Invictus

During vacation I read John Carlin’s book, “Playing The Enemy,” which to coincide with the recent movie by Clint Eastwood has been published by Penguin Books under the title, “Invictus: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation.” The book not only recounts the events leading up to South Africa’s rugby team, the Springboks, victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup but also allows the reader inside the mind and life of Mandela who united a nation fragmented by apartheid and racially intense fear. This fairytale but true story not only is inspiring but gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation for one of the most moving experiences we had on our mission trip to South Africa. After we had finished building a house for habitat to replace the shack the family had been living in we gathered in their new home and sang. First we sang then they sang to us. We were so moved but now I know how truly moved I should have been… they sang to us their new national anthem, “Nkosi Skelele iAfrika.” The words in Xhosa mean, “God bless Africa, May her glory rise high, Hear our pleas, God bless us, Us your children, Come Spirit, Come Holy Spirit, God we ask you to protect our nation, Intervene and end all conflicts, Protect us, Protect our nation, Let it be so, Forever and ever.” The chorus sounded to us like, “happy turkey,” so we called it the happy turkey song. Now, I just feel like a turkey because I had no idea how much this anthem meant to those who not only survived apartheid but conquered it with forgiveness and hope!

Invictus is the title to a William Earnest Benley poem that Mandela read often during his incarceration on Robben Island for 27 years. It sustained his harsh and inhumane treatment with such words as, “It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” Mandela embraced invictus (Latin for unconquered) by choosing to know his enemy and forgive his ignorance while grasping the hope that the road to victory was unity not war. Against all odds he united a divided nation with inspiring a rugby team to do the impossible by winning the world cup that no sports analist thought they had the slightest chance to win. And that no political analist thought would be supported by angry blacks that traditionally cheered the other team because they saw the “Boks” as the emblem of white Afrikaner tyranny. But in the end victory was complete while the crowds of blacks and whites chanted in tears, “Nel –son, Nel –son!”

I have no idea what challenges lay before us in 2010 but I do know that because of the love of God that is in Jesus we are invictus! No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:37-39). -DAN

Dawn

It dawned on me in worship as we were singing, “Silent Night,” how meaningful and yet eloquent is the word “dawn.” In the third stanza of Joseph Mohr’s lyrics it proclaims, “…love’s pure light, radiant beams from Thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace…” The Christmas gleam was not from a guiding star or angelic chorus but the Christ-child’s countenance, an innocence announcing the dawn of redeeming grace! This inauguration of the Kingdom realized, was the joyous reality of Immanuel, God with us, issuing a new day, a new age that was illuminating the world with grace and truth! As 2010 stands waiting in the dawn of a second decade in this new millennium its radiance will once again be found and founded in the face of Jesus. The Savior of the world as John’s gospel proclaims is, “The true light that gives light to every man who comes into the world (John 1:9).” David had earlier understood, “For with you is the fountain of life, in your light we see light (Psalm 36:9).” Yes, Jesus was and continues to be our dawn.

In the competition for most dramatic or colorful skies people usually speak of great sunsets that have saturated the horizon with postcard moments. I don’t think any of us would deny being moved beyond words by a great sunset but there is something reviving and subtly stirring about a sunrise at the dawn of a new day. The crisp morning air and the yawning joy of a sleepy world roused to greet a new day. Hope revisited, energy renewed and the pristine landscape of life ready for us to blaze new trails. Wait, wait, wait there a minute, Mr. butterfly chaser… how about a dose of reality and a rousing chorus of, “You load sixteen tons, what do you get, Another day older and deeper in debt, Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store.”

I won’t say that life doesn’t have cloudy days that make it hard to see the dawn, or for a moment forecast that 2010 will be a year without repeated tragedy and failed endeavors but I won’t back down for a moment from the joyous realization that in Jesus is the daily dawning of redeeming grace! Faith is a foundation that provides solid ground for hope for every day –for every day is filled with the love of Jesus! That’s why Paul reminds us that there now abides three: “faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13). A love that rises with every dawn! –DAN

Manger

My grandson, Payden, was a cow in the nativity scene in the church Christmas play in Weatherford, Oklahoma. Leah informed me that during rehearsal Payden improvised with some non-bovine dance moves while they sang “Silent Night.” Who knew that Franz Gruber’s classic melody was a dance track? None-the-less, it was a “moo–ving” performance! Nativity scenes were initiated by Saint Francis of Assisi in the early 13th century to remind the masses that Jesus was the reason for the season. It seems Jesus being marginalized is an issue for every generation. I believe that some of this is because mankind has a hard time keeping Jesus arrival in the manger. We’ve unwittingly marginalized Luke’s poignant words, “there was no room for them in the inn (Luke 2:7).” Jesus was swaddled in an animal trough so he might underscore His arrival as the promised Messiah with the paradox of redemption. That is, He who was glory from on high made His debut not in jewels, fine linen and palace walls but in hay, stench and stable surroundings. Why? Because there was no room… no reception or fanfare and though heaven and strangers from afar worshiped at His feet, Herod plotted to take His life! The Apostle John’s nativity declaration is, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him (John 1:11).” Jesus began a manger guy and continues to be a manger guy!

Let me explain, the redemptive paradox is that God reconciles mankind not with high and exalted staging but in the weakness of a cross that declares victory in surrender! Jesus didn’t hang out with or band together with the religious elite but chose His company with outcasts and the common. His teaching was about everyday things not the theological musings of the rabbis. He spent the majority of His life in a small town with work that left Him with rough hands and sawdust in His lungs. And during His ministry He had no place to call His own but rather depended on the service of a handful of protective women. To an outsider Jesus look more like riff raff than like a Messiah. You see, Jesus has always been a manger guy… a son of man who illuminated that the glory of God was not in the vessel but the content! That every soul coming into this world can embrace the true light no matter if they are born prince or pauper. The gospel is for ALL!

Just curious… but where did we get all those animals and where does it say the Magi came to the stable? Easy enough… as Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof says, “Tradition!” I kind of like a nativity crew of characters –it makes it interesting and colorful. However, I hope we never lose sight of the manger that reminds us, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:3-5).” -DAN

Dancing

One of my absolute favorite things to enjoy these days is to see my granddaughter Makaiya dance to the music of her electronic toys. Makaiya isn’t standing or walking yet but she bobs her head side to side to the beat of the music and to the delight of her Pappy. Her sheer joy and exuberance is contagious as well as entertaining. I hope her life is filled with moments of dancing! Now, those words probably until the day I die will always stick about half way up because I grew up in a household that was dead set against the devil’s tool of dancing that lured so many innocent youths into debauchery and illicit affairs of the flesh (we weren’t sure what debauchery was but we knew it was bad stuff)! So, in elementary school I had to explain to my teacher that I couldn’t circle with the other kids singing, “B*I*N*G*O, and Bingo was his name’o…,” because well, we don’t dance. Now, don’t get me wrong… I appreciate my parent’s desire to instill holiness into how I viewed the world (even when I got my mouth washed out with soap a few times) but the end result is it gave a skewed view of what the Bible actually says about dancing and left me and many of my generation rhythmically challenge and card carrying left footers! But somewhere in the mix of all of this I landed with two feet squarely on the dance floor with the same wish for myself as I have for my grandchildren… a life filled with moments of dancing!

Now, before you get irate about the thought of a dancing preacher let me remind you of what Scripture actually says about dancing. The words translated dance (and its various forms) total less than thirty references in Scripture. The majority of them are positive references that range from Miriam and the Israelite maidens dancing with tambourines and singing praises for being rescued from Egyptian pursuit, to David dancing before the ark in praise and adulation over the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. Jesus uses dancing to illustrate joyous celebration in the story of the prodigal son and the Psalms end with an exhortation to praise God with dancing. Yes, the Israelites were dancing before the golden calf and Herodias’ daughter danced before Herod for John the Baptist head and yes, yes, yes, the works of the flesh in Galatians 5 include revelry which is drunken dancing. But by far the idea of dancing in Scripture is just as Makaiya already knows… it’s an expression of joy… a rhythmic exuberance that is in tune with praise, adulation and appreciation.

Dancing is joyous and natural! Can there be “dirty dancing?” Yes, even Hollywood knows that! This Sunday I guarantee that there will be dancing at church… that is, toes will be tapping to music, kids will unplug their joyous energy and bust a move and the hearts that we celebrate our Lord with will beat to a rhythm! May all this dancing be great adulation for the one who created us, sustains us and calls us to His side! And may all our lives be filled with moments of dancing! –DAN

Christmas Spirit

It’s the time of the year that people start talking about trimming trees, watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music while they warm up to the Christmas spirit. That Yule tide feeling that has you breaking out in a chorus of “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas” even when you know the climate you live in makes such imaginings less than likely. Never-the-less, you’re up for a jolly, holly, Christmas! Unless you suddenly are blindsided by the reality of the commercialization, opulent indulging, consumer overloaded greed that drives overspending, gadget insanity and a spirit of not Christ worship (basic meaning of Christmas) but rather Stuff worship that Jesus says drives a spirit of building bigger barns (i.e. boxes to hold our stuff –Luke 12:18)! Hey, wait a minute preacher… did your grandma get run over by a reindeer or something? Christmas spirit is all about giving and sharing the blessings we have with our loved ones and neighbors!

I agree, I agree… but not at the expense of fiscal responsibility and good stewardship of not only the physical but the spiritual spirit of the season. My mother would always counter our ungrateful spirits when we complained about receiving only one toy for Christmas, with a lecture about how she put a remnant of a flour sack around a brick for a doll and nailed a tin can lid to a stick to roll around as her car. Christmas spirit was not in the status of the gift, or the price tag but rather in the joy of sacrifice that unlocked the imagination of a little girl that turned bricks into dolls and tin can lids into cars. Okay, preacher… now, you’re meddling and jeopardizing my chances for an I-pod Touch, so let me quickly remind you that the Magi brought gifts to the first Christmas party that were not only expensive but specialty gifts!

I agree, I agree… the Christmas spirit is about bringing the best to the party! I’m just suggesting we need to think long and hard about what brings the best! We need to see not just gold, myrrh and frankincense but swaddling clothes, manger tainted straw and desperate quarters that are warmed not by expensive gifts but by worship lit up by heaven’s star. That’s the spirit of the Christ mass… that’s the joy of giving! It’s not about whether we have designer dolls or brick dolls designed by a child’s imagination… it’s about the spirit of giving not receiving. Weigh your gifts with love and meditation on a spirit that will last a lifetime. Make memories that last beyond forgotten toys that can only nurture a moment. Share gifts that are from the heart that are filled not just with Christmas spirit but the Spirit of Christ. And by the way, thanks mom, for brick dolls and tin can lid cars that fill my spirit every Christmas! -DAN