Some Thoughts on Christmas Carols

Warning, this post may offend your Christmas sensibilities!

Among the Christmas songs we've been playing in our house since Thanksgiving, one of them caught my particular attention. The song, recorded by Randy Travis, presents a rather different picture than what we have come to imagine of that night in Bethlehem:

It was not a silent night

There was blood on the ground

You could hear a woman crying

In the alleyway that night

On the streets of David's town

And the stable was not clean

And the cobblestones were cold

And little Mary full of grace

with tears upon her face

had no mother's hand to hold

It was a labor of pain

It was a cold sky above

But for the girl on the ground in the dark

with every beat of her beautiful heart

it was a labor of love.

Noble Joseph by her side

calloused hands and weary eyes

No midwives to be found

on the streets of David's town

in the middle of the night

so he held her and he prayed

shafts of moonlight on his face

but the baby in her womb

he was the maker of the moon

he was the author of the faith

that can make the mountains move

I like this song because I think it more accurately reflects the events of that night. While the song "Silent Night" has become beloved by many, I seriously question whether that night was in fact so silent and whether all was really calm and bright. And despite what another favorite song tells us, did the newborn baby Jesus really not cry? Maybe, but I suspect he behaved much like any other baby, complete with crying and all.

I'm not saying we shouldn't sing all these other classic Christmas songs. I just think that in singing them we must remember that they skew our view of the Christmas event. God entered the world in the most unexpected of ways. The birth of Jesus was full of scandal (a child conceived out of wedlock--do we forget that part, or have we become numbed to the cultural shame this would have brought?) and took place in the most humble of circumstances. We want to picture the scene in such heavenly terms, probably because we have a hard time imagining God coming to earth among such dirty, ordinary conditions. The Scriptures don't give us much detail concerning the process of the birth, but I think it probably wasn't any different than any other human birth. While remaining God he became a complete human and dealt with the realities of ordinary human life. I don't think that God arranged for his birth to be a uniquely beautiful, blissful event. He didn't book him a room at the local birthing center or the Bethlehem regional hospital. Instead he chose to enter the world through the ordinary labor pains of a young woman in a dirty stable full of farm animals. And he did this because he wanted to experience our reality and identify himself with us. Yes, it was a unique event, unparalleled in the history of humanity. It was a divine moment. But it was also a very human moment. This is the amazing reality about Jesus that we must always keep in proper tension: that he was both fully God AND fully human.

I for one find it difficult to sing "Silent Night" wholeheartedly anymore. (I told you I might offend your Christmas sensibilities.) While a lovely song in its own way, I just don't find it to capture adequately the significance of the Christmas event. Of all the Christmas songs that have been written over the centuries, I find it interesting that some of the most popular present the most idyllic view of Jesus' birth. It's as if we feel a need to picture it this way. But I think we do well to stop and reflect on the fact that God's entry into our world came in the most radically humble of conditions. Otherwise we risk creating a Jesus who wasn't really human like we are.

Am I the lost son?

When reading the story of the lost or prodigal son, I have always struggled to really identify with the lost son. While I acknowledge that I sin and fall short of God's glory, nonetheless I cannot picture myself as the son in the story because I cannot relate to the description of his experience. I have not strayed far from home. I have not indulged in wild living. To quote the words of Henri Nouwen:


"It is strange to say this, but, deep in my heart, I have known the feeling of envy toward the wayward son. It is the emotion that arises when I see my friends having a good time doing all sorts of things I condemn. I called their behavior reprehensible or even immoral, but at the same time I often wondered why I didn't have the nerve to do some of it or all of it myself."


It may seem strange to speak of envying sinful behavior. But for one who hasn't lived a wild life, sometimes I cannot appreciate the depth of God's love because I don't really appreciate the fullness of his forgiveness. As Jesus said to the Pharisee in Luke 7, "He who has been forgiven little, loves little." As long as I look at the lost son and see someone completely foreign to my experience, I cannot enter into the story and appreciate the magnitude of either his lostness or the love that welcomes him home.


Reading Nouwen's book The Return of the Prodigal Son opened my eyes to this story in a new way. Nouwen points out that a homecoming such as the one in the story must be proceeded by a "home-leaving." He reminds me that I have a home in the loving embrace of my heavenly Father. But I become the lost son if I choose to leave this home and seek my identity and my home anywhere else. "Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one," writes Nouwen. I can relate to this, because I know that I have done and still do this. How or where I seek this other "home" isn't really the issue. The issue is that I become the lost son because I reject that which God offers and seek to replace it with something, anything, that the world offers. Instead of hearing God's voice which calls me his beloved son, I choose to listen to the voices that tell me I must prove my worth. I must earn the right to be called his son. My fear of rejection, of being unloved and unwelcome, drive me further and further from my one true home. As Nouwen says:


"I am so afraid of being disliked, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my father's home and choose to dwell in a 'distant country'."


As I read this I recognized the extent to which I am, indeed, the lost son. I may not have thrown away my father's inheritance in wild living, but nevertheless I have chosen many times to reject it or to exchange it for the worthless garbage of this world. And the world has given me nothing lasting in return. Having understood better that I have indeed left home, like the lost son, I can now better appreciate the process of his return. I hope to share some thoughts on that in the near future.

Will I Choose Joy?

I've been reflecting this week on the story of the lost or prodigal son. To guide my reflections I read Henri Nouwen's book The Return of the Prodigal Son, in which he shares his insights into this story in light of Rembrandt's famous painting by the same name. As I finished reading the book this morning, I found myself challenged by a basic question. This question also indirectly arose from our Sunday morning worship time last week. In many places Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God as being a celebration--a party, to use the language Tony Campolo has used to describe it. The story of the lost son shows us a father who welcomes his wayward son home, not with recriminations and reluctance, but with joy and celebration, pulling out all the stops. Reflecting on this Nouwen writes: "Celebration belongs to God's kingdom....God does not want to keep his joy to himself. He wants everyone to share in it."


But Nouwen reminds us as well that we must choose to enter into this celebration. God does not force us. The elder son and others in the story face a choice. In Nouwen's words, "Will they understand the father's joy? Will they let the father embrace them? Will I?"


As I read this section of his book and probably in light of all that preceeded it in earlier chapters, I wrestled with the question he asks. Am I able to let the father embrace me? Am I able to understand and enter into the father's joy? I look at the world around me and more often than not respond with cynicism and gloom. I see the negative far more readily than the positive. I expect sadness, disappointment and pain. To quote Nouwen's words again, "Somehow I have become accustomed to living with sadness, and so have lost the eyes to see the joy and the ears to hear the gladness that belongs to God and which is to be found in the hidden corners of the world."


I see myself as a realist, one who sees things as they are. (My wife might disagree with this, since there is definitely an idealist in me as well.) Although I want to rejoice and celebrate God's goodness and love, I see a world filled with sorrow and suffering, with pain and grief. I see a world in which his kingdom, his shalom, have not yet been made complete. Not only that, but I look at my own life and I see the shortcomings and imperfections in myself and those closest to me. These things tend to draw more of my attention than the moments of joy, the moments of light, the moments when shalom breaks through in some small way. But God calls me to rejoice, not because everything has been made right in this world, but to rejoice when his kingdom breaks through in any way, no matter how small.


"God rejoices," writes Nouwen. "Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, nor because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children who was lost has been found. What I am called to is to enter into that joy."


The recognition that I lack the ability to rejoice, that I more often choose cynicism or gloom rather than with joy and celebration, hurts deeply. I don't want to be this way. Changing this pattern of behavior won't be a quick and easy process though, nor will it be one that I can accomplish on my own. But I want to begin that journey. I want to choose joy. I want to choose to enter into the joy of my father, to join him at the table of celebration rather than standing outside, refusing to participate. The circumstances in which I currently live do not promote a lifestyle of joyful celebration, but I think that if we as God's children can learn to live in his shalom even in the midst of those circumstances, that joy can become a powerful magnet to others.

Learning to Love

I've been reflecting a lot lately on love, what it means to love and what it means to receive love. I began reading 1 Corinthians 13 again, intending to read a small portion and meditate on it. Well, I didn't get very far before the Spirit called specific issues to my attention.


In the first verse we read (following the New Living Translation): "If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal." My area of specialty for the past several years has been language learning, so when I read these words what struck me was that this verse speaks about that topic. If I, or any other person, undertakes the learn another language, particularly for the sake of communicating the Good News, but I do so without love, then my efforts are pointless and my ability to communicate in that other language will be meaningless, no matter how proficient I may become. In other words, if I don't love the people who speak that language, then there is no point in my learning the language to begin with. This brought me to the place of asking God to renew or fuel in my heart a love for the people whose language I am learning. I believe that this love already exists, but I also realize that it can certainly grow and increase.


Reflecting on this further I see that loving a people group can be quite a different thing from loving specific members of that group. I can (perhaps) easily say "I love the X people" and picture them in my mind as an abstract concept, an image I have in my mind of this group of people. That is not a bad thing, but it is only a first step. In some cases that step alone can be quite difficult. For example, I think many American Christians would find it difficult to say with all their heart that they love Arab people, because we have developed some very strong cultural biases against them. But loving a people group as a concept remains rather nebulous, until you find yourself confronted with the reality of loving particular members of that group. Sometimes this can make it easier to love, because the concept becomes a concrete reality with flesh and bones, with needs and emotions. But sometimes this reality can make it more difficult to express love from the heart, because some people are not very lovable. I may say "I love the X people," but can I love the specific X person who is crowded next to me on the bus, smelling like he or she hasn't bathed in several days? Or can I love the X person who is complicating my life by demands to do something for him or her? Can I love the person who has done things to hurt me or those I love? Confronted with these questions, I can only pray "Jesus, teach me to love."


I think that both of these aspects of loving others are useful. We as believers should ask God to give us a love for the different people groups of the world, particularly those for whom we currently feel enmity. But in order to express that love in action, we need to take the next step and love the members of a group as individuals, entering into their lives and listening to them, seeing them as Jesus does--as precious people uniquely and individually created and loved by him. In the end both of these aspects can only be done out of the overflow of Jesus' love in our hearts. I can manufacture love towards others to a certain point. I can seek to develop feelings of sympathy and humanity towards others and that's not a bad thing. But I cannot sustain it nor can I truly love others simply from my own understanding of human love. The well is simply not deep enough.

On Turning 40

I recently celebrated my 40th birthday. My American culture presents this as a significant milestone, the point at which one has reached the pinnacle of life. The fact that we speak of turning 40 as being "over the hill" indicates that we look at the rest of life as a decline. I think most of my friends who are of similar age don't really look at it this way. In fact only those who are younger probably think in these terms. I was encouraged by a couple friends who informed me that in their culture reaching 40 marks the point of maturity. At 40 years old one can finally be considered to have grown up and the best years of life now lie ahead. I rather like this perspective. I certainly don't feel like I've reached the high point of life and all that awaits me from this point onward is a slow decline into old age.


Turning 40 does serve as a marker along the journey of life and offers an opportunity to stop and reflect on the path one has taken. For some, this reflection frightens them, because they realize that they have invested their lives in meaningless things that have no lasting value. Or maybe they measure their lives against the values pushed by our media-driven culture and feel that they have come up with the short end of the stick. In response they might push to obtain those "things" that they think will make life complete and fulfill their happiness, be it a newer, nicer car, a bigger house, or a different spouse.


Although I've spent some time ruminating on my life at this junction, I don't find myself experiencing a mid-life crisis. I don't feel the need to add some new spark to a dull and meaningless life because I have the privilege of living a purpose-driven, meaningful life. In fact, sometimes I wish my life were a little more mundane! I really have nothing to complain about. I have been blessed with a wonderful wife and two delightful (most of the time!) children. I enjoy my work (most of the time!) and am blessed with dear friends, friends from around the world. By the standards of the culture I may have sacrificed a lot. I haven't achieved much, if anything, that our culture considers significant. I don't own my own house. I don't even own a car! I'm not on the path of upward mobility. Sometimes these things tempt me, but then God reminds me of the blessings he's given me. He reminds me of the purpose and calling on my life. He reminds me that I have the opportunity to impact lives for eternity--though I may not see the fruit myself in this life. I haven't sacrificed anything that I haven't received something better in return.


Do I wish I could live life over? Not really. I could change some decisions I regret, but I would inevitably make other regrettable decisions in their place. No, I will thank God instead for the journey I have made and continue to make and for his grace and providence along the path. I will thank him that he has chosen me and filled my life with meaning and purpose for the sake of his name and his glory. And I will pray that my life will continue to be of service to him as long as I draw breath on this earth.


SDG

It's Not About Me

"For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake."
2 Cor. 4:5


Sometimes I forget that my work and my life isn't about me at all. I start wanting to receive honor and attention. I want people to recognize my work, even while acknowledging that the work is really for His sake. At such times I must come back to verses like this and remember who what, or rather who, it's all really about. It's not about me. It's about him.


Recently I had a sort of vision come to mind while I was meditating on the word. I saw a desert-like land, something like Arizona or many other places in the world. Where the river flowed, there was life, but outside of that there was no life. In such places humans often build irrigation canals to carry the life-giving water to new areas so that those areas can also grow and flourish. The irrigation ditch which delivers the water is important because it carries the water to the places that need it. But the ditch is not the main thing. The water is. If the ditch is doing its job, it really won't hardly be noticed at all. But as it does its job, entire regions can receive the life-giving water.


I understood that I am like one of those irrigation ditches. It's not about me. I am just a servant. May I take this message to heart and apply it daily.

Dealing with Conflict

Growing up I learned to deal with conflict by avoiding it. More accurately, as I learned later in life, I learned to deal with it by running from it or denying that it exists. At the time I didn't realize that these were unhealthy ways of dealing with conflict (in most cases). I would not have articulated it in these terms at the time, but I believed that living at peace meant simply avoiding all conflict. Therefore, in my mind the more I "avoided" conflict, the more I was living a godly lifestyle.


A couple years ago I read the book The Peacemaker by Ken Sande and it radically changed my thinking about conflict. I had received teaching about conflict resolution prior to this, which had helped me make some positive adjustments to dealing with conflict. Being married has also helped, not because my marriage is filled with conflict, but simply because conflict will arise when you merge two lives into one. But reading The Peacemaker helped me to understand that conflict is normal (at least in this life) and that living the life of a peacemaker does not mean avoiding conflict, but rather dealing with it in a healthy manner. I highly recommend the book.


This doesn't mean that I have come to relish conflict. I think Sande would argue that this view is also unhealthy. In fact, I still have a lot of room to grow. Although I understand and accept that conflict naturally happens and I have learned better methods for dealing with it, I still don't like it and must often fight my innate inclination to deal with it by running away. I do better when the conflict arises with a friend or my spouse, because in those situations there is already established relationship and a better ability to communicate. But even then I don't always instinctively choose a healthy response of conflict resolution. When the conflict involves someone with whom my relationship is less personal my instinct to flee becomes even stronger.


I have a lot of room to grow in this area. I find that God regularly gives me opportunity for this growth. Sometimes I succeed, in the sense of making progress in handling conflict well. At other times I fail miserably, resorting to ingrained habits. I find myself in a particular conflict situation right now that is testing me. I pray for wisdom to respond wisely and in a godly manner. One potential solution would require us to withdraw from the conflict--to resolve by removing ourselves from the conflict situation, but I want to do so because God directs us to and not simply because I want to avoid the conflict. On the other hand, if the conflict cannot be resolved I don't want to continue to live in a situation that leaves me stressed and tense on a regular basis. Thus the need for wisdom.