words that say ‘advent’ to me…and a bit of other exciting news

Each year, Sandy chooses a word or phrase that serves as a theme for our holiday season. This year’s word is “merry.” In years’ past, she has displayed “gather” as well as “joy” and “merry and bright” on dishes, pillows, and mementos around the house. One year we basked in “comfort and joy.” I love this tradition. These catchwords and catchphrases are short, relatable, and, yes…incarnational.

The world (much of it, at least) outside our humble little cottage also brands the season by trading greetings that are brought out and dusted off this time of year:

“Merry Christmas.”

“Season’s greetings.”

“Happy holidays.”

”Joyeux Nöel.”

Accordingly, this Holy Advent, I have been struck by the generosity and wonder of another pair of words:

“My people.”

Comfort, comfort my people,”
says your God.
Isaiah 40:1

God, the Eternal, Wholly Other, Transcendent, Invisible, Uncreated, Ageless, Divine Creator and Ruler wants it published near and far that He is not too proud to invoke possessive pronouns when referring to us.

My tribe.

My kind of folk.

My home.

When you love someone, don’t you want to be around them? Spend as much time with them as you possibly can? One of the all-time favorite feel-good Christmas standards is the song “I’ll be home for Christmas.” We swoon to that song because it reminds us of people we want near, those whom we love and miss and cannot wait to see.

The nativity story leaves a prominent trail of breadcrumbs that point to just how much God wants to be near us. The Lord appealed to Joseph through his dreams. Angel Gabriel brought big news to a poorly adolescent girl. A holy choir of angels appeared in the visible sky before an audience of lowly shepherds. The Magi were given a very specific roadmap to visit the infant Messiah. God is personable, reachable, and knowable.

The word that startled the slumbering world on that first Christmas was “Emmanuel.” God with us. You can’t get away from the theme…it’s shot all through the nativity story and beyond. (I mean, must we look any further than a Messiah on a cross who looks at His best friend and tells John to take care of His mama when He’s gone?) And that’s how the Almighty Father has planned it. From Mary’s dramatic assent to offering the womb that would carry the Babe of Bethlehem to His taking on human flesh and being swaddled in earthly vestments, the divine imprint upon humankind has taken hold.

As it also says in Hosea,
I will call Not My People, My People,
and she who is Unloved, Beloved.
And it will be in the place where they were told,
you are not my people,
there they will be called sons of the living God.

Romans 9:25,26

The Lord could have called us “subjects” or “bots” or “playthings.” Pets. We could be nothing more than experiments or throwaways to His almightiness. If we didn’t know better, He might be inclined to turn His magnifying glass on our pathetic beingness and take sadistic pleasure in burning us to cinder like ants. But no.

A God who weeps with us, sings over us (like Mary undoubtedly did as she cradled the Christ Child), who covers us with His wings, keeps His promises to us, prays for us, and speaks to us in our dialect, is the God revealed to us in the scriptures. He’s a people Person.

So, this Advent, may God’s “My people” hit you like it hits me and stir inside you the merriment that you are God’s kind of people, proven in the incarnation and His abiding Presence within.

If I may, I’d love to share with you some exciting news. As I intimated in the last post (over five months ago), I have been working on a manuscript, Though He Fall, that has been, technically, over 40 years in the works. I’m pleased to let you know it will be ready to order in the next few days (paperback version only for now). Keep your eye on my blog site for a follow-up post soon which will detail the when and where of the book and how you can order.

Thank you, beloved. You each have been an invaluable part of my journey, and I’m so happy I could share my news with you first. You are my tribe, my people.

Merry Christmas, people of God!

this too shall pause

Rain, rain, go away.

Come again, some other day…

We sang that tune as children, hoping that rain wouldn’t ruin our summer plans. As adults we hope and pray our family trip to the ballpark won’t be rained out. We won’t mind if there’s a deluge on the way home, but just don’t rain on our chance to watch our favorite team play.

And so it is in the weather patterns of life. As much as we want “rain, rain go away,” we’ll gladly settle for a break in the clouds.

I have sympathy for the Gen Z-ers who’ve been dropped onto an Omaha Beach of constant extremes. The news of the day never seems to quiet for them; everything is mass hysteria and one outrage after another. For them it’s like the London blitz every day.

Winston Churchill told the people of London in 1942, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” As the nation sagged beneath the rubble left behind by German war planes, its leader comforted them with (I’ll improvise here), “We’re grieving and angry and sad, but we’re still here; we’re alive; we have today. There may be more woes to come but at least we don’t have to endure what is past anymore. We have discovered this day that we are made of better stuff than we realized.”

Bless God for pauses. They allow us to catch our breath; reassess. Sure, the forecast is bleak. Bills will again come due, your reverie will get interrupted, a recent victory will be short-lived, chances are you will get sideswiped out of nowhere. But for now, in this holy moment, hear God say, “I got you. It’s okay.”

The night is long, but the sun will shine. It may be fleeting; the afternoon may bring bad news yet again. But that sunrise means new mercies and is a reminder that God was present.

The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning;
It’s time to sing Your song again.
Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me,
Let me be singing when the evening comes.

Paul had a friend named Onesiphorus who visited him in prison often. The apostle put the experience of having such a man in his life into a letter, describing him as “a breath of fresh air.”

The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my ^[a]chains
2 Timothy 1:16

Long ago I spent some time meditating on that word “refreshed” and imagined Paul as a farmer ploughing on an oppressively hot day. As he stands in the middle of the sun-baked clay, he removes his farmer hat and wipes the glistening sweat from his farmer brow. The air is still and unbearably close. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there’s a breeze. It blows in quietly and gently wraps him in its embrace. Finally, air! He can breathe; he is instantly refreshed, if but for a moment. This was what Onesiphorus’s encouragement did for God’s man in the heat of his crucible.

Long seasons of hardship have us crying uncle, but it seems like no uncle is coming to rescue us. How many times have we felt drowned beneath the waters of oppression? We gasp, desperately needing a chance to to come up for air. Just when we right ourself enough to tread water, it drags us down, pushes us under, grabbing and holding us. Please, God, air!

This morning our pastor led in a prayer of confession and repentance and as I was quietly opening up to the Lord the warring in my soul, a kind woman walked over to me and asked if she might lay a hand on me and pray. Of course I said yes. She prayed silently, and when the pastor said amen, Rachel said amen and removed her hand. I thanked her and for the next hour I could feel where her hand rested on my back. She blessed me with hope.

A good night’s sleep, a meaningful verse, a gentle hand on your shoulder, a smile from a stranger. These are things that can aid us in moving forward, even if it’s in shuffling half-steps. I pray whatever you’re going through, it is the end of the beginning. I pray for the refreshing wind of God to wrap you for a time and give you strength to put your next foot forward. I hope the sky opens up and gives you some breathing room.

We know it’s not the end, but at least we can reckon that it’s the end of the beginning, and that’s good enough…for now. I can’t wait for the heavenly-mandated full-stop of suffering of all kinds, when every teary eye is dried, and there’s no more pain, no more curse. But for right now I give thanks for when God hits the pause button.

SPEAKING OF PAUSES…I’m not going to be posting quite as regularly for the next couple months or longer. I’m not dormant; I just completed a couple of smaller writing projects and now I’m part way through a bigger one, one that’s consuming most of my writing energy. I humbly ask for your prayers to finish well. Selah, beloved.

sing with me

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD.

Psalm 95:1

Back in the day I was “a singer who happened to preach.” It all started with “The Fire” followed by “Whatever It Takes.” Those were the most requested. Over 10-15 years there were so many others, plus three self-produced albums with several songs I wrote. Songs for Sandy, songs for Graham, songs about my story, but all for Jesus.

One of my favorite audiences were the disabled. They wanted to hear “Home Free.” Tears everywhere. I even got to sing it onstage with Joni a couple times.

Because of my brokenness and disability I gravitated to songs geared for the suffering. Christine Wyrtzen’s album, For Those Who Hurt, struck a chord that has stayed with me to this day.

Does Jesus Care, Tears Are A Language God Understands, Peace In The Midst Of The Storm, just so many. My college friend Kim wrote a song around the time of my accident, God Makes No Mistakes, which I’ve sung a ton of times with Sandy at the keyboard. Pow.er.ful.

Jesus Led Me All The Way. Goodness, I’m waxing nostalgic today. I’ve Never Been Out Of His Care. Oh yeah, that one too.

It wasn’t really a dream of mine to be a “singer who happened to preach” but the other way around. I love to sing but preaching is my calling. Still, I jibe with the occasional tickle to sing to the church again, especially for the wounded ones who weekly (weakly?) sit in our pews. Maybe one more shot at Home Free for my friends at Handi*Camp or Christian Overcomers. Perhaps a reunion with Joni. Or a duet of My Savior First Of All with Sandy.

I suppose what has me musing and all misty about the ministry of song today was a rabbit trail I took in Psalm 95. “Come, let us sing…” The middle verses got me humming a certain Maranatha chorus I heard long ago. You’ll know it too. The first part of the psalm is nostalgic and celebratory. The last refrain reminds us the Church gathered isn’t always a pretty sight.

The truth is we are a wilderness people and when we gather together to worship our Lord, we are worshiping him out of our desert places. Look around next Sunday. Watch the people. No one has it all together. Nobody has arrived.

Many of the people who assemble on Sundays have come through a week out in the wilderness and haven’t fared so well. Some have had seven days of Meribah. Others may have gotten testy with God or they’ve failed in the way and fallen flat on their face. Here and there are those who are losing faith in the whole process. A joyful number have manna on their breath and are just riding that high.

It’s a safe bet no one’s face will shine so brightly they’ll have to cover it. Probably not even your pastor.

Somebody will be there who feels out of place because they come from a lesser tribe, a labeled past. You’ll know them because they barely lift their eyes.

More than one will come with one foot in promise and another in Egypt. Some of those may even have a golden calf still hiding in their closet somewhere.

To your left might be a once-gifted-leader who blew it big time and is just a shell of the man he once was.

There will be a worshipper nearby who remembers all too well the leprosy of her sin. Her friends remember it too.

A great many however, will have stood on the banks of the Sea and seen God make his name famous. They will, as the first verse in the very next chapter says, “Sing to the LORD a new song.” Such are witnesses to the waters being lifted up and pushed aside, making a way for them to pass through on dry land. They can tell you about that day. Some will weep in worship, others will dance and clap. Some will just stand there shaking their head, still in disbelief.

“Come, let us bow worship and bow down…”

So sing we will, with desert sand between our toes, because Jesus came and changed the Story. To that end “A Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot,” said Augustine.

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, acknowledging his name.
Hebrews 13:15

I want to sing. I want to sing all those songs I mentioned above, but I don’t want to sing to you; I want to sing with you. A choir, no solos. Broken saints, doubting saints, beleaguered, tired, whipped saints, happy saints, all. “Come, let us sing!” Sing with me, will you?

What shall we sing?

P. S. Here’s the song that started it all for me: