Jesus – Movement in a Mercurial World

What we gain at Christmas in our loss

At the start of Advent season, I felt God prodding me to write for those who have experienced loss, for those who feel and are alone at Christmastime, for whom all the holly jolly is not the main emotion felt this time of year.

Then my husband and I lost a dear friend unexpectedly this last week. And shocking grief entered into our own world, sharing in the sorrowful loss of those we love and hold dearly.

As I have sat and prayed, reading, crying, I have been struck with how Christmas is actually for the lost, the lonely, and the ones who have lost.

Christmas first came to a humble teen girl. Her whole life trajectory and plans changed in an instant of surrendering to her Lord’s words over her- she was to bear the Son of God. Can you imagine the shaming, shunning, gossiping, and social and familial consequences she must have faced in those days? A young girl pregnant out of wedlock, more so claiming to be pregnant with the Son of God by the Holy Spirit, surely endured much. Still she called herself the “handmaiden of the Lord.”

The birth of Jesus was first announced to the lowly shepherds in their fields. These shepherds had forfeited any kind of esteemed life of service to God. A livelihood which demanded their all- relentless watching of dirty, wayward sheep, enduring all kinds of weather, robbers, wild animals, they only had each other and the stars for company. Yet it was for them that God split the sky with his heavenly host, and the light of His glory come to earth. It was they who were honored with the first encounter of the Son of God as a babe. And it caused them to worship.

Christmas came to an elderly woman who had served God all her days since her young widowhood. The Bible says that Anna did not depart from the Temple, but fasted and prayed day and night. Some scholars count her 84 years as after the loss of her husband, putting her at about 105! What was she fasting and praying for? In all those years walking closely with God, surely the Holy Spirit had revealed to her Messiah was coming as foretold. For she recognized him when she saw him. She then spent the rest of her days telling others the Savior of the world had come.

Through these stories, we get a glimpse of God’s heart. Whom does He take note of to bless? We tend to think of the blessed as ones who live a full life, have the things, get the spouse, have the family, succeed in what they do.

This is not whom God calls blessed, this is not even the definition of blessing.

This is God’s definition:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5:3.

It is the impoverished souls who are blessed by God.

The whole of the Bible affirms God’s track record in whom He chooses as His own.

He is the God of the widow, the barren, the orphan, the fatherless, the lonely, the thief, the adulterer, the prostitute, the beggar, the blind, the lame, the outcast, the downtrodden, the hopeless, the broken.

He is the God who has come for the sinner and the brokenhearted.

It only the spiritually hungry who are prepared to receive the gift of Christmas.

We get God.

Because God gives God. He poured Himself out into human form (I Timothy 3:16). He became our sin and entered into our brokenness- God Himself lost. He lost His Son. And Christ lost the rights and privileges of His Godhead, and became nothing for us. This was with the purpose to give us His righteousness (I Corinthians 1:30). The very righteousness of God! (2 Corinthians 5:21)

The message of Christmas is that God has come for you.

It is the debtors who are forgiven.

It is the lost who are found.

The empty who are filled.

The abandoned who are enfolded in the everlasting arms of God in Christ.

It is the lonely, the outcast, the too old, the disqualified, the depressed, that God takes note of.

God cannot bless those who do not want Him because the blessing God gives us is Himself.

In all our grieving, hurting, and the aching void we feel- we get Jesus. The One who knows and bore all our pain. And will erase it all someday.

For my single friends who wait with unfulfilled desires, my friends and family who remember great loss this time of year, my loved ones who ache with fresh loss, and for those who hurt physically, mentally, emotionally down into their very souls- I am keeping you close in my prayers and aching with you.

Our God suffered for us. And suffers with us.

“In all their affliction He was afflicted” Isaiah 63:9

Take hold of Emmanuel, Jesus, which literally means- “God with us.”

And for all that life has labeled you as and left you- He willingly adopts us when we come and receive Him, and calls us His children.

Christmas is about receiving God’s greatest gift- Jesus.

Let us rejoice with Mary in her song, “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty” Luke 1:53.

May God fill you in your aching and may you find his everlasting arms underneath you.

In honor of our friend, Steve Cunningham and his family in their loss. In the presence of Jesus this Christmas, we miss you dearly and will see you soon.

Obedience cost the Son of God His life.

Obedience to God always costs something.

I sat down to write about a story of obedience, (writing pouring from my own delayed obedience) not knowing that the circumstances surrounding it would be repeated this past month.

May we lift up Haiti.

I remember the waves of helplessness and grief over the nation of Haiti, a decade ago. On January 12, 2010, the impoverished island experienced a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake, killing around 300,000 people.

I had been a nurse for less than five years. I felt inadequate.

Surely I was too young, too inexperienced- I had only cared for babies. Several of my coworkers went, giving me courage.

I prayed over what to do.

I was to go.

Wanting to be prepared I went to a health clinic. They suggested certain vaccines and medications for what I may encounter. The vaccines were not ones routinely given in the U.S. I spent a little time praying over them. I took them given the unknown.

The trip to Haiti was eye-opening. You cannot un-see suffering. We stayed at an orphanage, flanked by high concrete walls. (Who would want to harm orphans anyways?) Three weeks post earthquake, all the children slept outside because the tremors shook still.

I met a boy, whose life had always been hard. It consisted of being wheeled in a chair by other children. He could not communicate. I am unsure of his actual diagnosis, but he must have had some form of cerebral palsy. Clearly abandoned. Trying to make small talk in a language I didn’t know, I asked the kids their names. I asked about the one who couldn’t speak.

“Samson.”

“As in the strongest man who ever lived?”

I smiled through the churning of my heart.

“Why would you name this one, “Samson,” God?

Clearly I do not have the eyes of God.

I Corinthians 1:27 says, “He has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.”

During my short stay, I helped in a gym turned post operative ward. I kept kids occupied, helped with bandages, and loved on them as best I could.

We drove out into the villages to do a few pop up clinics. There was no advertising necessary. People came from everywhere.

Returning home, we drove through the Dominican Republic, nearly losing my life in the front seat -the driver playing chicken with the other cars on the road. I got back on a plane home, exhausted.

I felt like a literal drop in a bucket.

Haiti needed an ocean of God’s love.

My life was changed. My perspective changed- my life wasn’t hard. Theirs was impossibly sustainable. The stories that came from the tent cities weeks following haunted me.

I had done so little.

Days upon returning I felt sick. I thought I had malaria.

It was not malaria or a parasite. The years that followed would reveal my obedience had cost me my health. Unfortunately the cocktail of vaccines were the trigger to my autoimmune issues which I deal with to this day.

I have since wondered, “What was the point?” They wouldn’t have missed me. I handed out hugs, prayers, smiles, bandages, water, vitamins, and some meds.

Big deal.

That very short mission trip ironically kept me from pursuing a life of missions overseas.

It makes no sense to me.

Yet I am not God. He told me to go. I went.

I am not the one that determines the eternal value of my one act of obedience.

If God accomplished the redemption of the world on the shoulders of One who stooped down from the glories of heaven to obey His Father’s will, what more reason do I need? Jesus laid aside His rights as God, not to just carry His cross, but to carry yours as the Son of Man.

Consider for a moment.

God Himself suffered.

He suffered as a Father and as a Son.

That cross the Son carried entailed the judgment and wrath of God. Those stripes on Jesus’ back from the soldiers became rivulets for the cup of wrath God poured upon Him.

God’s justice and mercy met at the Cross.

Yet there is something revelatory about the attitude of Christ.

“Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” Hebrews 12:2.

Christ obeyed for the joy of displaying the glory of God.

And the joy of knowing you.

Don’t minimize then what He can do through your surrendered heart.

Even one act.

My life is no longer my own. The trajectory of its course changed when Christ trod the path to Calvary. It changed when He gave me His own righteousness for my sin. And put a new heart within me.

I have a sweet friend who told me she ended her engagement-out of obedience to Christ. My heart aches for her. The world will not understand this. Many in her circle likely won’t either. But neither will the world understand the cross, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” I Corinthians 1:18.

If you are suffering because of your faith steps- remember:

It was through one man’s obedience- Abraham, after 25 years waiting, he received the promised son. Through whom Messiah came. That every nation on earth would be blessed by the gathering of spiritual family in Christ.

Remember the boy who gave his small lunch? Jesus fed 5,000 plus women and children with it. And had far more leftovers than a Sunday potluck.

I since have seen God’s great kindness in orchestrating my life. Through my own struggles, He has given me a passion for health, encouraging others to find deeper healing. He kept me from sorrows He didn’t allot to me. And instead of going to one far away place He has given me the gift of going to many places through my relationships with my missionary friends all over the world. And hospitality is at my front door.

Our risen Savior bought us through His obedience.

And has purchased an inheritance for those who have placed their faith and trust in Him, where for all eternity, because of His act of submission we will experience His immeasurable kindness and love.

This little one was just so hungry for attention and full of giggles!

Such big smiles for having so little. She radiated joy.

This young boy, Mistal, wrote me a note. He lost his foot. I pray his resiliency has led him to a full life in Christ.

Please your stories of obedience and lessons along the way, I would love to hear!

It’s Holy Week.

The Creator of the cosmos, kingdoms, and all powers has ridden into town.

On a donkey.

It seems on par with the nativity scene of the Babe in an animal trough, in some damp dwelling, where animals live and eat. And do other things.

The humility of God is a bit overwhelming given the unfolding of His story. It would be easy to miss him in the crowd. The crowd He rode into that week before His death, waved palm branches, and shouted, “Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

A few days later, they were yelling, “Crucify Him!”

Many still miss him.

I know I have at times.

Not much has changed in two millennia. All the world is still shouting this Holy week. Kids trafficked by drug lords. A Swiss missionary’s remains found after being kidnapped by Jihadists. Systematic torture, “re-education” of peoples not fit for China’s politics. Coups and threats, nations rising and falling, and failing.

And where is God?

He is found in the most obscure of places.

He is found here.

Emmanuel means, God with us. This very week, history culminates in the collision of God and man. The God-Man came to be one of us. And in this most Holy of weeks in the Jewish calendar, His eyes are on what is before Him.

Past the crowds and their palm branches.

The Cross.

And just beyond the cross, He sets His joyous sight on something else.

Us.

Our right-standing with God.

This is only accomplished as He willingly lays down the intimacy He shares in the Trinity, the rights and privileges of His Godhead.

God humbled himself to death. Even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:8)

And while all the world is groaning, Christ is groaning in our place. If there’s any doubt your sin separates you from a just and holy God, listen to the utter agony of Christ’s words. As the sin of the world and the wrath of God is laid on His shoulders He cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46.

Jesus is separated momentarily from His Father and the Spirit.

Because He knows we are separated from a Holy God through our immense offenses against His perfect law. When David sinned with Bathsheba, committing adultery, He said,

“Against You and You only have I sinned” Psalm 51:4.

Such is the case of every sinner. It is God we have sinned against. What is more grievous than this? All the good we “do” can never satisfy the justice we deserve.

In this Holy week, this week in a world that has long passed insanity, God has undone the curse. The curse that came in that once perfect Eden. When we thought we knew better than God. When we broke communion with Him, fled the shade of the tall trees and His arms. And a sinful nature wrapped itself around us instead.

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles (all) in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” Galatians 3:13-14.

That promise to Abraham is a deeply cut one. It’s a covenant. More than a promise, it requires the spilling of life blood. And we broke our end of it. Someone has to pay.

Someone did.

“Jesus paid it all! All to Him I owe. My sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow” -Elvina M. Hall, 1865.

The question of God’s love is forever settled, His enduring goodness proclaimed in the Cross of Christ.

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” Romans 5:6-9.

While we were yet sinning, choosing the forbidden fruit, rebelling, yelling, seeking our own way, Christ died.

God spent Himself for us, how will we spend Holy Week?

Perhaps we pass around drinks, make food, and sit with family this weekend.

Let it remind you that Jesus has poured out His blood in the cup of His new covenant and broken His body like bread for us. He is gathering eternal family.

This blessed week, let us set our eyes on our Redeemer, the ONLY hope for this broken world.

Let us rejoice in His triumphant entry into the gates of our hearts, where He conquers the reign of sin and sets us free from death.

True, the humility of God is a bit overwhelming given the unfolding of His story. But then there’s the folded grave clothes at the end of it.

Or rather the beginning.

Happy Resurrection Week!