The Days After Christmas

Matthew 2: 13-18

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

"A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more."

In the year 1809 the international scene was tumultuous. Napoleon was sweeping through Austria; blood was flowing freely. Nobody then cared about the babies being born. But the world was overlooking some significant births.

For example, William Gladstone was born that year. He was destined to become one of England's finest statesmen. That same year, Alfred Tennyson was born to an obscure minister and his wife. The child would one day greatly affect the literary world in a marked manner. On the American continent, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And not far away in Boston, Edgar Allan Poe began his eventful, albeit tragic, life. It was also in that same year that a physician named Darwin and his wife named their child Charles Robert. And that same year produced the cries of a newborn infant in a rugged log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. The baby's name was Abraham Lincoln.

If there had been news broadcasts at that time, I'm certain these words would have been heard: "The destiny of the world is being shaped on an Austrian battlefield today." But history was actually being shaped in the cradles of England and America. Similarly, everyone thought taxation was the big news back when Jesus was born. But a young Jewish woman cradled the biggest news of all: the birth of the Savior.

The Christmas season is not about boxes tied with ribbons or bobbles and lights on trees. We have turned it into a celebration of gifts and commercialized thoughtfulness as well as manufactured joy. But Christmas is about the lowly, unrecognized and almost forgotten child of a young couple and how that baby boy changed the fate of all humanity.

Leading up to Christmas we are all very busy with hectic schedules and timetables. We know we have a lot to do before we get that much needed time off. So we run around with lists and hurriedly scratch off each thing we did only to add on three more errands. In all this busyness, we have no time to spend thinking about the truth in the word Christmas. This holiday is supposed to celebrate the birth of a baby that somehow is also God.

It is the greatest mystery in the entire world, it is the greatest part of our faith and we have no time to think about it. We do not do justice to the birth of Christ.

Karl Laney, in his book “Marching Orders” wrote about a Berlin art gallery where there is a painting by the German painter Adolf Menzel. It is only partially finished. It was intended to show Fredrick the Great speaking with some of his generals, however, Menzel first painted the generals and background, while leaving the king until last. He put the outline of Fredrick in charcoal, but died prior to finishing.

Many Christians will come to the end of life without ever having put Christ into his proper place, center stage.

I’d like to think there is a way to fix this but I have noticed that each year we overlook the mystery of Jesus as we hang the mistletoe. There is also an appalling tendency to forget about Jesus as our Savior until Lent is upon us. Unfortunately, Mary and Joseph did not have that luxury when Jesus was born. If it wasn’t bad enough, giving birth in a manger with dirty animals all around, they soon had to pack up their things and walk to Egypt in the scorching heat of the desert sun during the day and the extreme cold at night. It was a trip of 400 miles.

About a week ago, my friend Natalie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl after 27 hours of intense labor. She was in a sterile hospital with nurses and doctors and midwives. Everything should have went perfectly, but something went horribly wrong and Natalie lost 2.5 liters of blood and ended up having four blood transfusions. Mary, gave birth in the cold of a dark, lonely night. With little light, the smell of dirt, decay and refuse all around her. She probably was laying upon dirty straw with the only help that of her husband Joseph – who would have known little to nothing about the birthing process. Then, to be told to get up and flee to Egypt, a trip that would make us shudder – I cannot imagine the fear and pain Mary was in.

My friend Natalie told me that while in the hospital she was not able to bond with her baby girl and the pain she experienced at her birth made her depressed. She didn’t want to feel that way, but she couldn’t help herself. She had a traumatic experience and was unable to shake the blues until after leaving behind the hospital where she was supposed to be safe and instead was hurt. She resented the surgery she endured right after giving birth, she resented not being able to bond with her daughter right away and she resented the horrible pain. Did Mary resent her baby boy and all the pain and terror he brought into her life? We never ask those questions, we never look at the dirty side of the miracle. And yet, what she went through was because God had called upon her and she answered. Both her and Joseph heard God and listened.

Mary and Joseph saved the life of Jesus by being willing to do anything it took to keep him alive. We’re not even willing to give him one day to live exclusively in our hearts. We have made his birth into something sold as a discount in department stores that we wrap up with pretty green and red wrapping paper. We have cheapened our Savior’s gift to us.

A television interviewer was walking streets of Tokyo at Christmas time. Much as in America, Christmas shopping is a big commercial success in Japan. The interviewer stopped one young woman on the sidewalk, and asked, "What is the meaning of Christmas?" Laughing, she responded, "I don't know. Is that the day that Jesus died?"

There is some truth in her answer. And it is Christians that have committed the worst of it because we know the truth and yet we do not share it. We have experienced God with us and yet we do not celebrate Him. Why have we forgotten, why have we reduced Jesus Christ to one gigantic shopping trip and a bunch of parties with stale cookies and overly sweet punch?

During the Christmas Eve service we lit the Christmas candles and turned out the lights as we sang Silent Night. Looking at each person reflected in the light of their candle I realized something. The light of that candle bathed each person’s face in a golden glow – because Christians should be glowing with the light of the Holy Spirit when compared to a world that does not know Jesus.

If we did a police lineup of people from different religions, would a Christian look any different from a Hindu or Buddhist in the same culture? Probably not unless they were wearing a cross. However, if we put people from different religions into a small town and after several weeks of working and living there – would the town be able to pick out the Christian from the Muslim or Jew? I would like to think that by the Christian’s actions, word choice and behavior that the light of Christ would glow brightly and obviously to the people in the small town. But I’m afraid that they would not know.

So when I look around town or when I’m in Pittsburgh, sometimes I wonder who the Christians are. Is it the one who walked by a person struggling with ten bags in their hands? Is it the guy in the taxi swearing at the person crossing the street? Is it the young man that noticed an elderly woman getting into her car covered in snow and offers to help clean it off for her?

We seldom remember that our every action has a consequence. The person in distress we walk by without helping could be Jesus Christ. It is very easy to come up with excuses on why we do not do more and why we cannot help others. Just as it is easy to make excuses why we’re too busy to go to church on Sundays or to take the time to truly celebrate the incarnation of our Lord. The person we tell the excuse to may believe us but the Lord knows what is in our heart. He knows whether it was possible for us to take a moment out of our busy day to make time for another.

Thankfully, God decided he wasn’t too busy running the universe to help humanity by becoming a man. Thankfully, Mary and Joseph weren’t too busy with wedding preparations and house buying to take the time to listen when God spoke to them. They heard him and they obeyed. Will you be too busy to listen when God speaks to you?

Amen.

Emotional vs. Spiritual Love

I never would have thought that Green Day and Dietrich Bonhoeffer would work together but I find the mix a pleasing one.

I'm thinking about how he talks about the difference between emotional and spiritual love. emotional love is very selfish and similar to how Saint Paul talks about the flesh in 1 Corinthians. We feel justified in our actions and feelings and never look any deeper for the motivation behind what we do. So often, we label things "in the name of love" and Bonhoeffer creates the premise that if we truly examined our motivation we would find it is a selfish desire that has nothing whatsoever to do with true love.

True love goes deeper, much deeper to the spiritual realm of existence. To where we do things for Christ alone because it is only through and in Christ that we are able to experience love. True love comes from Christ and those that are at the level of emotional love are unable and utterly unwilling to submit themselves to spiritual love. They become angry, hostile and irrational when confronted with spiritual love. They will do anything to cling to their idea of love because they feel safe and comfortable.

How often do we find ourselves in a place where we are comfortable and when something comes along to shake us up, we are offended and upset? I'm starting to believe that perhaps it is God doing the shaking up. I'm starting to see that it's when we are unwilling to move, grow and change that we get into trouble and forget our purpose in life. Life is not meant to be lived for the self but for others.

We do not exist to be as comfortable as possible, as rich and as loved as it is possible to be. It's never been about that. Our lives are blessed when we bless others, that is how we receive worth and love. The satisfaction we all seek through our job searches and intimate relationships and extreme sports is found when we turn our lives back to their true path. We need to turn back to God, forsaking the idols we have created, turning away from our comforts and wealth and instead asking God what He wants from us each day.

There is nothing wrong with having money and a comfortable lifestyle. However, each thing that a person has comes from God. Do we thank Him for the things He gives to us each day? The little things first before the big things? Bonhoeffer makes a great point, how can God trust us with the big blessings when we are unwilling to acknowledge the small ones He has already give to us?

Examine your life. See where your blessings are and thank God for what you have. And the next time you pray, ask God what the next step in your path requires from YOU.

God Bless.

Healthy People, Healthy Checkbook Balance

Okay so I just got to thinking about health insurance and the problem the United States seems to find in insuring 40 million people and how another 30 million are under insured.

I am in the first category because I am going to school and just don't have the money to afford over a hundred dollars a month on insurance plus it would be shit coverage so I'd pay for most of my doctor's visits and most of my perscription anyway. So I have chosen to forsake it until I get a job that pays well. And today I needed insurance because I have an ear infection that needs antibiotics.

Like every other person I know what Obama is proposing and I know how everyone is waffling because they don't want socialized medicine. However, I don't think it should ever even come down to socialization anyway. I just read some jackass's analysis of healthcare and it said and I quote: "Competition Lacking Among Private Health Insurers". Um forgive me but DUUUUH! Why in the holy HELL do you think there are so many people uninsured?! I didn't need their brilliant analysis however it did get me to thinking.

Capitalism is supposed to be so great because it allows anyone to step in and fill a need that is not being met and make money. Right? So there are forty MILLION people that would jump at affordable health insurance. There's a market out there to also hit up another thirty million people that are underinsured. So what's the problem? Why has no one decided to step up and fill in the need?

I understand that insurance is an expensive business and when you're actually trying not to be fair and reasonable it can be risky. Until you consider the fact that you have a forty million pool to fish from to make your money. Think of this, $1.00 of profit x 40 million clients = $40 million in your bank account. It makes me wish I had some money to start up an insurance business!! Does no one else see this? What is so hard to understand about it and why doesn't forty million (let's be honest it'd probably be a couple hundred million) sound good to someone, good enough that they would remember the poor people and make insurance coverage for them as well?

This country has gone to hell in a handbasket. I'm rather ashamed of our cynical outlook and ME! ME! ME! attitude. But even with that sort of personality, there's a huge market of people you could help and also help your bank account.

The Final Tapestry

I have always been fascinated with stories of how a race of people came to be. I love history in all its misery and gore and beauty. You would think that such things are contradictions and yet I have found even in the most miserable, nasty and desolate moments in history there are tiny seeds of hope sewn. Waiting to grow, wanting to be harvested. It is up to those that come after to see those seeds and nourish them so that they may be a gift to us and to those that died.

Why am I waxing poetic about history? I am thinking about how America began. How proud we are as a nation of this red, white and blue country. And yet, the colors on our flag symbolize something we forget too often now that savage viciousness has given way to polished lies of civility.

The white man, the red man and the black man. All righteous in their hopes and dreams, all lost in a storm they never saw coming. And all of us - guilty for the things we would have done and still do today.

The blood, the sweat, the very breath of life. Red, white, blue. For a land that is so big, so full of promise - it wasn't quite big enough and it didn't hold enough promise. People were hurt, people were killed. All for owning a square piece of land that none of us truly will ever own. This is God's land for it is God's earth. Yet we will righteously fight and then pick apart our enemies and feed off their pain like carrion. The land of the free, the land of the brave. The land of broken promises and pain.

If we could have seen the destruction would history be different? Some would say yes but the cynics will always say no. I hold in my heart a seed of hope sewn by God Himself that if we had known, if we could have felt and seen with eyes of love - history would be different. So even as I look with sad eyes in the mirror and see the guilt and shame that has been passed down to me, I feel inside me that seed grow to a tiny little plant, hoping to flower.

I pray someday our children will carve out a new history for us to look upon. One that is full of what God intended. A land not of red, white, and blue - separated and alone, but a land where the red melds with blue and then white and we see a country of one color. The individual strands woven so closely together that from far away all we see is purple, but when examined closely each color is there, lending a hand in the final tapestry.

Big Ben in Big Trouble

Okay so this all began while I was in solitary for two weeks so I just found out about Ben Rothelisberger's trouble last night on the news.

I am a huge Steeler fan. I also really like Ben because his first year in 2004/5 when Hurricane Katrina hit he donated his game day salary to helping the victims and got the rest of the team to do it too. I like that about a person - and he wasn't making enough money (then) that giving up his salary was easily done. He has also become a great leader and when he screws up on the field he owns to it. Often he takes the blame for a blown game completely on his shoulders and I admire that. He doesn't shirk from responsibility.

However, I have heard he was a wild young man at times. He's definitely impulsive - it's one of the things we all like - when he breaks from the pocket to sprint down the field and dives to get those six extra yards that gives us another first down. So did he rape some woman while drinking in Vegas a year and a half ago? My instinctive answer is no because I like the kind of guy he SEEMS to be. Especially since on the field he seems able to own his mistakes but is he the same man off the field as he is on it?

I don't know him. Never met the guy. Fame does funny things to a person. Could he rape a woman? I hope not. But I don't know. As much as I love the Steelers and like him as a quarterback there is no way I can or will say he's completely innocent. It doesn't stop me from hoping he is and that the truth comes out in his favor. But if that woman was really raped and not just looking for a get rich quick scheme, I hope that he goes to jail. I hope that he has to pay out his ASS and then he goes to jail. Because rape is a horrible injustice that too many people don't pay for.

One out of every FIVE women in the world have been sexually abused in some form. That's a staggering and disgusting fact. A worse fact is that most of those abuses never get reported because the women/young girls are frightened and think it was their fault. They are told it is there fault. And when they get the courage (perhaps a year and a half later??) some people think they are lying, scheming moneygrubbers. Maybe this woman is just after Ben's money.

But what if her story is true?

Celebrity Showdown: MJ vs. FF

I am one of the few people in the U.S. that does not have cable by choice. So I didn't find out about MJ until I went online many hours later and saw it on Yahoo! News. I find it disturbing that when I finally had access to a television today that so many channels are covering his death and no one is mentioning Farrah Fawcett.

Farrah was a talented woman who made sure to leave behind a legacy as well. Not only was she also an icon but she documented her three years of cancer and treatment so that the world could see what it meant to have the disease. She was brutally honest, showing herself going bald and even throwing up. She should be admired for her courage and tenacity in the face of such a scary illness and her willingess to sacrifice her privacy so others may learn more from what she was suffering. And yet she is an afterthought. A one sentence or two moment in the media while MJ gets hours and hours perhaps months of coverage. It's sad really.

Now I understand that Michael was a huge icon as well and that his music touched millions. I understand that dying so unexpectedly is shocking and sensational. I get the fact that he died leaving three children and a $400 million dollar debt is newsworthy. And that for 50 years he has been someone worth covering in the news because he was that marketable. If people didn't talk, mourn and even joke about him I would be shocked and appalled. However, what does it say about us as a society that we have no room in our hearts to also mention someone beloved by many who suffered tragically while still trying to give back?

It scares me how little we care about those who were truly good, honest people. It scares me how we enjoy freakiness and scavenge for dirt first because that interests us more. Even with MJ what they talk about most is not how he changed pop culture and how he helped to break the censoring of black artists in mainstream music. Instead people want to know what the autopsy will reveal and if he hurt children and they want to know the intimate details of his later life.

What does that say about us?

The Suck ups Win Again

Governor Rendell is an idiot. Pennsylvania needs to make some cuts to its budget because it has gone over expenses by $3 billion dollars. So for the last couple weeks Rendell has been talking about budget cuts and to be prepared. I read in the newspaper today that he plans on cutting funding to state fairs (whoopee, they're boring anyway), funding for public school computers (sucks but understandable) and another cut will be in the care of the mentally ill.

Now, I understand that cuts need to be made but I think the last one is ill-advised. Mentally ill people do not receive enough funding for programs, housing and help as it is and they want to cut spending for them like they are as expendable as a state fair and a computer?! I worked in state run homes for the mentally handicapped for two years. They are PEOPLE just like you and me but need a little help.

It makes me sick when I think about how Dan Surra is making $95,000 a year to act as an advisor for the "Pennsylvania Wilds". In other words he's getting paid a ton of money to sit around in an office and pretend to know something about the forests and wildlife. Why not take that money and put it toward helping the mentally ill, you know - people that really need the money and not some smug politician who weasled his way into a cushy and made up job because he's 'good friends' with Rendell.

Oh wait, that won't happen because America has forgotten what it means to be democratic and show equality to all people not just the ones that know how to kiss ass.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

With the recession still going strong there has been an increase in credit card debt and defaulting on accounts. I admit I am currently behind on my own credit card payments. Apparently, there is hope for the average person however.

HSBC, which is my credit card pirate captain, has begun to bargain with people who are delinquent on their accounts. Sometimes even halving the amount to be paid in an attempt to collect what is owed to them.

Before this, asking for a settlement was met with scorn or with barely any money taken off the account. Now, the companies are calling and sending letters as they desperately try to get any of their investment back from the American people. I find it interesting that at one time we were desperate to avoid their phonecalls of collection and now we could very well negotiate with them and feel powerful doing so.

Not that I advocate defaulting on a promise to repay but I have a special scorn in my heart for credit card companies. Mostly because they take advantage of people that are going through rough times by hiking up their APRs, nailing them with late fees, finance charges, annual fees and other fees when taking out cash. They have made a lot of money on this scheme of charge, charge, charge and ask questions later. I suppose I should feel bad that even the credit card companies are struggling but I still remember the way they use to call people like me and that lovely feeling of being a maimed animal with vultures circling me, waiting for any sign of weakness.