I Must Confess, I'm Guilty of A Holiday "Crime"...

12-2-2013

Happy Holidays!  There, I said it.  As both a Christian and a Pastor, I have no problems saying Merry Christmas, and I understand the root in the word Christmas is Christ.  He, above all else, is why we celebrate this commemorative season of advent.  It is a high and holy time of year for we who believe the truth of God’s breaking into creation in a very specific and pointed way.  But I also have no real problem saying Happy Holidays either.  There are those who push for this designation in an attempt to somehow “de-religion” or “un-church” the celebration.  For some it is a realization that there are also other religious celebrations that are observed in the same period of time in a calendar year.  The irony is that if one were to do a little research into the origins of the word holiday they may be surprised…

Merriam-Webster offers these definitions:

hol·i·day noun \ˈhä-lə-ˌdā, British usually ˈhä-lə-dē\

: a special day of celebration : a day when most people do not have to work

Full Definition of HOLIDAY

1 :  holy day

2 :  a day on which one is exempt from work; specifically :  a day marked by a general suspension of work in commemoration of an event (italics added)

3 chiefly British :  vacation —often used in the phrase on holiday —often used in plural

4 :  a period of exemption or relief <corporations enjoying a tax holiday>

Beyond that in the explanation of the origin of the word it says, “Middle English, from Old English hāligdæg, from hālig holy +dæg day.  First Known Use: before 12th century

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holiday)

So in saying “Happy Holidays” we are actually wishing people several happy, Holy - Days… days that are exempt from work, and in commemoration of this specific event.  (I submit that is an example of Sabbath)  I suppose that it is appropriate then, that even in the attempted avoidance of “overt religiosity”, people find a lack of ability to remove Holiness from the equation. 

So to my friends who are worried about the attempt to remove Christ from Christmas… rest easy.  To paraphrase an old adage, “You can take the Christmas out of the greeting, but you can’t take the Holy out of the holiday.”  Christ’s promise is this, “and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.  Amen”  (Matt 28: 20b NKJV)  Culturally neutral words can’t change that.  Love in truth and in deed this year and make the celebration Holy in all the ways you can by loving the same people the Savior did.

I Have To Confess, Life Is A Sweet Gift!

November 28, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving!  And to my Jewish friends, Happy Hanukkah! It is my prayer that you are blessed in many special ways today and every day. 

As I sit here typing, my wife is working with her mother to fashion a feast that we can share at table later today.  The aromas have already started the “rumblies” in my tummy to churning.  The sound of joy filled conversation is mixed in with noises of mixers and oven timers and coffee pots percolating.  And I am reminded of the passage in Psalm 26:8, “O LORD, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides.”

Surely these moments, where the sweet song of life lived together is sung, are the place where the Lord’s glory abides.  It is these moments where loving as God does can become easier.  I suppose that we have managed to convince ourselves that loving like God does is hard… that it requires some Spiritual muscle that we don’t have.  But in giving thanks I am reminded that love isn’t a straining moral obligation, but a gift.  Love made the cross of Calvary salvific, not the torture and pain.  And in love you find the dwelling place of God.

I am thankful for each of you my friends and family who have shown me love and encouragement and guidance through the years.  I am thankful for the controlled chaos of Thanksgiving meals being prepared and shared.  And above all else, I am most thankful for a love that began before time, and that has no end…   

I Have to Confess, I Am A Glass Is Half Full Kind Of Person...

November 23, 2013

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”  --  John F Kennedy

This weekend we mark the 50^th anniversary of an event that shook American notions of stability and prominence.  The assassination of an American President.  And just like that fateful day, we are less than a week from a very American Holiday, Thanksgiving.  I wonder as I see and hear unrest on so many newscasts over this political opinion or that, “Have we come very far in this country?”  Dialogue seems to be drowned out by demagoguery on both sides, and there seems to be little interest in actually seeking for solutions to difference of viewpoints.  I don’t share these thoughts because of a sense that all is lost, but rather because I know that it isn’t.  Just as 50 years ago families and communities found renewed reason to be thankful for the good things in life as they were reminded of its fragile nature; we have good reason to identify and give thanks for that which is good in our lives… and that can be a catalyst for real renewal and change in our lives, communities, and nation.

When we begin to have thankful hearts we can realize that just like a magnet tied to a string and dragged through a yard begins to attract metallic objects that we might not notice with the naked eye, our hearts begin to find in every hour, some “new” blessing that we may have missed before.  From this surprising “wealth” of blessing then, we can find a reason to give into others’ needs from a place of abundance that we never knew we had.  And in the end, it isn’t what we say about our blessings that matters, but how we use them that becomes the measure of our thankfulness.  An ungrateful heart never feels that it has as much as it deserves… a grateful heart can’t contain the joy it feels in the knowledge that it has more than it will ever need. 

Galatians 6: 8-9 says, “If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.  So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.”  Sow seeds of gratitude, and God’s word says you’ll reap an eternal harvest.  Now, what are you going to do with the yield?