Merry Christmas! And Here is Luke's Account

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In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.


So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

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Hoarding Life

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Heard a great sermon on Sunday. My pastor, Pete Alwinson, is talking about Peace this Advent season. One of the points he has made is that the Christian faith often causes one to lose peace - the peace that is found in complacency in particular. He used this great quote from Wm. Barclay:
I can see how I "hoard life" sometimes. I want it to be comfortable. I want my family to be comfortable, and my job to be comfortable and my church to be comfortable... Working in ministry makes it even easier to be like this, because I've always got a convenient comeback to those feelings that maybe I'm not really living my life in a way that builds the Kingdom as effectively as it could. I can always hark back to some ministry experience that blunts the barb of Christian conscience.

There is no place for a policy of safety first in the Christian life. The man who seeks first ease and comfort and security and the fulfillment of personal ambition may well get all these things, but he will not be a happy man; for he was sent into this world to serve god and to serve His fellow man. A man can hoard life, if he wishes to do so. But that way he will lose all that makes life valuable to others and worth living for himself.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to lay a guilt trip on myself. I just want to be honest with myself about the ramifications of my faith.  Patrick Morley quotes Dr. Schaeffer in his book, The Man in the Mirror, and points out the two "impoverished values" of personal peace  and affluence.

Personal peace means just to be let alone, not to be troubled by the troubles of other people, whether across the world or across the city -- to live one's life with minimal possibilities of being disturbed...Affluence means an overwhelming and ever-increasing prosperity -- a life made of things, things and more things -- a success judged by an ever-higher level of material abundance. (from Frances Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live, 1976)

I want to be sure that I am not committed to ease, comfort, ambition, personal peace and affluence - that I am not "hoarding my life" - so that I miss out on what I could be doing to make a difference in the world.


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Broken-Hearted at Christmas

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Seems like Christmas is a rough time for a lot of people emotionally. I suspect it's the contrast between the joy that is expected to permeate the season and the reality of unmet expectations, broken relationships or just that general feeling of, "is this really as good as it's going to get?"  

Got this Weekly Briefing from Pat Morley at work today. A great message for the Christmas season.

My heart has been broken many times -- left out, made fun of, rejected, feeling alone, feeling unloved, depressed, broken promises, shattered dreams, betrayal, falsely accused. And then there are my sins of which I am ashamed and over which I grieve.

What is breaking your heart today? Maybe an injustice -- by you or against you. Maybe you're grieving, or need to grieve, what could've been -- a son on drugs, a daughter who has wandered from the path, a spouse who seems distant, or parents who got divorced. The closer the person, the deeper the hurt. (excerpted from To Anyone With a Broken Heart, Weekly Briefing Volume 351, December 14, 2009. Read the rest of the article.)

I'm praying that we would all feel the real presence of God this season -- His peace, love and comfort in the midst of a trying and difficult world. If you know Him, don't forget to talk to Him. If you don't, just talk to Him, He'll hear you. If you want to talk to Him and don't know how, email me (baclemmer@maninthemirror.org). I know Him and I'd be happy to introduce you.

 
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Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cckaiser/ / CC BY 2.0

Great Times Climbing in Ch-ch-chattanooga

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That's the sound of my teeth chattering. Took my son Jake to Tennessee last weekend to camp and climb. We had a great time (mostly). The highlight was probably waking up Saturday morning to snow on the ground! We went with friends from the gym, including my buddy Ike who is the camping and climbing uber-guide.

The climbing crowd is really interesting. Kind of like surfers in the laid-back mentality and the relational style. I heard the phrase, "Awesome dude!" about a million times. A fair amount of drinking too, so not super kid-friendly, although I doubt most of the adults saw it that way.

Jake had a tough day at the comp on Sunday. We had climbed outdoors two days already and we were both pretty tired. He still ended up finishing 4th in his age group!

Here was the most interesting part of the weekend to me: surrounded by young, energetic people, all of them really love the outdoors and the challenge of climbing, yet no realization of where all of this must have come from. An appreciation for beauty and creation, but no affinity or interest (it seemed) in the Creator. I loved what we were doing and even who we were doing it with, but I still felt pretty out of place.