Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I just had to be the first post on our blog in 2009.
How will our lives change in this coming year?
What will we blessed with - what will we lose?
Where will we be in our walk through life? Just another year older? Fatter? Wrinklier?
OR MIGHT WE FIND OURSELVES HOLIER! CLOSER TO CHRIST THAN WE ARE TODAY or WERE LAST YEAR!
We are - I believe - all on a journey like young Christian in the Pilgram's Progress. May you surround yourself in 2009 with godly traveling companions, people who are more concerned with your spiritual growth and health than with being your friend. May you not only get back up when you fall this coming year, but learn from your mistakes and grow stronger. May you cherish the simple things - the pure things in life and celebrate the passing of days and seasons and give glory to God for them. May you routinely seperate yourself from the chaos of life and draw close to the Father - in whom we find life, meaning, direction, and love.

Christmas History

I am preparing for my third in a three part series entitled "Christmas is about . . " and I have been struck by the amount of non-Christ related stuff that is part of what we define as Christmas. To begin with, most scholars believe Jesus wasn't even born on the 25th of December. He was most likely born in the fall or spring - I prefer the fall. We don't know the exact date of His birth or even the exact year - but we do know that He was born and that's what's important.
Furthermore, there is no evidence in the Gospels or any of the New Testament for that matter that Jesus or His disciples or anybody else in the early Church ever celebrated His birthday. The first official mention of Christ's birthday being on the 25th of December was in 354 A.D. And this has no Biblical basis to it whatsoever. What many scholars believe happened is that the Church became the official state religion after Constantine's Edict of Toleration in 313 A.D. and the church leaders started trying to convert the masses. To do this they needed to get rid of the pagan practices, holidays, and traditions. One of the big pagan celebrations of the day was the winter solstice which has it's roots all the way back in the days of Babylon. Winter Solstice was celebrated on the darkest day of the year in an effort to convince the god's (mainly the sun god) to bring back the daylight. Well what a better way to keep people from celebrating a pagan religous holiday than to replace it with one of your own. So Christ - mass was inaugurated and celebrated ever since. But what we find happening is that most of these purely pagan rituals and traditions just became acceptable Christian ones and over time no one noticed anymore or cared. The Christmas tree, decorations, mistletoe, yule log, and many more things associated with Christmas all really have pagan orgins.
Have we redeemed these things and turned them into Christ worshipping symbols? Maybe and maybe not. My prayer for this and all future Christmas holidays is that people seperate the fluff and tradition from the real meaning and stuff of Christmas. If you're going to celebrate Christmas then celebrate Christ, His work on the cross, the redemption of mankind through His sacrifice, and the hope we have within us of one day being with Him in heaven. That to me is what Christmas should be all about - nothing more - nothing less. God in His love giving us hope of salvation.

Pray in the Rain (Snow?) '08 ('09?}

Wanted to send out a tentative invitation to join me in praying for the rain/snow/precipitation this year. Strangely enough we have not gotten the kind of rain we have come to expect from this portion of the country at this time of the year. Regardless I'm going to assume that at some point in the next month or so we will be blessed with a downpour of precipitation in one form or another. Every year with that first downpour I try to make it out and pray for the rain, it's healing powers and what God might want to communicate with us through His rain. I try to do it without cover, fully exposed to the environs. Looking forward to an opportunity to do this and definitely looking for company. Thoughts? Who's in?

Sex and the Bible

Just this month Mars Hill in Seattle finished up a series on the Song of Songs. The series is directed toward how we view and relate with sex as Christians. Through the whole thing my wife kept telling me that we should get a group of friends together and journey through the sermon series together. Ideally we would set something up in our home, but since we have so much going on in our life already and many of the couples and friends we wanted to share this with don't even live near us, we are going to try sharing this experience online. Starting in January we will be inviting people to join us in following the sermon series from the beginning and sharing how each of the sermons affected them. I'm fully aware that the whole thing may flop, but I'm willing to give it a go! Any ideas?

I was checking some of blogs I regularly visit tonight and I came across this piece of art at The Plow. How does it strike you? I am reminded the the phrase "God with us". Not a God trapped in history.