Christmas thoughts

With only a few hours until it's actually here, I thought I'd share a bit about the holy day. The holiday.

I’ve been thinking a lot about all the beautiful paradoxes and surprises that you find in the Christmas story. They’re really the same kinds of paradoxes and surprises that you find throughout the life – and death – of Jesus. The parents who hadn’t enough influence or charisma to find a hotel for the night gave birth to the baby king who would someday have, still, no place to lay his head. The child whose birth illuminated a star for faraway travelers would grow to become a man whose death would blot out the sun for an afternoon. The infant whose first visitors were shepherds without sheep would one day look upon the uncertain masses among him and see them as sheep without a shepherd. The star-worshiping priests of a false religion, led by the Spirit to usher in His birth, would be replaced by Jehovah-worshiping priests of a true religion, led by Satan to usher in His death.

I suppose the list could go on and on, and if it did, we’d only grow increasingly more confused and perplexed and enchanted by it all.

It’s all so beautiful and mysterious, and – if we’re honest – not at all what it “ought” to have been. Not at all what we thought it would be.

No one anticipated (or wanted) a king born in a barn on a cold and lonely night. Nor did anyone anticipate (or want) a king who offered both sides of his face to be slapped, both hands to be nailed, both shoulders to bear the weight of a trillion criminals, and doing so with criminals at both his sides (two spots that Zebedee’s wife had once requested for her sons; no doubt she would’ve changed her mind on that day).

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The point I want to make could be made at any point in the story of Jesus, and perhaps in the stories of any of His followers throughout history. It is simply this: His Kingdom is not of this world.

Said another way: there are lots and lots of kingdoms in this world, and Jesus doesn’t belong to or submit to or care much for any of them.

It’s not that He’s a superior-acting snob or even a revolutionary. He is, by His nature, Superior. He is, by His essence, Revolution. In every way He is higher and greater and set apart. He is Other. For Him to stop pursuing His business to take interest in our kingdoms would be like a firefighter who stops racing toward a burning hospital to settle a quarrel between two ants fighting over a potato chip. His thing is just infinitely more important than ours. Infinitely.

He is simply too great for our understanding. And that’s why so much of what He does makes no sense to us. That’s why we God-following humans spend so much time trying to over-explain Bible passages that don’t make sense to us. “Oh, it doesn’t really mean that.” “That would’ve been completely different had you read it in Greek.” “He’s not talking about the same thing in that passage that He was talking about in that other passage.” Fire doesn’t mean fire and all doesn’t mean all and He doesn’t change His mind even though He just did.

Etc.

And on and on we go trying to make sure He stays within our doctrinal understanding of Him, because of course we’ve already decided what He will and will not do. Our poor God is in a theological judo hold, unable to ever do anything that we haven’t pre-destined Him to do.

Don’t hear me saying context isn’t important. Quite the opposite. I’m actually saying that context is everything, and that our context is so small and narrow that we may never – this side of Heaven, at least – comprehend His context.

And even as we try to understand His context, we’re also busy inserting Him into ours. Only He doesn’t really fit into our context. At least not in the way that makes sense to us. Sure, He fits if we’re okay with a baby born in a smelly barn. He fits if we’re thrilled with him scaring off a good crowd of followers with talk of cannibalism. He fits if we like cryptic, down-home parables for the lower class and insulting, crystal-clear metaphors for the upper class.

And of course now I’ve gotten far away from the Christmas story, haven’t I? I’ll go ahead and tie this thing up, lest I lose all 3 of you.

I was just trying to say that I think the Christmas story is alive to me again this year. It’s alive to me because I love how unexpected and surprising it all was. And in that way – if in no other way – our crazy, over-commercialized gift-exchanging is sort of appropriate. Presents, wrapped up and secret, under the tree, waiting to be opened. We all love a good surprise. We all love a gift that changes everything. Even when it isn’t what it “ought” to have been. Even when it isn’t what we thought it would be.

Merry Christmas, world. Happy Birthday, Jesus.

Hmmm...

Two links for you today, along with some verbal head-scratching from yours truly. Beware of bitter-sounding rants. I'm pretty sure I'm not mad about any of this, just kind of confused.

First, check this out.

To be clear, I’m all for fasting (feel free to make jokes about the thing I posted on Monday).

And I do love me some Jon Foreman. Compared to most of what CCM is turning out these days,that dude is in another musical/lyrical universe. But I’m a little perplexed by the idea of famous people fasting publicly and other people writing magazine articles about it (I actually made a joke about this in an interview I once did with Todd for worshipnotes, but I don't know where that interview is now). I mean, I guess it's better than spending millions of dollars giving away fake, Christian-ized Grammy's to the wealthy, famous, idolized Christian musicians who are the most wealthy, famous and idolized. But that's another blog.

Anyway, pulicized fasting. Anyone else think this – the publicity of it, not the fast – is odd? Not bad, not evil, just odd? I mean, honestly, maybe this is a great thing. Maybe this will cause more people to contemplate fasting. I guess I just get a little nervous when I read that article and then I read this.

Thoughts?

Second thing:

Any of you remember that song "happy" on my last record? Any of you wonder what I was talking about?

Well, when you read this you'll either get the connection or you won't, and if you don't, then all I can say is this: please do your best to convince me that I'm way off. Because this confuses me. A lot.

I guess I'm just tempted to propose this crazy idea: let someone else preach. Maybe, just maybe, God can speak thru other people in the 99 other church bodies that you're broadcasting to. Maybe, just maybe, He wants to speak thru those other people from time to time. Maybe, just maybe, it's dangerous to have people say "if that one guy doesn't preach, this thing won't be any good."

Here's another question. How much money does it cost to do this? Is it enough money to pay the salaries of some young pastors who are eager to be trained up to use their gifts?

And no, I'm not saying these people are evil or ungodly or anything. I listen to this guy's sermons from time to time, and I generally like them. I trust that the leadership of this church is doing their best to follow Jesus. I'm just saying that I'm not sure God is happy about this.

Sure, I could pick on any number of preachers who are doing this sort of thing. These guys are actually doing some great stuff, so why not just leave this alone? Because in this instance, I want to make it clear that even churches who seem to be doing lots of great things for the Kingdom can go wrong when they inordinately exalt preaching and preachers. Feel free to chime in. I promise I really do want to hear what people say.

Eat, drink,and be very unsure what to make of it.

I've had this entry sitting on my desktop for a while, but I've hesitated to post if for reasons that will be clear (at least to the "lifelong evangelicals" among you) when you read.

A few months ago I got to go to Disney World.

By the grace of God – and the generosity of my wife’s parents – Staci and I spent several days at Saratoga Springs Resort in Orlando, taking our boys to the Disney Parks and generally having the kind of vacation that we could never have had without someone else paying for it. It was a fantastic week, and as always, I’m so thankful to have cool in-laws.

It was so ridiculously fantastic that I’d feel guilty elaborating much further. It's very difficult to think about this or this while talking about free vacations to the most magical place on earth. So I won't spend a lot of time bragging on it. However, I do have something, from the non-theme-park aspect of the trip, that I’d like to throw out there.

One of the cool things we got to do while we were there was called Party for Senses (some info about it here and here). Basically, several hundred people get together in a huge room and try out food and wine from the many of the best chefs and wineries in the country. They give you little tiny portions so that you can eat and drink and sample lots of stuff. I ate stuff like duck wrapped in bacon over fresh greens, and barbecue-braised short ribs over cheese grits. I had smoked pork loin and scallops and lamb filet. Desserts were abounding: chocolate brownie with white chocolate mousse and coffee ice cream; orange-honey cheesecake; various chocolate truffles.

Oh, and wine.

I won’t elaborate on the wine, out of respect for some of you.

Here’s what I want to talk about. I ate too much. I was gluttonous. It’s a fact. I know I ate way past “full” and indulged to sinful excess. Some of you might be quick to cry “legalist!” Hey, sin is sin. I’m not beating myself up over it or trying to over-dramatize. I’m just being honest and, as much as I know how, biblical in dealing with myself. Just because gluttony isn’t something we talk about anymore doesn’t mean it’s not sin. More on that in a bit.

Bear with me.

I also had a glass and a half of wine over the course of 3 hours. I did not drink in excess. I don’t like to get into this kind of stuff very often, but for clarity, I will say that I was with family the entire night. In case anyone is tempted to bring up “weaker brothers” and all that, the only people in the room that knew me were the people with whom I shared a table, and I’ve known all of them (and their opinions/perspectives on alcohol) for over a decade. Though I don’t agree with the way that many people interpret the “weaker brother” passages, I will say that I feel confident defending myself within that context ( I’ve dealt with all of this before, so I won’t spend time on it here). In short, I am as certain as I can be that I wasn’t sitting in the presence of (what Paul would call) weaker brothers (or sisters). The people that knew me are fine with drinking alcohol and following Jesus, and the people that didn’t know me wouldn’t have any reason to pay attention to me. (Again, if anyone wants my interpretation on the “weaker brother” passages, let me know and I’ll give you my take.)

Anyway…

Here’s the weird thing. Lots of Christians wouldn’t think twice about eating too much. In fact, lots of Christians would think it's kind of silly for me to even talk about it with any kind of seriousness. But lots and lots of Christians would scorn my alcohol consumption – which was in moderation, and didn’t lead to drunkenness in the least. I actually repented over my eating, because I was confident that I ate to sinful excess. But there wasn’t anything sinful about my drinking.

And I just think that lots of Christians would disagree with my perspective on this. I'm not trying to invite a fight or assume the worst about people. Maybe I'm wrong and nobody even cares about drinking alcohol, so long as it's in moderation. Maybe I'm wrong and everybody really cares about gluttony. I'm honestly just perplexed by what I perceive to be a weird imbalance.

Any thoughts? I’d really love to hear what people have to say.

But first, let me address what I think might be the knee-jerk reaction for some folks. Aside from the weaker brother idea (again, I'm aware that my perspectve on it will be problematic for some), most people, when comparing/contrasting drinking with gluttony, will say, "well, if someone eats too much, the worst thing that happens is that they are unhealthy, but if someone drinks too much, awful things can happen."

Assuming that someone might make this kind of argument (and I admit that they might verbalize it a lot better than I just did), I guess my response would be, "If Jesus wanted us to weigh sin based upon its consequences, he would've never equated 'hating your brother' with murder or 'looking lustfully on a woman' with adultery." (I'm referring to the latter part of Matthew 5 here, in case you're wanting some documentation.)

See, its not enough for our argument to be about consequences. It has to be about more than that. So, to that end, let's hear it. Keep it civil. Readysetgo.