Saying Goodbye to My 2018 Star Word

On the first Sunday of 2018, we gave out stars in worship.  Each one had a word on it, a word about which we were to seek God.  My word for 2018 was "coming."  I thought it was too mundane a word, so I didn't expect much from it, but I'd preached on how to seek God about our words, so I did what I said to do.  I prayed, I searched the Bible, I pondered.  The scripture that stuck, and that has been my Facebook cover photo for most of the year is Isaiah 60:22:

At the right time, I, the Lord, will make it happen.

Not that I, Melissa, will make it happen.
Not that someone else in my life will make it happen.
Not that someone else in the world will make it happen.
God will make it happen.
Because there are some things that only God can do.
And even the things that I can make happen will work much better if I do them with God, in God's timing, and with God's strength.

Sometimes I still charge ahead, but I have been more careful about that this year.   There have been more moments of asking God, "Now?" I've realized that sometimes I charged ahead because I felt guilty about not doing something, anything, rather than wait.

There was a point at which I heard God saying, "Don't do this now," and I did it anyway, and it went ok but it didn't go tremendously well.  I felt better for having done something, and I didn't beat myself up for it not going as well as I'd hoped because I knew it wasn't the right time and I'd done it anyway.  I learned some things, and learning is good.  Most of all I learned that I can do better if I listen to God.

This silly little star word "coming" is the meaning of the fancier word "advent" which we use for a whole season in December when we talk so much about Jesus coming the first time and that he's coming again.  And we say, sometimes rather tritely, that Jesus comes now whenever we let him into our hearts and into our lives.  I prefer to work on abiding with Jesus, remembering that he is with us always (Matt. 28:20), and that God is always holding our hand (Isaiah 41:13).  But just because he's always here doesn't mean the results are always instant, so "coming" has reminded me that God's making things happen even when I think nothing's happening.  This has helped me to keep on praying for things I think are impossible or that I have no idea how to fix or are beyond my reach.

"Coming" reminds me of the story in Daniel 10 in which Daniel prays and when the angel shows up three weeks later, he says that God had heard Daniel and sent this angel, but he'd been delayed:

"But for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia" (Daniel 10:13).

The answer was coming, the angel was coming, but there was a heavenly battle happening.  Daniel could do nothing about any of that except wait and keep praying, and this year my star word "coming" has reminded me to do the same.

2018

I'm surprised to find that just like last year I'm a little sad to say goodbye to this star word.  It's been a good little friend pointing me to God in some unexpected ways.

Thanks, God.

2017

Shine!

"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.” –Isaiah 60:1

Tis the season to shine!  Everywhere we go we see the celebration of light during the holidays. We see candles and lights in all kinds of decorations, big and small, inside and outside.  We sing, “May your days be merry and bright!” (White Christmas by Irving Berlin)  These lights symbolize and celebrate the coming  of the light into the world – the birth of Jesus.  “His life brought light to everyone” (John 1:4).

John says, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5)   Light is a metaphor for truth and goodness.  That light shines in us.  Through the Holy Spirit, the light of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control shines in all of us (Gal. 5:22-23).  Wherever we see these qualities at work, we are seeing the light of God at work (James 1:17).

We all need light in our lives and sometimes we need help having light….like my husband Rob

Krabbe in this photo of an emergency car repair.  Light helps us see.  Jesus tells us to “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  We shine so that others can see God’s goodness.  One important way we shine is by encouraging one another – pointing out the goodness we see in them.

Proverbs tells us that “the words of the godly encourage many” (Prov.10:21).  We are called to be lights to the world in what we do and what we say.  Paul says in Ephesians 4:29, “Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.”

How can your words be light for someone today?

May the light of Christ shine brightly in you and through you in 2017!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Melissa

Songs of Joy

On Sunday we read Luke 1:46-55 and talked about how Mary’s song points us to God and reminds us of how God is faithful.

We also learned that O Come O Come Emmanuel was specifically written to help us look to God and remember the meaning of what we celebrate at Christmas.1

The words come from poets writing as early as 800 AD.  As they were passed on down through the ages, they became part of liturgy that was used in daily prayers to count down the days until the event of Jesus’ birth, much like Advent is our time of counting down the weeks.  There are seven verses of O Come, a prayer for each day of the last week before Christmas. 

They were to be used along with the song of Mary as part of daily prayers of preparation, of turning to God and preparing our hearts to make room for

• knowing the joy of Jesus birth,
• knowing the joy of Jesus coming to us,
• knowing the joy of our salvation.

Each of the verses of O Come is a prayer of praise about who Jesus was and what he did, and making room for joy.

The haunting tune of this hymn also reminds us that joy is about more than being happy.  Joy is deeper.  Joy reaches into the depths of human experience and finds that in the midst of pain and sorrow God is there with us.  Emmanuel comes.

O Come O Come Emmanuel

1 O come, O come, Emmanuel,

and ransom captive Israel,

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

 

Refrain:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

shall come to thee, O Israel.

 

2 O come, thou Wisdom from on high,

who orderest all things mightily:

to us the path of knowledge show;

and teach us in her ways to go. [Refrain]

 

3 O come, O come, thou Lord of might,

who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height

in ancient times didst give the law

in cloud and majesty and awe. [Refrain]

 

4 O come, thou Root of Jesse, free

thine own from Satan’s tyranny;

from depths of hell thy people save

and give them victory o’er the grave. [Refrain]

 

5 O come, thou Key of David, come,

and open wide our heavenly home;

make safe the way that leads on high,

and close the path to misery. [Refrain]

 

6 O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer

our spirits by thine advent here;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

and death’s dark shadows put to flight. [Refrain]

 

7 O come, Desire of nations, bind

all peoples in one heart and mind;

bid envy, strife, and discord cease;

fill the whole world with heaven’s peace. [Refrain]

In the wilderness, in the isolation of prison, in sadness of death and poverty and darkness, God’s love still shines in our hearts and gives us hope and strength and joy.

This is what Mary’s timeless song of joy sings about.  It echoes through the ages and reminds us of the promises the prophets wrote about, sounding remarkably like the words of Isaiah 61:

God has anointed me to bring good news to those who mourn …
    to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit

Like these words from Isaiah, Mary’s song is full of the joy of knowing that God is there and that God cares and loves us deeply.

This is what the coming of Jesus into the world is about.

This is joy.

____________________
1.  Read more here:  http://links.presbyterianchurch.mkt6217.com/servlet/MailView?ms=MjE3OTU0NDAS1&r=Nzg2MjM0MDY0MzUS1&j=NDYwNDA4NTAwS0&mt=1&rt=0 and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_come,_O_come,_Emmanuel

Be Joyful

Always be full of joy in the Lord!  Again I say, Rejoice!  (Philippians 4:4)

I don’t know about you, but I don’t always do so well with being joyful.  Paul tells the Thessalonians to be joyful ALWAYS (1 Thes. 5:16), and ALWAYS seems like a little much to ask.  My moods don’t cooperate with me on this one.  Sometimes I like to be a little self-righteous about my busy-ness and lack of joy. 

Be real.  The world is falling apart, life isn’t going according to plan, there’s so much more to be done than I can accomplish in the allotted time, and especially not if I’m dilly dallying about being joyful. 

Ummm hmmmm. 

I can just see God shaking his head.  Peter reminds us how very patient God is (2 Peter 3:9).  Actually, so do all the prophets in the Old Testament.  Maybe God would say, “You just keep on with your little tantrum.  Go on.  Tire yourself out.  I’ll be here waiting when you’re done.”

And there he is waiting just like he promised, surprising me with little bits of himself….in the prayer that came in my email this morning…in the gift of information that I didn’t know I needed but will be useful in preparing the studies and sermons that need to be prepared…in the writing of this blog.

I’ve known people who seem to be joyful always, but I’ve been suspicious.  Is it just a face they’ve learned to wear so well?  Or is it real?

I know God is ALWAYS with us, and I said it again in my sermon on Sunday—we just have to turn to him and we will find that he is there (Isaiah 43:11-13 et al).

But another email I got this week said that sometimes we don’t find God when we turn because we don’t really want to.  Moses says we will find him if we look with all our hearts (Deut. 4:29), and I know there were times I didn’t want to hear from God because I sensed it would mean dealing with something difficult.  Maybe this is my problem with joy, too.  I don’t have joy ALWAYS because sometimes I’m not ready for it. 

I’m thinking that’s a good prayer for Advent—Lord, make me ready for your joy.

What about you?  How will you be ready for joy?

 

Be Encouraged and Be Encouraging

Be encouraged and be encouraging.  These are the words I hope everyone takes home from my sermon on Sunday.  The text for the sermon is 1 Thessalonians 5.  In verse 11, Paul says, “Encourage one another.”  And we also hear the words of Psalm 90 which I find encouraging, and I hope others do, too.  But you can’t say everything in a sermon.  There’s only so much time. 

So I wanted to talk some more here about being encouraged and being encouraging.  There are a lot of ways to do both.  I thought the suggestions at this website on how to be encouraging were good.  Check out 19 Ways to Be Encouraging.  We talk about a couple of these on Sunday, especially #2.  I also really like #13!  What do you think about these ideas?  Which ones do you like the most?  Which have you tried?  Which have encouraged you?

It’s hard to be encouraging when you’re discouraged yourself, so it’s also important to find ways to be encouraged.  I think having a daily prayer/devotional time is important.  That’s why I really liked this post from www.revgalblogpals.org today about Advent:  The Advent of Advent in which we are challenged to spend some time quietly considering Advent.  Pondering, maybe, like Mary did.  Like this song encourages us to do.

One of the things about Advent that we don’t do so much anymore is Christmas Pageants.  I like them because they get everybody involved in the story, but I also like them because they help us to remember the story, and we’re forced, as polite audiences, to stop for a little while and consider what happened.  It is amazing to me how sometimes just retelling the story allows the Holy Spirit to work in people.

I also really like Max Lucado’s behind-the-scenes telling of what might have happened in his book An Angel’s Story (originally titled Cosmic Christmas).  You can read more about it here or get the book and read the whole story.  It made me look at the events of Christmas with a little more awe and wonder, and I think about this book whenever I read Paul’s words about how our struggle isn’t with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and cosmic forces (Eph. 6:12).

One of the things we always talk about at Advent is joy, which sometimes seems funny to me because so often Christmas and the preparation for Christmas is anything but joyful.  It’s stressful and costly and tiring.  I find having joy to be an ongoing challenge.  Nehemiah encourages the people of Israel by saying “the joy of the Lord is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10) and that is our theme at Westminster PC for the entire season of Advent this year.

And I hope getting together for worship and Bible study during Advent will be encouraging for us all this year.  I hope we’ll be encouraged to let God speak to our hearts and bring us joy in knowing that he loves us and that he is with us.  That’s what we always say at this time of year—Emmanuel means “God with us.”  Always with us.  And nothing can get in the way of that unless we let it.  Actually, the scripture says “nothing in all creation” can separate us from the love of God.  I think that means not even we ourselves.  God is always with us, even when we don’t realize it. (Romans 8:38-39)

So be encouraged! 

And may you overflow with faith, hope and love so that you may be an encouragement to everyone you meet.

Whose Christmas Is It Anyway? (A Brief Comment on Matthew 24:36-44)

Whose Christmas is it?

That’s really a rhetorical question to which we all probably already know the answer.  It’s God’s.  Psalm 24 says:

 The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. (Ps. 24:1)

There’s another question that begs to be answered after that scripture reading, though—Why are we reading  Jesus’ teaching about the end of the world on the first Sunday in Advent?

The short answer is because advent is a time of preparing for Jesus’ coming, and this is Jesus telling us to not just spend time remembering how he came in the past, but also in being prepared for his coming in the future.

We we might think of some things as secular and other things as sacred.  But there is really no distinction between them.  Everything is God’s.  We just don’t always remember to see things that way.

So Jesus tells us in our reading today to be watchful.  Look at what’s happening in the world around you not just as passing events, but also as signs—signs that God is at work in the world around us.  Watch for Jesus’ work and look for opportunities to participate in it, to help with it.

Be watchful.  Not just physically.  We can’t literally keep our eyes open 24/7.  This is more of a spiritual watchfulness.  An invitation to look beyond the physical, to remember that there’s more going on that just what we can see.  Just like the wind, we can’t see the Holy Spirit, we can’t see what the Spirit is doing in people’s hearts.  Sometimes we can see the results, though.

Jesus gives us the example of Noah who trusted God and built an ark in anticipation of a great flood.  There’s no way Noah could have known there would be a flood other than to listen to God, to follow God’s guidance. Noah prepared by building an ark, just as we prepare through prayer and study and doing everything we do in ways that honor God and further God’s purposes—that spread God’s love.

Be watchful. This is a call to keep our eyes open for opportunities:

·        opportunities to be thankful,

·        opportunities to show God’s love,

·        opportunities to grow in our faith and to help others grow in theirs

·        —to make disciples, to show mercy, to be God’s people in the world.

The Bible tells us to make the most of every opportunity, and to do so with hope, our theme for today.  We do have hope, and we also need to be prepared to explain our hope.  We don’t know how long we’ll have with the people around.  Jesus could come at any time.  Or they could go to meet Jesus at any time.  The people in Noah’s time were caught by surprise—caught unprepared.  We need to be prepared because there won’t be time to go do what we should already have been doing…preparing our hearts to meet Jesus, and helping others to also be prepared.

You may have had an English teacher who in teaching how to write told you to show instead of tell.  This means to paint a picture, describe a scene, use an illustration, and to just fill the page with theorizing and postulating.  In fiction, this would mean showing how a character is reacting to a situation through dialog and action, instead of through remote description.  It brings the writing alive to put the reader into the scene.

In a sense, it’s the same with our faith and our hope.  We can tell about it, and we need to tell, but it’s much more effective if we also show it in how we live—in how we interact with other people, in how we spend our time and money, and in what we say and do on a regular basis.

Be prepared—Be prepared to demonstrate our hope and then be prepared to explain why we have hope.

Remembering to be kind and gentle in doing so.  Ultimately we have hope because of Jesus, but that takes time for someone who doesn’t know Jesus to understand.  The ways of Jesus don’t always make sense to the world, because the way of Jesus is that people matter more than stuff, more than anything.  The way of Jesus trusts, hopes, and loves joyfully, prayerfully and thankfully.

May this advent be a time for spending time with God and with those you love, and for sharing that love with someone new.