Headed North or South?

7The three birds flew through the cloudy skies of northern California due north on that brisk January morning.  The three friends; a Crow, a Pigeon and a Blue Jay, would have made a strange picture had anyone with a camera and telephoto lens had the mind to snap a shot.  Much higher in altitude, hundreds of Canadian Geese flew in perfect V formation in exactly the opposite direction.

“Hey,” squawked the crow, “there is another group of Canadians flying the wrong way. Why do you suppose they are so confused?”  He tried to point upwards with his right wing, but in doing so banked quickly to the left ramming the pigeon.

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Christmas Explained to a Five Year Old

IMG_0716“Papa, can you tell me about Christmas?” asked the five-year-old granddaughter of the man whose knee she was perched upon at that moment.

“Sure honey, what do you want to know?” was the confident reply of Papa.

“Well first, what’s the difference between Santa and Jesus?  And do Mary and Joseph live at the North Pole? And, at Sunday School we learned about the three Wise Men, but at school we sang about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Was Rudolph at the manger with the Wise Men,” were the initial round of questions blurted out by Katie, Papa’s granddaughter.  “It’s all getting jumbled up in here,” said Katie pointing to her head.

“Well we don’t want things getting confused up there, now do we,” said Papa.  “You could end up like Uncle Fred, but that’s a whole different story.”

Papa settled into the recliner and snuggled Katie close in.  There was a lot of explaining to do, as Rickey often told Lucy.  “First you asked about Christmas, so let me tell you about that.  Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus; the son of God.  That is the main reason for all the decorations, and the lights, and the funny blow up snowmen at your Daddy’s house.  We have a party on your birthday right?”

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The Christmas Story

God created the earth with the intension of living with us, of walking with us daily in His garden paradise. In the beginning, God only had one simple rule.

 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die”

“Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

Genesis 1:1, 27; Genesis 2:15-17, 25

 

But God gave us the gift of free will, so that our love and adoration to Him would be real, and honest.  Unfortunately, that left people to make their own choices, and their own mistakes.  That first mistake lead to the end of paradise.

“He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”  The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”  So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.”

Genesis 3:10, 13

 

Mankind soon discovered that a life separate from God was no picnic, yet our suborn pride kept getting in the way of good choices. (Of God’s choices)

“So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.  But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly.  They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.”

Exodus 1: 11-14

 

The moment Adam and Eve left the garden God started planning our return to Him, our eternal righteousness.  He chose Moses, and unlikely hero to be a leader to His people.

“One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.”

“God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Exodus 2:11-12; Exodus 3:14

 

Pharaoh did not obey God’s demands easily, but eventually relented.

 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”

Exodus 12:31, 32

 

God’s people escaped Egypt, but their stubborn pride once again got in the way.  So, a journey that could have taken 11 days, took them 40 years to complete.  Only one person who fled from Egypt crossed the river Jordan.

“Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”

“Then the Lord said to him (Moses), “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

Exodus 33: 3; Deuteronomy 34:4

 

For thousands of years we struggled to follow in God’s way.  We fought Him, then obeyed Him, then fought Him once more.  He sent many prophets to remind us of our divine destiny, but we just would not listen.

“The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.”

“No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.”

Judges 6:1, 33

 

However, God’s plan for us was in full swing.  He was sending forth great leaders and prophets to tell of a chosen one, a Savior for all time.  Salvation was on its way.

“The LORD swore an oath to David, a sure oath that he will not revoke: “One of your own descendants I will place on your throne.”

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.”

Psalms 132:11; Isaiah 9:6,Jeremiah 23:5-6

Now was the time; God’s plan to right what was wronged in the garden was now in its final stretch.  As foretold by dozens of people, the Savior of mankind would be born in Bethlehem.  King of Kings; Lord of Lords.  The Messiah.

“In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”  Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.  But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”  “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”  The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

“So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Luke 1:26-35; Luke 2:4-7

 

For all of eternity God planned for Christmas day.  Everything that transpired in history, from the garden to Abraham, Moses, David, and Mary: God’s overarching plan was to rid the world of sin, and bring all of humanity back home.   To do all of that, He needed to enlist the help of His Son.

Why, after the many times people let Him down, why would God keep trying to bring us back to Him?

One word: Love

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:16 

Merry Christmas!  This is your day to celebrate.

One Brick at a Time

Joe met this morning just like every other one during the last three years; he had a job to do, no one else could do it, so he will embrace today with power, excitement and enthusiasm.  First though, Joe would have two cups of strong coffee – enthusiasm flowed much better with caffeine on board.  There was a slight breeze this morning, gently moving his brown hair that just touched the sculptured shoulders of the foremost brick layer of his time. Of any time.  He wore simple leather sandals, and a smock drawn tightly around his waist with a leather belt. Joe’s six foot two inch frame stood slowly; the coffee and dried meat nourishing the muscles for the day ahead, but the joints feeling the ache of a man much older than his thirty-three years.  It was time for work; there were bricks to be set and a building to complete.  Maybe today would be the end; he was never sure.

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The Reflection Looking Back

A mirror is supposed to reflect backwards what actually exists, but almost always what we see is not all that is present, sometimes the image we see is not a realistic reflection of the truth……………

Last night was a long one for Bill; too little to eat, too much to drink and way too little sleep.  The alarm only accentuated his pounding headache, so knocking the clock on to the floor of the hotel room seemed a fair exchange for waking him this early.  Rolling out of bed, Bill walked, in not so much of a straight line, to the bathroom.  What he saw in the mirror was not a pretty sight; although the mirror had been cruel to him for many years now, so he should have expected nothing less.  Before washing his face Bill looked at his reflection in the mirror.  The bloodshot eyes were no surprise; most mornings were met with varying shades of red surrounding black pupils.  His once thick, black hair was thinning across the top and offered more grey than black.  The sagging bags under his eyes were pronounced, looking like a wave of exhaustion pulling down his face.   There is a crooked scar just under his right eye, a reminder of falling asleep while driving home late one night from somewhere that he should not have been.  The morning beard is a staggered mixture of white and black.  Why did the architect of this hotel make the mirrors so big?  There was nothing here Bill wanted to see.

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The Mighty Grape

There is a point on the two lane highway as you enter the Napa Valley where the horizon is filled with vineyards that stretch outward across the valley floor and then sweep upward as high as the hills will allow.   The only break in the perfectly aligned rows is an occasional family home, almost always two story and white, with a wide porch encircling the house, or clump of oaks majestically watching over the vines.  During summer the view becomes a sea of green, balanced by the alternating red lines of soil; but as autumn arrives a mosaic of red, yellow, and orange attack your senses in a vibrant mosaic of nature.  I see a small sign placed at the entrance to a dirt road leading to the white house that reads, “Drive slow – grapes at play.”  I think there is more truth to the sign than we know.

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The First Step

The first thing that I noticed was his eyes; piercingly intense, visible even through the thick brown hair that was wet with sweat and had intermingled stains of red. Those eyes could have been wild with anger, or hate, we would have understood, but instead they were sincere, full of compassion and knowing. His eyes were kind – even today.

He was kneeling in thick dirt, dried mud from sweat and blood covered his hands to the elbow; his feet and calves were equally stained. The crowd roared with approval when the soldier raised the whip high to the sky. He yelled for the beaten man to “get up now.” Idiot. Didn’t he know that whipping a hurt man will not make him move any faster? I wanted to look away because he was my friend, my master, but I could not. The whip came down hard; his cry was muted by the force of the approving mob. He had been beaten, but he wasn’t beat. He moved his right foot slowly, dragging upward to a kneeling position. The cross was balanced on his right shoulder, with the cross member in front just past his knee and the end reaching ten feet behind. Weighing 200 pounds, it was a massive killing staff designed with only one purpose. The crowd continued screaming for more, hoping for another blow from the guard. But the guard was tired from a long night, so he rested, hoping for selfish reasons that the prisoner would stand up soon. 

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A Good Dog

Kaizer, our 100 pound lap-dog, can suck the negativity and anger right out of anyone, his enthusiasm for life fills a room when he enters it; as does his enormous head, long and lean body, and huge feet.  His tail can be compared to nuclear energy; it is meant for good, but when it’s near a coffee table where any breakables are on display – the incredible force of his nonstop, speed-of-light tail can only leave destruction and heartache behind.  He is one of two dogs whose home we share (note the implied ownership – they hold the mortgage and have never made a payment), and without them our home seems empty and too quiet.  Kaizer is a good dog (and Harley – so are you).

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