What have we learned this Year? Merry Christmas

We are now coming to the end of the year and are preparing for the coming of Emmanuel, God with us. With all the singing and wonderful pageants, the cooking and presents, the parties and festivities, we come to the manger and there behold the Christ Child. Why? Well the attraction of course is not so much the child in the manger but the empty tomb. We celebrate Christmas because of Easter. So now that we come to the end of the calendar year and the beginning of the church year I felt it would be good to recap a bit about what this Jesus was all about.

Jesus taught us about rules. Another name for rules is laws. For Jesus they are secondary attempts to control society and how we as people interact. For Jesus the real ruler was the heart not the law. “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”. The rules were not bad, they were good. The rules were attempts to get us to do what is right, to react to the graceful gift of salvation by living lives that bear good fruit. One of the troubles with rules is when they become more important than the people they were meant to serve. Our God is a God of love and grace and when rules are used in such a way so as to be unloving or ungraceful, they fail to serve their purpose. Another problem with rules is that often they become a framework on which to circumvent the very thing the rule was meant to accomplish. Our tax code is a good example of that. We all live in society and all benefit from what it has to offer. Some benefit more than others and as a result have become very comfortable. For the blessings that society brings us we should all desire to do our part and contribute to the best of our ability for the benefit of all. The reality of coarse is that come tax time we all use every twist and turn we can to contribute not to the best of our ability, but the very least we can get away with for the benefit of all. Jesus taught us that the basis of rules and laws is love for God and love for one another.

Jesus taught us about forgiveness. Jan and I have a plaque on our kitchen wall and we have also give a similar plaque to each of my married children that says “a happy marriage is a union of two good forgivers.” All of us break the rules, whether they are written or not, and in the process offend one another. Forgiveness is about more than just getting by with doing something offensive, it is about growth. Growth in who we are as persons and growth in our relationships. As we are continually forgiven by Christ, our relationship to Christ continues to grow. As we forgive others, our relationship with them also grows. Sometimes the church and the people in it forget our main mission is to forgive and are seduced into thinking the church is to be the moral banner carrier of society. Robert Capon in Hunting the Divine Fox, points out the church's real job.

“The church is not in the morals business. The world is in the morals business, quite rightfully; and it has done a fine job of it, all things considered. The history of the world's moral codes is a monument to the labors of many philosophers, and it is a monument of striking unity and beauty. As C.S. Lewis said, anyone who thinks the moral codes of mankind are all different should be locked up in a library and be made to read three days' worth of them. He would be bored silly by the sheer sameness.

What the world cannot get right, however, is the forgiveness business -- and that, of course, is the church's real job. She is in the world to deal with the Sin which the world can't turn off or escape from. She is not in the business of telling the world what's right and wrong so that it can do good and avoid evil. She is in the business of offering, to a world which knows all about that tiresome subject, forgiveness for its chronic unwillingness to take its own advice. But the minute she even hints that morals, and not forgiveness, is the name of her game, she instantly corrupts the Gospel and runs headlong into blatant nonsense.
The church becomes, not Ms. Forgiven Sinner, but Ms. Right. Christianity becomes the good guys in here versus the bad guys out there. Which, of course, is pure tripe.”

Whenever the church or its people are about the business of building walls, remember that any wall we build puts us on the wrong side of that wall.

Jesus taught us about grace. Grace is a gift, the gift of life, the gift of love, the gift of forgiveness, the gift of living in relationship with God. The death and resurrection of Christ (Easter) is what brings us that grace, which is why we celebrate the birth (Christmas) of the one who is the dispenser of grace. Our salvation is by grace, which means we are saved from our sins, forgiven and given the gift of eternal life as a gift from God. It is not my place to say who else may or may not be the recipient of that gift of grace. Perhaps it can even reach beyond the self imposed walls mentioned above. There is a problem with grace however, free will. In order to have the ability to love, we must have the ability to not love, sometimes even hate. Love is what the gift of grace is all about. You can’t force someone to accept the gift of grace, but then who would not want to accept the gift of grace? If you ask the question outright, the answer is almost no one. Do you want to spend eternity (A) in blissful peace and joy, or (B) in damnation and torment? Only a few of the sickest among us would raise our hand on (B). The trouble is that it is oh so very easy to wander off to find where demons dwell. In the movie “Bruce Almighty”, even Bruce, possessing the powers of God Almighty, was tempted to use them only for himself. The result predictably was chaos. In the end, that which he was really after, happiness, was found only in giving up control and desiring the happiness of someone else. The gift of Grace given is the gift of Grace received.

Jesus taught us many other things, but I am out of room. May the blessings of Christ go with you this season and may your Christmas be about grace given and grace received. Amen!!!!!!!

PS. Listen to Handel’s Messiah at least once this Christmas season. That is grace!