Be Merry! (Why?)

I don't know if the occurrence is actually increasing, or if I'm just suddenly aware of it, but advertising seems to be exhorting me to Be merry! more and more this Christmas season. The message isn't the traditional Merry Christmas or even the vacuous Seasons Greetings, but simply Be Merry.

My initial, admittedly contrarian, response is Why?

There is no reason to be merry. Unemployment is high. Investments are down. There's turmoil within the United States between those who would steal the fruits of others worked hard and those who would not share the bounty they've been given. There's economic instability and social unrest in Europe. Groups are killing each other in Africa. The middle East seems to be getting more and more radicalized. Parts of Asia are aggressively attacking the computer resources of the West and oppressing their own while other parts of Asia are melting down from natural disasters. Chaos increases around the planet.

What reason is there for merriness? Gaiety? Cheerfulness?

The exhortation needs to come with a purpose. Without context, all that's left is to look around and see what's happening in the world and despair of any incentive. In fact, it would be pretty irrational in the context of the current circumstances. The simplistic Be Merry has no context for the exhortation and therefore lacks any moral imperative.

The original context needs to be restored. The context for this holiday is Christmas. The context is remembering that God wants to be with us. He originally created the earth as a place to meet with us. We are unique: the only part of creation made in His image. This enables us to have fellowship with Him. But, we rebelled and broke fellowship with Him.

However, in spite of our rejecting Him, He still wanted fellowship with us. So much so He became one of us. And that's what we celebrate this season.

We remember His first arrival as an infant. The message to Mary. The travel to Bethlehem. The full inn and the manger. The angels' announcement to the the shepherds. The star guiding wise men with their gifts. The incarnation. Emmanuel. God with us.

We remember how He walked among us, showing us the heart of God. He took upon Himself the debt we couldn't pay and paid it in full by dying on the cross. We celebrate Jesus. Savior. The perfect Lamb of God.

We remember how three days later He picked His life back up. Death could not keep Him down. He is the first of many who will overcome death by what He has done for us. We celebrate His resurrection. The Living One.

We remember that, as bad as things are on the earth now, they will get worse. But they won't stay that way. He will return a second time to bring justice to this planet. All things will be restored in perfect accordance with God's will. He will prevail. We celebrate His return. The King of kings.

God loves us and want's fellowship with us. He wants to walk with us. He wants everything to be made right and has done everything in His power to provide a way for us to be at peace with Him. We simply need to place our faith in Him and in what He's done for us.

When we look at the world from His perspective, we are able to see the beginning and the end and understand the reason for any chaos we have in our circumstances or in the events around the globe. And we understand it is only temporary.

It is only in the context of His story that it makes sense to be merry.

Merry Christmas!

Related articles:

Thoughts on the Incarnation
Why Celebrate Christmas?

Thoughts on the Incarnation

In a few weeks we will be celebrating Christmas. So much of this holiday is focused on lights and tinsel, gifts and family, parties and food. Sometimes we complain about all the hoopla and start to see these as bad things. But, in fact they are good things. This is a time to celebrate with joy, freedom and laughter. It's just that as we go about preparing for and participating in this season, we need to remember who and what this holiday is about. Towards this end, recently I've been thinking quite a bit about Jesus first coming.

The whole idea of the incarnation is mind blowing when you consider it: God, the creator of the universe, of everything that ever was, is or will be, became man. Infinite folded itself into the finite. Omnipotence limited to a frail human frame. Glory hidden in dust. The uncreated contained in the created. This is an earmark of historic Christianity: Jesus was not a man who became God, but rather He was God who became man. If we think we can comprehend how this happened, then we either have too low a view of God or too high a view of man whereupon this glorious, majestic miracle is reduced to just a nice event that may have occurred some time in the past.

When Gabriel appeared to Mary to tell her she was to bear Jesus, she asked the honest question "how can this be?"^[1] She knew how babies were made and knew the particular circumstances for that to happen had not occurred. She simply wondered from a natural perspective. Gabriel gave her an answer that seems to have satisfied her. But I wonder, did Gabriel have the same question from a spiritual perspective? Was he as satisfied by his own answer as she was? He'd stood before the throne in God's awesome presence. Did he wonder "how can God fit in man?"

The sixth chapter of Isaiah describes a vision of heaven. The Lord is seated on a throne, lofty and exalted. Seraphim fly around with covered faces, crying to one another saying "Holy, holy holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with His glory." The doorposts of the temple shook and smoke filled the place at this declaration.^[2] This same Lord walked the dusty Judean wilderness as an unremarkable man. He knew who He was. He had memory of creating those very hills.^[3] He'd closed the door for Noah. He told Joshua to be strong and courageous. He walked with Abraham. He had spoken with Isaiah those few centuries prior.^[4] However, those around Him saw Him as simply another man. There was nothing remarkable about Him that anyone would notice Him.^[5] He blended into the crowd. Satan, knew there was something special about Him, but I wonder if he really understood Who He was. When he tempted Jesus, did he know he was trying to get God to worship him?^[6] Or rather did he think he was simply trying to derail God's purpose in this man's life? Paul says if the rulers of this age had known who He was, they would not have crucified Him.^[7] So, I wonder, was His glory hidden even in the spiritual realms?

Yes, Jesus was much more than a super hero type of being. That is much too low a view of who He was. That is something we could kind of get our minds around. If we think we can wrap our minds around who Jesus was in His entirety, then we have an image of God in our own image and not in His image. The finite cannot comprehend the infinite in its totality. We can have sufficient knowledge to understand what He want's us to know in our relationship with Him, but we cannot have exhaustive knowledge into all that He is. His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.^[8]

When I meditate on the incarnation, on God wrapping Himself in flesh, the only response I have is to thank Him for revealing Himself and praise Him for Who He is.

It was from the depths that You grabbed me
Called me and pulled me
Up from the miry clay

It was when I was undeserving
And rightfully earning
Eternal separation from You

It took the blood of One,
The Pure and Spotless Lamb
It took the blood of One
The Man from Heaven

As I see the height from which You reign
And the depth to which You came
As I see the height to which You brought me
And the depth from which You saved

I will praise You
I will love You will all my heart
And I will thank You
Forever and ever
-- I Will Praise You by Jusin Rizzo

Further reading:

1. Luke 2:26-38

2. Isaiah 6:1-4

3. Genesis 1; Proverbs 8:22-31; John 1:1-5; Colossians 1:16-17

4. Genesis 7:16; Joshua 1:6-7; Genesis 18:1-33; Isaiah 6:8-13

5. Isaiah 53:2

6. Matthew 4:1-11

7. 1st Corinthians 2:6-9

8. Isaiah 55:8-9

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Why Celebrate Christmas?

Why Celebrate Christmas?

This time of year, our culture discusses Jesus. For some it is the controversy over whether crèches are legal on public property. For others it is about what greeting we use this time of year. Some, disturbed by the materialism that can be so rampant, focus on the spiritual. The uproar really should not surprise us. His first birthday also brought diverse reactions. The shepherds were surprised. The wise men from the East knew it was coming. Both these groups fell down and worshiped. His mother pondered. Herod rose up in anger and killed all the infants in the Bethlehem region.

For those who get past the political agendas, we tend to focus on the sweet little baby in the manger. We see the pastoral scenes with his parents, him and some farm animals, the shepherds with their sheep, the star in the sky and the wise men with their camels. These are good things to remember and meditate on but in our contemplation of these things, we do well to remember the incredible, awesome, mind-blowing mystery of God taking on flesh and living among us. He came to show us the Father. He came to build a bridge for us back to God's presence that we could not build ourselves. This little baby, whose birth we celebrate this time of year, was born to be the Passover lamb. He grew up. He's not a baby in a manger anymore.

Jesus had several goals in His time here on earth. One of those, perhaps the greatest one, was to bring us life. We are born dead, separated from God. He came to give his life as a ransom for humanity. He was the perfect lamb, sacrificed on our behalf that we might live, giving us a restored relationship with the Father. He was born in the shadow of the cross. His offering and death we remember on Good Friday. We remember the beating, the whip, the torn flesh, the nails and the sword in his side. However, in all this we need to remember that is past. He's not a broken man on a cross.

For Passover, God died. For the first time in eternity, the Son and the Father did not live in dynamic relationship. He experienced what every human has lived under: separation, loneliness, death. It was a dark day. Creation moaned. His body went to a tomb. His spirit went to the place of the dead, Satan's dominion, and preached the nearness of God's kingdom. On the third day, he demonstrated his authority by taking the keys to hell and breaking the chains of death. On the Feast of First Fruits we celebrate that He didn't stay in the grave.

After that first Easter morning, he spent 40 days with those he knew. He talked with them. He ate with them. Many saw him. He instructed them on what they were to do. Finally, He left, caught up into the sky and out of their sight. Ten days later, during the Feast of Pentecost, the Spirit of God poured out to empower them to carry out his instructions. This all took place approximately 2000 years ago. Given that things have not changed for two millennia, it is easy to forget that the time we are in now is temporary. We were promised when he left so long ago that He's not staying in heaven forever.

So why celebrate Christmas? Is it the taking on of flesh by God? Is it that for the first time we could look on God and live? Is it for the 30 or so years he demonstrated God's love for us? Is it for the sacrifice he made on our behalf? Is it for the power he demonstrated on Easter? Yes! Absolutely, it is all this. It is also more because the story is not over yet.

Jesus came and did all the things we celebrate on Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost for an as-yet unrealized purpose. These were not ends in and of themselves; they were a means to another end. You see, since the Garden, God has wanted relationship with us weird creatures called Humans. He created us unique beings. Angels do not have bodies and animals do not have spirits. Humans alone have both. Uniquely created, we can live in the spiritual realm with God and the angels as well as the physical realm with the animals. In the beginning, Adam had this relationship with God; they walked together each day. When Adam, and with him the rest of humanity, rebelled, the intimacy of this relationship was lost. Our bodies could no longer exist in his presence. Terror, even for the righteous, was the normal response when he revealed just mere glimpses of his glory.

Because of this, the first time he came, he began restoring the intimacy of our relationship with him. He came as an approachable, weak baby. He grew into a loving, compassionate man. He left with a small demonstration of his authority and power. He will return with a full revealing of all his glory. There is a progression from intimacy to power in his revelation because he wants us to live fully with both realities. He wants us to experience the exhilarating presence of the power and might of his glory without falling apart. At the same time, he wants us to live in full intimacy with his heart, walking with him as compassionate rulers of creation.

It is for this future dwelling of God and man together that I celebrate the beginning at Christmas.

Italicized words are lyrics from Misty Edwards' "People Get Ready
".

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Thoughts on the Incarnation