From The Sheep Pen

I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:11

What’s on your Instagram ? Nothing, to answer my own question!  I don’t have any social media accounts, except for an ancient, now out of date  Facebook   page when I was director of the local food bank.  In fact, I am pretty  ignorant  of  the concepts governing the  cyber universe  to which the popular culture is tethered.  “Social media  speak” is a foreign language to me and one I’m not sure I want to be bothered to learn. But the Lord  instructs us  to be wise as serpents  and to discern the times.  Language is the outermost exposed  layer of a culture’s inner moral and spiritual health.   In the Bible James says that  the tongue (and by extension language) has the power to speak life or death. So too do written words – and more subtly,  cyber  jargon which speaks to millions of people.    

I’ve recently come across the word “influencer”  which  describes individuals who rise to importance on social media through sheer numbers of their followers.  According to the Oxford Dictionary, to influence is “to  have effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something.” Therefore, an influencer is a person who has considerable  power over those who  logically can be influenced. They typically show up in social  media platforms, like Twitter, Instagram,, Tik Tok and You Tube. The target audience are the young and the impressionable.  Influencers operate by getting people to follow their accounts and by pushing products, ideas, personalities  or trends. The more followers they  generate,  the greater is their “influence” on others.  Influencers  receive payments from businesses  based on their followers.  Some of the biggest influencers are sports, actors, and media personalities. The Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Renaldo, has over five hundreds  million  followers.   That’s two and a half times the population of Chicago! His influence is huge. Dwayne Mulvaney, the transgender influencer, has almost two million devotees (almost the size of Chicago.)  His influence is also huge.  Well, except for Bud Light.

What should disturb all who pay  attention is  that influencers “effect the character, behavior, and development of others.”   If the influencer is after money and notoriety, what  effect does that motive  have on others?  What restraints does he put on himself to do no harm? If the influencer is an agenda driven  activist  like Mulvaney (among many others)  he becomes the sales rep for a lot more than  beer or  cosmetics. He’s shaping the behavior and character of impressionable people  especially  adolescents  already foundering in confusion and lies.  The influencers don’t care about the physical,  moral, emotional  and social well being of their followers.  They’re invested in self gain and self promotion. “Just click on the button (or whatever )  and become one of my mega  million followers.” 

If you’re a follower, you’ve chosen to walk behind someone.   Basically, you become  sheep in someone’s flock.  Or is it cult?   I’m convinced Influencers are  a type  of shepherd who will shape your  character, behavior and development. They will herd you into their  fallow fields, separating you from  more nourishing pastures and  clean waters.   They are the hireling shepherds Jesus warned about. They  will never call you by name, protect you or go after you when you’re lost.  How can  they? You’re just a virtual number, not a human person made in God’s image for His purposes.  

The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own. When he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf pounces on them and scatters the flock. John 10:12

 It’s a very old story. Satan can’t come up with anything new so he mimics God’s Word with deception. His hoof prints  are all over this influencer craze, even  to appropriating Jesus’ words,  “Come follow Me.”  Jesus, our Good Shepherd  will make His followers disciples.  Something is required of us. Influencers make followers  more and more sheep like!  The Internet is vast and if I listen with my heart, I can hear the sad bleating of  millions of sheep  being led by pied pipers   dangerously into the thorns and thickets.  Who will  go after them if not us.?

Choose wisely whom you follow.  Choose who is your influencer. The time for the arrogant Influencer/Deceiver of the Age and Air is coming to its end. Jesus our Good Shepherd guards His flock of sheep and will never abandon us to wolves or  hirelings. He will return to claim His followers for Himself. To Him be the glory!

            Sometimes you run right into God!

            As I sat  at the traffic light, I saw the old man getting out of his car in the parking lot of Walgreen’s.  He could scarcely walk, inching one foot in front of the other and was obviously in a lot of pain. I looked at the 25  feet stretching from him to the front door as he balanced precariously,  fearing he’d fall down any minute.  How in the world would he make that short distance? Why didn’t he have a cane or walker with him?  I  made a decision.

            The light changed green  and I turned into the lot, but as I did so, a young woman approached the man and gave him a  shopping cart for his balance. The man smiled at her and tottered into the store.  I was ready to move on but then felt a familiar tug. “Go talk to that woman.” I pulled up next to her and rolled down the window. “That was a very nice thing you did for that man, “ I said, “I was afraid he’d fall down. Great idea with the shopping cart.”

            She smiled and then her eyes filled up with tears.  The first words out of her mouth were “the Lord.” “ The Lord told me to help someone today. I can at least still walk.”  And then she handed me a small card imprinted with a heart and the word “Isaiah”  and a website. She said her seven year  old son was born with a congenital  heart defect and was going for his open heart surgery in Salt Lake City. She was very worried because there were complications and the boy was frightened this time.

            I invited her into the car to talk some more.  She unburdened her heart about her little boy and her family who were Christians. Her husband had been a youth pastor in California and they now attended a large church in Boise.  She said that  the Lord also told her to keep a journal for Isaiah as he’s been under medical care because it would some day be his testimony for God’s love.  I was taken by her faith and her willingness to share her burdens with me, a total stranger. 

I listened to her as  she talked and didn’t say much  – unusual for me to say the least. Then I prayed for Isaiah, for her and the rest of her lovely family. I believe God has a special place in his heart where He embraces them and protects them. I believe Isaiah will  be healed and that he will have a miraculous testimony in the future. We met as strangers because of the elderly man struggling  to get to the pharmacy, but we left as friends and sisters.  She gave me permission to share her story and to ask for prayers  so I pass her request on to you. We  have the privilege to also become part of Isaiah’s ongoing testimony. 

www.caringbridge.org/visit/babywesson           

Reflecting on this encounter I’m amazed how God brought three ordinary people together in the parking lot to bless one another. His orchestration of time, place and  individuals   for  “the good of those who are called by His name” has stirred my own faith again to trust Him no matter the storms. He always places Himself exactly where we’ll run into Him!

I also wonder what would happen if the first words out of my mouth  in every joy and sorrow were  always like Isaiah’s mother: “The Lord…!”

            It’s the Monday after Easter and today promises to be a beautiful,  warmer day with temperatures  temporarily in the 60’s. After the  long, snowy winter and months of cloudy skies, I am welcoming a belated spring and overjoyed to see daffodil bulbs emerging alongside the garage wall.  

            It’s Monday morning as  I reluctantly put away the basket of  fragile, painted Easter eggs  some of which date back to the children. My hands were more steady then and I decorated blown out eggs for them. Over time  I’ve collected  and been gifted others, especially  intricate Ukrainian pysanki  eggs. I wonder which of our children will keep up the tradition one day. But now it’s time to put them away for another year.

            Since it’s Monday morning, most of the world will go back to …well, Monday morning and the same old, same old routines. For the   worldly culture Easter  (if  it hasn’t been cancelled yet by the woke Pharisees)   means nothing other than   filling baskets with fake grass and  year old chocolate rabbits.  This Monday is merely  a day on the calendar to mark off and trudge on to the next thing to capture their attention. Been there; done that; move on.

            However, the Monday after Easter is still Easter for Christians! The Resurrection of Christ celebrated for  2,000 years is not a one day extravaganza but an ongoing journey of our faith because Jesus, the living Son of God,  is not in the tomb. His bones are not interred in the earth. His  transformed  body lives on eternally. We may not be able to feel  His heart beating, but surely His love touches us  in very tangible ways.  I can’t audibly hear His blessed voice, but  I surely know when He speaks to me. As He lives, so can we through faith.  He is who He said He was.

            As I reflect today,  on the Fourth Day of Easter, it is not just another Monday because  the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus are imprinted in time over thousands of years. The somber events of Good Friday and the  deathly silence of Saturday leading  to the empty tomb and Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead are the anchor of our Christian faith. As has been  pointed about by C.S. Lewis and others,  if the tomb were  not empty, our faith would be deceptive and evil. If Jesus had not risen from the dead,  His life and death would  reveal  Him to be either insane or a liar.  But Jesus did rise from the dead. The prophecies  about Him as Messiah were fulfilled and it’s important to understand  that Jesus fulfilled His own Word.   On Sunday morning, the angel told the women, “He is risen just as He said.” The Son of God lives.

            It’s the Monday after unending Easters because instead of  death, the rotten fruit of the tomb,  we have  the hope of eternal life suffusing the empty tomb. Jesus gave  us back to the Father through His incomparable, selfless sacrifice on the cross.  How could that cosmic earth shaking sacrifice possibly stop on a Monday morning? Whether it be Monday or Tuesday or any other day yet to come,  Jesus’ Resurrection continues on in us for as it is written,

And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you. Romans 8:11

Happy Monday in our Resurrected Lord Jesus!

So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do you want me to do?”Acts 9:6

This week our church life group is studying the conversion of the apostle Paul.  I am sure that the discussion will be very spirited and more than likely, it will wander  off  on  rabbit trails – inspired of course by the Holy Spirit’s promptings. Since Lent begins this week, the subject of Paul’s conversion from persecutor to apostle is appropriate.

The story is written in Acts 9 and following. Paul’s dramatic, life changing,  divine  encounter with Jesus is told in  only six verses. How surprising that such a momentous event in Christian history is told  in six paragraphs.!  But such is the Word of God: direct, fearsome and needing no embellishments.  Saul the intelligent, fanatical, persecuting and brutal Jewish Pharisee has received permission to go to Damascus to apprehend  followers of the Way  and return them to Jerusalem for  punishment.  A sudden light surrounds him;  he falls to the ground blinded.  He hears Jesus identifying Himself as “the one whom you are persecuting.” Unable to see Saul is led by the hand to Damascus and into his new life as Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles.

I see Saul thundering towards Damascus seated  like a military general upon a  powerful stallion, both fierce for the blood of Christians. I see the blinding flash of light and then … Paul’s knocked  to  the ground.  Felled by God he staggers, blind, trembling and astonished.  The horse bolts away in terror.  Saul is literally  knocked “off his high horse.”

  Did the expression “high horse” originate in this Biblical encounter? Perhaps. Nevertheless throughout history men have gone to battle mounted on grand war horses  to symbolize their power and to intimidate their enemies. Our modern version might be the power brokers who sit behind massive desks while lesser men are humbled on smaller  chairs.  The expression refers to an arrogant person who claims moral superiority over another.  Saul certainly fits that description before  God  messed up his life and knocked him to the ground.

A modern  example of “high horse” is  a woke person  virtue signaling his “wokeness.”  Two years ago during the Covid craziness, I received a Christmas letter from once close Christian friends.  Included in the photos of family vacations and celebration were pictures of everyone with sleeves rolled up, being vaccinated.  It was a very sad and telling Christmas message devoid of Jesus. They couldn’t have shouted their moral  positioning  any louder.  I’ve not heard from them since.

As I return to the story of Paul, I wonder what “high horse”  shouts  my self righteous superiority?   Pride? Ambition? Education?  Justice without mercy? Love which tolerates sin?    I recall very clearly one time when the Spirit of God  revealed the high saddle I  sat upon.  I was driving home from a weekend retreat at the monastery in Cottonwood and came through Riggins. I was in a hurry to get home to my husband, wanting to share all that I’d learned. As I came through town a woman hobbled across the road, balancing on an old grocery cart. She was disheveled, old and walked at a snail’s pace. Mentally I hurried her along and chastised her for being herself.  The Lord spoke to my spirit. “That old woman has every right to live on this planet just as you do.”  I’ve never forgotten the woman or the admonition. We each have the right to live among one another because life is a gift from God and we are equally loved  by Him. I have no moral superiority over anyone else. Sometimes you need to get knocked off that high horse to see the gospel truth.

What  blinding encounter do we  need to humble ourselves before God? How deep will we wallow in he darkness before allowing Jesus to apprehend us as fully as Paul of Tarsus did? Without Jesus morality is a sham. . Without Jesus all  righteous  preening is …

…like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.  Isaiah 64:6

In contrast to the story of Paul riding a “high horse” to persecute the fledgling church, there is Jesus fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy.

Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zechariah 9:9

The One whose power blinded Saul was Paul’s Messiah riding  into Jerusalem toward crucifixion. He  was seated not on a war horse, but on a lowly donkey’s colt.  His head was not raised high above the crowd. He never looked down at anyone, even his enemies.  Jesus was always on eye level with  those he’d come to save. As Jesus’ disciples, we are not called to personal greatness but to the humility of our Master,

            Ah, there it was! The book I was hoping to find was tucked  away on the closet shelf where I kept some of the old children’s books:  “The Little Engine That Could” written by Wally Piper.  How often I’d read it to the children. I still recall  the sing song lines: “Chug, chug, chug.” “I think I can. I think I can.” “I knew I could; I knew I could!”

            This was a different version from the original Little Golden books I remembered. It was larger  and exquisitely illustrated on every page. My husband remarked on some of the illustrations being very dated which admittedly they are, but  I thought they were charming.   I was happy to find the  book for a  resident at the care center. She is pretty new, hasn’t been there very long, and I don’t know much about her circumstances. But we connected and in conversation she told me she wished she could  have the story of the Little Engine. Obviously it means something important  to her.

            She was waiting in the activity room for Bible Study  and smiled when I came in.  “Close your eyes,” I said, “and don’t peek.” I placed the book next to her Bible. When she opened her eyes and saw the book, she couldn’t talk and kept looking at me and then at the book. Her eyes filled with tears;  I was pretty choked up myself. For the next half hour she pored over every page, admiring the pictures, reading the story and commenting. It’s been a while since I saw someone that happy over something so small. When she finished, I suggested she put her name in it. “But it’s yours,”  she questioned me.  No, Jenny, it’s yours and I inscribed it for her on the frontispiece.

            We went ahead with studying the next chapter of Luke which had to do with loving your enemy and forgiveness. I know the Lord was speaking deeply into her heart; He was certainly doing a work in mine. Later I wondered. Which was the better Bible Study,  Luke 5 or the lesson of a lost book found at the right time for the right person. Which words  illustrated  the love of Jesus more  vividly? Which was the greater gift?

             I think of Jesus’ three years of ministry. He performed miracles of healing, deliverance and restoration to publicly glorify His Father. He preached and taught and fulfilled every Messianic prophecy even to the cross and resurrection. He is God and these are the giant  miracles in the Gospels.  But I wonder. Jesus  was also a man. He walked and talked and touched and laughed and probably cried with real people in real time every single day?  How many rejects heard His voice on the fringes of the crowd? How many lepers just caught a glimpse of his face or merely saw His feet in the dust? How many ordinary people in the multitudes felt Jesus’ presence near them and simply “knew”  Him?  How many lost sheep were found, empowered, loved, forgiven and healed  because Jesus passed by?  How many awoke from sleep and death into  Christ’s Light shining all around them. We do not know about all the unrecorded miracles  wrought by  the Lord but I suspect that on the other side of the veil, we’ll be flabbergasted at the number.

However, John gives an insight at the end of his Gospel like this:

            Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.John 21:25

            It is not  hard to touch broken  people in  kindness, especially, more importantly, in the little  every day opportunities that come our way. Miracles are waiting to happen.

Today many Christians around the world celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany which occurs  12 days after the Nativity and is the first major Christian feast day of the new year. It recalls the visit of the Magi  who were following a new star leading  to Jesus in Bethlehem.   It is called “The Epiphany” from the Greek word epiphaneia  or manifestation because  Jesus made His first divine manifestation to the Gentiles through the foreign Magi who were  seeking the new born king of the Jews. It’s accepted that the Magi were not  kings at all, but  astronomers or astrologers who studied the heavens but may also have been familiar with the ancient prophecies foretold by Daniel during  the Babylonian captivity and later by Micah.

The story of the Magi has been embellished with  much fancy, fable and fabrication so that the Biblical back story and truth have gotten buried in legends and tradition – about who the Magi were, where they originated and when they found Him.  One  critical fact which  Matthew included has not been distorted over time:  The Magi brought gifts and worshipped the child.

¹¹ They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Matthew 1:11

In  these two sentences as Jesus is manifested to the Magi,  Scripture reveals God’s  great plan.    Their   visit  was more than “Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar”  riding camels  to Bethlehem  where  Jesus lay  in the manger.  Much of the story of the Magi as we know it came centuries later, especially that there were three kings (named above in the sixth century by the Emperor Justinian and later still canonized as saints), that they found Jesus  nine months and 12 days into their travels, just shortly after His birth instead of two years later, obviously not in a manger. It is  questionable whether  each “king”  presented  a single gift for Jesus. What matters is the nature of the gifts. Gold, frankincense and myrrh would not have been given except to royalty. Their bowing down and worshipping the child Jesus indicate they recognized the divine king before them. It is a salvation moment,

Despite 12 years of parochial education (and countless hours in church)  I did not know  the Magi   were  essential to the Gospel of Salvation.   The inclusion of the Magi in Matthew’s narrative is like the opening   paragraphs  of a wonderful story which draws one  into the deeper, more complex events about to unfold. The story is about Jesus. It is always about Jesus, but the  Magi appear right at the beginning in all their wondrous array of riches. They’ve come from far away to worship Christ with gifts fit only for a true king: precious gold;  frankincense  which was even more valuable and used in temple worship; and myrrh, the spice for anointing a body.  The symbolism is deafening. Did the Wise Men   understand the import of their gifts? Could  they foresee the shadow of the cross falling on the Child Jesus?  One can only conjecture without creating yet another misleading legend. What is not conjecture is that God ‘s plan of reconciling mankind to Himself  had begun and is and will be until the time of Jesus’ return.

I think of how God used the Magi to introduce Jesus to the entire world and to us. How might He use us to bring Jesus  into a dying world?   What are the epiphany moments awaiting us in 2023?  I  don’t have  silver and gold, frankincense and myrrh, but I  can offer   hope in the power, authority and name of Jesus  to   sick and broken,  lost and desperate souls. Will it be like Peter responding to the crippled beggar near the temple”

But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”Acts 3:6

Or will the lesson of the Magi be tucked  away for another year like  Christmas ornaments?

The snowman stands in front of a neighbor’s house by the driveway,  tucked into a small grove of scraggly pines. He is a little lopsided in shape but perfectly attired with a long red scarf, a carrot nose and a cap tucked beneath a mound of fresh snow. Two twig arms jut out from his sides and while I couldn’t see any coals for eyes, I’m sure that the two carefully  chosen rocks  “see” just as well.  I noticed  him as I walked with my dog earlier on the  ice rutted road hidden beneath 4 inches of new snow. Walking was treacherous so when I met the snowplow coming towards us,  I waved at the driver and said a silent thank you.

The snowman was my second blessing of the morning and seeing him guarding the property made me happy. Usually the home sits empty because many of our “neighbors” don’t live here year round and I don’t know this family.  The driveway’s not marred by tire tracks and the little snowman’s cap is snow domed.  No one’s been at the house this week.  It is soundless on the road as I walk past.   In the winter quiet of my solitary walk alongside the dark trees, I think of   Robert Frost’s poem.  “Stopping  By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

The snowman  reminded me that children had been visiting,  perhaps last Christmas weekend and they’d  played in the snow.  Perhaps an “adult” kid instigated the adventure, had gotten them to turn off their devices and  pull their noses out of social platforms to  go outside and roll huge snowballs for the head and torso. I wonder who showed them that playing in the snow was actually fun. Exhilarating, exhausting, memorable fun! I wonder who donated the scarf and hat? I wonder who cut the small branches for arms? I wonder if they sang, “Frosty” as they  danced around him, maybe pitching secret snowballs at each other’s backs?  It made me happy to ponder the life affirming snowman built by children I don’t know. I praised God who just shows up.

The snowman reminds me that there is joy and hope everywhere, especially with children.   Cultural watch dog Scrooges want to take that away from us, to screw us down into misery and bitterness, to keep us inside away from God’s beautiful snowy creations and children locked into  virtual snow globes, in swirling snowstorms of confusion. I believe it is not beyond the reach of these  mean spirited “grumpaholics”  to cancel out  all things Frosty. A white Snowman? Not permitted unless  the non- binary snow thing’s body is made from soot encrusted snow, identifies as a sunflower, wears a drag wig and a rainbow colored scarf. Am I exaggerating or being ridiculous?  Hmmm. I sadly believe such a sculpture probably already stands in somebody’s front yard.  I’ve already heard the perennially malcontent grousing about “White Christmas”. It  offends someone, somewhere, somehow. What’s next?  Will the woke lexicographers go after Snow and Snow balls? The word Snow itself? Where does it end?

Am I apprehensive? Absolutely not.  The Word of God promises me every life giving gift   which the spirit of the age vehemently hates.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” Galations 5:16-26

Satan  replicates the good fruit of the Spirit with his poison: false peace, false love and especially a false “tolerant –of every sin, aberration and deception- Jesus.”  The enemy’s whispers in the dark have become public screeds against Christians, aimed especially at our hope and joy. Jesus warned us about the devil’s intentions and schemes; He gave us His Word instead:

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10

I’ll take the Lord at His word;  I’ll take His joy so freely given;  I’ll give thanks for this morning’s unexpected  blessing; and as I walk past my neighbor’s home on the snowy winter road, I’ll wave at the children’s snowman and hum along: “Frosty the Snowman…”

Christmas is only a few days away. The radio plays one of the old standards in the background.  I grew up singing along with voices which are etched in my memory. Their   renditions are as unique as fingerprints. Surely even this music saturated generation is  touched by those  songsters of old named Bing and Elvis and Burl whose voices fill the air at Christmas.

Since the season started even before Halloween, I’ve heard countless  variations  of Christmas music.  Some songs lift my spirit; others are downright awful (if I could ask for a poll of the most annoying songs , it would be a toss up!)  I like “ Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow”, but after hearing  it mind numbing times, I’m ready to take my snow shovel to it.

There is one carol  that’s  on a lot and has gotten my attention, “O Holy Night.” I know it well from childhood but it was never a  favorite and so I  paid scant  attention to the text.   It’s almost impossible to sing except for the likes of Celine and Mariah who can reach the rafter high notes. In church I usually give up the attempt for which those sitting around me are most grateful. The song was composed in the 1840’s  and is French in origin. An English version was  brought to America where it became popular with abolitionists because of the line, “The slave is like our brother.” The song  describes the night Jesus was born as told primarily in Luke’s  Nativity story. It is musical Scripture.

Jesus’ birth  was not on an ordinary night; it was not even “merely  extraordinary”. The night was unexpected, divine and holy. There has never been and never will be another like it. Stars and angels filled the sky in glory,  angelic voices resounded from the heavens, the prophetic message was given to humble  men tending sheep for God Incarnate  traversed  eternity to be born as a humble child. The events were incomprehensible, the atmosphere  was majestic  and the earth has been shaking ever since.   

In the hustle and bustle of Christmas preparations it’s easy to lose focus:  Christmas is about salvation. “O Holy Night “ is a salvation  song. The weary world  “long lay in sin and error pining” until Jesus appeared, and “the soul felt its worth”. Messiah had come.   As the Christmas skies displayed the glory of heaven around Him, the infant Jesus was bringing Light and Life to men. The angels declared  “a thrill” of joy, hope and peace.  After the night, “a new and glorious morning” would come.  Jesus the Dayspring is born.

Luke  was  a companion of Paul and the writer of Acts. He  was a Gentile, a physician, a man of science and presumably well educated  and yet it is his Gospel which details the strange wonders surrounding Jesus’ birth. I would  have expected  such details  more from mystical John, the writer of Revelation. Instead , Holy Spirit chose Luke to record what he had learned from those who were witnesses. Perhaps he had encountered  a shepherd or Bethlehemite. Perhaps Mary  had told one of the disciples about that holy night so  the story was passed on to Luke.  That it was  Luke’s narrative  gives the events greater credence to skeptics and pagans who otherwise believe the most far fetched fables. The  night was holy, divine,  a night of wonder and glory as only God could ordain it. It  happened exactly as Luke described.

Today Christmas is marketed as a  soulless, generic winter holiday  and is embraced as  the so called “spirit of Christmas.” (which is  the spirit of the Age. )  Watch more than one episode of Hallmark Christmas movies and the film makers’ intentions become obvious:  to  erase Jesus Christ from his own birthday.  It’s cheap tinsel and  as substantial as melting snowflakes. Therefore, we  the church ought to give Jesus, Our Emmanuel,  greater  honor, praise and recognition.  There is no other reason for the season.  There is only one  true Spirit of Christmas -Christ’s,  who was born  on a  night unlike any other.

Fall on your knees in fearful wonder as the shepherds did.  Jesus ‘ Incarnation was and is our  hope  every single starless night and  cloudy  day. Jesus Christ  abides with us 2000 years later by the Holy Spirit and He is preparing  to come again in incomparable, unrivaled   majesty.  Hear the angels proclaiming the good news to men and then go and do likewise.

And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Mathew 1:21

It is the second week of Advent. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for this time of the year when  we Christians  await the   birth of Jesus at Christmas. I have childhood memories of my mother lighting our advent wreath  candles at home  the four Sundays before Christmas. Church was lavishly decorated with  greenery, red ribbons and of course candles as tall as me! I couldn’t breathe for the beauty of it all. My father’s wooden manger held the Nativity figures. I could recite  the story by heart in both German and English. Since my family didn’t celebrate Santa Claus, I always  knew Christmas was about Jesus.

It snowed a lot last week (and more snow is forecast). The white snow on dark trees is lovely in its simplicity and calls for solitude and reflection. It’s a good day to pause, be still and know God is nigh. I think of Jesus in Jesus’ time.

His was a common Hebrew name for males, like  our “Joe” or “Tom.” Since boys traditionally took on the name of the father or a relative,  there must have been countless Yeshuas in Israel during the first century. Thus, the Pharisees and Romans had trouble finding and identifying  the Jesus who was disrupting their world view. They  knew about Jesus of Nazareth from the reports of miracles and healings, from the unrest and crowds, but  he seemed to slip through their fingers  at will.  To get rid of this Yeshua  the Romans and Pharisees had to make sure He was the right person. Thus, at the end in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was identified by Judas’ kiss. 

Today there are also many Jesus’ in the world. There is the tolerant, inclusive Jesus who is all about love, who accepts everyone in their sins and demands no repentance. There is Jesus, a  prophet no  different from Buddha or Mohammmed.  There is Jesus who was a very  good man a long time ago but who is so irrelevant that no one  takes him seriously.  There is the New Age Smorgasboard Jesus, cobbled together from  every  faith, religion and cult. Most popular today is My  Designer Jesus, the one I get to fashion out of my  self centeredness. My wants. My  desires. My truth. The one I can change tomorrow because  Jesus isn’t absolute.   There’s the social justice Jesus and the climate change Jesus and the correct political party Jesus.  In fact every divergent and contrary aspect of the culture claims Jesus for  itself. At least the Romans and Pharisees understood how  dangerous Jesus of Nazareth was: to the Pharisees He claimed Messiah; to the Roman empire  He was a threat. Twenty one centuries later, the false Jesus’ are “smoke and mirrors” caricatures. In them, there is no  Savior Jesus;  there is no  cross; there is no hope.

History holds but one  Jesus, He who calls for repentance and fealty to Himself.  There is only one Jesus who was  named Yeshua by the angel Gabriel and given  the Father’s  human name for  the divine Son. There is no other Jesus  conceived by Holy Spirit in a virgin. This Jesus  was born in Bethlehem,  grew up in Nazareth and was baptized at the Jordan. It is the Jesus who was tempted by Satan in the Judean desert, who preached  the good news of God’s kingdom,  healed the sick  throughout  Galilee and  wrought miracles. It is the Jesus who was tried, convicted and crucified in Jerusalem, who  arose again in that city and ascended into the heavens on a hill top.   This Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Way to the Father, the Prince of Peace and the fulfillment of all the Scriptures.

It is He who will return to earth in the appointed time to judge the living and the dead – and every imposter claiming His Name will fall down before Him while the darkness trembles at His Words:  “Depart from Me. I never knew you.” The warning is clear. Beware of  those who preach  anything other than 2. Corinthians 2:2.

            For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

            This Advent as we  celebrate the one and true birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, let’s  also  joyfully remember  His Second Coming when  God will set all things right again. May our prayer, “Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus” be heard.   

Open wide your mouth, and I will fill  it. Psalm  81:10

Ah, morning coffee! 

For several months  I  cut  out  coffee because of  sleep problems at night and substituted hot tea instead. However with all deference to the Brits, etc., I just am not a tea drinker. In my German family the morning brew was instant decaffeinated Sanka coffee liberally laced with sugar and milk.  I only had tea when I was  sick – and bland  chamomile tea at that.  Whenever company came, we had Bohnenkafee, “real” coffee  percolated, boiled  and brewed by my mother to the  texture of molasses along with a slice of cake. I don’t remember anyone complaining of  insomnia from too much caffeine.  And so slowly but surely I’ve  put aside my morning  English Breakfast and  grab a fully loaded French roast K cup instead. The hot, bittersweet, dark taste of coffee in my favorite mug – no teensy porcelain tea cup here – is the dawn elixer which gets me going.  

Coffee is the very first thing I taste in the morning  long before  a slice of toast with jam or cereal or the occasional bacon  and eggs.  That got me to thinking about our senses of taste: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and  a fifth , savory. What incredible complexity those five senses create in our mouths when we eat or drink. How boring  life would be if we had  only one sense of taste (say sour?). Or none at all?  Chefs understand the subtleties of the tongue when they plan a gourmet meal;  Madison Avenue manipulates our cravings with  countless taste variations  packaged in  snack and beverage aisles.

Taste is  wired into humans within  the womb  until the last breath. The tongue has specific taste sensors  strategically placed  around it so we can taste things which are different, which appeal or repel or which can warn of danger, like gall  …or hemlock. Taste is another component of God’s perfectly designed human body. It’s a daily miracle which we mostly take for granted. Whenever  I visit residents at the care center, many can’t walk or communicate  but they love their  daily ice cream.  Their eyes, ears and limbs may fail but  their taste, especially for sweets  is not diminished. 

Words associated with taste often describe emotions and attitudes. We recall a memory that is bittersweet, a relationship that soured,  savoring a a happy  experience, becoming  embittered  or the sting of salt in a wound.  God’s Word is filled with “tasting” our relationship with Him  as if to test His character.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. Psalm 34:8

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!  Psalm 119:103

The invitation is to try God out, to take a little sip and discover His honeyed goodness and fullness.  Along with our human tastes, God has put within us the craving for Himself alone. He alone can satisfy us as He’s always done. Psalm 81 reminded the Israelites that …

I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt

…and that He would continue to fill their mouths. He will not do so unless we open our mouths, our hearts  to Him first, to acknowledge Him as Lord, Provider and Holy Satisfaction.

Genesis 1:29 speaks of all the good things God  intended for Adam and Eve in the  Garden:

And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.

But our first parents were not satisfied with God, with all that  God offered  to them. Genesis 3 tells  the familiar story of  Satan’s deception and  human rebellion.

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.

The forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge is Eve’s first recorded  taste apart from God in the Bible.  Ever since the poison of pride continues to separate us from our God in countless deceptions, seeking and tasting  other gods. It is only by faith  in Jesus that the honey  of God’s  goodness is restored to us.

Which leaves me to ask.  What shall our first taste every morning be? What is in our early morning  coffee cup?