Reflections

I like the app "Pimp my Screen." It's a collection of images that you can download to your phone to change the image that is the home screen or the lock screen. I usually change mine seasonally. I also use my own images, but sometimes I really like the ones from this app.  I also like to change my desktop background images, and I often download microsoft themes, also seasonally.

One day this past Christmas season, I was looking at either my phone or my desktop image - I can't remember which - and I noticed a reflection in a Christmas ornament. I'd been using the image for a couple weeks, and had not noticed it before.

Do we forget we are called to reflect Christ? If we remembered, what would it mean for how we behave? How we think? What we say?

I'm pretty sure that someone would not always recognize Christ in what I say. In what I do.  Certainly not in the way I sometimes think. I'm grateful for the reminder in the Christmas ornament.

Lost Jesus

I was in a church meeting yesterday.  Several of the people in the meeting were discussing the nativity scenes in their homes or at the church. I heard more than once that the baby from the nativity was missing.  In one case, the woman's young daughter had taken it to play with, thinking it was a doll.  In another household, the missing Jesus had been replaced with a snow baby.  In one case, someone was piling hay around the manger to keep the baby warm (that one must have been outside - at least, I hope so).

As I was listening, I was thinking -- surely in this there is a blog post!  We talk a lot about missing out on Christmas because we miss its purpose.  Jesus is missing from our own nativity scenes. Beyond that, though, I was interested in the rest of it.  Do we substitute something else to replace Jesus?  Like the snow baby?  Does it work?  Do we sometimes take Jesus out and play with him, like a toy?  Are we so busy piling up the hay that we fail to even see Jesus?

So what do we do?  What is the solution?  I think it's something beyond being less busy and turning on the Christmas carols.  What is Christ calling us to do that we are just playing at, or ignoring or substituting with something else?

Scars

I been listening to an album by Adele.  My older son introduced me to her (not literally) and especially to the song Rolling in the Deep.

As I was listening to the song yesterday, the lyrics struck me, speaking to me of a meaning that isn't in the lyrics themselves.

The scars of your love,

They leave me breathless

Imagine for a moment, Thomas sitting, remembering his encounter with the risen Christ.  Couldn't Thomas have said that? Go read the two lines again, with Thomas and his encounter in your mind.

I feel a poem coming along -- for another time, when I'm not so tired.

Covenant

This one is going to be a stretch and perhaps a little strange, but it's a connection that occurred to me today as I was reading for Disciple.

In Genesis 15, God and Abraham are having a discussion about God's promises to Abraham. God instructs Abraham to bring animals for a sacrifice. He follows God's instructions. As he prepared the animals, he cuts them in half and lays them on the ground. I thought it was an odd thing to do until I read the notes in my study Bible. It was a practice of the time -- the animals would be split, and then those making the covenant would walk between the pieces. It was symbolic -- if one of the two broke his promises, he was saying that he would agree that he should be split like the animals.

Glad we just shake hands now.

As Abraham sleeps, God walks between the split animals, assuming sole responsibility for the covenant. He will be faithful, even in the face of our unfaithfulness. He knows us very well.

God taking responsibility for the covenant brought to mind his greatest act of love. He sent his son to us. The Word was with God, the Word was God, and then the Word was with us. I don't mean to imply that the God was split through the incarnation, but it reminded me of God -- as God and as Jesus, accepting full responsibility for the covenant because we have broken it.

Rely on Jesus

I attended a session of Pastor's School this afternoon. Dr. Andrew Purvis spoke. He talked to us about Galatians 2:16-17:

15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16yet we know that a person is justified* not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.* And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ,* and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.

See that asterisk after the phrase "through faith in Christ Jesus."? That's a footnote which references what he calls an NRSV mistranslation. It should be "through the faith of Christ Jesus." That's a whole different perspective.

I think it places the responsibility where it belongs. On Jesus. We depend on him for everything; we even depend on God for the very breath of life itself. It does seem as if his faith would be more reliable than our own. As Sheila Walsh would call it, "an extraordinary faith."

To extend that thought, when we have unanswered questions, could we rely on Jesus' understanding rather than our own? Can we just leave the questions unanswered, knowing that God has the answers?

When we can't forgive ourselves for our sins, can we rely on Jesus' forgiveness?

When we don't love ourselves; can we find ourselves to be lovable because Jesus loves us?

Can we trust in God when we cannot trust ourselves?

Washed by the blood

I was listening to a Sunday school lesson today led by a young woman who had been a member of a Kairos team -- a Christian growth experience in prison.

She said that most of the prisoners she was around had been found guilty of drug related charges, but that a few were crimes like murder. She confessed that she had been able to overlook the former "sins" but not the latter ones, and that bothered her. She confessed that she was disappointed by her own judgmental nature.

She wanted to have the eyes of God, who didn't see any of the sins because of the blood of Jesus.

We are all sinful, but God doesn't see the sin. He sees the person. He sees the lovable child he created. He aches for the sin, and for the pain is causes, but the blood of Christ has washed away the guilt and removed the sin.

It was a moment of grace for me.

On an unrelated note, go check out this sermon by Songbird, Adopted by God.