God + Bad Things = Huh?

Musings from the west coast (I'm with Adrien visiting our friend Kyle in Hollywood):

I have been thinking a lot recently about two specific questions that we have been looking at in our youth group. They are two questions all of us will continue to ask at various points throughout the rest of their lives:

"Why does God let bad stuff happen?"
&
"Do the things we do actually matter?"

These are two of the central questions of faith, and dramatically effect the way in which we understand God, and our relationship with him.

The prime mover in both of those questions is that God is in control.

We may not always understand it, but when we look back, we can see God moving even in the midst of tragedy. God's will is always what happens. God's desire is for there to be no suffering and for the world to be perfect (what will ultimately be achieved).

The discrepancy between the two is free will combined with our broken human nature. God's love for us gives us "free will," and sin uses that freedom in ways that cause suffering. While God doesn't desire us to suffer, it is still within God's will (what he allows to happen).

Essentially, you can't have broken humans executing their own free will and not have it lead to suffering. Likewise, you cannot really have love without some sense of free will.

It's similar to parents teaching kids to ride a bike: their desire is that the child learn to ride the bike and to not get hurt. Their will, however, is what they allow to happen, and we understand that in order to ride a bike, everyone has to fall. While that is not the parents' desire, it is still their will, in order to achieve the end result. Yes, the parent could simply push the child around all the time, ensuring that they are never hurt, but that wouldn't involve any action from the child, and ultimately, the child would never grow from that.

God is in control.
All the time.
Even when it seems like he's the most out of control.
Look at the Passion.
The greatest suffering and chaos of all time, especially to those who experienced it. Followers of Jesus watch him die like a criminal, and they have no idea that he is coming back. They are scared, lost, and disillusioned. They fear for their lives. Their whole understanding of the world has failed them. Or so they thought.
As we can see it now, the Passion was one of the times that God is most active in all of history.
God was in complete control, doing exactly what needed to be done to save us.
Yet to the disciples and followers of Jesus, they felt about as alone as ever.

God was in control then.

God is in control now.

Glasses.

(The Poindexters, 1997-2009)

Glasses are weird. I have had them since I was in seventh grade, and ever since then, it's odd for me to think that there are people who wake up in the morning and see everything perfectly. I feel like glasses (or contacts) are something that everyone should need, that eyes aren't designed to be perfect. Clearly that's not true, but nearly all of my closest friends and relatives wear corrective lenses in some way.

Glasses are also weird in how much they represent who you are, and how much we immediately discern about someone's personality and character based on the frames that they have.

I recently had to retire my trusted pair of glasses that I have had for the last 12 years. I was quite a fan of these glasses. They saw me through the good times and the bad, and helped me to see a lot of things differently. I had an older thinner pair of wire-rims that I also wore intermittently as well, but it was the black rims, which I shall refer to as "the Poindexter" that truly felt like my glasses. Once, when I was having the lenses replaced on them, the glasses technician who actually said, "Don't ever get rid of those glasses!" I'm not sure they are that special, but I really liked them.

A few years back, two things happened: the wire-rims snapped in half, and Adrien hit me in the side of the head with a ball during a youth group game, cracking the arm of the Poindexter glasses. It was then that I knew that I would soon need to find some new glasses.

I was able to get the wire-rims hastily "repaired" to give them another year or so of life, but the clock had started. The Poindexters were still alright as well, definitely wearable, but the crack was enough that it was clear I would soon have to retire them or watch them die.

I have spent the past year or so looking for something as close to the Poindexters as I could find, but to no avail. During that time, the wire-rims cracked again (vaya con Dios, wire-rims), and each time I put on the Poindexters, I was afraid that it would be the last.

Then, in January, I stumbled on a site that seemed like a scam (in fact, I'm still rather surprised that it isn't). From this site, I purchased three pairs of glasses, for $35.

Not three frames for $35. Three pairs of glasses (perscription lenses & frames) for $35.
Not three pairs of glasses for $35 each. Three pairs for $35 TOTAL (shipping included).

I chose the opportunity to therefore try some new looks, and came up with some winners:

The Invisaline Glasses.
These are invisible feather weight frames that are so light to the touch that you can barely feel them. They do however require you to wear contact lenses and are not actually real.
Cost: $free

The "Almost Poindexters"
This was the closest that I could find. They are a bit rounder than I was looking for, but the price was right.
Cost: $8


The Coffee Shop
What better way to say "I might be pretentious and kind of a jerk" than with glasses like these. When wearing these, I begin to think that Smart Cars are just that, and that perhaps I haven't seen enough movies by Ingmar Bergman, and that I need to read more of the writings of David Eggers.
Cost $8

The Dungeon Masters
These frames have a million hit points and maximum charisma. With these babies I can program in C++ and see nuances in the movie Tron that I never quite grasped before. Clearly frames designed for those who have nothing to prove to anyone.
Cost: $10

I'm not sure that these three frames fill the hole in my heart left by the Poindexters, but the cheapness makes me feel like a genius.

I also would like to note that I have no regrets about dropping the extra $2 for The Dungeon Masters. They are great to wear when you want to tell people, "I have all the friends that I need, thank you very much," but don't want to sound like a jerk about it. They also provide you with added authority when called upon to settle matters of random trivia disputes (especially in the realm of comic books, sci-fi, and sci-fa).

Cat Horror.

I got this from my friend Lori's blog, but it is perhaps one of the more hilarious and terrifying things that I have seen online in a while, resulting in literal laughs out loud.

Check it.

The Crowd

Today, I led a Bible study on Mark 15:1-15. The passage tells of Jesus going before Pilate, having been condemned by the chief priests in a secret meeting the night before, and now put before Pilate as an enemy of the state, a treasonous threat to Caesar's authority.

The passage deals with Pilate's reluctance to convict Jesus, and with his attempts to allow Jesus to go free. He appeals to the crowd, having the usual custom of releasing a prisoner in honor of the Passover feast, encouraging them to let him release Jesus to them. The crowd resists, instead asking for Barabbas, the murderer who had just been involved in an insurrection against Rome.

This whole scene made me think of a number of things (the amazement that Pilate has toward Jesus' demeanor, the envy that the chief priest show toward Jesus), but the one that stuck out the most was the crowd's flip flop. Just a few days earlier, they were praising Jesus, and honoring his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, placing their outer garments on the road his donkey was walking on, so that even the donkey would not be made dirty. Yet only a few days later, they are calling for his death.

We often shake our heads at the crowd there, lamenting their fickle hearts, seeing them as mindless ogres of history, that killed Christ. In reality, though, I don't think they are all that different than us.

Jesus was a hot religious figure. He blazed onto the scene and attracted big number quickly. People wanted to be part of this movement. They were attracted to the bigness of it, if not the truth of it. However, when Jesus is presented before them by Pilate, this is not the same conquering hero that they had welcomed into Jerusalem a few days earlier. This man was instead a man who was dirty and ragged. He had been up all night being cursed and beaten. He was bound like a criminal, and was now on a public trial before them all, again, not as a hero, but as a criminal. In this context, it becomes a bit easier to see the crowd's anger. They feel like they have been fooled by this guy. He came in and preached all of these glorious things, but here he was not presented as a criminal.

Think of how much we revel in the times that our celebrities fall. When you see a mugshot of someone, we see them as broken liars who deserve punishment, not as the heroes that we had once hailed them as. Even more so when that figure is a religious leader. We as a culture seem to love to see religious leaders fall. Many times, even the accusation of wrong doing is enough for us to condemn them.

Why is that?

I wish it was harder to relate to this crowd than it actually is. I wish that crowds weren't so easy to follow, even when we know that they are wrong...

Happy Saint Patrick's Day
(fanks to Val for pointing out this pic)

Fat.

Two things have happened that have reminded me that I need to lose weight:

I was finishing a bag of chips, and neared the end of the bag, and made the choice to then dump the remaining crumbs into my mouth. No matter how many chips you have just eaten, whether it is the whole bag or just two or three, there is perhaps no more slovenly way that you can finish it than literally pouring food into your face. As I have said before, I always feel a need to reconsider where I am in my life whenever I find myself dumping chip bits into my food hole.

Right after that, my cat jumped up on my lap and started happily kneading on my belly, as if to emphasize my doughy physique.

Thanks, cat. I get it. I need to lose some of the weight.

T Rex Domske

Each week, our youth group gathers on Wednesday evening to go out and get dinner, and then comes back for a Bible study.

This week, I started out the Bible study with some interesting findings from the doctor last week, and illustrating the conclusions that one must therefore draw as a result.

Here are the slides from my presentation. Perhaps you will reach the same conclusion as me.

This is a T Rex.

A T Rex is noted for having a very large head, yet tiny little arms.

This is a picture of something that is growing in Adrien's right now.

As you can see, this being also has quite a large head, yet tiny little arms.

The logical conclusion, therefore, is that Adrien is pregnant with a T Rex.
Given that understanding, here is are a few artistic conceptions of how such a T Rex might one day soon appear given a full gestation period.

The end.

The aforementioned video from the previous post.

The Future Soon...

A few weeks ago, our church had a talent show (an annual part of our culture, which is really cool). I had been told several times since I've been here that all of the pastor's participate. So I prepared something. I found out on the night, that I was the only pastor doing anything. I'm a sucker.

I sang a song called "The Future Soon" by Jonathan Coulton. It's really a funny song, essentially telling the inner thoughts of someone who is perhaps in 5th grade, having been rejected by a girl, and how he sees the future playing out. It's a really silly song that is funny and sweet.

I sang the song not in Jonathan Coulton's style, but in The Adventurers Club style (an amazing place in Walt Disney World that sadly is no longer there) which is far dorkier and sweeter. Whenever I get the chance, I'll post video of it. It was quite fun.

All of that is a long way to go to get to the notion of the song that intrigues me. The notion comes from the chorus, and got me going on a line of thought that was far more theologically probing than the song itself even begins to be. It is just a silly song. The chorus of the song goes like this:

It's gonna be the future soon.
I won't always be this way,
when the things that make me week and strange
get engineered away.
It's gonna be the future soon.
I can see it all so clear.
When my heart is breaking
I just close my eyes and it's already here.

I really like that phrase, "it's gonna be the future soon." It's so optimistic. It gets to this sense of looking beyond where we are and trying to strive for the "not yet." In that way, it's very similar to how Christians should look at the world. This notion that the thing that we are living for is not here yet, but it's coming. Not maybe, but definitely. If it's not hear yet, that doesn't mean that it's not coming, that just means that it's not "the future" yet.

God doesn't promise the world to be perfect life in the here and now. In fact, quite the oppisite. All too often though, I think that Christianity is sold as such. Prosperity gospel. Get saved and start rolling in the blessings. That's not how it works. But that doesn't change the promise. Yes, there are immediate blessings, but you still have to deal with crap and suffer, because we don't live in a perfect world, we live in a broken world, and we are still subject to the effects of that brokenness. But we don't follow Christ to get a reward. We follow Christ because Christ offers salvation - Christ offers a future. Without that future, all you have is this, and this isn't really all that great. It's broken. The future is fixed. The future is perfect.

In 1st Corinthians 13, Paul puts it this way:

8But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

The promise is that it's going to be the future soon, and things are all going to work out then. If everything isn't working out yet, than it's not the future yet.

...when my heart is breaking, I just close my eyes and it's already here.

Inspired by...

When my sister Tobyn and I were younger, we made a lot of videos that were rather pointless. At the time, we thought they were hilarious and ground breaking. They weren't really either. When I watch them now, I see that they now are hilarious again, yet for different reasons.

There is a weird kind of humor that kids age 5-10 have that is really intriguing. They are beginning to understand the elements of humor, but aren't quite adept yet at implementing it. Often times that results in jokes that make no sense or things being "funny" to them that aren't actually funny at all. Other times, though. It results in genius.

I would put this video in the latter category:


For my Facebook friends, this is the video that I'm talking about.

click here (Hulu) if the video didn't show up.

Two Blogs in One.

Two things:

1.
I have renamed the blog "blue percent." I like that better than the overly wordy previous title, so it's a bit easier to refer to. The name comes from my feelings about one of our American colloquialisms that annoys me to no end: "110%"

The notion of giving 110% of your effort to something is a notion that some coach somewhere came up with to emphasize that their players need to give all that they have, and even more than they think they have. I'm sure that coach thought he/she was clever. The real problem (where it becomes annoying to me) is that the notion of 110% has now become the new benchmark for how much effort is expected from coaches. For someone to be giving 100% effort is not good enough. I have even heard coaches sometimes one upping the 110% and going with 115% or even 120%. That's a lot of effort.

The problem with this whole thing is that it is 100% irrational (or 110% irrational). By definition, 100% of anything is the most one can give of something. if we are going to start requiring more than that scale, suddenly our the parameters that we are using to judge by make no more sense. Why not give 100,000,000% or even (wait for it)... blue %. The second we step outside of the mathematical limitations set by measuring something by percentage, we have eliminated all logical understanding of what is being asked of us, and by that standard, blue percent makes as much sense as 110 percent.

end diatribe.

2.
I was cleaning out the cat litter today (irrelevant to the point I'm about to make), and I started thinking about how much the younger generation is taught to view everything as have a subjective bias, and that there are little more vestiges for objectivity. I think the internet has a lot to do with this.

I came to this conclusion when I was thinking of reading up more on the creationism/evolution debate. I have pretty comfortable conclusions on this (I don't think that the two need to be in competition, and that ultimately they are fairly symbiotic - God uses evolution as a means of creating things), but I was wanting to learn more about the arguments for both angles.

I first thought of getting some books on the subject, but then thought that I'm sure that the internet has some valid resources. The problem with the internet is that it is hard to discern whether a source is "valid" or not, meaning that internet sources often have dubious sources, or no sources at all. The material found therein is basically subjective to that particular person's point of view. It is all too easy to put material online (case in point - this blog).

Books always felt like they had to go through a more rigorous process to get published, that the "facts" in a book had to go through more people's scrutiny before they were printed. Now, I'm not naive enough to believe everything that I read in books, as I know that there are plenty of completely false things and shady facts printed in books. by and large, though, they felt more trustworthy.

As we as a society are becoming concurrently more paperless and more skeptical, and emphatically encouraged to be both, I wonder if we will ever be able to recapture that sense of validity and concreteness in the things that we learn.

Our inherent need to learn more and understand the things around us is being corroded by a doubt that has now been cast over any piece of information that we have been given. Perhaps nowhere is this more prevalent than in political media, where two people can argue diametrically opposing points, citing "hard facts" that are immediately dismissed without regard by the other side. No evidence is needed to dismiss said facts, we can just assume that there is a bias, and that's good enough for dismissal.

The whole thing is eroding our ability to communicate, to have any common ground, and ultimately, our ability to actually learn anything concretely. When everything is an abstract, how can you build any sort of foundation?

The X-Files perhaps summed the duality of this human nature struggling against our cultural conditioning in two of it's most notable catch phrases:

"I want to believe."
"Trust no one."

Mr. Moon Swam.

I think that Kate Micucci is one of my new favorite singers.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOUEjiE6-Hk



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZXANhfSn9A

25 Random Things

From Facebook:

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

For no real reason, here is a screencap of Michael Jackon's Moonwalker for Sega Genesis.

1. I now live in what is very clearly the South. Despite this, however, I can rest assured that my kids won't have southern accents. I have a number of students in my youth group who have lived here their whole lives who have not even a touch of a southern accent. This is not a slam against southern accents (I actually love the Carolina accent), it's just weird when kids have different accents than their parents. Unless the parents have British accents. Then it's cool.

2. I really like sports, but find myself easily able to not care about them. I wouldn't say that this makes me a "fair weather fan," as I still passionately love the Pittsburgh Pirates, who are working hard to make this season the official worst team in the history of professional sports. What I mean instead is that, when life steps in, I can remove myself from sports in a way that a lot of people cannot. I am not someone who gets burnt up about someone revealing a score to them prematurely, or that sort of thing.

3. I like to challenge myself sometimes to expose myself to new stuff. Right now, I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen's collected works. Not trying to make myself a Springsteen fanatic, per say, but trying to learn how to appreciate him. I think I'm almost there.

4. I miss snow in a way that probably makes people up north annoyed right now. I really do like the weather here, though, as it is cold in the winters (30's-40's - not snowy weather, but cold enough to know that it's winter). Much better than Florida's 360 days of summer and 5 days of spring/fall.

5. I love what I am doing (Youth Minister), and love where I am (Mooresville, NC). Five years ago, I would have never thought that I would either be living here or doing this, but I wasn't ready for either of them yet. It really helps me understand how God is always working in our lives to get us ready for what's coming next.

6. I genuinely love spending time with my wife. Pretty much every situation I can think of, I would prefer to have her there. She is the most fun person I know, and is truly my best friend. Things are more fun when she's there. I know that sounds sappy, but it's true.

7. I often get mad/envious at my cats for how comfortable that they look when when they are sleeping. Stupid lazy cats.

8. We have three cats, two snakes, and one dog. We take pride in naming pets. Cats: Akira, Truman, Schroeder. Snakes: Norton & Dinah. Dog: McFly.

9. I really like things to be clean, but I'm also a pile-maker. By that, I mean that I am often making piles of things that need to be put away. Soon those pile build and suddenly I have made a mess. This takes a good effort to organize and put away. Then everything is clean. Then I start making piles. Rinse and repeat.

10. I still consider myself a Mac person, though I have not owned one as my primary (or even my secondary or tertiary) computer for 5 years. Prior to that, though, every computer that I owned was an Apple (IIgs, Performa, iMac, iBook), so I think that gives me some credit. One day I will return.

11. I am not sure how long it will take living in the south before I start saying "soda" instead of "pop." Hopefully never.

12. I'm not sure that there is a movie that I wouldn't watch at least once (and given enough encouragement, twice - yeah, I'm talking about you, Armageddon!).

13. I have now, for the time being, stopped listening to Bruce.

14. I like to collect things, but not in any official way. More like a pack rat. I collect movies, books, and drinking glasses from the 80's. Like the ones that they used to give away at McDonald's that have The Muppets on them. I collect these things as though there will be a nuclear winter someday soon, and our new currency will be movies, books, & drinking glasses from the 80's

15. Two things make me realize that I am getting older: how often I think of what the world would be like if we still were without the internet & cell phones, and my inability to understand why America suddenly decided to love Lil Wayne.

16. Much of my time in my office, I am listening to background music from Disney parks. I love it. It's perfect to work to. Especially music from EPCOT. I don't know what this says about me, but it's true. When I switched from Bruce a few notes above, I put on the EPCOT opening medley from 1982. Hmm. (I don't get it either.)

17. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I'm not sure that I can legitimately claim to be someone who reads books, especially books that aren't commentaries or something directly pertaining to my job. I wish this wasn't true.

18. The two things that have changed a lot of how I organize my schedule in the past 7 years have been getting a cell phone & getting a DVR. I can't think of another thing that has so fundamentally changed the way I viewed that particular medium.

19. Each of my "random things" are way too long.

20. When I was a kid, I subconsciously gave personality traits to letters and numbers, traits that I have realized are still embedded in my brain. For instance 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, & 8 are all guys. 4, 6, & 9 are girls. I don't know why, but they just are. A, J, K, M, Q, U,V, W, & Y are also ladies. That's just the way that my brain has always seen it, as plain as day. Also, R is really cool, and S & T hang out with R to be cool, but they are not as cool as R. I know that this sounds like I'm making this up to try and sound quirky or clever, but it's absolutely true. X is the coolest letter, and he doesn't need to prove it by being in a lot of words. He and Z just hang out at the end being the coolest. I am kind of that way with months of the year, too. (example: April & May are girls).

21. I haven't thrown up in at least 8 years. My goal is to never throw up again. I have never thrown up from my own behavior (something I did, like eating or drinking), which I think is the dumbest reason to throw up.

22. I have long planned to buzz my head if I ever start going bald, though I have realized over the past few years that I have a very oddly shaped, bumpy skull, so hopefully it won't have to come to that.

23. It is very interesting now living at an age where it makes sense to start having kids, and not yet having any. I am very aware of that sense that someday, I will look back at where I am now, and think, "I can't remember exactly what it was like to not have had kids."

24. I really like the smell of Yankee candles and Bath & Bodyworks Hand Sanitizers, both of which are often seen as rather feminine, but I don't care. They smell good.

25. I always wish there were more time.

Now that you read it, you have to do it, too.

Them's the rules.

Tag me in it so I can read it.

Here We Go

They had a version of this song back in 1995 when the Steelers went to the Superbowl and Neil O'Donnell lost it for them. Adrien and I were talking recently about how this song is the perfect song to be sung in the Pittsburgh accent.

At any rate, here we go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3uiCRr3dGE

Last Year, round this time

This be that video.

Seeing God through the eyes of The Dark Knight

I started a new thing for our youth group this month that I'm calling "God Goes to the Movies" in which we watch a movie and then have a discussion about ways in which we can see/understand God in the midst of that movie. The key to it is not to watch "Christian" movies like Fireproof or End of the Spear - movies that few people would watch outside of the church, but actually stuff that people would go see in the theaters. The goal is to see that God is present in everything that we do, not just the "church" stuff, but the regular stuff, too.

While there are definitely differences in what motivates the secular and what motivates Christians, to draw the two as two separate worlds really puts God into a box and prevents us from believing that God can speak through anything that isn't inherently Christian. I think that's a poor understanding of both the nature of who God is, and of the world we live in. This is not a universalist "God is everything" kind of view, but rather an omnipresent understanding that God is reflected in some way in everything.


Sometimes we can even see God in the absence of God. The book of Ecclesiastes is essentially that.

For our first movie, we watched The Dark Knight (well on it's way to being the most successful movie of all time). It was a great movie (on many levels), but really gets into the nature of temptation, and the brokenness of humans. As the movie unfolds, you see the face of temptation toward sin (the Joker) as being at the same time horrifying, and yet he is the most interesting and exciting character in the movie. We know he is evil, yet we are drawn to and intrigued by him.

In the end, must chose to take on the sins of Harvey Dent, to become a criminal in the minds of the citizens of Gotham in order to save them... hmm.

We approached the movie thinking that it might be a stretch to find God in The Dark Knight, but the more I watched it, the more the parallels began to clearly emerge.

God is not relegated to Sunday morning worship or church sponsored fellowship, nor is God only apparent in some of the lackluster "Christian entertainment" that is marketed by people who are trying just as hard to make money as anyone in Hollywood. As I said earlier, in one way or another, God is reflected in everything in one way or another.

When you turn out the lights to a room, that doesn't mean that the things in that room disappear, it's just that the light isn't bouncing off of them, giving them a visible appearance. They are still physically there. God can be seen in sort of the same way.

Just because we are living with the lights off most of the time doesn't mean that we are in an empty room.

9

Adrien sent this to me, and her brother had sent it to her.

Good for 10 minutes of wonder.

A full length movie based on this will be coming out 9/9/09.

(click the "HQ" at the bottom of the viewer to see it in a higher quality)

9 Nine Shane Acker Short Animation
Uploaded by FrFKmeron

This kinda feels like it is to Wall-E what 2001: A Space Odyssey was to Star Wars.

When you are done watching the above video, watch the trailer for the movie here (but not until you have watched the video above! You don't want to spoil the surprise).

Merry Christmas...now what? (Sermon from 12-28-08)

There are a lot of weird things going on in Christmas carols. Some of them are just confusing: How does one go “a wassailing”? What is “figgy pudding” and why do we want it?
Many carols use words that we don’t even really understand anymore: How many times does the phrase, “haste, haste to bring him laud” come up in normal conversation nowadays?

Some of them are even rather creepy. The fourth verse of We Three Kings, the hymn we are closing with today is one of the creepiest, so much so that we usually just skip it an pretend it’s not there.

Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume breathes a live of gathering gloom; sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb...

Merry Christmas!

That sounds like something out of a Vincent Price movie.

The line is referring to the fact that Myrrh was used as an embalming ointment in the preparation of bodies for burial, a gift for Jesus that prefigured his own death, but it's still weird to sing about it.

A lot of carols reflect masculine language that we are told to shy away from now. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is therefore lost from our hymn book, as "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlepeople" doesn’t have the same ring. It’s also one of the few Christmas carols to mention Satan by name: “remember Christ our savior was born on Christmas day, to save us all from Satan’s power, when we were gone astray.”

One of the silliest carols to me is The 12 Days of Christmas.

We’re so far removed from this one that it makes no sense to us in our culture anymore. Christians used to celebrate Christmas from December 25th until the Epiphany, on January 6th (which makes 12 days), hence the title.

Even so, this is a song that’s purely about one thing: getting presents. It represents a lot of what Christmas has come to mean to our culture now, which might be one of the reasons that we like it so much.

It’s also a fun one to sing.

We love to sing this song. People go crazy for this song. The funny thing though is that most people only actually know one or two of the days. Everyone knows the first day – a partridge in a pear tree, and then we get a bit scattered over the next few days. Until the fifth day… EVERYONE knows the fifth day.

There is a British comedian named Eddie Izzard who talks of how astonished he was watching Americans sing this song, and how people seemed to run into the room from all parts of the house just to shout “FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!”

It’s as though we sing that song just so that we can sing that line. Who knows what the gifts are on the other days? What is day 9? Maids a milking? Jumpers Jumping? Plumbers plumbing? We don’t care so long as we get to sing five golden rings again.

Whenever they broke the group up into specific days, it was always a drag if you got stuck with one of the higher days, like day 12. You only get to sing once or twice, and half the time you aren’t even sure what it is that you are singing – what is it, bikers biking? But it always seemed like everyone, regardless of their group would jump back in for “five gold rings” – we love it.

Despite all that, by now, Christmas for us is more or less over.

We live in a culture that has “the one day of Christmas.”

We’ve had a glorious time of advent, getting ourselves prepared, we had a beautiful Christmas Eve service, and now it’s all done. Most of us have already started mapping out 2009. We’re ready to move on.

In a lot of ways, we move on in the church, too. We celebrate Jesus’ birth, and then we are happy to jump right from Jesus as a baby to 30 years later when Jesus begins his ministry. We don’t focus much on those 30 years. We don’t think about them much.

Sometimes, it seems as if we think of Jesus having gone from baby to man in about two weeks. It’s understandable that we overlook the bulk of Jesus’ early life as that is exactly what the Bible does. Luke is the only Gospel with any information about Jesus life in between infancy and adulthood, with a small episode of a 12 year old Jesus going to the temple to question the local teachers of the law.

So why is this left out? Is it not important? And if Jesus life isn’t important until he begins his ministry, why did he even come as a baby? Why didn’t he just show up as a full grown adult, ready to be baptized by John the Baptist? The answer is both simple and complex: while Jesus main purpose in coming to earth was to die for us, he also came to live for us.

Paul gets at this in Philippians 2:5-13

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Paul is telling us here the core of his understanding of Jesus Christ.

He describes Jesus as God having clothed himself in human form, lowering himself to connect to us, and to save us.

To Paul, the act of the incarnation, of God actually becoming human flesh, is the key to it all.

Jesus understands us because he became one of us.

He didn’t take any short cuts. He doesn’t spend just a day as a human, or even a year.

Jesus lived a full human life, understanding the hardships, the frustrations and temptations that we all experience, as well as the joys.

In becoming Immanuel (God with us), Christ is not simply a God who saves us, or a God who loves us, but a God who is among us, who becomes one of us, that there would be no boundaries.
To do that, though, Jesus had to humble himself, as Paul puts it, to become obedient to a human life, a life that had been bound by death.

Jesus came here to destroy that power that death held, to save us.

Or to put it more bluntly, Jesus came to earth to save you.

Not simply "you" meaning the whole human race, or "you" meaning all the Christians, but you as an individual.

St. Augustine put it this way, “God loves each of us as though there were only one of us.”

Or to put it in even simpler terms, Jesus would have come to earth and died for your sins even if you were the only person on earth.

Think about that.

God became human, lived a full life to connect with you specifically, and then died to save you.

Christmas marks that beginning of that.

So now what? What are we going to do about it?

The Philippians passage and this passage in Isaiah give us some ideas:

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

Humble yourself.

Be one with Christ in having the humility to empty yourself of your own selfishness and stubbornness, and to be open and willing before God. As creepy We Three Kings reminds us, on our own, we are all destined for a “stone cold tomb.”

God’s plan is better than that, and he promises us salvation, a future that doesn’t end in a creepy tomb, but in heaven. Our response to that salvation should be humble service, just as Christ show us.

Work out your salvation according to God’s good purpose.

A better translation of this would be make your salvation mean something according to God’s purpose.

This isn’t about us earning salvation, as we see over and over that we can’t do that on our own.

We need Christ’s saving acts.

Our work is merely a response to salvation, not a means of our salvation.

But as a sign of our humility, we should respond to God’s offer of salvation with a willingness to serve, just as Christ showed us. Remember that we are a saved people, that God came here to save us, and that everything we do is a response to that.

As "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" tells us, we are to remember at Christmas that our Savior came to us, to save us from power that we cannot resist on our own. In Christ, we are changed, to the degree that we have nothing to dismay, nothing to fear.

Both Isaiah and Philippians give us an imagery of this change, of putting on a new garment, of being given a new name by the Lord, of God working in us to make us something that we cannot be on our own, just as a seed sprouts up from the ground.

Do not be silent.

The passage in Isaiah gives us this direct command. More than anything, this is both Isaiah and Paul are urging. You are a saved people. Christ came to save YOU. Don’t just sit there in the midst of that gift and remain unchanged.

If we are to be moved by this salvation, the best way to show it is to NOT BE SILENT, that we should confess that Jesus is Lord.

Are we doing this in our lives?

Do our lives show someone who is proclaiming Christ as Lord, not just in our words, but in our actions - in everything that we do?

Think of how crazy people get to sing the line “five golden rings.”

Are we that excited about our faith, that we are willing to run into rooms and proclaim it, or are we living like the people who got stuck with day eleven or day seven, not really sure what we are singing, and with no enthusiasm or passion?

Are you silent?

If you are proclaiming Christ in your life, are shouting, or are you just mumbling.

Hear this:

Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger… Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Jesus Christ was born for you.

Jesus Christ lived for you.

Jesus Christ died for you, and through his resurrection, destroyed the power of death.

What are you doing with that knowledge?

How are you letting that change you?

How does Christmas help you grow?

Are you willing to humble yourself, to let God work through you, and to serve as a reflection of God’s love and grace in your daily life?

Are you being silent?

Has Christmas changed you?

What are you going to do about it?

Merry Christmas…

...now what?

What we did during Christmas vacation.

Here is a video that we made that my sister Addie edited together.

On one of the shots, I ran into a tree and really hurt my arm. Heehee.