christmas 2011

Christmas is the greatest story ever told.

Well... at least, it is the middle of the greatest story ever told.

I mean, it certainly is not the beginning of the story. Christmas is the climax that grows from thousands of years of waiting and expectation. If you listen to the narrative of Scripture, God seeks communion from the very beginning. He walks with his people in the garden, makes covenant with them in spite of their failure, frees them from slavery, walks them through the desert, gives them a home, visits them when they won't call him, and calls them through his prophets to give their hearts back to him so that he can be their God and they can be his people. And then... Christmas happens.

And it certainly is not the end of the story. It's more like the beginning of the end of the story. The story ends in the wonderful glorious day when all of reality is consumed by the more real reality of the kingdom of God. Heaven. This is the final victory of life--no more tears, no more death, no more mourning. In place of death is life and light. And God is with his people and they are with him, and he is their God.  Communion.

But the middle--that is the Christmas story. The story of encounter. God with us--Communion. One of the things I love most about the Christmas story is that it is the end of the story folded over into the middle. Jesus who is eternal communion with the Father and Spirit is given to us as a baby so that we can be given back to the God in the end.

The beginning is communion. The end is communion. The middle is communion.

And what story do I tell? Uh-oh. My story seems more about personal gain, personal space, personal comfort, and personal advancement to be a story of communion. My story is a story of selfishness. I have lost the plot. I have a suspicion that I am not alone...

May God give us eyes to see the beautiful story he is telling, hearts to cherish others as Christ himself, and miracle of grace to tell this story with him. Communion.

a note to myself

Dear Adam,

You know that sometimes we pastors have no right to complain. We have a great job that we certainly do not deserve serving a great God whose love and character and goodness cannot be exaggerated. We get a front row seat to watching God work miracles and reshape people's broken lives into vessels carrying his life, love, and gospel to places that have been completely renewed by its presence.

But you also know that sometimes being a pastor is hard. We often work amidst the darkest of human circumstances dealing with the parts of people's lives that are drowned in secret sin and hurt that has been devastating them. And we get a front row seat to hurts and pains like divorces, death, and sin that has crippled lives and given death dominance.

But regardless of circumstances, you must remember that your calling has not changed. Somehow, God has chosen you to proclaim the reality of his kingdom. So believe this--especially in the hard weeks like this one:

As a pastor, I must remind myself at all times that my goal is to challenge myself and those with whom I walk that:

the gospel is bigger than what I am struggling with most, 

God loves us more than we can hate ourselves or him, 

Life conquers death always.

 In Christ,

Adam