tagged 
Christmas, discipleship
Christmas, discipleship The Four Lessons from Joseph of Nazareth
Thursday, December 15, 2011 at 12:01AM 
We get the Christmas story from the scriptures. What we know of the birth of Jesus comes to from the inspired words of the gospels. These passages, found in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke, are some of the most well-known Bible verses in history.
Like countless other believers around the world, as I prepare for the Christmas season I will read these passages again and again. They are familiar and comforting, and perhaps that’s the problem: because I have come to these passages so often, I am tempted to think that there is nothing new for the Holy Spirit to reveal through these words. That would be a mistake, because the Bible narrative of the birth of Christ is not only inspired storytelling but also useful for training in right relationship with God. What better way to prepare for Christmas than to go deeper in our relationship with the Father?
The birth narratives--like all scripture--are food for students of Jesus. These passages are filled with challenges to our faith, and filled with the encouragement we need to grow in God. Today I would like to share just four observations from the life of Joseph of Nazareth, the man trusted by God to raise the Savior of the world.
1). Poor Joseph--God didn’t get his approval before acting. Can you imagine the real-life shock of these words: “Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1: 18) Mary received an angelic visitation and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Joseph received the worst news of his life. God “drafted” Joseph into a difficult position--would the Almighty ever do the same to us? Have we ever considered the implications of God’s sovereignty? If we affirm that we belong to him are we willing to be drafted as Joseph was?
2). The narrative reveals the actions of a righteous man. In his confusion and pain, Joseph’s first concern was for Mary, he “did not want to expose her to public disgrace.” (1: 19) How many of us would have this priority? Perhaps this is why the scripture labels Joseph a “righteous man.” Scripture is demonstrating what true righteousness looks like in action. It’s revealing as well that the scripture describes Joseph's righteousness not in terms of his relationship to God, but in terms of his relationship to Mary. True righteousness extends two directions--toward God and man.
3). Joseph resisted the urge to act rashly. Even in his concern for Mary and her reputation he was still determined to divorce her (in modern terms, "break the engagement"). Yet the narrative reveals that he took time to consider his actions. When Joseph was faced with the impossible, he did not rush to judgment. The scriptures do not indicate how long he waited, but he took time to consider his actions. And in that period of time, Joseph positioned himself to hear from God in a most unusual manner:
4). God gave Joseph a dream, a dream that would change his life forever. “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife.’” This must’ve been some dream, or Joseph must’ve been some righteous man, or both. Engagement, unexpected pregnancy, and an out-of-this-world explanation would be enough to give anyone dreams. But God chose a dream as the means to provide divine direction, and Joseph recognized the dream as God’s personal leading. In fact, dreams are mentioned no fewer than four times in Matthew 1 & 2. I believe scripture is teaching us that God can and does guide his children through dreams. Imagine: in an emotionally charged situation, just when we would be tempted to ignore our dreams as a product of our subconscious, God is present: leading, directing, and guiding--through dreams. By the way, there is no indication that Joseph heard anything else from God until after the baby was born. He remained faithful to God’s instructions for months, all based on one dream!
The Christmas season offers an opportunity to anyone who would become a student of Jesus. Can we imagine ourselves in these situations? Between Matthew and Luke's gospels the cast of Christmas characters is pretty large: Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Simeon, Anna, the Magi and shepherds. They are the stuff of Christmas pageants, and cheesy dramas. They are also the stuff of God’s instruction to his disciples.
Monday's Meditation: When the Right Answer is Not Enough
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 12:01AM 
Hiding inside the Christmas story are a thousand meditations. God reveals his ways. He’s faithful. He’s sneaky. He’s a risk-taker, he is unpredictable, he hides his work in plain sight, he comes right on time yet it’s when you least expect it. A teenage girl in the story observed, “he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”
This year my favorite Christmas meditation regarding the ways of God? It’s not enough to get the right answer.
Matthew’s gospel tells the familiar story of three outsiders who find their way into the very presence of God even while the religious experts of Israel demonstrate surprisingly little regard for discovery:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:
"'And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.'"
Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him." After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.
The story is so familiar we could be excused for missing one of those meditations hiding inside the narrative we know so well.
Have you ever noticed? These rich pagan astrologers had only the faintest understanding of the birth of a new King, yet they traveled great distances to pay him homage. As they neared their destination they stopped at the center of Israel’s religious life and asked the “experts” for help. The experts answered the question correctly, but not one of the scholars packed his bag and went with the Magi.
These Magi, strangers to the the covenant of Moses, were willing to act on the merest bit of information. They traveled far. The chief priests and scribes, who had all the revelation of Israel at their fingertips, would not even travel six miles to worship their own Messiah.
It’s not enough to get the right answer. The know-it-alls did not find their way to the feet of the Christ child.
The Parable of the Incomprehensible Parable
Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 02:20AM 
Jennifer Luitwieler is my cyber-buddy. I'm pretty sure we could BFF's if I liked to run long distances at the expense of great personal pain, but I don't so we aren't. She's intelligent, unpredictable, and for some reason known only to her, has chosen to make her home in Oklahoma. I'm hoping the seven readers of Students of Jesus will not hold that against her. She's the author of Run With Me: An Accidental Runner and the Power of Poo. (I told you: unpredictable. And no, I will not run with her). She also has a unpredictable blog, or you can follow her on the Twitter.
When Ray asked for reflections on the parables, I thought he couldn’t have given an easier assignment. Those of us who grew up marinating in scriptures might feel like those particular wells have been mined dry. I thought I would dash off a few luminous paragraphs and let the people stand in silent awe. Then I did the goofy thing. I chose a parable that’s always been a challenge for me to wrap my puny human brain around.
Luke 19:11-27 always throws me for a loop. The long and the short of it is that a wicked ruler was leaving his estate to be awarded a new kingdom. His servants disliked him so much they campaigned against him. But he still got the job. Before he left, he entrusted some money to a few servants, mandating they take care of what was his. Two servants invested the money and earned a return. One servant held onto the cash and returned it to the master when he arrived home.
Every time I read this passage, I think the ending will change. I cross my fingers and hope that the guy who did as he was instructed, who took care of the money, will be praised. Every time, at the end, I’m hit with a bucket of cold reality. I want to stomp my foot because that is just not fair.
I don’t get it. I don’t get how the guy who strictly obeyed got the tongue lashing. I don’t get why this unjust man was being given even more to steward. I don’t get the way the parable ends: Jesus tells the disciples that those who have will be given more, and those who have nothing will be stripped even of that.
What the what?
Parables are designed to be tough lessons disguised as palatable stories about a friend. You know, where Jesus tells us something sort of ugly about the human condition but it’s easier to digest because we’re given a little word picture. Like a spoonful of sugar with the Nyquil. Parables are meant to be comprehensible. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end. A good guy. A bad guy. A lesson. Even a way to make it not about us, if we try hard enough.
There are two strategies we can employ to help us with scripture we don’t understand. We can use my old stand by: chosen ignorance. I used to avoid this parable, precisely because it remained to resolutely incomprehensible. If I just pretended it wasn’t there, then I didn’t have to worry about what it meant. That is a tried and true strategy, one that many of us have in our toolboxes. Problem is, it won’t work forever.
The other strategy we can use, one which proves worthwhile in uncovering scriptural truths, is to actually….study it. Which is why I chose to focus on this parable; because I needed to struggle with it. I read the parable in context, in Luke, just prior to the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. I flipped around looking at words and phrases, chasing sentences on the rabbit path in the garden of God’s word.
Guess what? I still don’t understand it. I’m still wrestling with this passage. And that’s a good thing. God is big enough to handle my doubt. Thankfully, he is so strong that my understanding is not required for my redemption. He is able to withstand my perplexity. The more time I spent thinking about this passage, the more drawn into his Word I became, never a bad thing. In this case, I continue on the path toward understanding, choosing not to ignore the things I just don’t get. Because God is big enough to wrestle.
Was Jesus Numerically Challenged?
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:43AM 
A few days ago I stumbled across a sentence that has absolutely captured my attention. It’s from the blog of a nationally-known Evangelical pastor. The sentence is part of a longer blog post, and as such is not meant to stand entirely on its own, yet it set the stage for the rest of the post that celebrated what God had done in the past and the lessons the pastor had learned in the first 15 years of ministry. Near the very beginning of his post, he said:
“The fact that we’ve grown to over 12,000 people worshiping and serving each Sunday at 14 locations in four states is proof of God’s grace.” ~ A Nationally-known Evangelical Pastor
I read the quote several times. It bounced around in my head, making noise like two random and unrelated piano keys struck at the same time. I couldn’t read the rest of the article. Instead, I pasted the sentence on to my facebook and Twitter pages and asked my friends for their reactions. Here are a few samples:
- It sounds like a dangerous presumption.
- Yes, I do think it's by God's grace, but it sounds more like "12k people! 14 locations! 4 states! Ergo, I AM AWESOME!" Somebody's big fat ego peeked out behind what was probably a sincere attempt at giving God the glory, which is His alone. Darn.
- The fact that I run circles around everyone shows that God is good. WhatdoyathinkofmeNOW?
- Jesus only had a handful of people, no building, and no cash. How sad that by Western standards, he didn't do a great work.
- More needs to be known . . . The numbers might be good, and might not be.
- It sounds like a guy who wishes he could cage fight Jesus :)
- The proof of God's grace is what the 12,000 people are doing Monday through Saturday.
- Numbers alone are only proof of crowds gathering.
- That quote isn't universally true, but it may very well be true of their situation. Numbers alone don't tell the whole story.
Now I’m asking for your help in sorting out my thoughts, which are a varied a bag of Skittles. Here, taste a few colors:
I’ve never met the megachurch pastor quoted above, but I believe him to be sincere. I trust his motives even if I do not understand his methods. The religious world of Christianity is filled with its share of competition and jealousy--I’m sure this man has been criticized unfairly and been the envy of others. I also wonder how he can appeal to a numeric accounting of the grace of God.
The Father isn’t against big numbers, because he loves the whole world, and that’s a pretty big number. On the day of Pentecost 3,000 were added to the church in a single day. That’s a pretty big number. John the Revelator looked into the heavens and saw the angelic host of heaven, “myriads of myriads, ten thousand times ten thousands.” According to my calculations that comes to, uh, give me a moment, uh . . . a pretty big number. God can count. He numbers the hairs on my head and calls the starry host into the night sky one by one. The biggest megachurch is yet to come, and I’ll be there without complaint.
Yet Jesus went about changing the world in a remarkably small way. A short life, few followers, and a handful of seed at the end. The resurrected Lord tossed the seed into the ground and said, “I’m outa here.” He left eleven un-cultured leaders, perhaps 120 people, no budget, no map, and no plan except “make disciples and teach them to obey.” The only asset they possessed was an imperishable seed. Any worldly accounting considered Jesus a failure and the ragtag collection of followers no threat to Jewish society, much less the nations of the world. Only in hindsight do we see the wisdom and grace of God revealed.
One of the largest churches in history was the Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, Turkey. Built for the glory of God in the 5th century, it housed Christian worship for a thousand years--until it became a mosque for 500 years. Today it is a museum. I’m pretty sure it’s a parable that’s been told very slowly. Thirty years ago the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California welcomed 10,000 worshippers and more than two million viewers each week. This year it filed for bankruptcy in its 46 million dollar debt.
Jesus didn’t do arithmetic. He did the higher level math. He engaged in human alchemy and turned human beings into living stones. He built good foundations and let the centuries gently press down on his church. The church he built will never change hands. It’s the only church that will last.
It’s the model I want to follow. I want to be the seed that falls into the ground and finds good soil. If I impact 30, 60, or a 100 people during my lifetime I’ll consider it a fruitful life.
Can you help me sort through these thoughts? What is your opinion? What kind of church is evidence of the grace of God?
Monday's Meditation: His Plan, Our Choice
Monday, December 5, 2011 at 12:43AM 
More than any other Bible event, the birth of Jesus bursts with prophetic destiny. The plan of the ages came to pass with the command of God as he enacted his divine strategy to save the world. The hope of the world would finally come to life in Bethlehem. Yet in our celebration of God’s redemptive plan we can often overlook the volitional role played by two everyday people who were ambushed by the grace of God.
What if Mary had said, “No, thank you” to the glad tidings delivered by Gabriel? What if Joseph followed through with his plan to divorce Mary and get on with his the rest of his life? Have we ever considered the possibility that either of them could’ve declined the honor? Most important: have we ever considered the risks endured by God Himself when he decided to use people in his plan?
Meditation is a path to understanding and insight. The creative and patient heart can discover the whispers of the Spirit just behind the inspired text. The what-if questions cannot be answered, but they are useful in reminding us that our choices matter. They matter before God calls us, when he calls us, and forever after we accept his call. Perhaps most of all, in Mary and Joseph we see the intersection of God’s sovereign will and human choice to embrace his plan.
Mary and Joseph were partners in the grace of God. They did not earn the positions to which they were called. Yet it’s still true that each of them embraced the everyday small choices that positioned them for the call of God. What if Mary had not stayed sexually pure? The sovereign plan of God would have been fulfilled, but in some other Jewish teenager. What if Joseph had decided not to listen to the angelic instruction and instead divorce Mary? The Father in Heaven would certainly have found a step-father before the birth of the Christ child. Or have we lulled ourselves into thinking that Mary and Joseph had no choice in God's great destiny for mankind?
Behind the text lay questions worth asking: How did Mary become the kind of person who could say yes with a whole heart? How did Joseph mature into a man who could make space and time to hear from God even in the face of his personal shock and pain? How could someone as deliberative as Joseph also be decisive when it came to protecting the Christ child from a murderous despot?
These questions are not about whether rule-keeping “qualified” or “disqualified” either of them, but rather what manner of life enabled them to discover and lay hold of God’s greatest design for them--and coincidentally, God’s greatest design for humanity. (There is a second lesson that we are who we are not only for ourselves, but for countless others unseen, but that’s for another day.)
While we can only speculate the answers such provocative questions, we can discover the deep truth that God does not treat human beings as mere puppets in the redemptive story. Any God gentle and caring enough to sacrifice his own son for a wicked world does not seem the type to force the hand of an unsuspecting couple in the tiny town of Nazareth. God the Father showed faith in them, and like all acts of faith, these divine choices were made at great risk. The sovereign God entrusted his son and his plan to very human agents. In you and me, he does so still today.