickle is man!

Two thousand long years have passed since This Man walked the dirt roads of Galilee and Judea. Two thousand long years, His followers have tried to live out His last command, often imperfectly. Two thousand long years have passed while the Church awaits His return.

We are blessed by the sacrifice He made that Good Friday almost two thousand years ago. Our sins have been paid for, we have been redeemed, we have been forgiven of the very object that kept us separated from God, the Father.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

We are blessed by the new life He gave us through this sacrifice.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. – 1 Peter 1:3-4

And we are finally blessed with a living hope, the confident hope of His return. A verse that is engraved in gold on the mausoleum that my grandfather built and where he and my grandmother rest – the Holy Cross Mausoleum in Colma, California – shouts, if you will, over all the gravestones at Holy Cross, some which include my parents and many other friends and relatives:

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ…- Titus 2:13

Our Savior is a living Savior, a living Friend and as Thomas solemnly declared after putting his fingers upon the wounds on His hands and His side, “My Lord and My God.” Today as we remember His great gift to us, and on Sunday we will remember His resurrection. We will remember our Lord and our God is not dead. He is a living Savior poised to return to the earth He trod two thousand years ago. He will tread the earth again.

And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, From east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south. – Zechariah 14:4

One day we shall behold Him, one day we shall see Him face to face. If you don’t know this Jesus, crack open a Bible and read the book of Luke or John and get to know this incredible Person, this Person who died for you nearly two thousand years ago and this Person Who will be your greatest Friend, your Savior and your Lord and your God.

“Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Beloved.

Christmas-Love

As He says also in Hosea,
“I WILL CALL THOSE WHO WERE NOT MY PEOPLE, ‘MY PEOPLE,’
AND HER WHO WAS NOT BELOVED, ‘BELOVED.’”

Romans 9:25 NASB, 1977

What a funny word, “beloved”? The loved one. The object of love. The world, if you will, according to John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…”. The gift of His Son, which we celebrate every Christmas, is full of many of the most wonderful things in this life: redemption, reconciliation, peace, love and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I came to a living relationship with Jesus Christ almost 40 years ago, and I came to Him in search of truth. A solid foundation was laid in my catholic upbringing, but there was no life in the structure. In my quest for truth, I embraced Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but through Me.” Knowing the truth gave me new life and a purpose. However, it wasn’t until decades later that I truly understood what it meant to be “Beloved”.

I grew up in a household that wasn’t too keen on love and kindness. That’s just the way it was. And I know I was damaged by that upbringing.

When my older kids were little and there wasn’t a lot of money, we would buy our computers at the thrift store. Often times, they would work, but inevitably, while connecting to the internet we would meet that frustrating alert:

After working hard to get online, we would be deflated when we got this message. Well, that is how things were growing up. When it came to giving or receiving love, “this connection has limited or no connectivity.” So my siblings and I grew up with some emotional malnutrition, and were subsequently pretty emotionally anemic. I also had limited or no connectivity to love or being able to love. But when I had children, that maternal instinct gave rise to love, and those little ones, in their innocent little ways, gave me glimpses of a divine love I would soon connect to. I see that unconditional love in my grandbabies’ faces.

To quote from a previous blog, the first rays of “belovedness” came this way:

One night, seven years ago, my little girls and I were randomly quoting Scripture – something we never do – but it was fun. They had memory verses from school. Ellie quoted Zephaniah 3:17, “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty.” I had heard this verse before, but this evening it stuck and I reread the entire verse.

For the Lord your God is living among you.
    He is a mighty savior.
He will take delight in you with gladness.
    With his love, he will calm all your fears.
    He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

Zephaniah 3:17 – NLT

And what I could only call a moment of grace I could see God Himself singing over me in love in the same manner I express my love toward my kids. I could understand that from being a mom, and even better, I could feel it. It was an overwhelming moment.

One night, there was an argument going on at the house, and I went upstairs to help broker a peace, but only created a greater skirmish. I went downstairs feeling like I had always felt: crappy, worthless and unable, as a Christian, to make things right, better or even bring peace.

As I stood in the hallway, I had an epiphany. I came to the understanding that a lot of our family’s emotional dynamics were shame-related. A family member, unable to take responsibility for their actions, perhaps from their own pain no doubt, had, for years, shifted their shame and guilt to other family members including myself. I can’t tell you how earth shattering this illumination was. It was like that apron the dentist puts on you, the leaden one for x-rays, and that God took this leaden apron of shame off of me, and I floated to the surface and breathed the fresh air of freedom and non-condemnation.

At the same moment, almost audibly, I could hear Paul’s glorious and resounding ruling from Romans: “Therefore, there is no condemnation for those is Christ Jesus.” I had been a Christian for thirty years, and that night I felt like a new Christian, I had been born again again, the decades seemed to fall away, and I was basking in the love and acceptance of the Heavenly Father.

Since then I have grown in His love. I have learned to trust Him, not so much in obedience to His word, but in response to His love for me. That revelation revolutionized my Christian life.

I didn’t mean to go so long as to get to the point, but Christmas brings the best gifts when we look closely at the origin of the holiday. Christianity is set apart from all the religions in that there is a God who loves, a God who loves us, and all others. He loves His creation, though fallen, and Jesus Christ is God’s gift of love to us, to the world. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection fixes our “limited connectivity” and strongly reconnects us to our God. We are reconciled to God the Father, justified in Christ and where we were once not loved, we are BELOVED.

And when we know we are BELOVED, we can love, and even love in the most difficult circumstances because it is true what John wrote, “We love, because He first loved us.” I hope this Christmas the love of God will make you know and feel BELOVED.

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Land of Misfit Toys

The holidays are coming, all the stores have Christmas decorations already. The shows will be on soon too. You have no doubt seen the poignant “Island of Misfit Toys” scene from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Rudolph, the protagonist misfit, finds himself with his misfit elf friend on an island with toys that are broken and useless, and because of their condition: unwanted. Rudolph understands how they feel. His glaring red nose caused him to be shunned by his peers and overlooked by Santa.

This classic stands the test of time because we all at one time or another have felt like a misfit, an outcast, unwanted, if you will. It appears to be almost a rite of passage. Dr. Brene Brown in her book The Gifts of Imperfection writes: “A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need in all women, men and children.” During the holiday season, these feelings of belonging and love are what make the time special; conversely, if conditions are not so healthy, the season can be lonely at best, tortuous at worse.

Our sense of what is worthy to love and want is somewhat skewered. Not many of us are endowed with the beauty that graces the magazine racks at Safeway. Fewer of us have the soaring intellect and amazing persistence that garners PhD.’s like a Hot Wheels collection. And even fewer are born into homes that can provide advantages that only the wealthy can afford.

The message of Christmas, happily, as heralded from the angels is “for all people”. Not to the beautiful or the wise or even the rich. Not the 1%, the 99%, or even that infamous 47%, but the 100%. The Man who was born in a barn brought a message; His irreducible message was and continues to be: You are Loved. A love that transcends deservedness, a love that for most of us is incomprehensible and a love that does not judge. A love for all seasons, for all misfits. A love that meets that need in everyone of us. A love that cost Him His life, so we may have eternal life. True Love.

So instead of pining for perfection and whining for “winning”, we can embrace our misfitness (I made up that word), love it and maybe wrench some good from it. After all, this whole world is really a great big archipelago of islands of misfit toys. There is no place that imperfection does not exist. In the end, Rudolph saves the day, not in spite of his imperfection, but because of it. Our imperfections, which to us seem to alienate us from an ill-perceived perfection, are what really unites and connects us anyway.

I hope you all have a WONDER-ful holiday season.