The Birth of Redemption

It's the seventh day of Christmas, aka New Year's Eve to the rest of the world and I can't stop thinking about the birth of redemption.  The mystery of the conception, the birth of Deity into humanity.  The incarnation of our salvation came to us in the most ordinary and extraordinary of ways.  Our desperately needed redemption cried as he entered our world as a wrinkled, screaming baby covered in goo.  He came in human form to redeem those humans who took the first bites of forbidden fruit and sealed our fate.  He came to redeem the rest of us born into a fallen world because of his great love for us.  Knowing our failures, knowing our imperfections, knowing our weaknesses, he humbled himself for us.  The beauty and glory of that is almost more than I can bear.  How quickly we can forget that only He is our hope and salvation!

After spending the advent season anticipating I'm finding myself fighting the urge to spend these last days of Christmas focusing on the new year.  Maybe like me, you are also feeling yourself pulled away from the mystery of Christmas and focusing instead on what 2019 will bring.  Maybe you're hoping things will be better, or at least not worse.  Looking forward to new adventures and leaving behind the struggles of 2018.  Perhaps striving for better health and hoping to finally conquer that pesky resolution to lose weight and get in shape.  Maybe setting a few goals and then spending a lot of energy trying to make everything fit the expectations of what you think they should be.  And just like that your focus has shifted to what you can do to make your life better.  It happens to all of us.  We misplace our hope in our own abilities and desires and discover that misplaced hope is fickle.  All of our striving becomes an exercise in futility.  Because even when our goals are good, focusing on them instead of the ONE who authors our story and redeems us leads us on a path to self-idolatry.

If my life were a movie, the past seven years would have been titled "Reality Bites".  It slapped me in the face more times than I can count and frankly, it left me a bit cold.  Yet, reality is exactly where I collided again and again with that little baby who was born in a stable so many years ago.  He was, is, and always will be the redemption my battered soul so desperately needed.  My faith has grown and stalled and faltered and deepened over the past thirty-five years.  I have tried to walk away, I have screamed and cried and bargained for my will to prevail, but ultimately I learned to rest in true hope, which has brought immense joy, peace, and strength to persevere when I thought I could not go on another day.

I wish you true hope and peace in 2019!

He Will Rise Up in the End

Our church produced an Advent journal this year and I was able to write two of the devotionals.  This is the devotional for December 6, 2018.

Scripture reading: Revelation 19:11-16; 21:1-4

He Will Rise Up In the End

Turn on the news and you immediately realize that creation is groaning. Looking inward, ever mindful of our own desires, even believers are lovers of self, forgetful of our first love. Seduced by darkness masquerading as light, we are easily lulled into apathy. Yet deep inside we still long for God to step in and rescue us, if only from ourselves.

We wonder why he is slow to act, why he doesn’t return to end our suffering and reveal his power and glory. Despite our impatience and demands that he act when and how we see fit, we must believe that he delays because he loves us and is patient, even in his righteous anger at the state of this world.

This season, look up to the sky in anticipation that all will be made right. Remember, the baby we celebrate, innocent and pure, will return on a white horse to save us. He will rise up and render justice with a flame of fire in his eyes. The baby was and is Faithful and True, The Word of God, the ultimate warrior coming to claim his own. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

The night may be long, but the day is coming when he will reveal his glory. He will wage the final, victorious battle of good over evil. And after the last tear falls, we will dwell with God in the new heaven and earth. Lord Jesus, may we be found faithful in the waiting!

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,

and death shall be no more,

neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore,

for the former things have passed away.”

Revelation 21:4 ESV

Ben Shive. Rise Up. 2012
Andrew Peterson. After the Last Tear Falls. 2003

The Now and the Not Yet

Our church produced an Advent journal this year and I was able to write two of the devotionals.  This is the devotional for December 5, 2018.

Scripture Reading: Zephaniah 3:14-20

The Now and the Not Yet

“If I find in myself desires which

nothing in this world can satisfy,

the only logical explanation is that

I was made for another world.”

C.S. Lewis

Longing is a very real part of living shared by all of humanity. We try hard to quiet it, sometimes in unhealthy ways, but it eventually returns like an unwelcome intruder in the dead of night. We yearn to close the chapter on longing, to permanently wave goodbye to our unmet desires and the ensuing pain and suffering. We ache to be satisfied in the now while longing for completion in the not yet. Ultimately we long for another world. We long for Heaven.

The holidays can amplify the tension of living in the now and the not yet. As pilgrims on the road between the garden and glory, the Advent season, meant as a time of holy remembrance and anticipation, can easily be overrun by shopping, parties, and fun or tense family gatherings. Spiritual amnesia can set in leaving us overwhelmed, disappointed, and exhausted.

Today, let us choose to remember, to rest and reflect, to shift our focus to the baby, our Savior. Choose to celebrate the new covenant birthed when the Word was made flesh. Marvel that God became a newborn and fulfilled the ancient prophecies with his first cry in a stable.

But, let us also anticipate that Jesus, the baby, the Messiah, the only one to conquer death is coming again for us and then our longing will be complete!

The Lord has taken away the judgments against you;

he has cleared away your enemies.

The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;

you shall never again fear evil.

Zephaniah 3:15 ESV

Amy Grant. The Now and the Not Yet. 1984