Getting two minutes for cross-checking in hockey (or lacrosse) is a Bad Thing. But this is about giving yourself just two minutes to reflect on where you are in God's plan — and where He is in your life.
Today, a dear friend — a beloved sister in Christ, in fact — forwarded me an invitation to contribute to a GoFundMe campaign to help finance the “Freedom Convoy” due to arrive in Ottawa shortly (as I write this — Saturday, January 29).
In a word, No.
I won’t get into the truckers’ argument, because on the face of it, they may have a legitimate beef.
But two things have to be made clear. First, is that this is not a question of “freedom”. This is a health-care issue, trying to make sure people don’t get sick from an as-yet incurable disease, threaten others by infecting them, and jeopardize the people who love and depend on them. If freedom comes into it, it’s freedom from that sort of fear.
The second, is that it distresses me, how many professing Christians are joining in, acting as if it’s some Divine commandment that they disobey those in authority and express their righteousness by gossiping about and even threatening public health officials, health-care workers, politicians and pretty much anyone else who disagrees with them.
Why does that distress me? Consider this:
Remember that?
Ask yourselves, How much of the rhetoric surrounding this issue — particularly from those opposed to health-care regulations — is founded in any of those Fruits of the Holy Spirit?
One more thing: if you’re that concerned about freedom, here are some suggestions:
Go to the Downtown East Side in Vancouver, or the Mustard Seed Street Church in Victoria, or any of the other ministries serving the “street people” in urban centres across North America, and help set the people free from misery — drug addiction, homelessness, poverty, inability to feed their families, etc.
Contact any First Nation and ask how to help set them free from the desperation of lack of income and self-respect; from the grief of youth suicide; or from the fear of whatever is coming out of their water tap.
Pray that we are all set free from the threat of extremism in society — the Peace of Jerusalem means the unification of all under One — Jesus Christ
And get vaccinated and wear the damn mask. Do both in the name of Jesus, and in faith that it will keep you and those around you healthy. Receiving the shot is the works that goes along with your faith to bring results.
In the same week that the Boston Bruins retired the number 22 worn by Willie O’Ree, the first Black player in the National Hockey League, another ugly racist incident hit pro hockey. Jacob Panetta of the Jacksonville (FL) Icemen, in the East Coast Hockey League, was suspended and cut by his team for what was regarded as a racist taunt against Jordan Subban of the Carolina Stingrays. In the TSN report on the incident, starting around the 20-second mark, Panetta gives his side of the story, insisting the offending gesture was not racially rooted, although he sees in retrospect how it could be taken that way.
I’m certainly not taking sides, except maybe the “let him have his day in court” position. But something we should remember is that taunts based in race and an opponent’s sexuality have been going on for decades at all levels of sport. This is in spite of over 70 years (since Jackie Robinson broke into major league baseball) of awareness, affirmative action, sensitivity training, anti-hate legislation or performative proclamations about how this sort of thing is “not acceptable in our league”. (Besides, so long as Major League Baseball and the Atlanta Braves condone the execrable “tomahawk chop” and the National Basketball Association places lucrative dealings with China ahead of human rights there, all of those statements ring hollow.)
By the time the situation reaches that stage, it’s too late. Combating any form of hatred has to start in childhood, not by hammering it into a child that racism and bullying are wrong, but that loving your neighbour is right.
Jesus answered [the scribe], “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.
‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.
“And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
— Mark 12:29-31
And let’s not forget …
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.
— Proverbs 22:6
And most importantly …
The rich and the poor have this in common,
The LORD is the maker of them all.
— Proverbs 22:2
As Paul puts it,
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
— Philippians 4:8
Jesus’ entire “sermon on the mount” is to show us how evil actions are the result of evil in the heart. Turn the heart towards love — true, Godly love — and evil actions don’t stand a chance.
Sorry folks, but I cannot get these images out of my head.
As it was …… as it is.
In the “As it was …” picture, you see a space where people who had noplace to go were welcome. It didn’t matter what they had done or where they were from, they could go to The Lord’s Rain most mornings and get coffee, food (when available), a shower and even some new-to-them clothes (also, if available).
It was the place where Terry wound up after a night of looking for someone to rob to buy drugs, and instead found his way into a temporary shelter and then into healing of his addiction and a complete “180” in his life.
It was here that I met Elly, at first a troublemaker, but who gradually softened over time, when exposed to something amazing, called Love. I remember her, in a near-hysterical, drugged-out stage, wailing about being separated from her children; holding her, and telling her, “honey, look at yourself: would you want your children raised by you?” She shook her head. “I’ve seen you at your best, and you’re wonderful.” I have no idea whether she ever did get off the drugs, but at least, she got a glimpse of what was possible, in the midst of a society that would rather just give her a clean needle and a nurse to make sure she didn’t overdose.
Ken found a place to serve the Lord Who had rescued him from his addictions. You can read more about him here (just scroll down a bit) After he died, a chap named Joe took up the jobs Ken had been doing at the Mission, as his way of paying tribute to his friend.
I look at these pictures and think of Danilo and John and Gary and Mike and Vanessa and Megan and Denise and Shannon and Ron and Gerald and Darrell and Richard and Cheryl and Devona … people who needed to know that they were not a waste of skin, but that Jesus Christ went to the cross on behalf of every one of them. That the yoke they were under was destroyed because of His anointing (Isaiah 10:27).
And I look at the “… as it is” picture, with one side of the ground floor already leased and another side still available for possible use as a restaurant (and isn’t that exactly what the area needs?), and I wonder where they and others like them — other human beings, I might add — will go?
Part of the answer is: around the corner, outside the boarded-up former Army and Navy Department Store, looking across the street at the empty lot that will soon be ANOTHER VIBRANT NEW COMMUNITY in one of the world’s “Most Livable Cities”.
“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
‘for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink;
‘I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
“Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’
“Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’
“And these will go away into everlasting punishment … ”
When we look at the lineage leading to Jesus’ “dad” — Joseph — we can see the evidence that Jesus came from all. You’ll find every kind of sin known to man in that lineup: saints and sinners, prophets and prostitutes, builders and destroyers, kings and paupers. At any stage of that family tree, there are births that never should have happened and/or parents who should have been stoned to death. But God has His way of turning things to good, and I believe it was His plan, all along, to have His Son be raised by a man whose ancestors ran the gamut of those who experienced everything the world could throw at them.
That way, Jesus was, and is, a high priest who has experienced temptation as a human being, yet remained without sin, using only the Word of God to do so.
With the Magi, we see a different side to God’s plan.
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem,
saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”
When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet:
‘But you, Bethlehem,in the land of Judah,
Are not the least among the rulers of Judah;
For out of you shall come a Ruler
Who will shepherd My people Israel.’ ”
Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared.
And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the young Child, and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also.”
When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was.
When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.
And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.
— Matthew 2:1-12
“The Adoration of the Magi” Hieronymus Bosch ca. 1490
Now, there’s a lot of discussion and debate about the Magi. When did they come to see Jesus? Someone suggested that it was as much as two years after He was born, but they were led to Bethlehem, and Joseph and Mary lived in Capernaum and were only visiting Bethlehem for the census. Did they go to the stable, as we see in the pictures? Matthew writes of a “house”: was that another way of describing the stable, or had they been able to find room someplace else until Jesus was taken to Jerusalem to be dedicated?
But all this is very much angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin debate, and can cloud a lot of the significance of the visit from the Magi. Because Epiphany — the revelation of Jesus Christ to the world — demonstrates that Jesus came for all.
The Magi had come from “the east”. That doesn’t really narrow it down — they could have come from Babylon, India, China, Japan: there’s a lot of “east of Jerusalem”. What’s more, the Old Testament refers to “east” as the home of wicked cultures — mysticism, sorcery, astrology, divination: all things that God has forbidden to His people.
In fact, Balaam, the prophet who spoke of a star to herald the arrival of a Redeemer, describes himself as being from “the east”. He was the one hired by Barak to curse the children of Israel, and he flatly refused to do it, because God had forbidden him (and had used his donkey to tell him so).
But God used a form of divination — the star and the prophecy to go with it — to announce Jesus’ birth to the Magi. He spoke their language, much as He will speak the language of anyone to get through to them.
So if God is going to reach out to sorcerers and diviners with His message of Grace and Peace on earth, you better believe He’s intended that for everybody.
But there’s more. They’re not fazed by the fact that Herod doesn’t immediately drop everything and come with them to Bethlehem. They keep following that star, which leads them to Jesus; but as soon as they come into Jesus’ presence, two things happen.
First, they have the second Holy Ghost Experience. (The first was when the unborn John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s womb when Mary walked in, six months before.) Matthew doesn’t tell us that the Magi bowed, knelt, or even prostrated themselves in front of Jesus. He records that they fell, and I believe that when they came into the presence of the Holy Spirit, as many people do these days (been there), they lost all control of their muscles and senses and collapsed on the floor in front of the Baby, and the gifts they brought were flung on the floor.
Second, the star vanishes. More on that in a moment.
But look at those gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.
GOLD – the most precious metal.
FRANKINCENSE – used to burn in offerings to send a sweet savour to the Lord.
MYRRH – a substance noted for its healing properties; it’s been used in the past, mainly by royalty, to lessen the pain of childbirth. What’s more, its plant is noted for having large, sharp thorns. Fast-forward 33 years and see the significance there.
So these were gifts that were valuable in both spiritual and practical terms. After all, who knew (besides God) that a couple of days later, Joseph would be commanded by the Angel Gabriel to saddle up wife and baby and escape to Egypt? They would need money for the trip and the stay there, and the gold would provide that.
Now, back to the star. The last we see of the star, it’s pointed the Magi to Jesus. But once they come into the presence of the Holy Spirit, they are overcome; and when they go to sleep that night, they are “divinely warned in a dream” not to go back to Jerusalem.
In other words, they arrived in Bethlehem as “observers of signs”, and left in tune with the Holy Spirit.
What does all this mean for us, as we carry out the Great Commission?
One, is that there was a reason why the scribes and chief priests didn’t clue in. They didn’t ask Herod why he wanted to know about the birthplace of the Messiah. I believe there were three reasons for that. (1) They figured that, because they were such learned men of God, He would tell them when the Deliverer was appearing: they certainly wouldn’t have been looking for a star. (2) They had lost faith after waiting for centuries for the Deliverer to appear. (3) They had gotten comfortable with preaching that “God would fulfill His promise in due time”, but also in their positions as social leaders, and would have been loath to give that up.
That last one played a role in their treatment of Jesus in years to come.
In other words, they had stopped seeking.
But the Magi were always watching the signs and seeking … something. When they saw that star, they knew there was something to be sought and they followed it.
We cannot stop seeking. Jesus tells us to seek the Kingdom of God first, and everything else we need will be added to us.
Something else to consider is what happened to the Magi after they left Bethlehem. After their Holy Ghost experience, they probably wouldn’t have been any use as sorcerers and diviners, but why wouldn’t everyone in the “east” have become Christians on the witness of the Magi?
Probably because the Magi didn’t actually have a witness, beyond the experience at the stable. They had seen the King of the Jews at His humble birth, presented Him with gifts, lost their mystical powers and that was it. They didn’t have the benefit of seeing the healings and the miracles, and hearing the message Jesus had come to bring us.
We need to keep our witness of Jesus front and centre in our lives: that is what convinces people that God and Jesus are real, as is the Holy Spirit, and that a relationship with Them is not only desirable, it’s possible.
And lastly, we need to be the Star. Not be a Star, shining the light we should be shining on Jesus onto ourselves (or even trying to get into the “spill” of the spotlight). Rather, we need to be the means that points people to the Baby in the manger and to all the things He has meant to us and to anyone who will believe on Him. Then, once we have pointed people to Jesus, like the star, we need to fade into the background — to decrease, so that Jesus will increase.
To mark Epiphany — the revelation of Jesus to the world, through the arrival of the Magi — let’s start with a whimsical thing I wrote during a sudden burst of short-story-writing over the summer. (I mean, what else do you do when you’re hanging out at a lakeside cottage in Ontario in 28-degree weather?)
The Greeks had a word for it. Two words, actually: aletheia and phobos. As we know, phobos means an irrational fear of something, and in some contexts, that fear extends to hatred of that thing.
Aletheia means “truth”.
Aletheiaphobia, then, is an irrational fear or hatred of truth, and a lot of people have it these days. In general, when truth conflicts with one’s world-view, truth loses out. This is the case, no matter where one sits on the socio-political spectrum. On one hand, people are encouraged to establish their identity based on their own feelings and desires, even if those run contrary to scientific reality. On another hand, scientific evidence is discarded when it runs contrary to one’s interpretation of the Bible. And on yet another hand (there are several hands here), “science” is often invoked to try to discredit the Bible.
Moreover, many professing Christians bypass the truth of Jesus Christ in favour of a world-view they think sounds Biblical but is, in fact, diametrically opposed to the way He calls us to live. Consider attitudes towards the poor, people from different cultures, women, grace towards enemies: many people who claim to be Christians openly ignore Jesus’ words on those subjects.
Worse, the word “truth” has been corrupted to mean “point of view”. “I’ll tell you my truth and you tell me yours” is an expression you hear from time to time. In fact, one can share one’s point of view, or reality, or version of events, but there is only one Truth.
Jesus said [to Thomas], I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.
— John 14:6-7
When Pontius Pilate said, “What is truth?”, was that a genuine question, or a rhetorical one? At the time, Pilate was looking the Truth in the face, so was he trying to dismiss the matter as something no one could answer, or suggest that truth was different things to different people?
Sadly, no matter which “camp” one falls into, be it progressive, conservative, or something not-quite-defined, if anyone tries to show an error and point out the Truth, one is vilified for doing so.
A large part of the root of this fear of truth is the technological age. The ability of social media to spread misinformation, literally faster than the speed of thought, confuses people, and confusion, as Paul points out, is the work of Satan (“God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” 1 Corinthians 14:33).
Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, even online shopping, have reduced the value of human beings, especially in one’s own eyes. People grope for an “identity” that puts their own personal stamp on their lives and makes them “noticeable”. The number of cases where people self-identify as something different from the way they were made, defying both science and the Bible, is increasing. Amid the noise and dehumanizing social developments, people cry out, “look at me! I’m a person! I’m unique!”, and in so doing, overlook the fact that God already made them unique and values them.
So it’s time to bring Truth into the discussion on climate change and environmental destruction.
The truth is … climate change is happening.
The truth is … human beings are responsible for a lot of it.
The truth is … nearly sixty years of efforts to reverse, end or slow down environmental destruction, be it through community work, international treaties and solemn promises on the campaign trail have failed.
The truth is … that we were warned, thousands of years ago, that this would happen and have also been given an “out”, which is ours for the taking.
The truth is … that people are so afraid of Truth, they will make up their own reality rather than face it.
Aletheiaphobia: fear of Truth. It’s a “thing”, and it’s something that needs to be overcome if we are going to survive – not just climate change, but the myriad onslaughts upon us now and still to come.
Two Minutes for Cross-Checking! 