Tuesday, December 25, 2012

The Throne of God in the Depths of Humanity

(excerpted from God is in the Manger, a collection of writings by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

"We cannot approach the manger of the Christ child in the same way we approach the cradle of another child. Rather, when we go to his manger, something happens, and we cannot leave it again unless we have been judged or redeemed. Here we must either collapse or know the mercy of God directed toward us.

"What does that mean? Isn't all of this just a way of speaking? Isn't it just pastoral exaggeration of a pretty and pious legend? What does it mean that such things are said about the Christ child? Those who want to take it as a way of speaking will do so and continue to celebrate Advent and Christmas as before, with pagan indifference. For us it is not just a way of speaking. For that's just it: it is God himself, the Lord and Creator of all things, who is so small here, who is hidden here in the corner, who enters into the plainness of the world, who meets us in the helplessness and defenselessness of a child, and wants to be with us. And he does this not out of playfulness or sport, because we find that so touching, but in order to show us where he is and who he is and in order from this place judge and devalue and dethrone all human ambition.

"The throne of God in the world is not on human thrones, but in human depths, in the manger. Standing around his throne there are no flattering vassals but dark, unknown, questionable figures who cannot get their fill of this miracle and want to live entirely by the mercy of God.

"'Joy to the world!' Anyone for whom this sound in foreign, or who hears in it nothing but weak enthusiasm, has not yet really heard the gospel. For the sake of humankind, Jesus Christ became a man in a stable in Bethlehem: Rejoice, O Christendom! For sinners, Jesus Christ became a companion of tax collectors and prostitutes: Rejoice, O Christendom! For the condemned, Jesus Christ was condemned to the cross on Golgotha: Rejoice, O Christendom! For all of us Jesus Christ was resurrected to life: Rejoice, O Christendom! ... All over the world today people are asking: Where is the path to joy? The church of Christ answers loudly: Jesus is our joy! (1 Pet 1:7-9) Joy to the world!"

To God alone be the Glory.

Monday, December 24, 2012

The Great Turning Point of All Things

(or as Gandalf would say, "I come to you now, at the turn of the tide")

I've been posting here and on Facebook, excerpts from God is in the Manger, a collection of writings from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. They are focused primarily on Christmas and Advent, but with other themes thrown in. The book was very helpful for me this year to reorient my heart and mind to the meaning and purpose of Christmas. Much has been lost and distorted even in the Christian celebration of this glorious event. I think we lose the majesty and the power and the awesomeness of Christmas when it becomes about gifts or family or church (good things, but not ultimate things). Christmas should always and forever be about God becoming man (no, a baby), being born  (no, born in a stinky, dirty, noisy stable), living  (no living a commoner's life), and dying (no dying a traitor's death). He did this for the twin goals of fulfilling his Father's will and executing a rescue mission that no Seal team would dare attempt. Jesus was born, lived and died for God and for you. Christmas is about Christ, not us. Glory to God indeed!
"What kings and leaders of nations, philosophers and artists, founders of religions and teachers of morals have tried in vain to do--that now happens through a new born child. Putting to shame the most powerful human efforts and accomplishments, a child is placed here at the midpoint of world history--a child born of human beings, a son given by God (Isa 9:6). That is the mystery of the redemption of the world; everything past and everything future is encompassed here. The infinite mercy of the almighty God comes to us, descends to us in the form of a child, his Son. That this child is born for us, this son is given to us, that this human child and Son belongs to me, that I know him, have him, love him, that I am his and he is mine--on this alone my life now depends. A child has our life in his hands... 
"How should we deal with such a child? Have our hands, soiled with daily toil, become too hard and too proud to fold in prayer at the sight of this child? Has our head become too full of serious thoughts...that we cannot bow our head in humility at the wonder of this child? Can we not forget all our stress and struggles, our sense of importance and for once worship the child as did the shepherds and the wise men from the East, bowing before the divine child in the manger like children"  - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Government upon the Shoulders, Christmas 1940
To God Alone be the Glory

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Wonder of All Wonders

From Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
God travels in wonderful ways with human beings, but does not comply with the views or opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self determined beyond all proof. 
Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety--that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly... God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and the broken.
To God Alone be the Glory

Friday, December 7, 2012

Oh, to see Jesus!

I think we have the Christmas gift thing mixed up. Its not that I'm against giving (or receiving) gifts, but when we actually stop and ask, what is Christmas is all about, we seem to go in one of two directions.
First, we might ask "what could I give Jesus for Christmas?" Presumptuous, I know, but the heart is one of devotion, seeking to honor Christ with our lives, our gifts and our heart.

Or, we might ask "what would I receive from Jesus this Christmas?" Perhaps this just a more focused, seasonally heightened prayer request, but if its anything like mine, its focus, aim and goal usually falls way short.

Well, what if we crumpled all of the above like so much old Christmas wrapping paper? What if we found our guidance in the Holy Spirit and in the ebb and flow of God's Word?

For instance, consider Luke 18. While there is a lot in this chapter, I think Luke uses a great, subtle teaching technique by repeating overlapping truths in various parables and narrative accounts so that if one section doesn't hit us, the next one might. So, in one chapter we have God giving justice, a tax collector calling for mercy, the disciples learning that all things are possible with God, that Jesus journey to Jerusalem will result not in glorious, messianic victory, but painful, ignominious defeat, and that seeking the mercy of Jesus is worth more than any social custom or anyone's opinion of us.

Beyond this, Luke 18, like other sections of this book, is a study in contrasts. God vs the judge. Tax collector vs Pharisee.  Child-like faith vs "grown-up" faith. A love for Christ himself vs a love for all that Christ can (and does) give us. A vision to do God's will God's way vs a desire to do God's will my way. A willingness to defy all conventions to see (really see) Jesus vs obeying all conventions and missing (really missing) Jesus although he is right in front of us.

So, whether I zero in on the tax collector, who really grasped his position before God and his desperate need for God's mercy and grace or the blind man who defied all social and religious customs because he too desperately knew he was both helpless and hopeless without Jesus, my prayer and my plea this Christmas is that I want to see Jesus. This prayer is not just to see him in passages like Luke 18, but to see him as Paul says in Eph 1, with the eyes of my heart. To see him in his fullness, in his deity, in his humanity, as prophet, priest and king, as redeemer, as intercessor, as brother and as friend. Along with this, I need God's gracious reminder that on my own I am desperate, helpless and hopeless. The only reason to tenacious cling to Christ by faith is a firm knowledge that letting go results in ruin.

After nearly fifty years I think it is starting to sink in that while Christmas may be a great time to discipline our selfish hearts and actually be generous (not just pretend or talk about it), the reality is that we are never truly the giver. Christmas is about a gift given. A life lived. A death died. A price paid. A relationship restored. A victory won. 

May Jesus invade your Christmas this year in a great, glorious and perhaps unexpected way so that the focus is not so much on us but on Him. And not just Him in the manger, but on the cross and at the right hand of the Father and on the cusp of His return.

I pray that we each may take some time this year to consider not what we can give to Jesus, but what we so desperately need from Him and then have the humility and child-like faith to plead for it.

To God Alone be the Glory