Baby Jesus

"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God,  

 and saying, 'glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. . .  and this shall

be a sign unto you, you shall find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.' That's

what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

Of all the Christmas movies we pull out every year, this little thirty minute TV special

from 1965 is one of the most meaningful to me, right up there with the Nativity Story. Most

Christmas movies have the same basic message, the good parents teach their children to believe

in Santa Claus. Santa Claus is what Christmas is all about. For my family, Christmas isn't about a

jolly old man in a red suit, although the legend of St Nicholas does embody a hint of Christmas

spirit. For us, Christmas is about the baby in a manger that Linus reminded Charlie Brown of in

"A Charlie Brown Christmas." Quite frankly, that baby in a manger has given me more than enough

to think about at Christmastime without adding flying reindeer into the mix.

When I was a child, the concept of baby Jesus seemed simple. Likenesses of Him were

everywhere, from pictures on Christmas cards to the Precious Moments Figurine which was a gift

for me from my mom's boss at Hallmark on my mom's last day of work before maternity leave.

During my early childhood years, Christmas was not complete until we had made a birthday cake

for Jesus and set the porcelain baby Jesus on top.

In elementary school, baby Jesus was the doll placed in the manger during our school

Christmas plays. My favorite doll, baby Katie had the honor of playing baby Jesus a few years

in a row. I remember one year my family was in such a hurry to get to the play that we left baby

Katie at home. We turned around at Matheny's Market and  hurried back home to get her. The

Christmas play could not go on without Baby Jesus.

As I got older and time went on, Christmas seemed to become less special and more

 stressful. Instead of looking forward to Christmas and counting down the days, I began to depend on

participating in special events such as a community Christmas choir to help me get in the Christmas

spirit.  I took baby Jesus for granted, only thinking about Him when His name was mentioned in a

Christmas song, and when we revived the tradition of making Him a birthday cake for the benefit

of my little sister.

As I grew in my Christian walk, I started to think about Baby Jesus more, and I began to

realized that I didn't really grasp the reality of His birth. I began the quest to trade the whimsical,

iconic ideal of baby Jesus for the living, breathing reality of God in the flesh. Every year, the reality

of it all has gradually become more clear. This year, as I sat and sang "Silent Night" along with the

audience at a performance of the same Christmas Choir I sang in when I was younger, I looked over

at my four-month-old nephew sleeping in his mother's lap and in my mind's eye I saw him lying in a

manger, "sleeping in heavenly peace."

On the Sunday before Christmas, my pastor brought out a truth about Jesus which I had

never thought of before. Many Bible scholars believe that Joseph likely died a short time after Jesus

first journeyed to the temple and stayed behind to speak with the teachers. This would mean that

Jesus knew what it was like to live in a household with a single mother. As I pondered this new

realization  of how God identified with human needs through Jesus, a new truth to ponder replaced

the one I had been trying to grasp for years. Not only was Jesus a real flesh and blood child, that tiny

helpless child, born in a cave used to house animals, and laid in a stone feeding trough, was God. God

became a baby. I have known this all my life, but do I really understand what it means? I now have a

new truth to ponder, but I am reminded that even if I never understand it with my mind, I know the

reality of who He is in my heart. He is not a porcelain figurine to set atop a cake, or a baby doll to lay

in a rickety wooden manger. He is God who became a man. He is the One who died for my sins and

who lives to make intercession for me. He came for me. He came for you.

Merry Christmas!

Bicycle

Bicycle

Sunday, January 18, 2015

5:45 PM

I remember the first time I got angry. I mean really, really angry. As in red-faced, fist-in-the-air,

I-hate-you-angry. Something of mine had been taken away. My rights had been violated. I was not happy.

It was my very first "big girl" bike, the bike on which I had learned to ride without training

wheels, the first mode of transportation that carried me away from our home and property into the world beyond, a few dozen yards anyway. It was mine. And now I watched, horrified, as my bicycle was crushed under the back tires of a big yellow school bus.

I wasn't expecting the bike when it was given to me for Christmas a few years before. The

Tricycle I rode as a toddler was assembled before it was presented to me on a Christmas I don't remember, as was the pink bike with the plastic training wheels and the Minnie Mouse doll perched on the handle bars. When I opened the gift from my grandparents that Christmas morning, however, I was greeted by the pieces of what would become my first twenty-inch bicycle. I was dumbfounded. What would I do with pieces of a bike I didn’t know how to ride? Fortunately, I didn’t have to try and put it together myself. If I had, I never would have learned to ride. For the first few years of riding that sky-blue twenty-inch, I didn’t learn, but relied instead on training wheels. I don't mean the plastic kind of training wheels that were on my Minnie Mouse bike. These were more heavy-duty. Now that I think about it, I am convinced that no other kid in the world ever had training wheels quite like mine. I'm still not sure where my dad got the idea of taking the front wheels off of  a lawn mower and attaching them to my bike, but that's what he did. They held me up as I pedaled up and down our gravel driveway and occasionally around the parking lot of Davy Crockett State Park.

I remember the day I came home from school determined that I was going to ride my bike

without those training wheels. It was something I just had to do. I still smile when I think of that surreal moment when I looked back and realized that my dad was no longer holding on the back of the seat as I peddled, but was standing a few feet behind me with mom, both of them clapping and cheering.

That bike went through a lot with me. We took our share of tumbles, but we kept going. The act

of riding a bike is a great adventure for a child. In some ways, it's more difficult than driving a car. There you are, sitting on a seat barely the size of or smaller than your own seat, balancing on two wheels, peddling fast enough to keep moving so you don't crash and slow enough to keep from losing control and crashing. It wasn’t easy for me, but I did it. I loved that bike.

My bicycling days changed that fateful morning. I didn’t ride the bus to school. My brother and I

went to a private school back then. My aunt and cousin lived across the driveway at the time, and the bus driver would pick up my cousin and then turn around at the end of our driveway before heading back up the road. For some reason, I had left my bike in that turn-around-spot the night before. I'm sure the bus driver had no way of seeing my little bicycle as she backed up. I can only imagine the response inside the bus as they heard the crunch. All I could think of, though, was that she had no right to run over that bike, my bike. My world had been turned upside down. I was mad.

Fortunately, my anger dissipated when my parents took me to Wal-Mart and bought me a new

bike. I picked out a hot-pink and purple twenty-inch with streamers on the handle bars. My mom protested that it was time for a bigger bike. She was right. In a short time, I got tire of my new "cool" bike and was ready for a larger one. Fortunately, we were given some money by the school system's insurance with which we bought a twenty-four Inch. I must have really gone through a growth spurt, because I quickly grew out of that bike and into a dark purple twenty-six inch ten-speed.

It's been a long time since I've ridden a bike. I no longer have the time or the interest. Our

bikes are all flat-tired and rusting behind the shed, their days of adventure and usefulness  over. But I've never forgotten that first real bike, or the first time I got really, really mad.

I didn't want to let go of that bike. I rebelled at it being snatched from me, being crushed before

my eyes. It reminds me of other times in my life, when things I had come to rely upon were ripped from me; circumstances, comfort zones, people. It's all too easy to get mad at God, like I got mad at that poor bus driver. Now that I'm older, I can see that it was time for a change. I didn’t need that bike anymore. I'm learning that when God takes something away, often, we’re in need of something new, ready to brave a new trail in our walk with Him.

Walking with God and riding a bike have something in common. They both require trust. The

journey isn't always easy. There are bumps in the trial and scraped knees. But the wind in our ears as we rush past and the view of what lies ahead make the journey worth it.

There's a saying that goes, "When God closes a door, He opens a window." I would like to add

on to that by saying that God doesn’t ask us to surrender something without having something better for us. His plan for us is greater than we can imagine. He wants to take us to new heights. That can't happen if we don’t let go of the twenty-inch and get ready for the twenty-four inch, or the four cylinder, or whatever comes next.

The Apostle Paul writes in Philippians 3:14: "I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward

call  of God in Christ Jesus." Paul knew that he lived for a purpose greater than himself, that God had greater things for him to do than He could imagine. Not only did he have to leave Saul behind, and become Paul, but he went through numerous hardships, all for the sake of that higher calling. It wasn’t easy, the calling rarely is, but it was worth it.

What is God asking me to surrender today? What greater thing does He have in store for you if

you give up whatever you're holding on to so dearly? It's time to leave the old bike behind and press on.

Cookies and Coffee

God teaches me all kinds of lessons, sometimes through the smallest things. The one that

is the most vivid in my mind right now is an object lesson I learned a few days ago during my

breakfast and devotional time. It started with a cookie, not an Oreo or chocolate chip cookie, but

one of those long round fudge-filled cookies which, quite honestly, looks like a narrow cigar. We

currently have over a dozen of them because I decided to use the tins which they come in for a

Pinterest-inspired Christmas gift.

            I usually carry one of the cookies me to the recliner on my leisure mornings to dip in my

coffee while I read my devotional. That morning, however, I had my coffee in one hand, and the

rest of my breakfast in the other. Without giving it much thought, I put the cookie down in the

coffee cup, with its one end of it poking out. I intended to pull it out and dip it like I had before. I

underestimated the effects the hot coffee would have on it. During the few seconds it took for me

to walk to the recliner, the cookie had almost completely melted into the coffee. A few seconds

later, even the tip of it had succumbed to the steaming liquid and the only evidence of the cookie

was a filmy residue floating on top. So much for a coffee-flavored cookie, now I had cookie-

flavored coffee!

            As I watched the cookie disappear into the coffee, I recognized it as a picture of how time

with God should affect us as Christians. Too often, I want to be simply “dipped” into God’s

truth, and be flavored by Him, when what He really wants is for me to be immersed in Him, to

let Him saturate me with His very essence.

            When I drank my coffee down to the bottom of the cup, I found my cookie, or rather,

what was left of it. The hard, flaky wafer had been melted away and the fudgy inside lay in a

gooey glob at the bottom.

            Romans 12:2 says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the

renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of

God.”

            When we jump into God’s Word and are immersed in His presence, we become forever

changed. The crusty layer of self is melted away, leaving a heart surrendered to God and ready to

show the love of Christ to the world.

            My prayer that morning was that I would be truly changed by God’s power and presence,

that I would not simply be flavored by Him, but be transformed.