Why Christmas?

Yesterday I had every intention of posting my final blog post before the Christmas season but all the running around that I had to do left me short of time. I have just read three seemingly unrelated blog posts that I wanted to share. I also think that they do have a connection in that they lead one into another.

The first one is a posting by Kevin DeYoung on Hell and Satan.  He sets out to answer some of life's toughest questions. Why is there so much suffering in the world?

He answers this through the book of Revelation:

 [T]he devil hates the gospel and hates all those who love and obey the gospel.  The passage above is the literal and symbolic center of the book of Revelation. For eleven chapters the Spirit shows us tempted churches, suffering churches, judgments on the earth, conflict in the world, and the call for God’s people to overcome.  In chapter 12 the curtain gets pulled back so we can see what is going on behind the scenes.  Why all this struggle and suffering? What is behind this war of the worlds? The answer is that the devil is hell bent on destroying the church.

I don't know that suffering ultimately makes sense outside of a very real devil. Yes we are a fallen and sinful people but we must also account for Satan in order to get a complete picture of all that comes into play. 

So what can we do about it? If our adversary is very real then how can we deal with what we face?  Simply put by my good friend from seminary, we can't. Brad Kautz examines the difference between looking with ourselves and looking to God for our answers:

 In Advent we await a person, sent by God to serve not as “an” intermediary between the natural and supernatural, but as “the” intermediary. Jesus came as God’s only begotten, or “fathered by,” son, of whom Paul testifies in these words, “concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” We don’t need to find some sort of “inner presence” and believe that we have a mediator because God has already provided us with the only mediator, a mediator who is also perfect in every way.

We find our hope and help in Christ Jesus alone.

Finally Trevin Wax shares the importance of not trying to rely on celebrity pastors. We cannot go it alone and merely listen to a disembodied voice. Christianity requires relationships; relationships with each other but most importantly we need to have a very real and close relationship with God the Father:

I remember reading Collin Hansen’s book on the “young, restless, and reformed” a few years ago and being disturbed by one woman’s description of John Piper as a “father” of sorts, even though they’d never met. Fathers image God. The fact that a young lady could express the concept of spiritual fatherhood in relation to Piper shows what her view of God the Father is. Far off. Transcendent. Powerful. Distant. If fatherhood can take place without ever meeting, then we must have missed something about the immanence of God that expresses itself in God’s condescension to us in Christ.

These three posts spell out our problem, our savior and our need for community. All three together speak to why we have Christmas.

Hope everyone has a very merry Christmas.

Herod's troubling public promise

The story of how John the Baptist was killed is a strange story and was a part of my Bible reading today. John the Baptist did not shy away from controversy or confrontation. He has one of my favorite lines in the Bible: "You brood of vipers." It is such a colorful way to describe how he felt about the Pharisees and Sadducees coming out for baptism. He knew that they were doing it merely for the show and not because they were truly being repentant. So he called them a brood of vipers. I find it creative and intelligent. 

But that wasn't the only place that John confronted someone. He also told King Herod exactly what he was thinking as well. King Herod had married his brothers ex-wife, Herodias and John the Baptist was very vocal about it being wrong:

It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.

So Herod had him arrested and thrown in jail. While John might not have been afraid to tell Herod what he thought, you always take a risk when speaking boldly about the the king and his wife.

Herod both feared the people–they thought John was a prophet–and he actually had some fear of John himself. Herod thought that John was a righteous man and would actually take time to listen to John. Herodias, on the other hand, wanted John dead. Would it surprise you that this caused some friction between Herod and Herodias?

Turns out that Herod made a bad move. He was throwing his own birthday party and had invited noblemen, military commanders and important men in Galilee. As part of the party entertainment Herod's 12 or 14 year old stepdaughter Salome danced.

This wasn't some dance recital piece that she had been working on for the school talent show:

For when Herodias's daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests.

Herod was pleased so much and in such a way that he vowed to give Salome what ever she wanted up to half of his kingdom. It was a boastful promise and probably a figure of speech. Salome ran out to ask her mother what to ask for and Herodias said:

The head of John the Baptist.

This part of the story reads as if Herodias had put her daughter up to dancing for all the men at the party. I doubt that Herod and Herodias were winning any parents of the year awards. 

Herod was greatly troubled when Salome came back and asked for John's head on a platter:

And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her.

Herod ended up giving Salome John's head on a platter and Salome gave it to her mom.

As depraved as Herod was, we can learn something from him. There is a lot of power in a promise made in public. These promises can work both for us and against us. We need to be careful what we promise to people. (Just ask George Bush Sr. about how making a very public promise can work against you.) We shouldn't make promises that are going to be difficult for us to keep. But they can also work for us. The power of a public promise–even if that promise is only made to one or two other people–is the very basis of how accountability works. As Christians when we are struggling with something often times it is much easier to over come those struggles with the help of someone else.

To that end I am making a public promise. The time between Christmas Eve and New Years Day is reserved for my family. This means that I am not going to be doing things that take me away from spending time with family. My wife is off that week and so this means that I will be taking that time off from blogging. So if any of you catch me breaking this promise please hold me accountable.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

A Lesson to learn from Sam Hurd

For those that do not follow professional football–specifically the Chicago Bears–may not know the name Sam Hurd. The Bears season started off so promising. They were 7-3 and looked like a lock for the playoffs. Then came the injuries to QB Jay Cutler and RB Matt Forte. Backup QB Caleb Hanie has been bad. Tim Tebow Tebowed the Bears. Now WR Johnny Knox suffered a devastating back injury. Four losses in a row and the wheels have fallen off.

But one of the wackiest things to have happened in the last four weeks was the arrest of Bears WR Sam Hurd. Last week Sam Hurd tried to set up buying 5 to 10 kilograms of cocaine and 1000 pounds of marijuana a week from a federal agent. That is a lot of drugs. It means that Hurd was a pretty big player in the drug world. 

The sports commentary world was filled with accusations that the Bears management didn't do enough of a background check before signing Hurd and questions about how much Hurd's teammates knew. Bears General Manager Jerry Angelo said the following:

"We have a very sound and tested methodology that we go about researching all players in college to veteran free agents," Angelo said. "We spend an inordinate amount of time on character, making sure we know the player as well as we can.

"But no system is foolproof. For me to say we should have known something that we didn't know, I can't say that in this case. There's no foundation for anybody to say that. There are no facts, there are no flags that anybody could present tangibly to say we should have known otherwise.

"I want to make that perfectly clear to the public, to our fans. … We did everything you could possibly do given the information (we had)."

And I believe him. The Bears can only find out so much info. Yes there were some questions about Hurd's character just prior to the Bears signing him. But the Bears are a football team and not the FBI or DEA. And this story also shows us just how little we can know about others.

Sports columnist Vance McClure wrote an article in the Chicago Tribune outlining this very thing. He relates the story of Muhsin Muhammad's relationships with teammates Ray Carruth–convicted of conspiracy to commit murder–and Nate Newton–convicted of drug possession. The story about how Muhammad had no idea that Carruth was involved in planning the murder of his pregnant girlfriend it astounding. Muhammad and Carruth spent a couple of hours together playing video games the very night that Carruth's girlfriend was murdered. Muhammad was even a character witness for Carruth. Muhammad thought he knew his good friend was not capable of doing such a thing.

Bears teammates say the same thing about Hurd. They thought that he was just a good guy and a hard working football player.

I am sure that as Hurd's teammates look back, they might see some things that in retrospect were suspicious.  But I think that the important lesson to learn is that the bad guys rarely walk around looking like bad guys. Paul tells us that the same is true when it comes to Satan in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15:

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

This doesn't mean that we should be skeptical of everyone. Being cynical is not a great way to live. Rather it means that integrity is not a once in a while thing. Integrity is something that is long-term. This means that if we want to be people of integrity that we cannot let our guard down.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Top 5 Christmas Movies

I remember going and seeing A Christmas Story in the theater with my grandfather and brother. It was a great movie and it has been rare that Christmas has gone by without me watching it again. But what I remember most about the very first time I saw it was my brother got sick in the car on the way home from my grandfather's house. We were half way home.

I haven't watched any of my favorite Christmas movies yet this year which means that I really need to get on the ball.

So I thought that I would share with you my all-time favorites that I will need to watch before the end of the year.

First is the previously mentioned A Christmas Story. What kid from the 80s doesn't want a Red-Rider BB Gun?

Next is the classic It's a Wonderful Life. When I was young this one would drive me nuts. It was always on. It was on just about every channel at the same time. Why couldn't they just show a cartoon special? But now I love it. Yes it is cheesy but that's the point. I think that it is a great story about not underestimating your importance.

My third favorite is A Charlie Brown Christmas. The movie does a good job of speaking against the commercialism of Christmas. It was written in 1965 and seems even more relevant today. It would be interesting to hear what Charles Schultz would think of all the Christmas creep we see now.

The fourth movie would be How the Grinch Stole Christmas! I do not like the remake, I do not like it, Sam-I-am. Nope. It has to be the old cartoon. It is a plain and simple message. Don't be a Christmas hater.

Finally I will watch Elf. Yes it doesn't have the staying power of the others. I agree that it won't end up being a classic. But it is funny and fun to watch. Besides it is the best thing to watch while eating something from the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.

The loss of Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens passed away last night. He was one of the "new" atheists that went on the offensive when it came to his conviction that Christianity was not only wrong but harmful to the world. Yet because of my studies over the past 5 years I have not followed Christian Apologetics very closely. Which means that I was only aware of Hitchens' atheist apologetics work through a few Christian responses to him. I did hear anecdotally that while he could be very harsh towards his opponents during a debate, he was also very sharp and very thoughtful.

I was just reminded that he was dying of cancer a couple of days ago in a thoughtful article by Justin Taylor. And I was greatly saddened by the news of his passing that greeted me this morning.

Doug Wilson, one of Hitchens debate partners, wrote an excellent article in response to Hitchens' death. It is both thoughtful and respectful piece that should be a model for all Christians whenever we are dealing with the death of someone that was so obviously an enemy of Christianity. We as Christians should never rejoice in the death of anyone, especially someone that we suspect has died apart from Christ. (Wilson details Hitchens concerns of false rumors of a deathbed conversion being spread.) 

The Bible makes it clear that dying without the forgiveness for our sins that only Jesus can provide is not a pleasant experience. I don't wish that on anyone. I would greatly prefer that even the worst people in the world would turn away from the evil that they do and towards God. It doesn't matter what they have done. I would rather that they repent and find forgiveness. 

I also do not find any great joy or pleasure that such a great opponent to Christianity is gone. There is no singing "Ding, dong the witch is dead."

What may sound a bit counter intuitive at first, I think that smart and worthy challenges to Christianity are a good thing. In the past I have enjoyed listening to how Christianity stacks up in the arena of ideas. As Christians we are supposed to have good reasons for what we believe and not a subjective or blind faith. To that end, I dislike bad arguments for Christianity just as much as I dislike bad arguments against it. If we as Christians really believe that Christianity is the truth then we should never be afraid of any challenges to it. If Christianity is the truth it will be borne out to be the true. This doesn't mean that we will not hear challenges that will initially cause us to pause. Some of these challenges will take some very careful thinking to get through. There will also be those challenges that may cause us to modify certain ancillary beliefs. But ultimately the core of Christianity will hold fast.

It just saddens me that Christopher Hitchens will no longer be a part of that discussion.

Photo from Vanity Fair.

Patrick Kane's Wild Ride

The only thing that I miss about not having cable is watching sports. So I missed the Blackhawks game last night but imagine my surprise this morning when this highlight was just waiting to be discovered.