Christmas: Something to Lose, Something to Gain

Come, stand with me. Let's look into the manger with eyes willing to see anew this familiar picture. It is indeed a holy night. Everyone who journeys to this manger has something that will challenge them. They will all have to give something up. But on this holy night, they will have something so much more to gain.

The Three Wise Men: They give up the safety of their homeland as they travel from Persia to Israel. This is a risky journey. They carry valuable items for the newborn King.  They have only a star to follow. What did their compatriots think as they load up and head out? These men have a reputation. These are men of books, stars, and maps. What if they are wrong? They are traveling to a foreign land. Will they be accepted by the people of that land? Will they arrive on the appointed day and time? Will they be able to find and worship this King? Will doors be slammed in their faces because they are not Jewish?

They are wise men, possessing a lot of head knowledge. But they must follow that star! Despite the danger to self and reputation, they must go. Yes, there is a lot to lose, but look at what they will gain! The hardest journey for these men will be only a distance of fourteen inches--from their heads to their hearts.

They fall down on their knees once they come near to the Baby King. Any doubts they carry with them are cast into the light coming from His precious face. The very gifts that made their trip so dangerous are now placed at His side. Each gift reflects this Child.

Gold is precious beyond measure. It must be burned in the fire to purify it. He is precious beyond measure and His excruciating death will purify us from our sins.

Frankincense is burned to release a sweet fragrance. His death will release the sweet fragrance of the penalty paid, to be inhaled by all those who believe.

Myrrh is an aromatic resin with a slightly bitter taste. It is used for embalming but also for healing. His death will be bitter, but His Resurrection will be the healing of our souls.

These men lay their gifts before the manger. Into their empty hands is given the greatest gift of all: They look upon the face of God. Their hearts now know that God keeps His promises.

The Shepherds: They give up watching their sheep momentarily. They know their job, their responsibility. They are in the outskirts of town. They are low in status, but they will break through that and go into town, emboldened by the message they hear. They risked scorn and disapproval: “Do angels really sing praises out where people like you may hear them? Oh, come on!” But here they come. Nothing will stop this excited band of men, whose ears still ring with the heavenly chorus.  Their gain? They are going into the manger to see this Baby. They are trusting God to watch their sheep.

He is the God of the big things, such as this news and the voices of praising angels! He is also the God of the little things. God will keep the flock together while the shepherds seek and find His newborn Son. They step off the hillsides in a faith that will never leave them.

Joseph: He had to give up his fear or at least, not allow it to paralyze him. Has Mary betrayed him? Is she lying to him? He is wounded by the possibility of her infidelity. Doubt, anger, consternation and hurt all swirl in his heart, wounding him over and over.

He is a craftsman whose reputation in the community keeps his trade alive. Will it be undone by whispering? What will others think? He feels such shame for Mary and his heart seizes up when he ponders the consequence of her actions: death. All these questions and more challenge him to the very marrow of his bones.

Yet, he will hear the voice of God as he sleeps. He will arise out of his slumber a determined man. He will provide for Mary. He will gain a journey. Not just any journey, but one alongside the Son of God. He will raise the Boy, teach him to hew wood and cut stone. Someday this very Child will hang from a wooden cross and lie behind a large stone. But Death will not hold Him for long.

Joseph cannot see what the future holds, but he knows Who holds the future.

Mary: She gives up her reputation. She will give up peace. Her sense of what is normal will be replaced with a fear of husband’s distrust or reprisal, of public humiliation, and even of death.

But she will gain the smile of God. She will nourish the Son of God Who will someday nourish her. She will comfort Him when He cries. One day, she will be comforted by Him when He hangs on a cross and gives her John to care for her. She will treasure much in her heart to sustain her in the coming days when she cannot understand Him. The day He hangs on a cross will require her to reach into her heart deeply. But her greatest treasure will be when she beholds Him once more: glorified and radiant on that future Sunday morning.

Where do all of these people go from here? 

The three wise men will leave Bethlehem, hearing of the butchery by King Herod to root out all the male children under the age of two. An earthly king will mercilessly kill to stop the heavenly King. The men ride back into the west, grief-stricken. They will cling to the promise of "Peace on earth, good will to men."

Joseph and Mary will leave for Egypt, far away from everyone to avoid the coming slaughter. It is not their Lamb's time yet. They will long return home someday. In the future, when they hear of Herod's death, their joy will turn once again to fear as they learn of Herod's son on the throne. They must go and settle in yet another village. Do they ever stop looking over their shoulders while Jesus is small? Will evil men come for Him to take Him to His death?

Not for now.

But someday, He will go willingly with evil men. 

He came to die for men like these.  He even will forgive them from the cross. 

What do we give up?  We lose the loneliness and alienation from the King of the Universe, who came to be the King of our hearts. 

What do we gain?  

We gain the gift of eternal life through His death.

We gain His abundant life as we peer into His empty tomb that spring morning.

In every season we travel, are we realizing with ever increasing confidence that whatever we are  challenged with, whatever we have to give up, is nothing compared to the beauty of the Son and the life He offers? 

Stand at the manger and know that God loves us beyond measure.

Stand at the cross and know that God loves us forever. 

May His shalom be your portion this Christmas season!

Hosea XX

If you want to know the heart of God, and how He labors over His judgment against Israel (the northern kingdom) and His deep desire for their restoration through repentance, read this:

"'How can I give you up, Ephraim? [Israel] 
How can I hand you over, Israel?
   How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboyim?
   My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.
   I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I devastate Ephraim again.
   For I am God, and not a man—
the Holy One among you.
   I will not come against their cities.
They will follow the Lord;
   he will roar like a lion.
When he roars,
   his children will come trembling from the west.
They will come from Egypt,
   trembling like sparrows,
   from Assyria, fluttering like doves.
I will settle them in their homes,'
   declares the Lord" (11:8-11). 

Wow. That challenges the argument that the God of the Old Testament is a judgmental God and the God of the New Testament is a loving God.  

The God of the Old Testament is Jesus' Father and He never made that kind of distinction between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant's depiction of His Father. The Old Covenant was the only covenant Jesus knew, and while He fulfilled its deepest promises, He did not set aside the Old Testament as some now antiquated, now irrelevant document. 

He said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matt. 5:17). In a Jewish context, He meant was that He came to interpret the Law correctly. The Pharisees had veered away from the Torah's intent of Micah's words,

"He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?" (6:8)

They had made the Torah an unsufferable burden. 

Another way to interpret Jesus' words, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:28-30) is His  approach to "the yoke of Torah." He brought Himself.  By following Him, we find rest for our souls, not more rules that burden and weary us. 

God is clear in His expectations of His people. As Jesus taught, a love for God will lead us to be obedient to God.  Lose the love, lose the relationship. 

Let's look at Admah and Zeboyim. These were cities near Sodom and Gomorrah, and they were destroyed when God finally let His judgement fall on the inhabitants. Lot and his kin got out of Dodge (so to speak) and down came the fire and the brimstone.

For the Israelites, these cities' names were part of their heritage.  The story tells of when God offered mercy and it was rebuked because then people were deeply immersed in sin.  He then brought  judgment.

It's easy for us to simply boil down Sodom and Gomorrah's sin to be one of sexual depravity, and yes, while this is true, Ezekiel expands the list: 

"Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn’t support the poor and needy" (16:49). 

Sin reaches into all areas of our lives. Sexual sin is a door to more sin, to be sure, but other sins can provide that opening as well.  The core of Sodom's sin was greed: for money, flesh and abundance. The consequences of such greed? Evidently, no one cared. 

Sound familiar? 

Deuteronomy also holds up Sodom as an example: 

“Then the generation to come—your descendants after you and the foreigners who come from afar—will see plagues and illnesses infecting the land that the Lord will inflict on it. The whole land will be covered with salt pits and burning sulfur, with nothing planted, nothing sprouting, and producing no vegetation—overthrown like Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, when the Lord overthrew them in his raging fury. All the nations will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land? What is the meaning of this fierce and great anger?’" (29:22-24).

So, when Hosea cites these two cities, the people get it. God is agonizing over doing to Israel what He did in the past with these sin-soaked cities.

Abraham prays an interesting prayer in seeking to save Sodom. He pleads that God should spare the city if some number of righteous people can be found. He bases his plea on God's righteousness and justice, that He will not bring destruction on the innocent: 

"Then Abraham approached him and said: 'Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?'” (Gen. 18:23-25).

He keeps bargaining with God as the hypothetical number grows smaller and smaller.  Does Abraham realize, as he is talking, that there may be no one righteous in these cities? 

The dialogue between God and Abraham ends this way: 

"Then he said, 'May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?'

He answered, 'For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.'

When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home" (18:32-33).  

The fact that God did end up destroying the cities of the plain shows that no one was righteous in those cities.  The fact that God refers to them in these verses from Hosea shows a similar plea: God does not want to destroy Israel. He wants them to repent and be saved from destruction. 

The dialogue between Abraham and God ended with a sad recognition that judgment was coming. 

So too do these verses in Hosea:

 
"Ephraim has surrounded me with lies,
Israel with deceit.
And Judah is unruly against God,
even against the faithful Holy One." (11:12)

God wants the best for His children, but when they act in defiance, He cannot just ignore it.  He allows the fire and brimstone to fall. 

It is no different today. 

Hosea XIX

I love how the Holy Spirit works.  As we look into Hosea, chapter 11, verse 1, look what we read: 

"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt."  With Christmas just around the corner, we see Matthew using this verse to fulfill how Jesus and His family fled to Egypt, to get away from the maniacal Herod, who ordered the killing of children in his attempt to erase an "usurper" to his throne.  

But let's look at the rest of this passage in Isaiah.  We will draw an interesting contrast between Israel (the people of God ) and "Israel" (the Son of God).  

So, here is the rest: 

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
   and out of Egypt I called my son.
But the more they were called,
   the more they went away from me.
They sacrificed to the Baals
   and they burned incense to images.
It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
   taking them by the arms;
   but they did not realize
   it was I who healed them.

I led them with cords of human kindness,
   with ties of love.
To them I was like one who lifts
   a little child to the cheek,
   and I bent down to feed them. (11:2-4) 

Wow.  The father metaphor is rich and strong here.  It is no wonder why Matthew, having been immersed in Jesus the Son and God the Father for several years during Jesus' ministry and into his writing of the gospel, saw these verses as applicable. 

God acted as a loving Father to His chosen ones throughout their history. But, like errant children who did not want to obey a parent (because they thought they knew best!) the more He reached out to them, and the more they sought to run away into the deceptive arms of the Baals. 

Looking even further back, God called His sons and daughters out of Egypt through Moses. But it was more than just a physical departure from a foreign land, filled with men who saw themselves as gods and a whole society dedicated to pagan worship. The Exodus was a spiritual departure from a false belief system. This system dictated the people's place, and all of it centered around the Pharoah--a god on earth, who held the universe together with his power. 

But Moses showed up with the words ringing in his ears and soon to be falling from his lips: the Pharaoh must let the people go, for Yahweh has commanded it. Yahweh was not just another god. 

His  name signified that He has always been, continues to be and will be forever.  He is not a deceptive image, conjured up in the minds of people walking in darkness, and meant to be molded into an idol. 

He was not distant, disdainful or demanding.  

He was the Father of His chosen people. 

He is the Father of His chosen people. 

God did not allow His children to forget His long covenantal history with them.  Nor did the prophets.  They continually reminded the people of what God has done for them in their collective past and how He never changes.  He was involved then and will always be. 

His prophets reminded the people that He pursued them with a fierce love when they strayed. The prophets reminded them that falling into sin is not irrevocable; if they repented, He relented.  

Back to Hosea. These words of God, spoken through Hosea, are very painful to read, especially when you consider that the people were so pridefully egregious in their sinful behavior that even when God offered full restoration, they ran away. 

Sound familiar?  Think of the prodigal son.  

We hear of a father who wanted nothing but the best for both of his sons.  One of them turns on him, wanting his inheritance now.  He then ran away into a country where pigs were raised.  Hmmm.  Pigs were used as food and sacrifices, so it's a good guess that the son had entered a world completely contrary to the one he came from.  This was a land steeped in deception and Yahweh was not in the spiritual landscape at all.

It's Egypt all over again. 

Jesus, in sketching out the father in this parable, may have drawn some inspiration from Hosea's words.  The father in His parable embodies all of the kindness, concern and love found in these verses. Both the father and the Father love with an unconditional love that is always seeking restoration and relationship with his/His errant children.   

God healed His children once they left Egypt. Of what? Of Egypt. Of its deception. Of its false gods.  Of its exaltation of human beings.  Of its darkness.  Of its slavery.  

The exodus from Egypt was a holistic restoration of His people.  Thus, when His children sought to return to "Egypt," by running to the Baals, God was righteously indignant and deeply wounded.  He led them in love and they responded with contempt. He took them close to His side and wanted nothing more but their fellowship, love and respect for who He is. 

But they ran away.

Enter Jesus.

Jesus was born into a dark, deceived world, with a king who saw himself as supremely in control, even over life and death itself. It was a world of oppression by those who, like Egypt, raised up men to be gods. People were either on the top or the bottom, and life was hard. It was made even harder by a society that didn't care, and sought only to please itself. Woe unto to those who got in the way--like those little baby boys in Bethlehem.   

Jesus and His family fled to Egypt for their safety.  Understandable, right?

But consider this:  He left the courts of heaven to enter our Egypt--a world deceived by sin, filled with people who pretended to be "gods" (who grabbed power and exploited those they saw as unimportant).  Woe unto to those who got in the way--like the Rabbi who got in the way of powerful leaders and was sent to the cross for transgressing the state and the religious establishment.

He went willingly, but He can deeply understand those who are tortured and abused by reckless powers and capricious societies.  

He redeemed us out of Egypt.  

He spoke the truth.

He lifted up the lowly.

He hasn't changed.  He still leads us by His hand with His kindness and love.  He feeds us with the good things from His table. 

He still calls out to us to come home.

One way to think about Christmas is seeing God, standing in heaven, calling out to us.  Then Jesus says, "Father, I will go to lead them out of their Egypt.  Yes, those who run away will break My heart, and I will never cease to call for them, but those who come to Me will see just how beautiful You are."

And He is. 

  

 

 

Hosea XVIII

Chapter 10 of Hosea is, as all the other chapters, instructive and relevant.

Past a certain point, people who have been proponents of disobedience will one day look at what they have been doing and realize that, to quote Bohemian Rhapsody, "Nothing really matters."  

What we do, what we don't do, what others do, what others do not do--all of it takes on a certain irrelevance and people sink into a deep cynicism.

Why?  We were not meant for meaninglessness. 

We were meant for meaning.

Despite the sin-soaked nature of this planet, purpose still permeates creation. Trees do not simply exist; they grow and change with the seasons, filling the air with cardon dioxide, and giving us delight, to give only one example.  Science could not exist if creation were unpredictable, because its laws were so.  If such "laws" were more like random events, the universe would be chaotic and without any real purpose. 

Purpose means intentionality. 

God, with great intention, brought order to chaos as He hovered over the waters, which to the ancient world represented chaos.  The order He imposed was encoded into natural laws that continue to keep the universe from descending back again into it. 

In fact, the beautiful hymn in Colossians says it all:

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
   He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,
for through him God created everything
   in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
   and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
   Everything was created through him and for him.

He existed before anything else,
   and he holds all creation together.
Christ is also the head of the church,
   which is his body.
He is the beginning,
   supreme over all who rise from the dead.
   So he is first in everything.
For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
   and through him God reconciled
 everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
   by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. (1:15-20)

Jesus holds the moral and physical universe together. God spoke creation into existence and so it is His Word (His Son and His spoken thoughts) that continues to keep it all together. 

But life without meaning, without purpose, means that chaos will reign.  Hearts will harden.  People will grow cynical because no matter what they do, believe or try, life loses its luster and all becomes vanity.

Solomon is a case in point.  He prays for wisdom, which God grants.  God is pleased with him that he asked for this. (1 Kings 3:9-10) 

But all the wisdom in the world, all the glory and respect is not a substitute for a vibrant relationship with God.  The man who prayed for wisdom later concluded that: 

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, 

   vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
   at which he toils under the sun? (Ecc. 1: 2-3)

 
According to the text notes in Bible Gateway, the word for "vanity," means:

The Hebrew term hebel, translated vanity or vain, refers concretely to a “mist,” “vapor,” or “mere breath,” and metaphorically to something that is fleeting or elusive (with different nuances depending on the context).  

 

So, ultimately, people (just as Solomon did) figured out that without meaning from a purpose derived from God Himself, life's toils result in nothing. 

This sense of futility besets the Israelites in the northern kingdom:

How prosperous Israel is—
   a luxuriant vine loaded with fruit.
But the richer the people get,
   the more pagan altars they build.
The more bountiful their harvests,
   the more beautiful their sacred pillars.
The hearts of the people are fickle;
   they are guilty and must be punished.
The Lord will break down their altars
   and smash their sacred pillars.
Then they will say, “We have no king
   because we didn’t fear the Lord.
But even if we had a king,
   what could he do for us anyway?”
They spout empty words
   and make covenants they don’t intend to keep.
So injustice springs up among them
   like poisonous weeds in a farmer’s field. ( Hosea 10:1-4)

Despite their prosperity, the people's hearts were never satisfied, and they looked to leadership for solutions.  Those leaders didn't satisfy them, either.

Injustice characterized this kingdom, for the people were not going to stand up for anything--justice included--because nothing really mattered, right?

Who cares whether or not we keep our word?

Who cares if we do what we should?

Who cares if we ignore all the warnings that our behavior will result in catastrophe?  Who believes in that catastrophe stuff anyway?  Prophets are so old school.

What if we think our leaders should carry the load of morality and we do what we want?  Isn't he responsible for leading the nation?

What if we cheat?  Disregard each other? Demean each other? Kill or abuse each other?

The people of Samaria tremble in fear
for their calf idol at Beth-aven,
and they mourn for it.
Though its priests rejoice over it,
its glory will be stripped away.
This idol will be carted away to Assyria,
a gift to the great king there.
Ephraim will be ridiculed and Israel will be shamed,
because its people have trusted in this idol.
Samaria and its king will be cut off;
they will float away like driftwood on an ocean wave.
And the pagan shrines of Aven, the place of Israel’s sin, will crumble.
Thorns and thistles will grow up around their altars.
They will beg the mountains, “Bury us!”
and plead with the hills, “Fall on us!” (Hosea 10: 5-8)

Beth-aven means "house of wickedness," which was Hosea's no-nonsense renaming of Bethel, which meant "house of God," according to the Bible Gateway text notes. 

I find it chilling that when people are overwhelmed with their sin, instead of repenting and looking to God for healing and restoration, they beg the forces of nature to wipe them out.  We hear this cry in the book of Revelation as well: 

Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:15-17)

How many times could the people have, during the dark times in Revelation and in Hosea's day, simply repented?  

God is so clear.  It's so simple:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (1 Chron. 7:14)

Nothing really matters? Not true.  A repentant heart matters tremendously to God. 

It did then.  It does now.  It will in the future.

Are we listening?