B-log

Gossip was once accurately described as “halitosis of the mind.”

Anyone who would entertain gossip will only enjoy it as long as it is spoken about others. Remember, too, that if a person will gossip about someone else, they will likely gossip about you as well. You just won’t likely be present when they spread the stink of ugly talk about you.

If you find yourself in a situation where you have information that may be gossip, writer Alan Redpath encourages you to THINK about what you know about the the other person:

• T-Is it true
• H-Is it helpful
• I-Is it inspiring
• N-Is it necessary
• K-Is it kind

If your information does not pass the “think test,” remain silent. Instead, take time to pray for both the object of the information and the deliverer of the information. Oh, and if you ask the person who brings gossip to you if you can quote them directly back to the object of the gossip, it won’t be long before gossip stops crossing your path.

A prayer for friendship:
Lord, help me be a friend who never gossips. Rather than suffering from this ‘halitosis of the mind,’ let the words of my mouth be sweet and edifying, and carry the aroma of your Holy Spirit. Please forgive me of careless speech and protect me from falling into it in the future. Protect my ears from hearing gossip and protect my mind from giving gossip a home. Please bless my friends with the ability to make good decisions and to live in a way that makes a gossip look foolish for telling stories. Amen.

(this is an adapted devotional I wrote with Rick Ferguson several years ago)

Prayer accomplishes three things: 

1. worship of the Lord
2. spiritual warfare
3. works of righteousness. 

When you communicate with God in prayer, your prayer may contain any one of (or all) five different elements. 

1. praise – adoring God for who He is.  
2. thanksgiving – expressing gratitude for what God has done.  
3. confession – to agree with God about your sin. 
4. intercession – praying on behalf of other people.  
5. petition – praying for your own needs and desires.  

Remember these elements and include them in your prayer life.  To be a consistent person who prays, you need to be in a constant spirit of prayer, which means to be communicating with God every waking moment.  Keep a constant schedule of prayer.  Make a daily appointment with God and keep it! 

Remember the three essentials when you pray: 

• pray in the name of Jesus
• pray in submission to the Holy Spirit
• pray according to the Word of God.  

Prayer is purposeful and powerful.  You prayer is how God releases His power on earth.  Without it, you can accomplish nothing of eternal or spiritual value.  It is time to pray.

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so.

After surveying the grass and herbs and trees that sprung forth all over the earth, with satisfaction “God saw it was good.”

I imagine “God saw” thick trunks, abrasive bark, jagged branches, and offered his approval seasoned with an odd mixture of joy and pain. Here, in the white spaces between the letters of Scripture, I envision God evaluating the trees he created with a deliberate, sentimental pause of poignancy, he alone knowing the fullness of what he created when he created the trees.

But they’re just trees, you might think. Sure, you appreciate shade offered by generous green leaves. You enjoy succulent fruit of various kinds that falls from branches. But the tree wasn’t the crowning achievement of creation. The highlight of creation came a mere 72 hours later, when God stirred man from the dust of the earth. Why then would God linger as he affirmed his own leafy creation when humans were still on his creation agenda?

Over 2,000 years ago, a village farmer chose a few lengths of planked wood, possibly from a rarely used pile of scrap lumber. Hammering them together with crude nails, he fashioned a manger to feed the animals grazing on his land. Little did he know that it would serve as the first bed for a special newborn, an infant of promise.

The baby was of royal lineage and of priestly heritage. He was conceived by a miracle and would change the course of history. He was the Deliverer, the Redeemer, the Spotless Lamb. He was nothing less than God’s only son, Jesus. Despite this, God himself ordained that this child would be born in obscurity on a anonymous hill outside an unremarkable town, wrapped in plain swaddling, bedded in a box built to be feed box, not a cradle.

When God created the trees on the third day, he knew those trees would beget the wood that would one day give his son warm comfort and security, formed as a humble box that would serve as his cradle. God saw this and “saw that it was good.”

Barely more than three decades after that special night, we again are on a hill. Again, we find wood being used for an immensely important purpose. Again, God’s son, Jesus is here.

Our minds prepare us for a scene of joy, for we remember that Jesus is now the man of promise, the man of deliverance, the man of redemption. He is the Messiah, the High Priest and the King of Kings. Yet what we observe absolutely assaults our senses. It defies logic. It baffles understanding.

Here, we see Jesus not in regal gowns, but stripped to a loin cloth. He wears not a crown of gold, but one of thorns. He bears not sashes of proclamation, but gashes of gore. He is not exalted but shamed, humiliated, mocked, scorned and ridiculed. We see not a king of victory, but a man of defeat.

And the wood? It’s there, too. But rather than being hammered together to make a throne for the lone son of God, it is being roped together in cruciform for the death of the son of Man. Large spikes are driven into the logs, but only after each one pierces the flesh of this man Jesus. The abrasive bark opens the whip-induced wounds on his back, and his blood runs freely down the channels on the log’s surface. This cross is lifted up with Jesus nailed upon it, and planted into the ground. Onlookers raise their eyes to this man on this tree and they weep. Slowly, painfully, but certainly, Jesus dies.

God ordained for this to be so. And when he created the trees on the third day, he did so knowing they would one day beget the wood that would be used for the purpose of killing sis son, Jesus. Even so, God saw this and “saw that it was good.”

Greater than God’s act of creation was God’s act of Redemption. Jesus was born to die. He wasn’t born to give us an example, or to teach us great lessons. He was born to die. When he died, he died for you, and he died for me. And he died so that we could live. It is only by placing your full faith and trust in him that his death was sufficient for your eternal life, that you can experience life in the fullness that God intended when he created you.

Amidst the joys and the toys and the noise this Christmas season, take a moment and thank God for his son. Look at the Christmas tree in your home and remember that “God saw that it was good.” Thank him that the story doesn’t end in a manger, or even on a cross. Thank him for loving you so much that that the story never has to end, and will not if you belong to him, because of the sacrifice of your Lord and Savior, Jesus.

Moonless nights were always difficult. With even a fingernail of a moon, shadows move and prowling dogs give up their secret movements. Tonight, though, everything was a shadow and my ears were my eyes. On nights like this the flock stood quiet, with the lambs nestled close to the ewes. It would be an exhausting turn at watch, with every noise demanding my attention. Overhead, the canopy of stars punctured the blackness of the dark, blinking a coded message that echoed God’s promise to Father Abraham made so many generations earlier.

I was well settled into the night’s vigil. I whistled the low trill of the grouse to alert my young brother that all was secure in my quarter. He mimicked my call, careful not to rouse the flock. With no winds to mask the cautious steps of prairie wolves, I would be able to listen for their advance, even as I closed my eyes. I found a flat spot on the rocky outcrop and rested my head and my tired sight.

A brilliant light flashed, chasing away the darkness from behind my closed eyes. I bolted upright and raised my arm to shield my sight. In front of me, the flock had startled and scurried chaotically in every direction. From their outposts, my brothers ran to me and together we saw the source of the light at the same moment.

It was a messenger from heaven.

He appeared as a man, but not like any man I had ever seen. And the glory of the Lord came out from around him. We could not behold him. We fell to our faces, huddling together in terror.

Then, with a voice that sounded like the call of ten strong men, the angel spoke.

“Do not be afraid,” he said.

I barely lifted my head, peeking upward at this majestic creature. He gestured at me and continued. “I bring good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”

Instantly, a host from heaven appeared around the heavenly messenger, chasing away any lingering dark of the night. As though they stood upon an unseen platform taller than any man-made construction, as a choir they worshipped in song.

Glory to God in the highest,
      and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.

Then as suddenly as they had arrived, they were gone.

The night was again black and moonless. No wind whispered a clue to where they had gone. The flock instantly calmed and went back to their night’s routine, as if nothing had even happened.

Finally, I stood on wobbly legs and looked around. I picked up my staff and offered it as an aid to my brothers. The silence rang in my ears and seemed to demand that I say something to acknowledge what we had witnessed.

“Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about,” I said.

My brothers agreed.

We quickly gathered our flock and made our way the short distance to Bethlehem. The journey was silent. We could not understand why this messenger had come to us. Unlike the Pharisees, we are continually unclean. Unlike the scribes who study the law, we are hopelessly unlearned. Yet, as we approached Bethlehem, it was obvious that the city of David slept, wholly unaware of who had been born within its walls.

The echo of the angel’s words overwhelmed me. 

“Savior.” We have been asking God to save us from Roman rule and Parthian threats for generations.

“Christ.” We aren’t trained men, but we knew this Greek word meant “Messiah,” the one who God had been promising for ages. This savior would lead us because he was God’s anointed.

“Lord.” This baby born this night was the one who would be our king!

We entered the city by the sheep gate, as was custom for us to do. We were far from where the wealthy and important families slept. Though we did not know where we were going, we easily found the baby. The child’s father greeted us at the door and he smiled as we told our story. He shared that an angel had visited him, too. He bade us to enter.

Just like the angel said, he slept in a manger, wrapped in cloth. We gathered around the makeshift crib and we simply watched him.

We worshipped him.

I can’t tell you how long we stayed in his presence, but I relive it as though each second was a lifetime. At one moment, the baby woke and stirred. He cooed as babies do, and hiccupped. I stood before him and thanked God for this gift.

He was ordinarily beautiful. Though plainly human, the angel had told us he was divinely regal.

Eventually, we quietly stepped away from his presence.

Light was breaking and this part of the city began to stir as the day’s duties beckoned.

We could not keep this news to ourselves. We ran down the roads telling everyone we met, yelling, “God has kept His promise! He has sent His Savior! The Messiah has been born! To God be the glory!”

***

I remember that amazing night where an angel of the Lord invited me to sit in the presence of our King, and I can scarcely believe that more than thirty years have passed.

I still tend flocks, but long ago I moved my family to Jerusalem. The completion of another Passover usually gives me reason to rest, but today I am troubled in my spirit.

You see, just a few days earlier on the eve of Passover, I watched from afar as Roman Centurions hammered spikes through the wrists and ankles of a rabble-rousing Rabbi.  They nailed him to a wooden cross.

In this time set aside to celebrate how God delivered us from Pharaoh, I was part of the crowd that watched this man—one of our own—be killed because he committed crimes worse than those of Barabbas.

They said that he was guilty of blasphemy. They said he was a threat against Rome. They said he was an agent of Satan.

Others, though, said he was kind. They said he taught the people about God. He healed people. They said he could provide miracles. They said he was a friend to sinners.

He was arrested at midnight and all his followers fled in fear. Alone, he faced this hangman’s jury. If guilty, he should have been stoned to death according to our laws. Instead, he was tried in the Roman court. So Pilate commanded him to carry his own cross to Golgotha.

The news quickly spread. The one known as “The King of the Jews” would be crucified. Just days earlier, crowds were worshipping him.  Now, they gathered and mocked him.

At Golgotha, he was hung from the cross to die. The surrounding audience taunted him. Centurions jammed a crown of thorns atop his head, scorning his reign over us people of Israel.

From a distance I watched this tragedy unfold. I was too afraid to come near. My soul ripped in two as I watched him suffer.

I was too far away to hear the words he spoke to the two criminals on either side of Him. In their dying breaths, one wept in gratitude while the other gnawed his tongue with bitter anger.

Now this man in the middle was alone on his cross, abandoned by everyone. I approached the cross, but was too fearful to draw near, lest someone identify me as one of his followers.

We all abandoned him.

Without warning he cried out, “Father, why have you forsaken me?”

The silence beat against my ears with a violent slap.

 In a voice barely above a whisper he said, “it is finished.”

And he was gone.

Of course, you know these events are connected.

That man who died. He was that baby who was born back when I was a shepherd boy.

I met him laying in the manger. I saw him nailed to the cross.

I met him wrapped in swaddling cloths, and I watched him be stripped of his robe and his dignity.

A choir of angels announced him, but he died rejected and alone.

His name was Jesus.

The angel called him Savior. Christ. Lord.

So did I.

In the shadow of the cross, the manger seems so far away, so long ago.

At his death, the sky went dark and the earth shook. News of the temple’s damage became the gossip of the streets. Some people mourned the death of Jesus, comparing him to the Passover lamb. Most people returned to their quiet lives of desperate faith.

It’s been three days since, his followers took him down from the cross and buried him in tomb belonging to a wealthy friend. The men and women who associated with him mourned there daily, according to our customs.

This morning, though, the most unusual news spread through Jerusalem.

Mary (the one who was once demon-possessed), Peter (the fisherman), and the one Jesus loved like a brother (I think his name is John) all have come announcing that the tomb of Jesus is empty. They claim the stone had been rolled aside and the grave lay empty, except for the burial cloths that once covered him. They say that Jesus is alive!

I had to see for myself. I made the short journey, again feeling as though my steps were guided and the truth unfolded before me. My sorrow changed to hope as I approached the grave and peered inside its dark depths.

The tomb is empty!

Jesus is alive!

He is the Savior!

He is the Christ!

He is Lord!

He is alive!