Invitation

It is always a joy to get an invitation. Not like in Elementary school, where Birthday invitations went to every kid because that was the rule - but personal invitations. An invitation to breakfast or lunch, a cup of coffee, a hike in the desert, an evening gathering. We are strengthened and encouraged when someone reaches out and extends an invitation - it is great to be welcomed!

One of my favorite stories is when Jesus - following the resurrection - is on the beach cooking fish and bread. The disciples are back to their fishing and getting nothing. Jesus calls out to them and following another miracle catch they realize it is Jesus and rush to the beach dragging their catch. He says, "Come and have breakfast." Implied in the invitation is "come and be with Me." What an awesome invitation. We hear similar invitations in other places. "Come unto Me." (Matt. 11:28) "Lord if it is You, command me to come to You ... And He said, Come!" (Matt. 14:28) "Come away." (Mark 6:31) "Come up here!" (Rev. 4:1)

Invitations to come and be with Jesus, to walk, listen, talk, play, rest and even eat.We often ask Jesus to come and be with us - He is always with us - He said He would never leave us... Rather, we should be paying attention to His always open invitation to "come." The invitation sits open before us - no RSVP is required - I just get to show up.

"Jesus stood and cried out, saying,

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink."

John 7:37

Joy

In 1707, Isaac Watts wrote this about hymn singing:  

"While we sing the Praises of our God in his Church, we are employed in that part of Worship which of all others is the nearest a-kin to Heaven: and ‘tis pity that this of all others should be performed the worst upon Earth…. To see the dull Indifference, the negligent and the thoughtless Air that sits upon the Faces of a whole Assembly, while the Psalm is on their Lips, might tempt even a charitable Observer to suspect the Fervency of inward Religion; and ‘tis much to be feared that the Minds of most of the Worshippers are absent or unconcerned."

It has given me reason to consider my own singing, do I enter the words, and do I voice them with resolve, passion and as an offering to the Lord. Perhaps even more importantly, is my voice on Sunday morning a reflection of my activity of worship in my week. We recently sang “Joy to the World”, Isaac Watts take on Psalm 98:4,9,  Two lines in particular caught my attention:

Let every heart prepare him room, ….

He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,

What is the evidence that my heart is a prepared room?  In part – if He dwells within me I will share in His compassions and see the world around me through His eyes. And what does that lead to? A life that is a river of blessing that flows from His dwelling in me out to a hurting and lost and joyless world,  At this time – when we enjoy so much abundance – I should be more in touch with the great want of hope and joy in the world around me and be taking daily steps to reach in to it with the love and compassions of Christ.

So – as I look forward to more great Christmas singing on Sunday - how will I really join in the angels songs and avoid the indifference and lack of fervency that Watts spoke of? I guess it begins today – being an avenue of blessing to those who don’t experience or know the Joy that has come into the world.

Bells

It is always amazing at how mindlessly we can sing particularly when the songs are so familiar. A couple weeks ago we sang the Christmas carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day."  I have sung it many times and yet it had never really connected with me before. The words sounded new and fresh. Interestingly enough I was completely unaware of the story behind the song. Henry W. Longfellow wrote it as a poem on Christmas Day of 1864. The country had been immersed in civil war and was experiencing something very different than "peace on earth.." Three years prior to writing the poem, Longfellow's wife had died in a tragic accident and the following year he would write during Christmas that there was no joy in the celebration. One year before writing the poem one of his son's was severely wounded in the war. It is no wonder that he would write "in despair I bowed my head: there is no peace on earth I said."

How many of us struggle with God's promised peace and the tangible realities of a world in chaos and struggle and our own hurts, disappointments and losses in life. It seems that at Christmas those questions and losses seem to be more intense. It takes a couple years but Longfellow does go on to write "then pealed the bells more loud and deep: God is not dead: nor doth He sleep!" The experience of Christ's work, the reality of His ongoing movement in the world, and the sounding truth from His Word do  - at just the right time - sound louder and deeper than the doubts and despairs of our own hearts. Just when we start to think that the Lord is absent - He shows up and touches our hearts with assurance and promise and a restoration of hope.

The bells of Christmas worship will ring out this week ... at church, in your car, at home, in the mall. Perhaps it will be a bell that sounds of joy, or perhaps a bell that sounds the hope of rescue, or perhaps it is a bell that wakes us up from slumber and complacency... there is Good News in it - always - "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep!"

1. I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

2. I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

3. And in despair I bowed my head
'There is no peace on earth,' I said,
'For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.'

4. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.'

5. Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

COME!

Although it is not frequently sung, one of my favorite Christmas carols is "Come, Thou Long-expected Jesus" by Charles Wesley.

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne. 

The very first word always catches my attention - COME! The song is a reminder of the longing for a Messiah during a dark time and all that He would/did bring: hope, joy, strength, consolation, deliverance, rule, glory...presence. Revelation ends with a similar statement about His future 2nd advent. "He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" Rev. 22:20

It is often the silent cry of my own heart: "Come!"  "Come into my work."  "Come into the lives of my kids."  "Come into my crazy schedule."  "Come into my finances....." YET ... His gentle answer is "I have come." He was called Immanuel - God with us. This was both descriptive of Jesus as He walked on the earth but also of His ongoing, very real presence among us as believers through the Holy Spirit. "I will never leave you." I don't need to ask Him to come into my schedule, work, children ... He is already there! What I need to be doing is looking, paying attention, joining, listening, obeying, worshiping.

By Thine own eternal Spirit

Rule in all our hearts alone!

Thanks

Martin Rinckart wrote the hymn "Nun danket alle Gott" in 1636 as a poem to his children. Rinckart (1586-1649) began pastoring in the town of Eilenburg in Saxony at the age of 31. The 30 years war had just begun and he died just as peace came. During his ministry the town was frequently plundered and suffered greatly at the hands of enemy soldiers. In 1637 the plague broke out in his city taking with it close to 8000 people. Rinckart conducted the funeral services for 4000 people including his wife. Severe famine followed the plague that left people fighting in the streets over dead animals. Rinckart freely shared all he had as he worked to provide care and food to his congregation despite the fact that it left him impoverished.

The Scriptures call us to GIVE THANKS. I find it easy to say thank you but not so easy to have a genuinely thankful heart. Martin Rinckart - in the midst of the worst that life can bring - overflowed with a thankful heart. His poem for his children was later translated and many of us sing it at this time of year.

Now Thank We All Our God

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore

change

I am sitting in a familiar place in an unfamiliar setting of life. I arrived in Grand Rapids, Michigan a few days ago to visit my mom who is in an assisted care facility, connect with my brothers, and help close up my mom's home for the winter season. I stopped in this Starbucks - for the WiFi - to update my blog and check email.... Except for a few decorating differences, most Starbucks look and feel pretty much the same. Sitting here I could have been back in any of the Starbucks back in Tucson. The sameness is comfortable and in some sense masks what is outside the doors. What lies outside the doors is anything but sameness - it in constant change and bears an elevated sense of uncertainty. This week has been a reminder that my own family is in the midst of change. My mom is  in a really nice but unfamiliar living situation. The "family home" with all its memories is closed up for the long winter. Unlived in, it will soon be covered in snow drifts. My dad has passed away and his car now sits unused in the garage. My brothers and my sister and I are at at different places in our lives as we watch our kids grow up and move out and begin establishing their own lives. Much of the change is good and normal, much of it doesn't feel so good at the moment.

Immutable - what a great word - God never changes! All of His character traits have existed in all their fullness for all time and beyond time. His glorious nature does not grow or increase because it has always been full. God has been the fullest expression of goodness - always has been - always will. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus is the same - yesterday, today and forever!! As change sweeps over us there is an awesome, wondrous, ever working, never changing God that sweeps us up into Himself ... there in that place He shapes us in the change, He reassures us in the trial, He gives glimpses of His future paths which are always full of wisdom and life. Hiding from the outside change in the soothing confines of a Starbucks shop is only for a moment - the great promise as that we are hidden with Christ in God and as we walk, run or crawl through the changes - there is one unshakable place - in the arms of Jesus

Grow

With the death of my father I have been considering the relationship we had. There was always a certain security in that father son relationship - the sense that dad was always there and available. Of course, over the years, that relationship has changed from adult and child to adult and adult, yet there was always a remnant of still being a child and the security of having a father. It was a good feeling - something that strengthened me as an adult. With death, that has changed. Dad is not there to look to - I am the adult and not a son in the same manner as before.

At 53 years old you would think that I would finally be grown up ... truth is we are always in a process of growing up. Ephesians 4:15 calls us to "grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ." It appears the growing up is a life long process and along the way there are always new, different and surprising areas in which we discover another way (all aspects) to grow up! A dear brother in Seattle once told me that there are certain lessons that you only learn in certain decades of life. That truth freed me from feeling like I had to figure out all the ways I needed to learn and grow and just focus on those areas that God had chosen for a particular time. It seems that this is another time to grow up - learn a new lesson about finding my security and dependence and trust in my Lord alone - to give thanks for what I had in my dad but delve deeper into the better things we have in Christ.  I guess this makes sense - the Bible calls us children and as children, there is always more growing up to do.