Tuesday, December 29, 2015

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PART?

What matters most to you? Or better yet, who matters most to you? Maybe the two questions go together. They did for me this past week. I just returned from our second family vacation together in a few weeks. I'm talking 16 of us, all together, in relatively small places. OK, the last wasn't really small. We were on a cruise ship, The Independence of the Seas,which is three times the size of the Titanic. Big!

The reasons for the vacations is that this may be the last time ALL of us are together. (You could skip this paragraph and still not miss the meaning of this article, but if you're interested....) Four of my grandchildren just graduated from college, which means 2 are making Aliyah, which means moving to and becoming citizens of Israel; another is moving to NYC for her new job (1000+ miles away); and another is moving, at least for a while, to Paris to attend a cooking school - she's an aspiring chef. Another already lives 5+ hours drive away with her soon to be second baby and hubby. One other is applying to grad school, and who knows where he'll wind up. That leaves us basically with one granddaughter and her hubby and adorable so-smart almost 4 year old still living in close proximity in our fair city, along with one nephew, and one still away at college who does come home on school holidays (at least for now). In case you weren't counting that was 10 grandkids, plus 2 soon to be 3, great grands --- and they are "grand" indeed, though "lovey" might be a better term. 

So in anticipation of an extended-family empty-nest experience, we've spent as much time together as we could recently, including the cruise this past week. We weren't always all 16 of us together but we always came together for meals in the ship's dining room. Or somehow we managed to find each other to share in the various goings-on of the ship's activities. When at the end, eating again on the 5 hour drive home, I asked what everyone's favorite part was, they unanimously said eating together, being together.  

It wasn't the opulence of the ship or the activities which were entertaining, or fun, or the off-ship trip to Mexico where we docked for a day, or....whatever. It was each other. Being together. I agree, my favorite part as well.  In contrast, this brings to mind how we got separated during the lonnnngg lines out of the boat when 4,500 people were disembarking and going through Customs at the same time. What a relief it was to find 'us' congregating outside somewhere, waiting for my daughter Ellen and I who seemed to be the tail end of that excursion back to land. 

Being Together takes on an even greater meaning for me, the only grandparent in the group, to see how much love there is through 4 generations and the sense of "us," of belonging to one another. I pray it remains despite the distance and years ahead of us. But one other reality impacted me.

While onboard I watched a movie in my stateroom, a Steven Spielberg documentary on the Holocaust, with some live film clips and the stories of some of the survivors. I now understand that some of the most terrifying initial experiences for them had to have been being forcibly separated away from their family members, from those they belonged  to. As we worked our way off the ship yesterday, my one sense of urgency was not to loose sight of Ellen who was just ahead of me in the crowd. Last year I fell and broke my hip. It still hurts and keeps me from walking quickly. When the crowd moved faster, I had to choose between increased pain or lagging behind enough to possibly loose her in the crowd. I know that sounds melodramatic, but I thought of the Jews trying not to loose one another as they were separated away from loved ones. The emotional pain, and the fear of being left alone in all that, had to be greater than any physical pain. There in that line a swell of compassion arose in me for how many such situations people may find themselves in, with far worse situations (refugees, for instance) and ends to their stories than mine, as I found my family all waiting for us and even with a wheelchair my daughter Jenny managed to find somewhere as she anticipated my pain due to standing for so long while also having to carry some luggage.

I hope what I'm trying to express comes across: Appreciate your loved ones. Take opportunities to help one another and meet some of their needs. Don't take them for granted. Don't allow petty issues to divide you. God has made us to belong to one another. Families are His idea of learning to love each one as He loves each of us - unconditionally. I read a startling statement recently that has wide implications that would allow such unconditional love. Yeshua's entire life (and death) message was FORSAKE BLAME!  I can see how that would preserve our love for and commitment to one another, can't you? Those two words are worthy of considerable pondering. 

As a final word, if your family isn't as intact, or maybe doesn't even exist, as ours does, there are likely others around you who also might long for family. It doesn't have to be biological family. Friends can often make the best families too. Ask God to help you find them. 

If someone comes to mind while reading this, please pass it on to them.  Blessings, everyone.

Lonnie

Lonnielane.com  



Wednesday, December 23, 2015

CHRISTMAS IS NOT A GOOD JEWISH MESSAGE

I was invited to speak in a church the Sunday before Christmas. "Bring us a good Jewish Christmas message," Bishop Allen had asked of me. My first thought was that maybe I should come in January instead because there is no such thing as a Jewish Christmas message, good or otherwise, despite Messiah being Jewish. But I went and having spoken there once before I looked forward to being with those warm and welcoming folks. I had done my homework and prepared a message but what took place was clearly God's Plan A and mine had been at best Plan B. Sometimes you get to hear the message you're delivering as you speak it. Here's some of what became the message.

We do know that Jesus wasn't born on Christmas day, right? His birth wasn't connected to that date until the 4th century when it was attached to a Roman holiday. The bible doesn't give us any clue as to when He was born, except that whatever happened of significance in His life was always connected to or fulfilled a biblical holiday, and December 25th surely wasn't one of them. 

It is unlikely that His birth was celebrated at all by Yeshua's Jewish followers. When Jews celebrated the holy days (holidays) they were God's idea and it was God Himself they celebrated. When He gave them a harvest and called for a Feast, for instance of the harvest, it was a time to rejoice in God's goodness and provision to them, of His faithfulness upon which they relied. Or of the Exodus and the great deliverance He brought to them. Except for the shepherds gleeful response to the angelic announcement and came to find Him, Yeshua as a baby was unlikely to have been cause for celebration, especially considering the significance of all that transpired at the end of His earthly life. 

Nevertheless God made it a point to tell us of the various dynamics of the event for a purpose, as everything God does carries with it a message to us. My thoughs went to Miryam/Mary and her deep humility before God in contrast to what appears to be so many self-righteous and outwardly religious folks (though not all) fulfilling one assignment or another related to or in the temple. But God did through Miryam what was entirely unlike anything that anyone with any sense of what was expected of God would have thought of!
 
Certainly there were expectations in Israel at that time that one day, and hopefully soon, Messiah would come and He would change everything. Their expectations were all based on Scripture, even though there were conflicting expectations of how it would all take place. What was agreed upon was that Messiah would do away with sin and sinners as God's wrath poured out upon them. He would surely free Israel from the oppression of her enemies, which to most Jews surely meant the Romans. To some He would take His place as Messiah King and like David, free Israel entirely to once again be a sovereign nation. Some expected immediate peace, while others were geared up for war like Peter with his dagger, Zealots who were ready to fight alongside  Messiah when He revealed Himself at King.Does that give you some insight into some of what Peter did or said?  

Others thought of when Messiah would bring peace to the entire earth and all would come to worship in Jerusalem where He would set up His throne and rule the world from there - where, some thought, we know from requests of His own disciples, they would be beside Him  

Expectations ran high. They extended to the ways many of the thousands of priests and the 70 men of the Sanhedrin and other religious folk exhibited their holiness by how they dressed, often in elaborate prayer shawls and phylacteries, how scrupulously they washed their hands, even the way they walked, and the many ways they had added to Torah. Add to that their involvement in whatever was going on in the temple that was meant to catch Messiah's attention when He would come. Surely He would take note of all their (outward) religious goings-on in the magnificent temple of which they were so proud when He arrived.  

It would not be the am ha eretz, the people of the earth, who were too busy with the mundane things of providing for themselves, often with dirty hands, who never had time or perhaps interest in studying the holy books as they did. Surely Messiah would know who the righteous were and who weren't when He came, when sinners would be done away with when God exhibited His wrath against all unrighteousness. 

Can you see then why his hob-nobbing with sinners was so contrary to their religious idea of Messiah? Why when they saw Him tenderly treating lepers and prostitutes as if He was their loving shepherd instead of bringing wrath upon them, that they couldn't understand how He could possibly be the Messiah?

Well, God entirely ignored all of that religious activity and their expectations.  He would not entrust His Son to the High Priest, or any priest for that matter. He entrusted His Son instead to a humble young woman of the am ha eretz, to someone who apparently had more understanding of what God honored than most of the temple priesthood did. She seemed to know her God and what He valued far beyond that of the temple officiaries. And God knew it. He knew her heart and she won God's favor and trust to bring His Son to her rather then to any of them. Hear some of her words:

"My very being magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoiced on account of God my savior." God is already her Savior, she understands, which had to have been by the Spirit, how it is that God is her Savior. Yeshua becomes our Savior because His Father is first and foremost our Savior; He is revealing the Father in all He does. 

"Because He looked upon the humble station of His servant...." She evidently knew what it was to be humble before God. She had evidently, judging from the rest of her words, seen enough of religiosity that she took a position of her need of and dependence upon God, offering Him herself in whatever way He required of her.  When she says to the angel when he comes to tell her of the baby, "Behold the servant of the Lord, may it be unto me according to your word," we get the sense that she has some kind of relationship with God already, that she has humbled herself before Him before, perhaps praying for His will in her life, offering Him only her willing love to do as pleases Him with her life.  

She goes on to say things which reveal that she has given much thought to God's mercy - what it really is and how it is manifested: "His mercy is for generation to generation to those who fear (revere) Him...He scatters the proud (according to) the understanding (of their prideful) hearts." She goes on to speak of what will come as if it's already happened. "He pulled down rulers from thrones and He raised up the lowly." She knows that God does not despise the lowly, the am ha eretz, as others do. 

There is much more in what she is saying here, but she ends it with, "He helped His child Israel, by remembering His mercy just as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever." To Miryam, she knows what God's calling has been since Abraham upon her people, and quite possibly she has taken that as even being her own calling.  She, like Abram, believed God, and apparently God counted it to her  as righteousness as He did to Abram's faith and obedience.*

What about you? What are you believing God for in your life?  Give yourself a gift in this season and take some time to read this whole Luke 1 passage and consider the character and godliness of this young woman. God had entrusted His most precious Son to her, confident that she would raise Him in a way that would not mar or damage His sensitive and tender soul but that she would bring Him up in an atmosphere of reverential fear and loving obedience to God. The books   of two of her other sons, James (Ya'acov/Jacob) and Jude (Yehudah/Judah) fill the pages of the New Testament where you will see what kind of boys she raised besides Yeshua. Judging from the fruit of her labors, God knew well her heart and entrusted her with more than just Yeshua. I can't help but wonder if their passion for truth and for God didn't come from their mother as well as their big Brother. 

I want God to entrust me with knowing Him and with an understanding of God's ways so that I am "carrying" His Son within me and I am able to "birth" Him into the lives of others. The first step is in coming to know Him more and more as we spend time with Him. 

Thinking about this message has given me cause to rethink where I might be more outwardly religious than inwardly reverential. I so want to be humble before the Lord in the secret places of my life where no one else sees but Him. That's where He works in our hearts and souls to make us more like Yeshua. I suspect,He sees what He can entrust us with, level upon level, as we grow in faith in Him. And happily, it is also the place where He will meet us to reveal more of Himself to us, and to grant us more of the gift of His Son - Yeshua, the gift that keeps on giving!  


* All Scriptures from Luke 1:46-55 One New Man Bible, my additions added.