Monthly Archives: December 2014

Another Christmas is about to come…and go. Another page will turn on the calendar in just a few days. For most of us life continues on just as it was. However, for more than a few, life in the new year holds the promise (?) of health challenges, unresolved family issues, financial crises, and concerns about houses that are failing. While the songs we hear and the Christmas carols we sing promise joy, peace, and hope, for many those are just words that remind them of what they have lost or for some that which they have never had!
In less than 24 hours most of us will have exchanged gifts, and have shared a meal with family and friends. Some will experience disappointment – again – and others will be satisfied beyond description with all they have received. Some families will experience relief because the tension of family gatherings are over. Some will experience pangs of nostalgia and grief, longing for those who are no longer present.
Regardless of how we experience Christmas there are several things we hold to – in pain and grief and in joy and contentment. First, the fact that Jesus – God in the flesh, Emmanuel – has come reminds us that as comfortable as we may be here this world is not the final destination for those who have placed their trust in God. Second, the arrival of Christmas Day is an annual reminder that God keeps His promises. The Apostle Paul, an early first-century follower of Jesus, wrote these words: “For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in Him.” (2 Corinthians 1:20, HCSB).
Finally, the conclusion of Advent – the season of waiting – contains a promise. Just as the world waited the birth of Jesus so we who are believers wait for His return. Our wait is not in vain. Our waiting is not built on empty hopes and failed promises, but rather on the generations of God’s promises to His people and the clear evidence in God’s Word of His power to fulfill all He promised!

33 years ago on the first Sunday of December I delivered my first message as the newly installed Pastor of First Baptist Church, Allyn WA (later they changed their name to Allyn Baptist Church, and within the past few years the church disbanded and sold their property). In many ways I am as uncertain today as I was then. I was not uncertain about the call to serve as a pastor. I was – and continue to be – uncertain if I am worthy of the great responsibility God has entrusted to me. I remain uncertain about my skills. Am I able to lead my family, my congregation, my community through the turbulent times in which we live?
Significant changes have occurred. While pastoring in Allyn Cindy and I had two children (Josh, born in 1982; Megan, born in 1986). The advent of the computer has changed the way I communicate and the process of preparing for messages. During those years I was attending seminary part time (I ultimately received my M.Div from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in 1987 and a Doctor of Ministry from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2009). Our children have grown and moved away from home into their own careers and lives (Josh, a Master Sgt in the USAF, married in 2002, but alas, no grandchildren…yet; Meg is single and living in Washington DC). Family members have passed away (Cindy’s dad passed away unexpectedly five years ago; my brother, Phil, died 8 years ago at the too young age of 46.) We own (or better: we and the bank) our home. We have settled in Winston OR since Community Baptist Church heard God’s call to them and us in 1991.
The future looks radically different from my vantage point today than it did in 1981. Wars, terrorism, significant increases in acts of violence, a rapid descent into immorality, and other challenges have changed how I view the future. Can we not just survive as a body of believers, but can we thrive, grow, and continue to impact our families, neighborhoods, community, and world with the Good News of Jesus Christ?
This morning I was reading one of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Advent sermons and this passage caught my attention:

All of us, wherever we stand ideologically, are aware that during the world events of recent years something has happened which can only be called a turning point in world history…. Technology and commerce have become a law unto themselves, which threatens to destroy the human person. They raise themselves up and their demons populate the heavens, as the gods of our time. The great changes among the people drive them down and down, while no one appears strong enough to halt this inevitable fate for humankind. The artist simply reproduces what is going on around him. Expressing this, we have shrill, toneless music and loud colors on canvas. Even religions refuse to take more than one tiny step ahead of the accepted norms. And in the knowledge of such degradation of the human person, there comes a great hope for a new kind of person, for a rebirth, for the future…This is a waiting within us for nothing less than that this world will be redeemed through and through— not by this or that political means, but by God.

This Advent season, as I wait for the approaching celebration of the birth of Jesus, I wait as one seasoned by time, but one caught in the unending hope that comes with the arrival of Jesus Christ – The Redeemer!

*Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons (p. 48,49,51). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.