With it being the Christmas season, people are bringing out their favorite Nativity Sets. Every Nativity set I have seen have included Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the Wise Men (and no the Bible doesn't say there were three of them, just the three gifts). There are two major players missing from every Nativity Set I have seen. The first one is the inn keeper, and its probably because he was to busy making money and he didn't have time for a crying baby who happen to be the promised Messiah. The second person who is missing from the set is King Herod. He had an influential role in the Christmas story and he was the reason that the first family fled to Egypt (and fleeing to Egypt fulfilled Old Testament prophecy which is more important) and Herod was the main reason why a bunch of toddler boys lost their lives because the Wise Men chose to listen to God instead of a crazy king. I think there are several reasons why King Herod gets left out of the Nativity set and if you want to read the Christmas story with King Herod's exploits, it can be found in Matthew 2.
The first reason why I think King Herod gets pushed to the back of the Christmas story is because he reminds us to much of ourselves. He was a king who was temperamental, two faced who was a narcissist. Herod built buildings, temples and a fortress for himself to show off his greatness. How often are we just as narcissistic as Herod was. We may not be building structures or temples to show off our greatness, or killing babies, to protect our greatness in a culture that values self promotion, we have outlets to encourage our narcissim. YouTube and other social media outlets are the perfect way for us to fulfill all of our narcissistic desires. We can tell people how great we are and we can put out a certain persona that may not be holy or even true. One of the traits of being a human, especially a narcissist is that there needs to be a façade that needs to put out or betrayed. It is a particular story we stick to that we get some sort of sick gratification from because this façade is often filled with half truths at best, or are just flat out lies. Facebook is great for promoting this façade and it allows us to blow things out of proportion and it allows us to portray a certain narrative that is not always healthy or holy.
The second idea why Herod gets left out is that just as he didn't like his authority challenged, we don't like our authority challenged either. How often do we get our undergarments in a bind when we are told that we are dead wrong and there is actual proof that our thoughts, actions and speech are not right. When you were a Roman king, you were a deity and had god like status. So when the promised Messiah decides to be born and there was the rumor that His throne and authority will last forever, that made Herod uncomfortable and he felt threatened. When people feel threatened, they often take matters into their own hands and try to fix things so they can preserve themselves. It is really a classic flight or fight response. First we asses if the threat is fake or real, and then we either run in hoping to preserve ourselves, or respond with some sort of action. For Herod it was fighting the threat and he decided to have all the males below a certain aged killed in order to preserve what he thought was important. How many times has our attempt to preserve our way of life or comfort lead to really bad decisions with even worse consequences.
I think that there are two things that we can learn from King Herod. The first one is that we can not serve two masters. We see throughout Scripture that when we try and serve our won self interest and when we try to keep ourselves on our throne, it never ends well. When we try and serve two masters, not only do we end up loving one and hating the other, but to be practical about it, serving two masters is like texting and driving because you end up failing doing both. We become distracted at doing both and send texts that are poorly worded and we are putting our own lives and the lives others in danger. Serving ourselves may be fun and fulfilling for a time, but in the end, we alienate people and we keep on chasing the next big thing because we can not be satisfied. Serving God is the only way we can be satisfied.
The second point is that sometimes we often fight the hardest the very thing we need the most. Herod fought so hard for self preservation that in all reality, if he was interested in it, he would of let it go. What I mean by this is that Jesus not only came with authority and power that will last forever, but to give us life abundantly. Thy only way we can have this abundant life is by losing our own authority and personal right to be right (I know this is so un-American it hurts, because being an American is all bout being right no matter how wrong we are). It is submitting to Gods authority and allowing Him to change us from the inside out and have Him rule our lives. In Phillipians 2, the Apostle Paul reminds us that we can submit to Gods authority now and all will be well, or be forced to when He returns as the King and that will not be a good thing
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Coventants Part II
One of the things I realized lately is that the idea of covenants are not for the faint of heart because a covenant does not require just a piece of us, but it requires all of us. A true covenant is between two people and God or between a group of people and with God. A covenant always makes the distinction that God is always involved and if we were left to do things on our own, I am not sure how many things would actually be completed or even started if God was not involved providing a way, strength and direction. One thing I realized yesterday is that a covenant requires , sacrifice, service and yes even death. All three of these things can be found in the Gospel of John the 13 chapter
The context to this section of Scripture is that it is known as the Upper Room discourse. Jesus is meeting with His disciples during His final Passover meal right before His prediction of His death comes to fruition. This chapter is famous because Jesus strips down to His undergarments and washes His disciples feet. When you travel dirt roads by foot in sandals, your feet tend to get dirty, and the washing of feet was designated for the slave who was the lowest on the seniority list. So when Jesus did this, it was speaking volumes to everyone in the room. If you are going to be apart of Gods covenant, we are not to be worried about titles, position of power or consume ourselves with ego trips, but we are to serve. Service is not about doing it when its convenient, or things that we like to do, but it often is doing things that are dirty, things that take us out of our comfort zone and even things that are counter cultural. I think that true service isn't that sexy thing that screams look at me, but often it is where we do things and no one notices. Service is not about using it as the next step up the ladder, but glorifying God and bringing other people along. Service could mean spending time doing kids ministry at your local church, to building an authentic relationship with the socially awkward person you know. True service is doing something without seeking anything in return.
Another aspect of being covenantal is that it takes sacrifice. Its not sacrifice if we give don't have to give up something that we do not value or that we have plenty of. If we have an extra hundred dollars, sticking twenty dollars in the red kettle as you walk into Wal Mart is not sacrifice, but it could be an ego inflator and a look at me moment. Giving any amount of money to a good cause like the Salvation Army is always a good thing, but lets not call it sacrifice when it doesn't cost us something great and that we are not relying on God strength and mercy. Sacrifice also calls us to interact with more than just the people we like or even tolerate. True sacrifice often means that id does not matter if we are serving friend or foe. When Jesus was washing His disciples feet, He could of skipped right over the feet of Judas, but He chose to wash his feet anyway. I am all for healthy boundaries with those who have hurt us or the trust that has been betrayed by both parties. Sometimes sacrifice means praying that God will bless them and not smite them or give them some horrible disease. Sometimes its treating those who have hurt us with dignity and respect and not throwing them underneath the bus on a daily basis. Sometimes sacrifice is granting and seeking forgiveness because God has forgiven much with us. This does not erase the past nor does it justify it, but its owning to our part and we are no longer handicapped by the wrong.
We can talk about sacrifice all day long, and how we can sacrifice our time, talents, and anything else that we may find important, but if it does not lead to self denial and death, our sacrifice is done in vain. Where the rubber meets the road with covenants is that for covenants to work, there needs to be something that is binding and to make it so. Throughout the Old Testament, when covenants were entered in to, the blood of a first born animal with no blemishes was the thing that sealed the covenant. The animal was placed on an altar and was burned to commemorate the covenant. There is also a reminder that if the covenant was broken, the same thing would be done to the person as what happened to the animal on the altar, which was death. So covenants are a big deal and there is more to joining Gods covenant than saying a prayer and inviting Jesus into ones heart, but it is dying to ourselves on a daily basis so that God can have more and more of us.
In the Old Testament, the sacrificial system allowed people to interact with God, it was incomplete because it was done by humans, so it needed to be repeated. For Gods covenant to be made complete, the book of Hebrews states over and over and what the whole Bible was pointing to was that there needed to be one sacrifice to end all sacrifices. This sacrifice needed to be perfect and could not be done by human hands. Jesus was that sacrifice to end all sacrifices, not only was He the Son of God, but He was also perfect. In Matthew 27, the author shares the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and when Jesus died, the veil to the holy of holies in the Temple was torn in two. The Holy of Holies was the place where Gods presence dwelt and only the priest could enter into the holy of holies on certain occasions, and if they were not right with God, they would die. Church lore has it when a priest entered, the other priest would die a rope to his ankles with bells, so that if he did die in there, they were able to pull him out. The significance of the temple veil being torn down the middle is that we all can have access to God and Jesus sacrifice provided a way for us to enter into that covenant with God. So in response to Jesus ultimate sacrifice, lets make ourselves a living sacrifice, where we continually die to ourselves to that God can live in and through us.
The context to this section of Scripture is that it is known as the Upper Room discourse. Jesus is meeting with His disciples during His final Passover meal right before His prediction of His death comes to fruition. This chapter is famous because Jesus strips down to His undergarments and washes His disciples feet. When you travel dirt roads by foot in sandals, your feet tend to get dirty, and the washing of feet was designated for the slave who was the lowest on the seniority list. So when Jesus did this, it was speaking volumes to everyone in the room. If you are going to be apart of Gods covenant, we are not to be worried about titles, position of power or consume ourselves with ego trips, but we are to serve. Service is not about doing it when its convenient, or things that we like to do, but it often is doing things that are dirty, things that take us out of our comfort zone and even things that are counter cultural. I think that true service isn't that sexy thing that screams look at me, but often it is where we do things and no one notices. Service is not about using it as the next step up the ladder, but glorifying God and bringing other people along. Service could mean spending time doing kids ministry at your local church, to building an authentic relationship with the socially awkward person you know. True service is doing something without seeking anything in return.
Another aspect of being covenantal is that it takes sacrifice. Its not sacrifice if we give don't have to give up something that we do not value or that we have plenty of. If we have an extra hundred dollars, sticking twenty dollars in the red kettle as you walk into Wal Mart is not sacrifice, but it could be an ego inflator and a look at me moment. Giving any amount of money to a good cause like the Salvation Army is always a good thing, but lets not call it sacrifice when it doesn't cost us something great and that we are not relying on God strength and mercy. Sacrifice also calls us to interact with more than just the people we like or even tolerate. True sacrifice often means that id does not matter if we are serving friend or foe. When Jesus was washing His disciples feet, He could of skipped right over the feet of Judas, but He chose to wash his feet anyway. I am all for healthy boundaries with those who have hurt us or the trust that has been betrayed by both parties. Sometimes sacrifice means praying that God will bless them and not smite them or give them some horrible disease. Sometimes its treating those who have hurt us with dignity and respect and not throwing them underneath the bus on a daily basis. Sometimes sacrifice is granting and seeking forgiveness because God has forgiven much with us. This does not erase the past nor does it justify it, but its owning to our part and we are no longer handicapped by the wrong.
We can talk about sacrifice all day long, and how we can sacrifice our time, talents, and anything else that we may find important, but if it does not lead to self denial and death, our sacrifice is done in vain. Where the rubber meets the road with covenants is that for covenants to work, there needs to be something that is binding and to make it so. Throughout the Old Testament, when covenants were entered in to, the blood of a first born animal with no blemishes was the thing that sealed the covenant. The animal was placed on an altar and was burned to commemorate the covenant. There is also a reminder that if the covenant was broken, the same thing would be done to the person as what happened to the animal on the altar, which was death. So covenants are a big deal and there is more to joining Gods covenant than saying a prayer and inviting Jesus into ones heart, but it is dying to ourselves on a daily basis so that God can have more and more of us.
In the Old Testament, the sacrificial system allowed people to interact with God, it was incomplete because it was done by humans, so it needed to be repeated. For Gods covenant to be made complete, the book of Hebrews states over and over and what the whole Bible was pointing to was that there needed to be one sacrifice to end all sacrifices. This sacrifice needed to be perfect and could not be done by human hands. Jesus was that sacrifice to end all sacrifices, not only was He the Son of God, but He was also perfect. In Matthew 27, the author shares the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and when Jesus died, the veil to the holy of holies in the Temple was torn in two. The Holy of Holies was the place where Gods presence dwelt and only the priest could enter into the holy of holies on certain occasions, and if they were not right with God, they would die. Church lore has it when a priest entered, the other priest would die a rope to his ankles with bells, so that if he did die in there, they were able to pull him out. The significance of the temple veil being torn down the middle is that we all can have access to God and Jesus sacrifice provided a way for us to enter into that covenant with God. So in response to Jesus ultimate sacrifice, lets make ourselves a living sacrifice, where we continually die to ourselves to that God can live in and through us.
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