Merry Christmas from the Smiths

Merry Christmas from our herd to yours, and all the best in 2013

Christmas Dinner

A number of people have come up to me over the last few days and asked me about our plans to celebrate the Lord’s Supper as a part of our Christmas Eve worship service. Why would we celebrate communion again in December when we have already celebrated it on the usual first Sunday of the month? Why would we celebrate communion on one of the ‘high holidays’ that brings in everyone even loosely connected to the church? Why would we celebrate communion on Christmas Eve in a year where circumstances and schedules have led a good number of the other big Evangelical churches in town not to have a service, and knowing therefore that there will be many people from other congregations in our midst?

And perhaps most importantly: What does communion have to do with Christmas?

I think I’m going to leave the answer to that final question for those who come to our service on the 24^th (I don’t want to give you any more reason to be distracted during my brief message than Christmas Eve already gives you!), but I hope I can quickly answer some of the other ones here today.

Why celebrate communion again?

For the same reason there always seemed to be peas on your plate when you came to the dinner table as a child – because it’s good for you. This meal is not merely something that we need to check off of our list and say that we've done it once a month like changing the water filter in our Brita dispenser (not that most people are that vigilant about that either), it’s a meal that was given to us by God to nourish the church. It is real spiritual food that connects us to Christ and to each other and in our celebrating of it, it makes us strong.

A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the family of churches of which EAC is a part famously opined: 

“Roman Catholics teach that in the Lord’s Supper the bread and wine are converted into the actual flesh of Christ (but) it would do us no good if we could actually eat the flesh of Christ; it would be profane cannibalism. But if we can receive that which lies back of His flesh, His vital strength into our being, that is all we need. And that is the real substance of the resurrection body. He is the embodiment of life and power, and by the Holy Spirit He imparts to us that life and power as we worthily receive the sacrament and discern Him in it.”

This meal therefore is a meal that the church desperately needs to dine upon. There is no such thing as having dined too much at this table.

Why celebrate communion on one of the ‘high holidays’ when everyone who is even loosely connected to the church seems to attend?

One of the questions that has been raised to me has to do with how communion will make ‘outsiders’ feel? Will there be an awkward moment when the invitation is given and some feel compelled by their conscience not to partake?

To that question my response is another question: Is the Christmas Eve service primarily an outreach event or is it a worship service? And my contention is that is the latter. I am of the conviction that the best way for the church to witness to the unbelieving world is to be who we were called to be. To do what Christians are supposed to do in every place and venue. That means of course being the hands and feet of Christ to the lost and poor; being the balm of healing to the broken and broken-hearted; being examples of righteous living to a world that is losing its moral centre; being people who offer love and forgiveness to people who have wronged them; and being the authentic worshiping community of God when we gather together to worship. I think that our worship is highly evangelistic, because in our times of authentic worship of God we show the world who we really believe Jesus is. Our worship teaches people about God more than just about anything else we do in the church – how we relate to God, how we show reverence, how we structure our services and what we say and do reveals the heart of our faith. Watering down our worship service to make it more comfortable for any particular group, be they inside or outside of the faith, demonstrates a heart to please people more than pleasing God. (Galatians 1:10)

Now if you were to tell me that the purpose of the Christmas Eve service was outreach – then I would likely concede that the nature of the event justifies a different approach – but Christmas Eve is first and foremost a worship service for people to come and celebrate the birth of the Messiah, to remember the unequaled sacrifice of Christ in humiliating himself with flesh (Philippians 2), and to give glory and thanks to God for his unmerited love toward us.

Why celebrate communion in a service when we know that a great many people from other congregations and other traditions will be joining us?

This is a strange year indeed. By an uncoordinated series of events a number of the other Evangelical churches in town will not be holding their own Christmas Eve services and will instead be encouraging their people to attend ours if they are looking for somewhere to go. We will in all likelihood have a good number of people who come from traditions that have a slightly different understanding of doctrine than we do at EAC – and that is a wonderful thing.

In fact, more than being a discouraging factor in choosing to celebrate communion this Christmas Eve, that gives us reason even more to set the table and have our Christmas Dinner together. Gordon T. Smith (no relation) in his book A Holy Meal does a better job of explaining why than I ever could so I’ll just let you read his words to make my point.

The basis of our gathering should never be thought of in doctrinal terms - so that those with whom we fellowship at the Lord's Supper are those who agree with our reading of the biblical text or our particular theological or doctrinal heritage. In the Lord's Supper we declare our unity not only with those immediately present, a particular gathering of Christians, but also with all Christians everywhere. 

 Each time we gather we do so on the assumption that all Christians are, as a matter of principle, welcome at this table, this observance. We "discern the body" (1 Cor. 11:29) each time we gather and celebrate the church catholic - women and men from every nation and tribe and language. We "discern the body" each time we welcome guests among us who come from other theological or denominational traditions. To exclude someone from the table because he or she is not of our denomination or church tradition is to fail to discern the body of Christ. Thus a guest in our midst is a potent way in which we can demonstrate that our fellowship is with all Christians - represented by this guest in our company. 

 Christ himself hosts us at the meal. In this event we are in fellowship with the Lord of glory. And in this event we are accepted by Christ as we welcome others even as Christ welcomed us (Rom. 15:7). Christ reminds us of his love and peace and receives us into his company. He draws us to one another, for in Christ there is no male or female, slave or free, Jew or Gentile (Gal. 3:28), east or west, rich or poor. All of this anticipates the consummation of the kingdom when we will see Christ face-to-face and gather from every tribe, tongue, and nation - Palestinian and Israeli, Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant, Tutu and Huti. We are all one in Christ. In the Lord's Supper, we experience a foretaste of this. More than anything else we say or do, the Lord's Supper enables us to receive the peace of Christ, and to be a means by which the peace of Christ comes to or world. p.55,56

This is why I believe that setting the table and preparing the elements of the Lord’s Supper is more than appropriate for our Christmas Eve service. I’d encourage and invite you to come out and join us at Estevan Alliance Church at 7:00pm on December 24 to find out why Christmas is the perfect time to experience this as well.

God bless you and Merry Christmas,

Chris

The War on Christmas

I have had a lot of people asking for the recording of this past Sunday's half-sermon, half-history lesson called 'The War on Christmas', unfortunately for everyone (including me - I wanted that one for my portfolio) we suffered some type of computer malfunction on Sunday morning and the recording was lost.

Not wanting to disappoint however, what I am doing instead is putting the full text of that message up on this blog for anyone who wants to review what I was talking about on Sunday. I don't generally like doing this as a pastor because when you say something from the pulpit that doesn't sound quite right you always have the (legitimate!) defense that you misspoke in the heat of the moment; but when you put something in writing that doesn't quite sit right there is obvious forethought and intent - so I know that by doing this I'm opening myself up to some potential criticism.

Another thing that you should know if you are reading this as someone who heard it live on Sunday is  that what I say from the pulpit does not exactly comport to what is in my script. The more excited or passionate I am about a topic the more prone I am to going of script and talking through my points rather than my text; minimizing some points in my script and expounding on others as I feel led in the moment. This past Sunday I did a fair bit of that, so while the message will be the same in broad strokes, structure and application, you may remember it a bit differently than you read it.

Lastly - one final caveat. I don't write my sermons to be read - I write them to be preached. That  means that you shouldn't have very high expectations of grammar, punctuation or proper sentence structure in what follows. I warn English majors everywhere to harden your resolve before reading this- I've gone through and fixed the most offensive errors but done little more. For what  it's worth - here is the message:

The War on Christmas

The Gospel of Mark Volume 2

December 9, 2012

Key Text Mark 13

Merry Christmas, we are at war.

That’s certainly the impression you would get if you’ve listened to much of the mainstream media over the last 5-10 years during the holiday season. We are at war against the radical forces of secularization, political correctness, multi-culturalism and post-Christian society. We are at war with those who would take this country’s Christian heritage and cast it aside for something that represents the new way of thinking about Christmas – a Christmas without Christ.

We are under attack. We are attacked every time someone puts up a holiday tree, every time a school holds a winter concert, every time someone dare wish you season’s greetings instead of Merry Christmas. We are at war, and in the spirit of our battle I want to provide you a with a good old fashioned war story as a part of our Advent celebrations this year – today our journey through the Gospel of Mark brings us to the ominous chapter 13. My apologies to anyone here this morning who suffers from Triskaidekaphobia – that is the irrational fear of the number 13 (yes that is a thing) because today’s text will probably do nothing to abate that fear.

Today we look at a passage of scripture often referred to throughout church history as the Little Apocalypse. If you’ve been following our series closely, you’ll notice that we skipped over the last part of chapter 12 to get here today – that’s because I have to lead worship next week and I lost the coin toss between Waylon and I as to who would have to preach this text – We’ll back track to cover the end of chapter 12 next week before moving into chapter 14 on the 23^rd. Mark 13 is probably the most enigmatic passage of scripture in the gospels. It has consternated and terrified preachers for hundreds of years because of its strong end-times overtones. And you don’t have to have spent a long time in the church to understand that people are particularly sensitive about their end times theology and expectations, so preaching on a passage like this is virtually impossible to do without stepping on some toes. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will probably frustrate some of you here today because I’m going to poke holes in some ideas that you’ve long presumed about this text – that’s okay, I’m more concerned as a preacher with fidelity than popularity so I’m just going to preach what the Lord has revealed to me through study and prayer.  But I’m going to need some help in that account, so I’d ask you as we begin to join me in prayer as we look together at the war on Christmas.

Let’s Pray.

What we have here today is a war story.

It is not a matter of any serious debate amongst Biblical scholars about WHEN the Gospel of Mark would have been written. It is generally agreed to have been written in the thick of the Jewish Roman war that stretched from AD66 to AD74. It seems to be a given, considering the text of chapter 13 especially that Mark was writing to a community that was watching these events unfold and was looking for a context into which they could process what they were seeing happen; which is why Mark gives us this unique and specific account of Jesus words dating some 35-40 years before these events to help them understand the times in which they were living.

From history we know with certainty that in the month of June of the year 66 there was a revolt led by the Jewish zealots that caught Rome off guard. The revolution – their own classical version of an Arab spring quickly spread from Jerusalem to the nearby provinces of Idumea, Perea, and Galilee and by November of that same year Rome’s response would be felt. Cestus Gallus, the Roman Legate of Syria led his forces into Jerusalem to put down the insurrection. He successfully occupied the northern part of the city and brought it back under Roman occupation and control, but when he tried to march on the Temple mount he was turned away by surprisingly effective resistance by Jewish guerrilla fighters who inflicted on his forces significant losses causing him to flee to the coast where he sent an emergency message to Rome. Against all odds, outnumbered and outmatched the Jewish freedom fighters had scored an improbable victory over Rome and the mood in the city was elation!

But just like we have seen in the fallout of the contemporary Arab Spring revolutions, a power vacuum is rarely filled without further hardship. The different groups within Jerusalem began to fight each other over who would control this new independent Palestine and as they teetered on the brink of their own civil war Rome returned with a vengeance.

Vespasian – who is remembered by history among the greatest of Rome’s generals, and who was soon to become emperor himself – was dispatched by Rome to bring the power of the Empire to bear on these rebels. He gathered legions from Egypt and Syria and with 6 thousand heavily armoured troops began his march down through Galilee into Jerusalem. This time the guerrillas were no match for the superior forces and strategy of Vespasian and in short order Rome had retaken Galilee, Perea and Western Judea. In June of 68 Vespasian was about to begin his final siege of Jerusalem when the unexpected occurred. The revolutionaries received another reprieve – this time from an unexpected source. Rome was in civil war. Nero was dead and there were no less than four candidates trying to succeed him as Emperor. Vespasian had been urgently recalled to Rome and the siege of Jerusalem was abandoned leaving it in the hands of the Zealot coalition.

For 18 glorious months Jerusalem was free from occupation while Rome sorted its stuff out. For 18 months the word on the lips of the Jewish resistance was that Yahweh had spared them not once but twice. God was fighting alongside his people just as he had in all the stories they had grown up reading about in the Scriptures. Rome was certainly coming back when the new Emperor was finally agreed upon and for 18 months the Jews were allowed to prepare for the final battle between the people of God and the evil empire – a Battle that they undoubtedly saw in eschatological hues.  This was their moment, supporters travelled throughout the region calling all true Jews to the defense of Jerusalem. This surely would be the beginning of the messianic age, and the final restoration of David’s kingdom. When that final battle came though – Vespasian who had succeeded in his bid to become Rome’s new emperor sent his top general Titus to complete the siege of Jerusalem. It took Titus only five months and by the fall of AD70 – Jerusalem had fallen and the Temple itself had been burned to the ground.

Now that is history. An uncontested, highly verifiable history of events in the holy land in the latter half of the first century after Christ – knowing these things I would ask you to think again about our text today and consider what exactly it says.

Now to say flat out that there is only one way to see this story would be disingenuous. It would be disingenuous not because there are differing opinions among contemporary teachers about the context – for that is true of any passage in Scripture. I doubt you could find a single verse in the bible that is not contested by someone to some extent, and this holds all the more true about apocalyptic passages like this one – but I say that instead because there are three different ways that we can come at this text today, three different perspectives on these same events, three different vantage points at which we can, and I believe must, interact with this story.

The first is the vantage point of Jesus. Where in the story of Jesus and the Temple are we? We’ve been tracking along this Passion Week narrative for a couple months now, and Jesus has had a lot to say about the Temple, the temple authorities, Jewish cultic practices and the future of what I have called project Israel. What does this little apocalypse have to do with all of that and how does it connect to the stories surrounding it.

The second is the vantage point of Mark. We have to remember that all of the books of the Bible were written to very specific communities in specific cultures, in specific times, experiencing specific circumstances. Mark did not write his Gospel in a vacuum – rather he had a very specific reason for telling the story of Jesus the way he did and for including the details that he did and omitting the details that he omitted. We’ve talked at length before about the very intentional structure of the gospel as a biography of Jesus and if the scholarly consensus is right – this biography was written to a people in the middle of this Jewish-Roman conflict which is very important for how we read this story.

And the third vantage point is ours. None of the books of the Bible were written to us – we are simply too far removed from the events of the biblical times to be the intended audience for these documents – but we know that by the Holy Spirit’s involvement in the work of Inspiration – all Scripture is written FOR us. There is a message within this text for us today – and I am convinced that it is a message for this season as well (stick around to see how I manage to pull that one off!) But to understand this vantage point correctly we must first familiarize ourselves with the other two. So let’s start with Jesus and go from there.

The story from vantage point of Jesus

Jesus is pronouncing judgment on the temple once again. Where the Jews expected the Messiah to be the source of Yahweh’s divine intervention to preserve their way of worship – Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives prophesying its destruction.

1.     The revolt is not the beginning of the Kingdom of God

Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come...At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

Mark 13:5-7, 21-23 (TNIV)

The end that Jesus is speaking of is the final destruction of the temple that he has been speaking about for the last few days. The functional destruction of the temple was about to take place with the crucifixion of Christ on Friday, but God had plans to allow Rome to finish the job before the end of the century. Jesus knew this, and knew that it needed to happen to fulfil God’s plan for his new work through the Church to grow past its Jewish antecedent.

We also know from historical accounts that with the end times implications of this type of war for the Jews, and the belief that Yahweh himself had twice interceded on their behalf in this conflict, that the third and decisive battle would be led by the Messiah himself. Even during the time of Jesus there was a real interest in the arrival of the Messiah – but that interest was in a very narrow interpretation of who the messiah was to be. As we talked about last week and have touched on before, the Jews were looking for a warrior king to re-establish the Davidic dynasty and lead the Jews out from under the oppression of the Roman Empire. Jesus was not prepared to be that type of messiah but it didn’t stop the Jews for looking for one who was. This coming conflict would provide fertile ground for many claims of messiahship – something that historians have also found plenty of evidence of.

The important message that Jesus is telling Peter, James, John and Andrew that day overlooking the Temple is not to begin to now – or later on – to doubt his words. The Temple is going to be destroyed. No last ditch heroics, the arrival of one with messianic claims,  or seeming divine intervention on the Jews behalf will change that. Political revolution is NOT how the Kingdom will be inaugurated – don’t’ be led astray by the many who say it will be.

2.     This revolt is the end of the world – for the Jews

One of the things that gets people all tied up in knots in this passage are the allusions to Daniel and Isaiah that Jesus sprinkles in his description of future events. People get all wound up thinking that this cannot possibly be just about the destruction of the temple; even though all the words surrounding these allusions have to do with a specific historical event that is extensively documented and verifiable, and even though the context of the teaching itself seems to clearly point to that end; they maintain that this is a prophecy of cosmic destruction and the end of the world; the sun being darkened, the moon not giving light and the stars falling from the sky and what not.

First of all you need to understand that apocalyptic literature as a genre is not meant to be read literally – just like we understand that parables as a genre in the bible, or poetry as a genre in the bible are meant to be read metaphorically, so apocalyptic literature functions the same way. They are pictures that are painted with words to describe the indescribable. The unfathomable and the terrifying. We have no trouble understanding that when Jesus talks about the good Samaritan that he is not referring to a literal person –but rather a character illustration; when Solomon says to his lover in the Song of Songs:

How beautiful you are, my darling!

    Oh, how beautiful!

    Your eyes are doves.

We know that he doesn’t literally mean that she is some grotesque creature with birds for eyes – he’s being poetic.

So we have to first of all let the genre dictate how we understand a given text – but that’s not to say that Jesus’ inclusion of these apocalyptic images are any less stark and shocking for the four disciples sitting at his feet while he gives this description. They are shocking because they are talking about the end of the world. They are talking about a comic unravelling of sorts – it just wasn’t the end of the world as we understand it.

We’ve talked about this before – particularly when we looked at Jesus clearing the temple, but for the Jews the destruction of the temple WAS the end of the world because of the special place the Temple occupied in their theology.

Remember that Sunday I gave you a really big and impressive (if not generally useless) word to describe the function of the temple for the Jews? It was the spatiotemporal location of God on Earth. That is to say it was where God existed in space and time.

Remember how I also told you that the Temple was the place where Heaven and Earth intersected; that in the holy of holies they overlapped and intertwined making the temple a place like no other on earth? And how every God fearing Jew saw the temple as an enduring sign of God’s covenant with his chosen people Israel. It was a monument in many ways to Israel’s special place in God’s plan for humanity?

For these reasons the Temple was the centre of the cosmos, the thing that held creation together – to see it destroyed was akin to witnessing the end of the world for the Jews of Jesus’ day. The apocalyptic language was more than appropriate for what they were hearing about and it holds true for Mark’s audience as well.

The story from the vantage point of Mark

Mark wanted his fledgling community to resist the call of patriotism to fight a doomed battle because

3.     This war is not the fight that the Church should be fighting

Wars and rumors of wars are what Mark highlights in Jesus teaching. This correlates nicely with the way that news of military engagements circulated in the classical world. There were no telecommunications in those days so rumors of troop movements, battles, coming sieges and the like seemed to travel on the wind as one person told another and then travelled and spread the news. The rumors would have undoubtedly been swirling around the civil war in Rome and the question of when (not if) Rome would get its ducks in order and come back for the final battle with the Jews.

All the while Mark’s community, feeling a natural connection to the Jews even though we are fairly certain most of them were gentiles, and those who were Jewish would almost be under ethnic obligation to go back and fight for Jerusalem. But Mark highlights the words of Jesus that tell them to do the exact opposite.

“When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.  Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that this will not take place in winter, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.

Mark 13:14-19 (TNIV)

Mark is warning his community (remember that THEY are the ones this passage is written to) that when they see the desecration of the Temple (the abomination that causes desolation is most commonly understood to be some sort of pagan profanity of the most holy place) that the time to flee is at hand. A persecution unlike anything they have yet experienced is about to be unleashed upon the remnant when Jerusalem finally falls, that when the empire’s energy is not devoted to crushing Jerusalem it will be redirected to crushing the Jews (and those associated with them like the church). Mark even interrupts Jesus words to throw in his own little editorial statement here – let the reader understand. He’s serious about what he’s saying and he wants his people to get the message through the veiled apocalyptic language of Jesus.

The story from the vantage point of the post-modern Church

So what is the lesson of this prophecy and its fulfilment for us today? What does it teach us about Christmas? Well on the surface there isn’t a lot that is seasonal here. Only Matthew and Luke give us insights into the nativity and although John doesn’t deal with the birth of Christ he at least waxes theologically about the incarnation at the beginning of his Gospel. Mark is the only Gospel without ANY reference to what we celebrate at Christmas – but what Mark does have to show us is the ethic of how to live within a hostile culture and maintain our identity as the people of God. And we feel the need for that type of teaching most pointedly at Christmastime.

We said it at the beginning – we are at war. And so I want to share with you the lessons that Mark has for wartime Christianity that we learned through our study of the text:

1.     Political revolution is not how the Kingdom comes

Well we need to hear carefully what Jesus was saying, that the Kingdom is not won by political advances. You cannot, despite how many have tried throughout history, legislate authentic Christianity. We cannot lobby, petition, or protest the gospel into the hearts and minds of a post-Christian society.

If we have lost the culture, then we have lost the culture but let’s not lose the people as well in our battle to have the culture back.

2.     The shift to a post-Christian society only seems like the end of the world

Just as the Jews saw the destruction of the Temple as the end of the world, the final battle upon which the fate of the cosmos was hanging in the balance – we are sometimes prone to seeing the celebration of this holiday, and the accompanying acknowledgement of cultural Christianity, as the last straw for Canadian (or western) society. But just like the destruction of the Temple was the end of an era of the work of God, but not the end of his working, the end of the Christian west is the end of an era of Christianity for sure, but it doesn’t need to be the end of the world. We have opportunities now to live out radically authentic Christianity without the fear of confusing with the dominant culture. When we celebrate Christmas we are making a statement now, not just doing what has always been done. When we say Merry Christmas to someone it says something about who we are in the context of a world that doesn’t really know what that means anymore. In many ways this new world that we are increasingly finding ourselves in gives us the opportunity to shed the baggage that was part and parcel with cultural Christianity and re-introduce our own culture to the Word made flesh, in a way that is more raw, and authentic than anything we could have ever done in a Christian culture. This is not the end of the world but the beginning of an exciting new opportunity for ministry. We all get to be missionaries, and we don’t even have to leave our street. And lastly,

3.     We must make sure we are not drawn into the wrong wars

Just like Mark was imploring his community, we need to ensure that we do not get caught up in wars that are not ours to fight. We have a very specific and clear mandate about the way we are to engage society – and it’s called the Gospel.

You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.

Mark 13:9-11 (TNIV)

This season of Advent – the run up to Christmas is about us witnessing to the world about the Word who was made flesh for us. It’s about going into a post-Christian society not with weapons of war, vainly attempting to create our own idea of what a Christian society is to look like, but instead with love and good news. When the Angels appeared to the shepherds on that first Christmas night, what was their message? Was it ‘be afraid because we’re here to take back what is ours?’ Was it, we’re here to tear down all your false understandings of what the Messiah is going to be and sternly correct you until you fall in line? No – it was “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”

We have Good news this Christmas, so why are we scolding the world with stern faces for their lack of understanding of what Christmas is rather than joyfully seeing the opportunity to witness to them?

I’ll end with this. Last week I was hit a few times by emails from well meaning people passing around a YouTube video about the War on Christmas. It was a well produced propaganda song encouraging Christians not to shop anywhere this holiday season that eschewed the traditional “Merry Christmas” for a more generic “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings.” It was an attempt to start a protest movement against the secularisation of Christmas. I understand why it bothered them so much that people were missing the true meaning of the holiday. I understand that their desire is to have Christ proclaimed from every store front this holiday season. I know where their hearts are – but isn’t there something very, very wrong about their approach?

Where is the good news? Where is the Church’s witness to the world when we sound the call to arms rather than the call to evangelism? How does our militant mentality reflect the heart of the Gospel? I actually got angry when I saw this video repeatedly hitting my inbox. I got angry because we are once again giving the world a reason to tune us out. We are once again giving the world a reason to write us off. We are once again gearing up to fight a war that we have no right participating in. We are NOT at war, we are messengers of peace. We are not called to deliver ultimatums; we are bearers of the good news. When I see a store that says season’s greetings or someone putting up a holiday tree or am privileged to attend a winter concert at my child’s school – I know I’m somewhere that needs some of the good news, and the world has been kind enough to light up a big sign telling me so.

Brothers and sisters don’t buy into the lie of the War on Christmas; don’t believe that it’s the end of the world. Don’t get caught up in a war that you have no business being a part of when your calling is to be messengers of peace. The world has changed, and I hate to be the guy who has to say it, but just like second temple Judaism, it’s gone for good. Let’s not waste this Christmas by lamenting over what was lost and instead embrace the new opportunities that God has given us to be missionaries to our world. Merry Christmas to all and Do not be afraid. We bring the world good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

The tyranny of "Stuff" Part 4 - Resolve

So it has begun.

This year, to live up to my Advent resolutions I am making some changes to allow "stuff" less control over the season.

Firstly, I am getting rid of some (not all, baby-steps remember) of my remaining Transformers collection. I've got a bunch of them now listed on ebay for a song. Take a look here and if you know anyone in the market for collectible toys send them my way.

Secondly,  I am (or I should say that we, as a family are) prioritizing accumulating experiences over accumulating things. That means that there will only be stockings under the tree this year for presents from each other. That's not because we can't afford it (I don't want anyone thinking that the poor pastor and his family can't afford Christmas), but because we have chosen to spend our money on time together rather than on toys we play with by ourselves (and that includes the grown-ups). Besides, our kids have so many other people in their lives that love them and send them gifts that I doubt they will notice.

And thirdly, I am not going to allow my own insecurities to drive my consumer decisions this Christmas. I will not spend more than is reasonable on any gift I purchase and I will not buy into the lie that my value to that person is dependent on how much I 'wow' them with their present. I will spend more time writing Christmas cards (well I already have, the post office deadlines are ridiculously early) and invest more time in people rather than presents.

Because in the end, Christmas is about what has already been done. It's about a gift that has already been given. It's about a work that is already complete. It's not about making my life better by adding to it more stuff, it about recognizing what I already have. It's about recognizing what has been done for me, by God, when the eternal Logos took on flesh and dwelt among us. Christmas is about incarnation, and I think that the best thing that I can do this holiday season to celebrate that fact is to live in such a way that Christ is incarnated a little bit in me. So that's my plan this Christmas.

What are you doing to make this season meaningful this year? I'd love to hear your stories in the comments below.

In Christ,
Chris

The tyranny of "Stuff" Part 3 - Christmas Insecurity

I have a problem with Christmas shopping. I am no good at setting boundaries. Perhaps that comes from my upbringing where year after year my parents would spend far more than they realistically afford to give us kids everything we wanted for Christmas, or perhaps it comes from my own brand snobbery that I talked about yesterday. Whatever the reason, I have a great deal of trouble sticking to a budget at Christmas time.

My wife on the other hand has no such compunctions. She was raised in a family where everyone agrees on a dollar (pound) limit o what they will spend and then ruthlessly stick to it. She is a marvel of efficiency when gift shopping, it's either in budget or it’s not in the cart meanwhile I literally writhe with discomfort at the thought of giving such a 'cheap' gift to someone I care about.

This makes no sense to Jo. After all, she reminds me, would I feel the least but slighted or offended if the roles were reversed and I was receiving rather than giving the gift? Of course not, my parents raised me better than that. So why then am I so averse to sticking within a reasonable budget when I'm shopping for others?

If I'm brutally honest (and hey, why stop now?), I think it has to do with a deep sense of insecurity. Not that I’ll ever admit it (so if you tell anyone I said this I’ll deny it) but I think I try to justify people's affections by doing right by them with the right gift. I subconsciously try to buy people's love by overspending at Christmas time and putting myself and my family in a bad place financially.

And it’s not just at Christmastime. Joanna jokes that when we were dating she thought she was marrying money. I would take her out for dinner regularly, spend money to woo her like it was going out of style and generally never let her pay for anything. When we got married though what she discovered was that all she really married into was stupid. And she now had my credit card statements to prove it.

In the book of Galatians, The Apostle Paul is writing to a group of people who were completely unworthy of inclusion in God’s redemptive plan. They were sinners, outsiders and idolatrors. They were worshippers of pagan Gods and idols who had been grafted into the family of God by grace. But as they are coming to this deep understanding of who they are in Christ, as they are coming to realise the implications of their adoption there are voices from the outside who start to whisper in their ears that they are not good enough. A group of ‘Judaizers’ try to convince them that they need to do more, that they need to work harder, that they need to jump through more hoops in order to truly be loved by God – and they start to believe the voices. So Paul writes this letter to correct that insecurity and tell them the truth about who they are.

He tells them that they are heirs with Christ, children according to the promise given to Abraham and that they have been fully adopted into the family of God. They are loved by virtue of what God has done, not by virtue of what they do. So in chapter 4 Paul lays bare the futility of their insecurities:

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

Galatians 4:8-11 (TNIV)

Not many of us in the church are turning back to Pagan worship these days. Not many of us are committing apostasy and turning to other religions because we don’t think we can cut it as Christians, but MANY of us are turning back to ‘weak and miserable forces’ of things that are ‘by nature not gods.’ We search for significance in status, we search for importance in wealth, we search for fulfilment in the accumulation of goods and we search for approval through giving the best gifts at Christmastime. I know that I’m not alone in this struggle a quick Google search reveals pages and pages of articles about people dealing with overwhelming stress in the search for the perfect gift. Why? Because we equate the gifts we give with our value in the eyes of the person we’re shopping for; we really, deep down, want to earn – or at least justify the love that they have for us and we do that through the consumer activity of Christmas.

The reality though is that what your mother taught you when you were a kid, is still the rule of the day: It’s the thought that counts. If the person you shop for would, love/appreciate/value you any less if you got them a ‘cheaper’ gift, then perhaps they’re not worthy of your time in the first place. And more importantly – as Christians we know that our true value is not found in the eyes of other person, but through the way we are seen by Christ. We are told by the Christmas story that the God of the universe gave us the gift of his only begotten Son – a gift of immeasurable value – so that we could be adopted as his children and brought into the family.

Another of my Advent resolutions for this year is to give gifts with a stress free attitude. Not because I don’t care about the people I’m shopping for – I care a lot – but because I know that I am secure in Christ and that nothing I buy, and no amount of money that I spend can change that one bit.

In Christ,

Chris

The tyranny of "Stuff" Part 2 - Vacation vs. Hibernation

It gets cold here.

There is no other way to put it. I grew up in Southern Ontario where we do have winter, and occasionally we even get snow days – days when copious amounts of big wet snowflakes fall in one night and the roads are virtually impassable. But here in the Prairies we get cold days. We get days when the temperature is so cold that even us hardened westerners can’t in good conscience send our kids into the wintery abyss. So it’s no surprise that in this part of the world we have adapted to our climate by practicing some sort of civilized hibernation.

It’s not an uncommon story for people who have moved here from warmer parts of the world to find this place somewhat inhospitable – not just with regards to the climate, but the people as well. From the time the temperature dips below zero our neighbours become strangers, we exit our houses into our garages, drive our cars out of our garages and then reverse the routine when we return home. We don’t stop and linger for conversations over the fence and the only time we’re outside where we have the opportunity to interact with our neighbours for extended periods of time we are bundled up and pushing and conversation killing snow-blower to clear our driveway in the shortest possible time. We hibernate during the winter.

And because we hibernate we have developed a culture of investing in our homes that doesn’t exist in other parts of the world in the same way. We buy bigger TVs, louder stereo systems, more video games, we have more comfortable furniture, bigger toy boxes and consume more media than people in other parts of the world. We hunker down for the winter and make sure that we have everything we could want and need so that we don’t need to come out until spring. In some indirect sort of way, our climate encourages consumerism.

I always thought this was normal. Perhaps you do too. Even in Southern Ontario, where the weather is somewhat less extreme this was the cultural practice. But then I went and married someone from across the pond. And I was introduced to a culture that sees things differently. I married someone where the culture is to spend money differently. Not that they are somehow morally superior, or less consumeristic but they express it in different ways. In a place where the climate does not encourage hibernation people tend to spend less on their entertainment centres, they tend to build less extravagant home theatres, the kids tend to have fewer toys and on a strictly square footage basis, the homes tend to be smaller.

What drives this cultural difference? A cultural value that places experience over stuff.

A 2007 study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows the disparity between the European mindset and the North American. Only Japan and the USA have less paid vacation than us and I think that we are likely strongly influenced in our cultural values by the USA, a country which stands alone among wealthy nations as the only country with zero requirements for paid vacation.

I think that largely as a result of the cultures in which they exist, Europeans spend much more per-capita on holiday expenses and North Americans spend much more per-capita on luxury items. This is the difference between hibernation and vacation. In fact, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Europeans travel more than all other people groups combined! Interesting, perhaps, but what does all of this economic mumbo jumbo have to do with Advent?

This is where it all comes together for me. Last week I saw a Facebook meme travelling around that encouraged people to spend twice as much time with their kids and half as much money on them. It was trite advice given in a tongue and cheek sort of way but it really resonated with my experience of the last month. This past November, for the first time since our honeymoon 9 ½ years ago, we took a family vacation that was just for our family. That means a trip that was not rolled into a ministry event or conference, a trip that was not about visiting family and exposing our children to their Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins, a trip that was just the five of us in the mini-van for long hours of driving and uncomfortable amounts of quality time together. And it was awesome. For the first time in way too long, I got to know my kids better; I got to reconnect with my wife; we had the chance to enjoy making memories that will (hopefully last a lifetime) and I started to question whether all this hibernation was taking its toll on us.

It’s no secret that I am a materialistic person. If I ever gave you the impression otherwise, I’m sorry – that was a lie. I am. I’m a toy collecting, gadget craving, technology obsessed, consumeristic schlub. I wish I could tell you that it wasn’t the case, but it is. God still has a lot of work to do in my heart to purge me of this vice – but one of the things he’s already working on is my desire to channel my consumerism into areas that have a more lasting and redeeming impact than the way I have traditionally spent my money.

That means, as I shared yesterday, no more buying children’s toys. That means prioritizing spending money on experiences this holiday season more than spending money on stuff. As a family we made the decision this year that all of our holiday spending would go toward that vacation we had in November, so we gave ourselves permission to do a little more when we were away than we would have anyways – we traded stuff for memories and I don’t for a second regret the trade. In Luke 13 Jesus, when talking about greed teaches the crowds with a parable about a greedy farmer who thinks he can hoard his bumper crop and find rest and security in the abundance of his stuff. Notably in verse 15 he says:

“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Luke 13:15 (TNIV)

I think that this verse is an important one for me this Advent. It’s a lesson that I need to understand how little value I have really received from my investment in stuff over the years and how much more reward I have received even in a very short time from experiences. Because next year, when our TV seems too small, and our Wii seems outdated and my iPhone seems unbearably archaic I’ll still want more stuff, but the memories that I have made with my family won’t expire. Not for me, and hopefully not for them either.

My Advent resolution for today is to place a higher value on vacation than I do on hibernation. What is God leading you in this Advent season?

In Christ,

Chris

The tyranny of “Stuff” Part 1 - Advent Transformation

So it’s Advent. The season of expectation and the season of celebration and if I am to believe what I see on television this season – the season of shopping. Probably the last thing you need to read is another pontificating hypocrite telling you how bad you are for spending all that money on gifts that you and your loved ones don’t need and probably won’t appreciate by this time next year anyways. I’m not going to sit here from my keyboard and lecture you on your consumer choices this Christmas, because frankly I have no moral authority to do so.

Over the years I have spent far more than I should have on things that do not last, and even more than that on myself for things that probably have an even shorter shelf life of significance. Lately I’ve been feeling very convicted of this fact and realize that perhaps I need to change something in my life before I dare talk to anyone else about changing theirs. And that doesn’t mean that I make one grand gesture and feel I’ve earned the right by doing so to look down on people who haven’t done the same – but rather I need to enact sustained life change that alters my priorities and makes me a person more in line with what Jesus wants to do through me. So over the next week I want to share with you some things that I have realized I need to repent of and change in my life if I want to be the type of person that I think honours Christ by my consumer choices. Today I start with my toys.

“…When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

–        1 Corinthians 13:11

If you have ever been in my office you will understand that I have a ‘hobby’ of collecting Transformers. I am enamoured with the toys, the fiction, the engineering that goes into them and the characters that I grew up with as a child. Over the years my collection has grown, and shrank, and grown and shrank. I have culled the herd once by parting with a toy every day of the season of Lent in 2011 and I culled the herd a second time when I sold about 30 figures last Christmas to pay for my wife’s iPhone (which is really just trading one sort of consumerism for another). For those who have known me over the years it would certainly seem that I have curbed my enthusiasm for the toys but up until the end of this summer I was still spending money on buying toys that largely just sat on display in my office.

This September I came to a point of internal crisis when I decided that I couldn’t any longer justify spending my hard-earned money on children’s toys that aren’t being played with by children. So I haven’t spent a dime on Transformers since August and it feels great. But I still have all these toys sitting on my shelf, many of them in unopened boxes, imported from Japan. Many of them the same toy over and over, just with minor colouring changes to incite schmucks like me to spend 4-5 times the average retail price for a toy I already have just so I can have the special edition limited-release version of a toy that I will never open an play with for fear of diminishing it’s value. How does any of that honour God?

So this Advent season I’ve resolved to put childish things behind me (or at least get the ball rolling on what will be a long process). Some toys I have already taken off my shelf and given them to my boys. No longer to collect dust but to be played with (an in the process learned that only one of my boys really appreciates them). Some other ones I want to randomly give away to other kids – likely the common figures that you can (or could have in the past) found on the shelves in Wal-Mart. Some of the more valuable un-opened pieces (particularly the imports) I will try to sell and recoup the money for more God honouring purposes (I am not promising to give the proceeds away from these sales as I have in the past, although I may at some point do some of that I believe that God can be honoured by my own consumerism when it is responsible and mature as well) and some I will still keep for sentimental purposes.

I don’t expect that you will walk into my office after Christmas and find a complete absence of Transformers on my shelves but I do suspect that you will notice a difference and that the collection will only decrease from here on out as I learn to put childish things behind me.

This is just the first step in my Advent journey. Tomorrow check back to hear my thoughts on hibernation and holidays.

In Christ,

Chris