Day 12 A Promise Made

Day 12 A Promise Made

4 I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” Genesis 26: 4-5

Much of the arc of the Christmas story, the salvation story, is made up of promises. God spoke to a wandering Aramean, promising Him a multitude of descendants, a homeland, and an astounding future that would bless all the nations of the earth. He believed, obeyed, and followed. Because of his actions God folded Isaac into the story, along with the multitude that sprang from the promise. Years later, a young teenaged descendent believed and God became flesh.

Each Christmas we celebrate a God who keeps His promises. We celebrate a God who is trustworthy. We celebrate a God who made the incredible journey. In a world weighed down with broken promises, failed words, few things are trustworthy. Every day many fail to keep their spoken word. When I was in recruiting, we struggled with many young people who promised to join the Army, taking the oath, and yet failing to ship out to basic training. Rare indeed was the parent that expected their children to live up to their promise. We all know men and women that shipwreck their marriages, ruining their families by failing to keep their promise. But God, who is not slow keeping His word, diligently and faithfully worked all things together in order to save His creation. His promise to Abraham passed on to Isaac and others. It also passes on to you and to me. At this festive time of year, we celebrate a God whose word is His bond. What he says He will do, He does…like no other. 

Day 11 Not This One

Day 11 Not This One

12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Genesis 22:12 English Standard Version

In a story full of strange stories, Abraham offering Isaac stands as one of the strangest. God speaks to Abraham, directing him to travel to a mountain where he must offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering. And Abraham obeys. It is only as he stands with knife upraised ready to plunge it into his son’s chest that God steps in, halting the action. He provides a ram as a replacement for Isaac. We recognize the allegorical nature of the story, the ram representing Jesus. But we often miss another lesson.

Isaac could not serve as a sacrifice for anyone. As a sinful human, he deserved death. How death occurs is immaterial, his sins separated him from God…as do ours. God makes a strong statement through this story. A sinful human cannot serve as a sacrifice. Only a perfect human could serve as a replacement for the sinful. Yes, this event sealed Abraham’s reputation as a man of faith. It also reminds us that our own sinful nature required a perfect sacrifice. Christmas is the perfect time to ruminate on our own desperate need and God’s own lavish love that would make such a journey. 

Day 10 We Required This

Day 10 We Required This

32 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” Genesis 18:32

Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities found in the ancient world. Abraham’s nephew Lot chose to live there, the land being well-watered and lush. Two cities that somehow went astray in a particularly abhorrent fashion. Two cities that God blotted out. In one of the more famous incidents from his life, Abraham intercedes for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Interestingly at the beginning of this episode, God muses whether to tell Abraham or not, deciding to tell him, “…18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” Genesis 18:18-19 God expects Abraham to share the lesson he’s about to learn.

We focus on the salacious sexual sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. But the prophet Ezekiel clarifies things for us. 49 This was the sin of your warped sister, Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, gluttonous, and lazy. She never gave help to the poor and needy. 50 They were prideful, and they did abhorrent things right in front of Me, shamelessly and without remorse! As you already know, I put an end to Sodom and her daughters when I saw their behavior. Ezekiel 16:49-50 The Voice. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were prideful and arrogant. In their pride, they forgot to help the poor and needy…among other things. They set their own standard.

Recently in one of my classes, a student remarked, “We set our own morality.” Most of their classmates agreed. They were not espousing some new and unforeseen theological failure. They merely reflect the culture in which they live. In our own pride, we turn away from God and develop our own morality, and this hubris necessitates Christmas. Back beyond all the tinsel, trees, lights, presents, and good food lies our own prideful nature and God’s constant work to let mercy triumph over judgment. We devalue holiness, forgetting that our own darkness separates us from the light. God carefully orchestrated the unfolding of history, leading up to Bethlehem…and the cross. Sadly, Sodom and Gomorrah are part of the Christmas story. They remind us of our own desperate need and His undying love. Love that makes the journey to the cradle. 

Day 9 About this Time, Next Year

Day 9 About this Time, Next Year

10 The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” Genesis 18:10

I do not enjoy looking in the mirror. Someone stole my reflection and replaced it with a balding, slightly overweight middle-aged man. I’m not certain when it happened, but it did. Now, instead of youthful vigorous eyes, the strange visage gazes back through bifocals, framed by bushy eyebrows, crow’s feet, and laugh-lines. Now the Social-Security-Administration sends me junk-mail that I actually read, as that date is just around the corner. My favorite kind of evening ends with soft jazz, a good book, and my feet up. I can honestly say that I like slow walks around the lake watching the sunrise gild the clouds. I enjoy being the “old-man” of the school. The kids have moved out and I buy comfortable clothes. The pace of my life slows, and I do not mind.

Every December, I think of Abraham and wonder. How would I handle an infant at the age of ninety-one, some thirty years in the future? God often calls us out of our comfort zone in order to fold us into His plan. The drama of Christmas, unfolding over millennia, reminds me that God employs unlikely players in His work. An elderly, childless, couple served as the progenitors of the nation through which He would restore relationship with His creatures. Christmas announces God’s intent to engage with us, and that engagement challenges us with something new, wonderful, and just perhaps, uncomfortable. 

Day 8 Go

Day 8 Go

12 1Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God does odd things, things which defy easy explanation. After God’s great burst of creativity, ending with His masterpiece, mankind, He lavishes His love on us, placing us inside a garden designed for thriving. Then in a fit of prideful rebellion, we turn our back on Him and all He offered, including the intimacy of evening walks. But He was not through with us. Not only did He plan on redeeming, restoring, and reclaiming us, He also planned on involving us in the process. 

Years later He reaches out to an old childless man, asking him to uproot and move across the ancient world to a land he’d never seen. Leaving behind all that he’d known, Abram sets out on this strange journey. His trust and faith in God brings him into the grand narrative of salvation. He joins God on this marvelous journey from darkness into light, from desperation to security, from broken relationship to safe intimacy. Through Jesus and the incarnation, God extends the same offer to us today. Christmas reminds us of God’s continuing creative work of redemption, restoration, and reclamation, bringing His lost sheep back into the fold. 

Day 7, The Coming Solution

Day 7 The Coming Solution

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

    and you shall bruise his heel.”

Hip-Pocket-Training. As a junior officer in the Army, I never failed to go out without some sort of plan for unscheduled training opportunities. Long ago, the Army learned that idle soldiers find something to do, and it is not usually a good thing. Leaders should always have something productive in mind for soldiers to do if an unexpected pause in the day came up. The wrath of superior officers was sure to descend upon any Lieutenant found with a platoon loitering about with nothing to do while waiting for transportation. More than one officer found their planned careers curtailed because of shenanigans generated by idle troops.  Similarly, Adam and Eve did not surprise God with their prideful actions.

God always planned on the incarnation.  He planned to dispatch His son on this critical mission to redeem, restore, and renovate. He had Christmas in mind when He said, “Let there be light.” Christmas is not a plan B, not hip-pocket. He always intended to put on flesh and walk among His creatures, reclaiming the intimacy lost so long ago. Christmas reminds us of God’s longing for a close, familiar relationship with His children. Each Christmas, as we celebrate the incarnation, we also celebrate His desire for connection and His willingness to undergo a radical alteration to make the journey.

Day 6 The Core of the Problem

Day 6 The Core of the Problem

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Genesis 3:7

Any discussion of the Nativity, Christmas, must include our own intransigent attitudes toward sin. We carefully feed our pride, stoking the fires of self-will to justify rejecting authority. Recently in my classroom when the conversation turned to driving responsibly, one of my students said, in all seriousness, “If no one sees it, it’s not wrong.” This statement elicited general agreement from many in my classroom. This should not surprise us. We all think highly of ourselves and regularly engage in a variety of mental gyrations to justify our questionable decision-making. We make decisions based on our wants, not God’s revealed will. We pridefully assert our independence. Each of us takes a bite out of the proverbial apple.

At its core, Christmas is not about tinsel, trees, lights, carols, and carols. Christmas is about God’s choosing, long ago before the clock was up and running. God chose to walk the path from Eden to Bethlehem for me, to set right those prideful acts that flowed from my mind and hands. When I sit alone in the evening, contemplating Christmas, the Nativity, the Incarnation, I must start with my own culpability, since it was my culpability that set in motion the events we celebrate at Christmas time.