Evendays

Two of our kids have tutoring jobs that earn them some pocket money and keep them off the streets. Recently, a couple who often visit the church told about a project they carry out in Equator (where she’s from) every Christmastime. They prepare food baskets for poor families and distribute them in the name of Jesus.

They asked us if we wanted to participate. So I told the kids about it, thinking they’d like (all together) to offer one of the $16.00 baskets. They surprised us by springing for a basket each.

Before Wife took the money over to our friends, the kids had been talking and decided they wanted to buy five baskets. So they each chipped in a bit more and Wife delivered the cash.

A little boy attends church with his single mom. He’s 5 and loves Son 2. They didn’t make it to worship this morning, but dropped by when several of us were eating together. The boy had brought a busted up Christmas candle as a gift to Son 2, who then offered the little guy a Christmas dream gift: a ping-pong paddle, picked out, planned for, and purchased by Son 2.

So, I raise my glass and give three cheers to generosity, for it lives on. And I thank our generous God for the riches he has given us in Jesus.

A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.

She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne (Revelation 12.1-5).

From the people of God came forth the Messiah. From the moment of his birth, Satanic forces strove for his destruction. The vision answers our question: Where is the Christ? Not in a manger. Not even on a cross. He is at the right hand of God.

As Peterson wrote in Reversed Thunder, this text reminds us…

that the nativity cannot be sentimentalized into coziness, nor domesticated into drabness, nor commercialized into worldliness…

Merry Christmas, my Kingdom friends.

For all those Yancey readers, check out the new post here. It’s on chapter 9: "What difference does it make?". 

Read the chapter if you’ve got the book. If not, you’ll get the general drift from the post.

Would love to hear your comments… 

The Ukraine trip went well. Must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me 48 hours before flying back to Switzerland. The WC confinement took off about 8 pounds, but I was able to escape that helpful room twice to teach the scheduled lessons to the church. God was merciful. And he does answer prayer.

It’s been a whirlwind since. Sunday and Monday Christmas activities with the churches. Tuesday with the Geneva studies. Today I am preparing the Lausanne December 24 lesson. And writing my first post in a week.

Handel’s Messiah plays regularly in the background on our stereo. So many memories: McLane High School and our annual presentation with a 120 member chorus plus orchestra… Singing it again, nearly 30 years later, in a 700 year-old church here in Lausanne with Sons 1 and 2.

But my favorite Messiah memory, by far, is Daughter strolling through the house singing the opening tenor solo with such gusto: “Come for tea. Come for tea, my people.” (Boys, do NOT mention this post to her.)

Anyway, got a minute? If so, please do “come for tea”.

Much love from Lausanne…

Greetings from Ternopil, Ukraine (not CHERNOBYL, Ukraine).

So far I’ve learned:

• This is the warmest winter in years;
• My host lost her grandfather at Stalingrad during the war. They never found him;
• Lots of people eat carp. You can buy them live, pulling them out of zinc buckets, and they cost between 2 and 3 dollars the fish;
• You can preach for 50 minutes and it’s not a problem. In fact, after you’re done, someone else will get up and talk for another 40 minutes. Most people seem to listen;
• You’ve got to remember to stand up when you pray. Ukrainian tradition…;
• It’s amazing how fast those little buses can go in the dark in the fog on a rut-filled road. I’m glad those drivers are professionals;
• Tobacco is alive and well here in Ukraine;
• With no TV, no radio, and no family, there is no excuse not to pray.

I’m teaching every evening on raising children. In the mornings I work on the lessons. In the afternoon I fish for carp.

It’s a wonderful life.

We’ve made friends with H. She’s about our age. She was a “boat-person” and escaped communist Vietnam with all of her brothers and sisters. I think they are 8 or 9 all together, and they all live in the USA except for H.

We were doing a Let’s Start Talking lesson one afternoon in October when she told me part of her story, the story of the end of the Vietnam war. Her father was high up in the military and was in the USA when Saigon fell. The family begged him not to come back, but he said life was not worth living without his family.

The authorities met him as he disembarked the plane. They put him directly in prison. Two years later, the mom got a call from the prison telling her to come for a visit. Her husband was dying. They had a few hours together before he quit breathing.

I often think about that man. I think about what he said and about what he did. I think about H.’s tears after all these years. They fall for a father who died a long time ago, for the wounds are still fresh.

I had the privilege of teaching last night in Geneva the passage from 1 Peter 4.1-11. Peter reminds the reader that since Christ suffered for sin and because he will judge both the living and the dead in the end, lives should be focused on the will of God rather than on the desires of men.

Then there is that one little quotation he stole from Proverbs 10.12 that hits the heart: Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

The OT text has this: Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs. NT Christians must have been impressed with the saying, or maybe they just needed constant reminders, for James 5.20 uses it too, saying: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Covering sins: seeing them, confronting them in love, then moving on is what we need to do, but often don’t because we do not love enough. Several times recently I’ve looked into friends’ eyes and told them just that: Love covers a multitude of sins. And hundreds of times I’ve looked in the mirror and been thankful for God’s covering and mindful that I’ve got a ways to go in "this pretty little thing called love".

Wife, Son 1 and Son 2 are all Sherlock Holmes’ fans. I just learned last night at the dinner table that the famous detective was a drug user. I asked which drug and found out it was heroine.

The conversation shifted to how you take certain drugs. "Can you sniff heroine?", Daughter asked. No, we answered. You inject heroine.

Son 2 corrected Daughter. "For your information, you don’t sniff cocaine. I think the proper term is snork!", which absolutely cracked us all up and made it nearly impossible to finish our meal.

Then Son 2 kindly consented to let me write about it all on today’s post…