The Longest Night

The Longest Night

Luke 1:14
And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.
 
   The Winter Solstice was this week on the 22nd, and it t marks the beginning of winter.  The solstice is the shortest day – and the longest night - of the year.  The long nights can be especially hard on those who are worried about how to pay for their next meal.  For those who have a heavy heart for a loved one suffering from a long-term ailment.  For those who will find an empty chair at the dinner table this Christmas.  For those who are alone or those who should go home but can’t find the courage to go.  For these the long, cold nights can be excruciatingly long.
   Thankfully, God has arranged for us the celebration of an event that might not have actually happened during this season, but needs to be celebrated at this time of the year.  Christmas brings light and joy to millions during the darkest part of the year and inspires us to share that light and joy with others.
   From that first dark night when the bored, lonely shepherds received an angelic message and went to the stable to see a newborn lying in straw to today people have needed a ray of hope during the dark nights in our lives.  The hope was brought by a little Baby born during the dark more than 2000 years ago and He still brings hope into our dark lives.
   I think it’s fitting that one of the symbols of Christmas are bright, colored lights.  My wife and I love to drive around and see the Christmas lights people put up around their homes; the lights brighten up the long, dark nights.  Christmas is such a bright, shiny time and the merry songs bring joy and peace to us.  A drab living room is transformed with a few lights, ornaments and garland and laughter of little kids opening presents.  There are few things as wonderful as the twinkle in the eyes of kid when he first sees the tree with presents under it.  
   The one problem with this time of year is that ends all too quickly.  I’m not sorry the hype ends or the nightmare shopping trips end, but must we lose the feeling of joy and love, too?  Just because Christmas is over do we have to go back to ignoring others we pass on the street?  Do we have to go back to being surly to cashiers in the store?  To not speaking to our siblings and cousins for another year?
   We’re ok with visiting nursing homes in December, why not in February, too?  It’s ok to bake cookies or a pie for a neighbor in December, but not in January?  It’s ok to send a card in December to someone we’ve not seen in years but ignore them the other eleven months?
   Let me quote the end of Charles Dicken’s story, “A Christmas Carol”
“It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, "God bless us, every one!"
This year let’s try to keep that Christmas spirit around a little longer.  The lights may be packed away with the ornaments and garland, but let’s not let the true Light of Christmas fade away so quickly.  Let’s let the light of God’s love shine through us into the lives of others.  The hope brought by that Baby is still in the world and we should share it with others.  A kind word, a card or a small gift, a phone call, a plate of cookies, or whatever could really brighten the life of a lonely, hurting person during the dark nights.
Merry Christmas

Stephen Cram                          December 25, 2011                     Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8

One of My Favorite Christmas Stories

One of My Favorite Christmas Stories

Luke 2:14 KJV
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

   There are thousands of Christmas stories, some true and some fiction, touching on many aspects of the Advent season.  Of all of them, perhaps my favorite is an unusual one from way back in 1914 during the first year of bloody fighting in World War One.  The Germans were locked in a near-stalemate with the British, the Belgians and the French along a long border from Belgium to southern France.
   On Christmas Eve in Belgium, along a line where the British and the Germans faced each other, the common soldiers on each side crouched in their muddy trenches amid the lice and rats.  They were cold and wet and miserable.  There was a standing order on both sides to shoot any enemy soldier on sight.
   On Christmas Eve, some German soldiers put up small trees decorated with candles on the parapets of their trenches.  As the day went on, hundreds of these Christmas trees lighted the German trenches.  Then a Christmas miracle happened – the soldiers decided not to kill each other.
   During the day the British heard singing coming from the German side.  Although they didn’t understand the words, the tunes were familiar Christmas hymns.  Once in a while a heavily accented voice would shout, “a happy Christmas to you Englishmen!”  Glad to send Christmas greeting back, the British began to call back, “Same to you, Fritz!”  One young British soldier wrote home that in his part of the line, the Germans sang “Silent Night,” and when they finished the British began singing “The First Noel.”  Back came “O Tannenbaum.”  They replied with “O Come All Ye Faithful.”  The Germans answered back with “Adeste Fidéles.”
   German soldiers began yelling over to their enemy, "Tommy, you come over and see us!  We will not fire at you and you don’t fire at us."  A few from both sides climbed up ladders and carefully went over the barbed wire and met in the middle of “No Man’s Land.”  Officers from both sides met and came back to tell everyone that there would be no firing at the other side until midnight the next day, Christmas Day.  This truce was not officially sanctified nor organized, and yet it quickly spread up and down the line.  The soldiers built fires and exchanged tea and coffee, cigarettes and cigars, canned meat, fruit, booze and newspapers.  They laughed at the propaganda written in the other side’s news and drank toasts to each other’s families and friends and sang more Christmas carols.  
   While the Christmas truce was going on, crews from both sides buried their fallen comrades.   Both British and German soldiers sorted through the bodies and in a few cases joint services were held for the dead from both sides.
   One thing I read over and over in stories of this truce was that the soldiers from both sides were surprised to find out how much they had in common; that they were more alike than either side knew.
   In many years I’ve had occasion to attend Christmas services in other churches and it has always been a fun time visiting with other Christians.  I’ve been pleased to see that I have more in common with them than differences.  I’ve not always been comfortable with some parts of their services but as long as we agree about Jesus and His birth, death and resurrection, we can have fellowship together.
   Sadly, much like the Christmas Truce of 1914, most of the time the only way we’d even consider visiting another church is during the Christmas season.  We hunker down in our own trenches the rest of the year and lob verbal bombs at others and happily shoot the other side any time we see a weak spot.  And God help the wounded because we don’t.
   That church you drive by on the way to your church?  You know, the one that’s too loud, or too quiet, or too weird, or too mean, or the preacher wears a funny robe?  The saints there are pretty much just like you.

Stephen Cram                                 December 18, 2011                     Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8

         
   

God's Home

God’s Home

John 14:2 NKJV
In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
(Note:  The Greek word for mansions is monai, the plural form of mone, which literally means dwelling place or abode.)

   As I was writing last week, He shall come.  And He promised us that He is preparing a place for us in His Father’s house.  Heaven is mentioned, I’m told, over 400 times in the Bible.  Never counted them, so I’ll use that number.  But it’s not until we get to the last book do we get much in the way of a description of heaven, and much of what we read isn’t directly about Heaven.
   John the Beloved wrote his description of his vision on the Isle of Patmos.  John was a fisherman from the Sea of Galilee living in the 1st century, so when he saw his vision, he had to use familiar words to describe what he saw.  What he saw must have been an overwhelming sight, because his description is awe-inspiring.
   John tells us the city of New Jerusalem descended out of heaven and “it shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.” He tells us that this city, which is not the whole of heaven but only came out of heaven, was twelve thousand furlongs long and another twelve thousand furlongs wide at the base.  A furlong is one eighth of a mile, so twelve thousand furlongs is about 1500 miles.  It’s hard to imagine something that big, but if New Jerusalem were set down in the US it would extend from Fort Kent, Maine to Miami, Florida, and would reach from Manhattan all the way to the Colorado River.  And its 1500 miles tall!  That’s 5447 Sears Towers on top of one another.  (And yes, I know the Sears Tower was renamed the Willis Tower.)  If New Jerusalem is this big and this beautiful, what must Heaven itself be like?
   The famous “streets of gold” we hear so much about are the streets of New Jerusalem as are the twelve huge gates made of pearls.  He will leave the Gates open because New Jerusalem will be a pure place where no unclean or evil thing will be allowed.  The city will not need the sun or the moon because it is lit with the radiance of God’s glory and the Lord Jesus will be its light.  Heaven is not a Motel Six, but I sure am glad that God will leave the “Light” on for me.
   So it seems that God really hasn’t revealed much about Heaven to us.  But is that the important stuff we needed to know?  No.  Knowing what Heaven looks like is isn’t really important.  What we need to know about Heaven we already know.  Jesus said, “You know the way to the place where I am going…I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:4&6)
Let’s not lose sight of the goal in our travels.  It’s not really important to worry about whether or not we’ll have a mansion on a street of gold near a gate made of a giant pearl.  It’s more important that we know Who we’ll spend eternity with.  It’s more important to know how we can get there.
   When I turn my thoughts towards Heaven, I am amazed; again, that God did so much to make the way for me to get there.  I can scarcely get my head around the sacrifice Jesus made allowing Himself to be beaten and crucified to buy me ticket into eternity.  We used to sing a song called “Just As I Am” and rarely does a song describe so accurately the condition of a lost soul in need of salvation as that one does.  The song begins, “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me.” And in verse 5 is a line, “because Thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
   Yes, Jesus shall come.  He shall come to those of us Who have come to Him believing in His promise.  Do you still come to Him?  In your busy life, do you still come to Him?  In your trials in life, do you still come to Him?  Nothing has changed; He still waits with open arms.  And because He promised, we can believe.  O Lord, I come to You.

Stephen Cram                                  December 11, 2011                    Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Matthew 1:22&23 NKJV

22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 

23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” 

   The holiday season is in full swing.  We’ve gotten by Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  We’re in a frenzied time of buying gifts, decorating the tree and the outside of our homes, Christmas programs and musicals, parties and dinners.  Christmas in the 21^st century is a hectic time.

   It was not that way for the Monks of the Middle Ages.  In the monastery, Advent was a time of meditation on serious subjects like death, judgment, heaven and hell.  This time of year was their time to reflect on His first coming and look forward to His second coming.   They sang seven Latin sentences during the Advent time, five of these were put into a song and a chorus was added.  With its haunting minor key melody, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" has long been a much-loved Christian hymn.

   The first verse tells of Jesus coming to His people.  You can argue whether this is for Israel, long held in captivity waiting their Messiah, or the world, long held in the grip of sin, waiting for Christ to come and free us by His death and resurrection.  Both views are equally workable.  The lost need Emmanuel to come to them.  The promise of “God with us” is the only hope for a lost and sinful world. 

   Verse two asks that the Rod of Jesse come to free the captives from the tyranny of Satan and free us from the depths of Hell.  Those held captive need to be freed, and only Emmanuel has the power and the authority to free us from the sins that bound us.

   Verse three calls him the Day-Spring and asks that He come and cheer our spirits with His Presence.  I particularly love the line, “and death’s dark shadows put to flight.”  When we stand in the light of Christ’s love, the shadows of death and condemnation will flee from us.  It’s hard to fear the dark when you are standing in the pure light of Heaven’s Glorious Son.

   Verse four calls Him the Key of David and asks Him to open Heaven for us.  His death and resurrection and ascending to the Father did just that.  I still have to struggle to grasp that idea.  Heaven, the throne of Almighty God, is open to me, born in sin and without the means to save myself.  When I go there, they won’t search my baggage or ask for two forms of ID.  Christ has paid the way and the gates are open and waiting for me to come in.  Awesome!

   Verse five calls Him the Lord of Might.  We are reminded that He gave the Law and He still defines our boundaries.  He calls us to live Holy lives and keep from the sins of the world.  We may not live any longer under the Law, but we still are called to obey His commandments.  We are called to live to a higher standard and live above the sinful ways of the world.

   The chorus of each line gives a promise that is worth repeating:  Immanu El, literally translated as “God (is) with us,” shall come. 

   We don’t see Him, but He shall come.  We don’t know when, but He shall come.  Ready or not, He shall come.  The Blessed Hope of the Church is this promise.  He shall come.  This Christmas season, I urge you to work a little time into your frantic schedule to reflect of His first coming and look forward to His second coming because, as we are reminded, He shall come.

Stephen Cram                                      December 4, 2011                    Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8