Daily Lesson for December 26, 2014

Today's daily lesson for the Feast of St Stephen comes from Acts chapter 7 verses 59 and 60:

59 As they stoned Stephen, he called upon God, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Today is the Feast of St Stephen in the liturgical calendar. St Stephen was one of the first deacons, and the first Christian martyred for his faith.  He is a model for truth told in love.

We are all called upon at times to speak a hard word of truth.  Most of us refrain from doing so because we are too co-dependent to say anything which might jeopardize how we are perceived in others' eyes.  In short, we like being liked so much that we end up tolerating some pretty deplorable situations -- situations which may down the road actually end in our own demise. That's how sick some of us are -- we would rather be liked than have to tell the difficult truth which will keep our marriage, or our organization or even our country alive. 

St Stephen shows us another way.  He is confident enough in his self and secure enough in his God that he is able to speak hard, difficult, and ultimately-rejected truth.  He is despised by his hearers. Yet their spiteful rejection does not cause Stephen to cower or stumble in his words; nor does it cause him to despise them in return. Even when they seek to take his life by stoning him, Stephen prays for them with a countenance which was said to be angelic. In that last moment where his attackers hover over him and cast their stones, Stephen acts demonstrates honor and a supernatural love for his enemies.  He is free; even in death he is free.

Our task is to find that kind of freedom in life -- so whether our message is well-received or totally rejected, and whether we are loved or hated, we ourselves can speak our truth in love -- always.

Special Announcement: Daily Lessons will be on break until the New Year so I can rest and enjoy the reflect some over the remainder of the holiday.  Look for another lesson in 2015!

Daily Lesson for Christmas Day, December 25, 2014

Today's daily lesson for Christmas Day is from 1 John chapter 4 verse 7:

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God."

Last night was a wonderful evening. The sanctuary was packed with people, the voices of children could be heard throughout the service (including the sermon -- which actually underscored all I was trying to say), and the light of hundreds of candles lifted high into the air on the last verse of Silent Night was just pure beauty:

"Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth"

At midnight I received a text from a friend who has come back to church after being gone many years. It has been a difficult journey for him and his family, but last night they were all at the Christmas Eve service for the first time. His text said this:

"Beautiful service tonight. Your deep love of others is bringing folks to and back to 2nd B. We love you guys."

I texted back with words from St. John the Apostle, "We love because God first loved us."

The great gift of Christmas is God's love. When we receive it, when we truly take it into our hearts and come to know that we are God's beloved then we are filled with a love so deep that we can do nothing but share it with others.  For it wells up inside us and spills outward. 

May your Christmas be filled with the knowledge of God's great love for you. You are beloved. May you be loved.  And may you in turn love others as you yourself are loved.

Merry Christmas. 

Daily Lesson for Christmas Eve, December 24, 2014

Today's Christmas Eve Lesson is from Luke 1 verses 78 and 79:

78 By the tender mercy of our God,
   the dawn from on high will break upon us, 
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
   to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Auden's Christmas Oratorio "For the Time Being" has a stanza that puts into words the wonder and mystery of Incarnation:

"We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who must die demand a miracle."

The message of Christmas is that when we could not possibly save ourselves God came to save us. The miraculous happened:

A light-filled star appeared from nowhere and nothing in the night sky.

A virgin conceives.

He who is beyond time stepped into time.

He who is spirit took on flesh.

God became a child. 

In the words of the great church father Irenaeus, "God became like what we are so that we might become like what He is."

Jesus means "God saves".  In the end nothing can save us from the darkness and shadows of sin and death than God alone. Only a miracle can save us; and thank God a miracle has!

Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth.
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth.

Daily Lesson for December 23, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 11 verse 12:

"He will raise a signal for the nations
and will assemble the banished of Israel,
and gather the dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth."

In October of 1943 Bing Crosby released his soon-to-be famous "I'll Be Home for Christmas".  America was of course at war in 1943 and my grandfather was on a troop transport ship somewhere in the Pacific at the time. He thought the Japanese would never give up and that he would never come home.  When I hear Bing, I think of my grandfather and what it must have been like to hear that song in those war years. It's especially the last verse that always chokes me up:

"Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams"

Most of us will be home this Christmas. Let's don't take it for granted.  Laugh, hug, speak, take pictures, smile, delight in the wonder and joy of the children - yours and others, go to church together, stay up way too late waiting for Santa, stay up even later just visiting.  

Let the lovelight gleam.  

It's more than just a dream; we're home for Christmas.  Let's be home for Christmas.

Daily Lesson for December 22, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 11 verse 1:

"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit."

In these last days before Christmas, we begin to hold more tightly to the promises:

When the mighty oak is razed and its strength of beauty cut down, 
we weep from sorrow at what is lost and shall not be seen again. 
The last of a generation lost. 
Our place of refuge cut down and destroyed.  
The mighty oak of generations -- felled finally by common death.

After the burning, there is nothing left.
No branches to swing from with laughter,
No leaves to delight or take shade in,
No trunk to wrap our arms around.

There is nothing now to behold, run towards, or hide in.
All our hope now is beneath the ground,
In a shoot from the stump of Jesse

Daily Lesson for December 19, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 19:

"They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved."

Some years ago, Will Willimon the chaplain of Duke Chapel  commented on the crisis of the party culture at Duke University and the need for faculty and administrators to play a stronger role in shaping and guiding the lives of the university's students.  "Leaving them to themselves," Willimon said, "they become the willing victims of the most totalitarian form of government ever devised, namely, submission to their peers, obeisance to people who are just like them."

There is a crisis on a lot of our college campuses. College is a time of freedom from the authority and rule of parents.  But Godly freedom never means license. As Augustine put it, true freedom is the "freedom to choose the good."

The so-called freedom a lot of young people are exercising will end up shackling them later in life -- if it doesn't kill them first.  They need and deserve teachers, administrators, mentors, clergy and other adults who care enough to teach them what real freedom is all about.  That takes time, energy, and the guts to tell these young people the truth.

I say they and their lives are worth it.

Daily Lesson for December 18, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 3 verses 11b and 12:

11b He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

All of us have a true and also a false self. The true self is who we are when we are when we feel completely at home in our own skin. It is the self which is spontaneous, alive, and without judgment. It is the self we act out of when we dance and make googly eyes before a baby. We do it for he pure joy of it -- and because we know they will not tell.

The false self is a facade built up around the true self. Like the chaff which encases a kernel of wheat, the false self is there to protect and shield us from harm. That is an important and necessary task -- protecting the soul from the wounds of this world. But ultimately, the false self ends up being a kind of protective prison -- one the true self must be freed from in order to give to the world what is was made to give. And what it was made to give to the world is also what the world needs from it - the kernel, the essence, the true self.

Christ comes to reveal our true self to the world. Though hidden in a protective chaff-like shield, Christ comes to give us the courage to risk living without the shield. Yes, this makes us more vulnerable and at greater risk to the world and its wounding ways; but it also makes us more, well, alive.

I want to be my true self -- my joyous, compassionate creative, playful, funny, goofy, singing and sort-of dancing and always intelligent self. I want my children to be raised by this true self. I want my wife to laugh with me at this true self. I want the whole world to know and be blessed by this true self. And I know none of that can happen so long as I'm hiding it behind my false self.