God Comes Quietly: Immanuel in the Ordinary
Jesus tends to our needs in our ordinary lives each and every day. He blesses, protects, gifts, and comforts us. As we celebrate Christmas, remember that our ordinary lives are blessed with a divine benediction as those who love God and are loved by God—a most amazing gift.
In the Old Testament there are several occasions where God worked dramatically—and his work turned heads—including fire coming down on Sodom and Gomorrah, the ten plagues in Egypt, the defeat of Jericho, and the cloud that hovered over the Tabernacle. But there are also times that God worked behind the scenes, through ordinary and humble means, such as in the story of Joseph (brotherly jealousy, a corrupt wife, the mistakes of Pharaoh’s butler and cupbearer).
Considering the magnitude of Jesus’ coming into the world, it may surprise us that God came with limited announcement (only a small handful of people heard the angels, and only an isolated group of searchers followed the star). In fact, there was much surrounding Jesus’ birth that was very ordinary and humble. God’s use of ordinary and little things amid declaring his glory and bringing comfort to his people should not only be an encouragement but also a source of praise and delight for his people as we live out our faith every ordinary day at a time.
God comes quietly.
In Luke 2:1 we read: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” At the very beginning of Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth, we are greeted with the pomp and circumstance of an earthly king who has “all the world” at his fingertips. This stands in stark contrast to the ruler of the universe who would be born naked and helpless, wrapped in rags, in a small insignificant village. John 1:3 states, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Yet, Jesus came quietly into this world, lacking the pomp and circumstance the world could offer. Luke 2 is startling as it recounts the ordinary, little ways in which God chose to come and dwell among us, as well as recounting the divine majesty that surrounded Jesus’ birth. We are reminded by this narrative that God is glorious, and that he is also quietly near to us in our daily lives.
God comes in ordinariness and humility.
The account of Jesus’ birth is full of not only the ordinary and humble but also the divine and heavenly. This mix of lowly situation and glory reminds us of the mystery of Jesus being truly God and truly man. Humanly, so much was ordinary or humble surrounding Jesus’ birth: A king gave a decree, as kings will customarily do, and the ordinary citizens obeyed. Joseph and Mary did what every other family would have been doing—traveling. They experienced not only the stresses of travel during late-term pregnancy but also the horrible (but ordinary) isolation that happens among family when you are seen as an outcast since Mary was known to be pregnant before she married Joseph. Nothing was outwardly special about this little family trudging to Bethlehem, nothing glorious. In fact, they would have been viewed as very unfortunate.
They would have struggled through their day, with Mary going into labor after traveling on a dirty and dusty road and Joseph scrambling to find any place for his pregnant wife to rest and deliver the child. Luke describes the scarcity of their situation: “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). Can you imagine? There are no extravagances, no extras. And yet, even in the most humble and, in many people’s eyes, shameful circumstances, the glorious God of the universe brought comfort to Mary and Joseph. He drew near to them in their sparse situation.
God reveals his glory, and comfort is shared.
While there is much ordinariness about the beginning of Luke 2, there is also great glory for we get to see the ordinary happenings of earth from God’s perspective.
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Book Review – Christian Counter-Attack: Europe’s Churches Against Nazism
The commitment of so many Christians to suffer for righteousness sake is astonishing and puts a contemporary pastor like myself to shame. The book is a fair data based over view of the conflict with Nazism up until 1943. The intent is not to emphasize the persecution but the spiritual resistance and it achieves this goal. May God grant us the boldness of these leaders and grant us revival.
The book “Christian Counter-Attack: Europe’s Churches Against Nazism” was written by four men to relay a factual account of the response of the churches across Europe to the invasion during WWII by the Nazi Germans. It is written in 1943 and so provides a unique perspective on the War since it was written during the War.
The book covers the Roman Catholic and Protestant response in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France. It also covers the response of the Eastern Orthodox churches in Yugoslavia, Greece, and occupied Russia. Finally it touches on Italy, Finland, and Hungary. It concludes with a few questions about the future.
The writers of the book seem to have a hope that Roman Catholics and Protestants might be united in their common witness to Christ. It is interesting how the War awakened this hope as Roman Catholics and Protestants have also stood side by side on matters of life and sexuality in the last 50 yrs in North America.
In the introduction the writers make a number of points that display a common approach in the response of Europe’s Churches. (1) The Christian Church survives in spite of insidious and furious attacks. (2) The resistance of the church was primarily on spiritual and not political grounds. (3) The War created a Christian self consciousness or togetherness in Christ. They point out that ”the action of the Church leaders, though based on deep Christian grounds, has led to collaboration with others who care for human dignity and freedom.”
Throughout Europe you see how many church leaders saw the antithesis between Christianity and Nazism as a tension between light and darkness, Christianity and paganism.
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Presbyterian Church (USA) will Gather Nonbinary/Genderqueer Statistics for Its Membership
In 2015, PCUSA amended its constitution to change the definition of marriage to read in part, “Marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives.” The prior year, the General Assembly had allowed pastors in the PCUSA to conduct ceremonies that united same-sex couples. This decision prompted the 2015 constitutional change.
The mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) announced this week it will change the way it reports statistical information about the denomination’s membership to now include a category for nonbinary/genderqueer reporting.
The PCUSA is the largest Presbyterian denomination in America. It claims to have 1.1 million active members and 8,813 churches. However, less than 425-thousand attend PCUSA churches, a drop of nearly 50 percent in the past decade.
The Office of General Assembly (OGA) said the new reporting will more accurately reflect the makeup of the denomination.
“If we want to be inclusive, then we have to start asking because you should be aware of who’s a part of your church,” Kris Valerius, manager of the PCUSA’s roles and statistics said of what she called an “important change.”
She admits she is uncertain how many members will choose the nonbinary/genderqueer category because it has not been offered as an option before.
In 2015, PCUSA amended its constitution to change the definition of marriage to read in part, “Marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives.”
The prior year, the General Assembly had allowed pastors in the PCUSA to conduct ceremonies that united same-sex couples. This decision prompted the 2015 constitutional change.
The denomination is also removing the definitions for racial/ethnic sections of the reports based on the instructions of the General Assembly.
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A Prayer for a Christian Husband and Wife to Pray Together
“Enable us, Lord, as husband and wife to shine like the sun and moon, and our children as stars, so gloriously and powerfully with the light of holiness, that our house may be your lesser heaven.”
It is one of the most important habits that any married couple can form. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most rare. For a husband and wife to live well together before the Lord, they must pray together. For a couple to honor God in their marriage, they must be as intimate spiritually as they are physically. At times it can be difficult to know what to pray or how to pray. This prayer by George Swinnock is a wonderful model of a prayer a couple can (and perhaps should) pray together.
Lord, who are the guide of all relationships, may our marriage befit those married to the Lord Christ. Like Abraham and Sarah, may we be famous for faith; like Isaac and Rebecca, may we live in dearest love; like Zachariah and Elizabeth, may our walk be blameless.
May the meditation of each other’s frailty spur us to greater fidelity. May you be our guide, and Scripture our compass. Whatever stony paths we walk on earth, may we enjoy a comforting sunshine from heaven. And since you have tied this knot between us, may we do nothing which might loosen it through angry thoughts or quarrelsome deeds.
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