Small Signs of God - Lost Sheep

It happens every Advent. I begin peaceful and calm, resting in the start of the season of joy and peace. I pace myself. Then I look at the calendar and realize the time is passing and I still have things to do. A few presents to purchase.  Cookies to bake. Letters to write.  I begin to wander off in my rush and the frenetic pace to December 25th beckons me to stray. Even in worship,  I still have things to do. Things to think about more deeply. Things to ponder over and over in my heart.

I turn to Isaiah 53. It is about the serious role Jesus would play in our lives. There is nothing about silent nights or peace or beauty or calm; instead Isaiah points to the future about an unattractive man who people will despise. Isaiah writes about people who will hate so much they will kill the man and sell his clothes.  Even friends will desert him. Isaiah brings it closer to home and points to the reader and says that all of us, like stupid sheep, wander off and this man - this Jesus will be the one who will take our wanderings and stupidity, forgive us and perfect us.

Hard things to think about at Christmas time. We'd rather bake the fruitcake and wrap presents than consider the cost of Christmas in God's economy. And yet, He came. He took thirty years from His reign in Heaven and humbled himself to be Jesus, the one who would love perfectly. The one who would offer his life so you and I might live forever. He comes today as the good shepherd looking for his lost sheep.

I remember the music of Handel's Messiah proclaiming the very words:

"And He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; and He shall gather the lambs with His arms, and carry them in His bosom and gently lead those that are with young." (Isaiah 40:11)

Great Shepherd,

You have experienced 

more than I can comprehend,

and here you are this Christmas - 

feeding me, gathering me, carrying me.

                 Lead on,  Gentle Shepherd.

Small Signs of God - December Sky

The sky is beautiful in December. It has something to do with the shortening of the days and the distance of the sun as the earth spins on its axis. Funny how the busy colors of the season and the shortness of the days can prevent me from ever looking at the sky during Advent.

But last night I did. We were traveling south on the interstate at rush hour. Both directions - a sea of candy cane red and white lights moving ever so slowly for home after a full day. Lucky for me, I was the passenger and kept watching the western sky with the strong pinks and corals that seemed to put on a show just for me. At one point, it was as though an umbrella was over all of us, calling all sojourners to look up and see the wonder of this December night.

Looking up is hard to do when there is bumper-to-bumper traffic. Looking up is hard to do when cars are shifting lanes suddenly. Looking up is hard to do when focusing on the immediate is more important than focusing on the exquisite beauty and calm of a December sunset. But it's there.

Morning comes and the sky is just as beautiful. Pinks and lavenders dapple the blue. Still, there is much to do. Appointments, phone calls and work all create a new kind of traffic and can steal the opportunity for looking up. Oh, it only takes a second - just  a glimpse is reassuring. Just a quick wide view calms and refreshes and renews.  Try it.

Luke 21:28 says to "Look up and raise your heads." We are asked to become new people at Advent. Look up when your gaze if fixed on earth. Look up when you are disappointed. Look up when your eyes are heavy with tears. Look up and be filled with the wonder and nearness of God.

God who remains constant with us through Advent - always looking down from sunrise to sunset and through the beauty of the starlit night - all we have to do is pause and look up and we are made new. Thank you for making it so simple.

Small Signs of God - Tiny Hands

This morning I set aside my morning Advent readings to help my young friend pack her car with suitcases and preschoolers for the long drive home to Texas. I took the two-year old to the piano  and we sat and played and sang songs together. At one point, the curly-headed toddler placed both of her tiny, pink hands on my hands and for a few moments, we were one - playing  music  together.

I looked down at those little hands resting on mine, felt the warmth of young tender flesh depending on me to play the notes, and I experienced Advent worship.

How can it be? She is speeding west in her car seat, but those baby hands still linger, resting on mine, comforting my soul this Christmas.  Like the baby's hands in the manger that rest on a world of  hurting experiences, that soft touch of God presents itself  through my tiny houseguest for my own personal Advent experience. And to think I could have missed that if I had remained upstairs in Advent worship.

Warren Wiersbe in his book Real Worship says:

"There is today such an emphasis on Bible knowledge that we are in danger of ignoring, or even opposing, personal spiritual experience. While we must not base our theology on experience, neither must we debase our theology by divorcing it from experience. If true worship is the response of the whole person to God, then we dare not neglect the emotions."

Today, I challenge you to allow yourself a personal touch from God. Might they be the tender hands of a baby? Might they be the aging hands of a homeless person? Might they be the hands of a friend, or a teenager, or a sales clerk?  

Who will depend on you to play the music for Christmas?

"The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14

Small Signs of God - Alertness

If Advent is a time of waiting, then shouldn't we always be alert to that for which we wait? The silly song we hear on the radio reminds me that I, too, need to focus on the one right thing. Alvin, the chipmunk, has the same trouble that so many of us have each Advent. The director is preparing his group to sing their Christmas song. Simon is ready. Theodore is ready. But then we hear, "Alvin....Alvin.....ALVIN!"  Alvin is looking off, busy with other things, maybe good things, maybe not. Time is spent getting him back on track to sing his Christmas song. (The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) 1958)

How much time do you spend getting yourself "back on track" to sing your own Christmas song?

Today I read:

"Be Alert, be alert, so that you will be able to recognize your Lord in your husband, your wife, your parents, your children , your friends, your teachers, but also in all that you read in the daily papers. The Lord is coming, always coming. Be alert to his coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent: life is recognizing the coming of the Lord."(Henri J.M. Nouwen, Gracias! A Latin American Journal)

But you say, "But I don't see the Lord in that person and I look and look, but can never find the Lord in the news."  We keep looking for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And guess what, we find the Lord either in rejoicing because of the presence of those things or the lamenting the great need of them. We rejoice with finding the Lord or we search and wait for Him to be found. Either way, we recognize him and our great need for him.

Even the Chipmunks in Christmas Don't Be Late recognize their need for Christmas when they sing:

"We've been good, but we can't last.

Hurry Christmas, hurry fast!"

Try as we might, we just can't be good in our own might. We can't last. We need the coming of Christmas to bring us the perfect Christmas gift - grace, wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Pay attention! We have a song to sing!

"Keep awake - for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else me may find you asleep when he comes suddenly."(Mark 13:35-36)

Baby of Grace who comes to us,

 give me ears to hear and eyes to see without distraction.

 I want to recognize you every moment.

Two Voices

Millions of people celebrate the Holiday season, but not all of them are Christians. They shop and decorate. They attend the politically correct "Holiday" Party and participate in the music of the season. Some will say they are Christian, but just have trouble with a virgin birth and a resurrection - the two, really big mysteries. They say they believe in God and sometimes they go to church. They think there might be something after death - possibly a Heaven, but surely not a place called Hell. How could a loving God send someone to Hell? That's not very Christmas-y.

And then Advent comes and asks us to look again at the message proclaimed. The time is here when prophets warn, stars move in the sky  and angels proclaim and those who are unsure in their faith find themselves in another Christmas quandary. They find themselves on the bridge between the sacred and the secular and the choice becomes one of confusion and distraction. Back and forth they go - we go. The immediate often reigns over the important. Sometimes it is the good over the best.

I heard a speaker who made a strong point about this division. She said there are two voices inside of us. Deep inside each of us there is God's Spirit calling. Outside, there is the world calling - usually in the opposite direction. Somehow those voices vie for our attention during the time of Advent. The world pulls us to material pleasures and God's Spirit pulls to one, holy silent night. It becomes a battle and Advent can leave us feeling sad and depressed.

The conversation between Charlie and Lucy in the movie A Charlie Brown Christmas explains our frustrations:

Charlie Brown: I just don't understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating threes and all that , but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed."

Lucy: "Charlie Brown, you're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem."

Christmas is not the problem. Christmas is the solution. Christmas is the voice that calls to us throughout the year. Maybe it's because during this beautiful season for celebrating, we find ourselves still on that bridge of indecisiveness, still wondering, still watching for some small sign of God.

God whose infant cries 

          calls me to your holy night,

             Guide my steps to your sacred manger,

                   For You are the solution.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16