Happy New Moment!

 

Have you given up on New Year’s resolutions? I have. Long ago. History (mine) shows if I want to make a change in my life that is big enough to require a “resolution,” I’m not likely to keep it for a year, much less a lifetime. Of course, I have made some beneficial changes in my life, but not usually connected to a calendar date.

If we wanted to make a New Year’s resolution on the New Year, which New Year should we use? Our Gregorian solar calendar names January 1 as the beginning of the year. It was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to replace the Julian calendar, which made each year too long by .0125 days per year. It took some Protestant countries 70-ish years to agree to the change, so they operated on slightly different calendars. Chinese cultures use a lunar calendar, beginning in what corresponds to January or February on our calendar. On the Maori (New Zealand) calendar, Matoriki Day may be sometime in June or July, and different people in the culture celebrate it on different days. In Iran, Nowruz is celebrated for two weeks in March and April. Many cultures, including Hindi, name their new year in March or April, as spring seems a good time for new beginnings. And the Jewish first lunar month, Nisan, “the beginning of months,” established by God as the beginning of their year, falls in the Gregorian March or April. By the way, this year is 5781.  In addition, the Jewish calendar year has three other feasts called “New Year!” Actually one, the Feast of Ingathering, is called, “the departing of the year.”  Happy Old Year?

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. In the event I couldn’t make my resolution last for an entire year, I wouldn’t feel like such a failure if another chance came up sooner. So a broader understanding of the world would give me more chances to straighten up and fly right. I’m sure if I looked hard enough I could find more New Years, therefore, more chances to improve myself.

Or we could just look in God’s Word. God, Who does not change and does not need improvement, nevertheless renews his compassion, faithfulness and justice “every new day.” Lam. 3:22,23 and Zeph. 3:5.

When King Solomon intended to build a temple for the honor of God, he pledged to make “burnt offerings every morning and evening and on the Sabbaths, at the New Moons, and at the appointed festivals of the LORD our God.”  II Chron. 2:4.

The apostle Paul, facing death daily, claimed, “though our outward man is perishing, the inward man is renewed day by day.” II Cor 4:16

Both Eph. 4:25-32 and Col 3:5-10 contain lists of behaviors Paul is urging on believers, which are to be continually practiced, not merely attempted once at the beginning of belief in Christ.

God allows and accepts our repentance and renewal every moment! We don’t need to wait five more days to turn over a new leaf. And when we fail at 12:10 am on January 1, we don’t despair and wait 365 days to try again! Yes, we fail. Even the apostle Paul, who tried really, really hard to do right, admitted continual failure. But we don’t need to continue to feel like a failure. We can go ahead with our New Moment’s resolutions any and every second of every year!

--Lynda Shenefield

Christmas--For Such a Time as This

 

A recent widow celebrating Christmas without her beloved spouse this month. A husband and father lying in an ICU hospital bed fighting for breath in hopes of staying off a ventilator while his wife battles the disease alone at home, and their grown children unable to visit either parent. An elderly lady lying on her deathbed while her children know her time will be coming soon. Families unable to spend Christmas with their loved ones due to the virus. Business owners working hard to stay afloat in the midst of a second wave of the pandemic. Christmas parties and celebrations cancelled. Traditions broken. What is there to celebrate this Christmas?

I did not have to make up the above circumstances. These people are among my friends and acquaintances. I’m sure you could add to this list. Christmas has always been hard for people at various points in their lives due to difficulty and challenges, but this year the grief and hardships seem so much more universal with the effects of this terrible virus, the record numbers in the hospital in our own city, as well as the financial and social challenges the disease has brought about. So how do we approach a Christmas that doesn’t look like the kind of Christmas we know and love with its lack of Christmas parties and concerts, trips to see Santa, fighting the crowds for last-minute shopping, and gathering with extended family for Christmas?

But what if those things are not actually necessary for a true and meaningful celebration of Christmas?  And furthermore, what if the message of Christmas actually speaks hope into the situations in which we find ourselves? What if the truth of Christmas can be a balm to the one lying in an ICU bed on Christmas Eve? What if the meaning of the holiday can bring joy to the one alone in his apartment in a nursing home?  What if the family who can’t travel to the grandparents’ house for Christmas can find unique comfort this year in remembering what Christmas is all about? Perhaps this year, we have all the more reason to celebrate. For against this dark current backdrop the beauty of what happened at Christmas can shine all the brighter. When the family gatherings, the hustle and bustle, the parties, and the special services are replaced with stories of hospital beds, separation from family, loneliness, and sickness, doesn’t it overwhelm us all the more that God Himself came down into this mess to live among us and to save us from this broken and fallen world?

It is precisely because of Christmas that we can face days such as these, filled with hope. God did not leave us on our own, stuck with the consequences of man’s fall into sin.  For God so loved the world, that He himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, came down to rescue us. That is the good news this Christmas and every Christmas. We have a Rescuer, a Savior. One who came down to save us from our biggest problem, our sin, and who will one day save us from this broken world as well. This world is nothing compared to the one that is to come. We can face its hardships, knowing that God will use them for good, and knowing that these trials do not have the final word. So, however we find ourselves celebrating Christmas this year, I pray that we would be filled with the hope that can only come from understanding that the message of Christmas does not dim when things look bleak. No, it’s perhaps in these moments that its beauty shines all the more clearly.

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).

Oh come, let us adore Him!

--Amy O'Rear

My Favorite Nativity

I collect nativities.  These range from the cloth stuffed one under the tree (made when my children were young so they could play with them and act out the story) to the smooth olive wood made in Israel to the vintage plastic with glitter applied liberally.  There’s a large set of pottery figures that glow with candles inside, a larger ceramic one, even an African one—straight tall figures made of dark wood.

I have many nativities I treasure, but the one that I value most is a homemade one.  My children and I made it from clothespins and scraps of fabric and paper and pipe cleaners.   When Stephen was eight or nine years old he made a crude stable to house the figures.  It is a typical nativity in that it has Mary, Joseph, the baby, shepherds, wise men, an angel choir. The children contributed animals from the toy chest to finish the tableau.  The best part is that each of the children made a figure of themselves standing in front of the stable.  (The fact that they made their own figures explains why Sarah suddenly became a blond and also why she carries a small pipe cleaner doll.) Every year this nativity holds the place of prominence in the center of the buffet directly in front of the door.

This year as I placed the nativity a new thought grabbed me.  Each of us is standing at the nativity scene in the same way the children’s figures are and for the same reason we are all figuratively standing at the foot of the cross.  You see, the reason He came was to deal with our sin.  He was born because God loved us enough to deal with that sin.  He was born to die.

In Matthew 1:21 and 22, the Lord spoke to Joseph and told him not to be afraid, but to take Mary as his wife for “She shall bring forth a son, and you shall call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sin.”  Jesus was born to die, born to be crucified for our sins.  Christmas does not make sense without the crucifixion and ultimately, the resurrection, for without the resurrection, the crucifixion would have been in vain.

This theme is repeated again in Luke 2:10.  Speaking to the shepherds, the angel said, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  That first public announcement said He would be a Savior.  We would need a Savior.

Other confirmation:

Luke 19:10, For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

John 3:17, For God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

I Timothy 1:15, This is a faithful saying, and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

I Peter 2:24, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By His wounds you have been healed.

Christmas is incomplete if we focus simply on the manger.  Jesus was born to die.

As we hear and sing the carols this year, as we view the blow up nativities and the light nativities and the plywood nativities and every variety in between, may we remember this thought.  Jesus was born to die.

My grandfather, Dr. John R. Rice, wrote a song years ago called Jesus, Baby Jesus.  The chorus says,

Jesus, Baby Jesus, there’s a cross along the way.

Born to die for sinners, born for crucifixion day.

The fourth verse continues, 

Jesus, Baby Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man,

Tempted, poor and suffering, no one knows us as He can!

Holy, righteous, blameless, fitting sacrifice complete.

Jesus, Baby Jesus, There’s a cross along the way.

Born to die for sinners, born for crucifixion day!

~~Faith Himes Lamb

Proclaim the Glory

 

https://youtu.be/BDYk2ZhJ-30

I’ve been thinking about this song lately. Who knows why or how certain songs get stuck in our brains, but this one has been a blessing. I found myself humming it between classes at school, bursting out in bits and pieces of song as I ran errands and drove home. So I found it on youtube and listened to the whole thing. It has excellent words—and that boy can sing!

There are several versions on line, but the one I have linked you to shows pictures of natural beauty. Certainly God’s creative genius is a sufficient reason to proclaim his glory; the magnificent colors of sunset, the stunning variety of birds, and the soothing beauty of flowers are only some of the details of creation that show God’s glory.

This month, though, I’m focused on the astonishing fact of Jesus’s coming to earth. As I drive down the road, it seems to me that every light strung in the trees or tacked up on someone’s front porch is a mute proclaimer of God’s glory. Even those folks who do not know our Savior are inadvertently proclaiming his goodness in sending Jesus to show us the way to the Father.

I think of the shepherds in the field who were overwhelmed with light and music on the night of Jesus’s birth. After they visited the baby, they could not keep the news to themselves! We should be the same way.

Psalm 34:3 says, “O, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.” Psalm 107:2 admonishes, “Let the redeemed of the LORD tell their story,” and Jesus himself directed us to “let [our] light shine before men” so that they will “glorify [our] Father” (Matthew 5:16). As we have opportunity this season, let’s say a word of God’s greatness and give testimony to his power in our own lives.

Now let’s hear that song one more time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDYk2ZhJ-30

--Sherry Poff