He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake.  He knows when you’ve been bad or good.

Wait a minute, who are we talking about here?  Santa or Jesus?  They both seem to know all about you, no matter your age.  However, while Santa is known to deliver smiles, he also has a reputation of being somewhat drunk on a street corner, less than reliable to fulfill all wishes of the lap-sitters, and has been caught kissing Mommy underneath the mistletoe.

Jesus, on the other hand, can deliver lasting smiles, but is also expected to bring introspection, which can turn that smile upside down.  Go to any church Advent service, and you will see folks welcoming Him back each year — just like Santa.  Shouldn’t Jesus be here every day?  How many people just welcome Him once a year?

Millions of kids get lots of toys each year, but the baby in the manger probably didn’t even get a rattle. And it’s hard to play with gold, frankincense and myrrh.  What He did get, though, is the adoration of many generations to come.  But does our adoration quickly fade when the holiday hoopla is over?

God’s message of peace and love and righteousness could have been delivered by anyone.  But the correct and true message needed to come by way of his only Son.  He’s truly the gift that keeps on giving.

Merry Christmas

My neighbor’s mother died unexpectedly recently.  I don’t know the actual cause of death, but I knew that she was in a lot of pain from arthritis, neuropathy and persistent back pain.  Pain doesn’t kill, so how did she die?  Her son believed that she might have had a stroke during the night (she lived alone). That may be so, or she may have just given up.  Physical or mental circumstances can bring us to the point where we feel that we can no longer continue in this life.

Following death most cultures have a ritual in which the living gather to “pay their respects.”  I’m not sure what that really means.  Are they respecting the dead, or are they respecting the family, by showing up at the funeral?  A lot of people who go to funerals have had little or no contact with the deceased.  So what should happen in this 30 minutes to one hour gathering?

I’ll tell you what happened at this one.  There were two preachers:  one, a neighbor who ministers at a local church; the other a minister from a nearby town, and he also happened to be the deceased’s brother-in-law.

Here in the Bible Belt it’s not unusual to get gospel messages delivered at funerals.  This one was no different.  By gospel message I mean:  you’re a sinner; Jesus/God loves you; Jesus died for you; accept him and go to heaven; reject him and you go to hell.

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What’s with the Jesus in the bathtub?

When spring arrived in our area, the leaves budded, the flowers bloomed and a new crop of bathtub shrines appeared.  And we’re in the heart of the Bible Belt — not that many Catholics to speak of. Now, if you haven’t seen them, they usually are placed in the front yard for street view.  They are full sized bathtubs that are submerged in the soil, vertically, half way, with a figurine placed in the center.  This configuration is in the form of a grotto, which is an Italian word for “cave.”  Flowers and landscaping are added to some.

The primary figure is the Virgin Mary, but around here there seems to be more figures of Jesus, maybe because we are in the Bible Belt.  Sometimes they will substitute Mother or Son with their favorite saint. I don’t recall seeing anyone bowing before the tub in worship, so I’m not quite sure what the purpose is in having them.  And using a bathtub seems, well, tacky.  You would think the Son of God, or his Mom, would rate something better.

Perhaps the tub talisman is a visual reminder that we are to come clean.  No hidden sins or secrets.  No unclean living or soiled spirituality.  Many religions use such reminders in order to stay focused, so I’m not knocking it.  However, I think the best reminder is to be in each others lives, intimately, bearing one another’s burdens and teaching by example.

While there are no Biblical references to Jesus bathing, he was certainly no stranger to water.  He was baptized in it, walked on it, calmed it and changed it into wine.  One time he used a basin to wash his disciples’ feet (John 13:5).  They didn’t seem to understand why he was doing it, but he basically told them that they would figure it out later.  Some folks today have made it into a ritual, but I’m not so sure that they have really figured it out.

Peter saw the event as a service performed by a lowly servant.  So when Jesus came to him, he refused, apparently feeling that the Messiah should not stoop so low.  Jesus gently rebuked him, saying that such a refusal would eliminate Peter from service in the Kingdom of God.  Peter’s dramatic response was, “Don’t stop with my feet!”

Such passages are subject to personal interpretation.  Here’s mine.

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Doesn’t everyone want to be loved?

I think everyone does, but not everyone realizes it.  A lot of people don’t even understand what true love is. Love makes the world go ’round, but hate makes the world go ’round wobbily. Love is the fodder for countless songs of passion, vainly pledging fidelity to the current object of affection.

The Greeks had five different words for love, three of which are normally found in Christian teaching:

Eros (sensual love – root word for erotic)

Philia (friendship — like Philidelphia)

Agape (self-sacrificing love)

Truth be known, Agape is not exclusive to Christianity.  In the Greek it could mean being content with a good meal.

The two lesser-known words are

Storge (affection – “I love my children”)

Thelema (desire to achieve – “I’d love to get promoted”)

While the word “love” is used to address each of these concepts, in fact, we need all of them to make the world go ’round.  Daily doses of love leave no room for hate.  Our prudish position on sexual intimacy refuses to allow that same passion to be the driving force for our exciting, sometimes grueling, journey, yet we freely use the word passionate to describe our various loves for things.

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Those well-known words were uttered by one Rodney King in 1991, following horrific riots, which themselves were prompted by the acquittal of the police officers who brutally subdued him after a traffic violation. The anger of the black community was fueled by the fact that the incident was caught on videotape. Mr. King, who was awarded a large sum of money in a subsequent civil suit, proved by multiple arrests before and after the incident that he himself was unable to “get along.”

Yet, the words are profound and still stand. Because it’s what God wants. It’s what we were created for. The concept goes beyond mere tolerance of one another.

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Romans 8:38, 39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
Neither angels nor demons,
Neither the present nor the future,
Nor any powers,
Neither height nor depth,
Nor anything else in all creation,
Will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Apostle Paul seems to go to great lengths in order to assure us that God’s love is greater than anything that would attempt to keep us away from him. It’s a wonderful verse, and I believe it with all my heart. But most “Christians” don’t.

What can separate us from God’s love? Can hell? Are those that are in hell now on the outside of God’s love? How can he still love them and burn them forever?

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Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:16

Sometimes old contemporary Christian songs will pop into my mind and run around for awhile.  Lately it’s been the 1994 hit Shine by the Newboys.  The song speaks to the Christian experience being so good that, being witnessed, it becomes desirable to those who aren’t Christian.  Similar to the verse above, the refrain ends with:

let it shine before all men

let ‘em see good works, and then

let ‘em glorify the Lord

The it referred to is identified in the first verse as your light, same as that which Jesus preached about in the Sermon on the Mount.  The Newsboys’ audiences were predominately confessed Christians, while Jesus’ congregation were some lower class Jews who were probably trying to make sense out of what he was saying.

But the message is clear.  The world is dark.  We are light.  Meaning the world is metaphorically darkened by their lack of true knowledge of the living God, and we, bearers of the “good news,” carry the torch of the gospel.  Trouble is, there are so many versions of the light, that it’s hard to distinguish which one can really extinguish the darkness.

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To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Hope is a state of mind.  It sets the course of our day or days to come.  It embraces the anticipation of things ahead.  Hope sets the desire that something good will happen (I hope I get that raise.) or that something bad won’t happen (I hope it’s not cancer.).

The antithesis of hope is despair.  The killer of hope is apathy.  I don’t care what tomorrow brings.  Or I have no hope, just the monotony of my pitiful life.

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For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.

Matthew 16:27

I’m not so sure any more when this event will happen. It sounds like an official closing out of history, with Jesus sorting everything out and judging those of us who are still standing on That Day.

I’m less concerned about the when and where as I am about the what. What kind of reward will it be? What do I have to do to get one? What happens to me if I don’t merit a reward? Why are most Christians down on works, when this certainly seems like the basis on which we get the rewards?

What I can get from the verse, however, is that he wants us to be found doing good. His Spirit (Christ/God) within us reminds us daily what is good and what we can personally do about it. This is called obedience. God doesn’t want a disobedient child. Nor does he want an apathetic child. He wants an active child, who goes about doing his Father’s business.

It seems to me that the active Christian life consists of three things. First, we must have an open line to God. Along with brief “Thank You’s” and “Help Me’s” throughout the day, we should consciously plan a quiet time to be with Him and to share whatever is laid upon our heart. If there is nothing to share, then we should just listen. His Spirit will pray for us.

Secondly, we should obey. God is constantly telling us what we should embrace and what we should avoid. We must always be aware that Pride is the greatest enemy of perfect obedience.

Overall, we must love. We are to look upon creation as He sees it. What he has made is very good, even though it is often tainted with evil. He plans the redemption of everything. We must help Him in this work. That’s what obedient children do.

Evolve is such an interesting word.  Evolve involves change, adaptation, development and a whole bunch of other things.  But tell someone that they might have evolved from monkeys, and whoa, Nellie!  Them’s fightin’ words!  Many in the Christian community are openly offended when our public schools allow scientific theories over religious theories in their textbooks.  Sometimes even school boards split over such issues.

In 2004 some of the school board members (We’ll call them ID’s for Intelligent Design) in Dover, Pennsylvania became concerned with the (in their opinion) overwhelming references to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in their science books.  They felt that God — make that the intelligent designer — should have equal time, especially since the students were already God-fearing kids.  Other board members (some of them churchgoers) disagreed (We’ll call them Darwinians) and took the position that, while they personally believed in God and all, it would be wrong to introduce anything other than scientific data in the classroom, thereby upholding the separation of church and state mandate.

The ID-ers proceeded to read statements in the science classes, saying that, as Darwin’s Theory was just a theory, then the kids ought to be aware that there may be other explanations to the beginning of life.  Also, a bunch of alternative school books showed up, called Of Pandas and People, giving just such an explanation.  The books were donated by an unknown source.

Anway, artwork was trashed, lives were threatened, words were slung and school board meetings were finally becoming interesting.

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