As we celebrate the Christmas Nativity we are bearing witness to an astonishing event, the incarnation of the infinite eternal Christ as a member of the human race, a tiny baby born into a working class family under very unsanitary conditions – Jesus, the Christ, as Emmanuel (God with us). God in the flesh, walking among us, eating and drinking and experiencing all of the same emotions that we all do. And inviting us to follow him into the kingdom of heaven by being born again of water and the Spirit into the family of God (John 3:1-8)

Now to me it is even more astounding to realize God’s incarnation is continuing. Just before going to the Garden of Gethsemane on the night he was arrested, Jesus prayed to the Father for his disciples, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”  (John 17:20-24 NIV)

A little earlier Jesus has said to this disciples, “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” (John 14:15-17 NIV)

He will be in you – incarnation of God! This then first occurred on the Day of Pentecost when the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and Peter preached a powerful sermon.  (Acts 2:1-36) And it continues today as evidenced by what happened next.

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call.’ (Acts 2:37-39 NIV)

So, as the Apostle Paul tells us “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (I Corinthians 12:27 NIV) That is to say, Christ is incarnated in each one of us and we have become one with him. This is astounding, but it should not be unexpected. For, as Paul told the church at Ephesus “For God has allowed us to know the secret of his plan, and it is this: He purposes in his sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ, that everything that exists in heaven or earth shall find its perfection and fulfillment in him.” (Ephesians 1:9,10 J.B. Phillips translation)

Therefore, incarnation will ultimately include all of creation. This is what Richard Rohr calls the Universal Christ.¹ Wow! Fantastic! Astounding! So on Christmas Day we are celebrating more than just the birth of the Christ child, we are celebrating the ultimate restoration of the whole creation to the state God originally intended. So rejoice and give God the glory!

1. Rohr, Richard, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (New York, NY: Convergent Books, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2019)

If you have seen either or both of the “Jumanji” movies you know that each of the players takes on the attributes of one of the characters in the video game. In the movies the players actually become the avatars of the game characters. Each character has certain strengths and weaknesses unique to them and it requires the special strengths of each character to be utilized for the team to be successful in their mission. Each character’s weakness must also be avoided if possible. Each character has a unique role to play that depends on their particular strengths. If any one of the players fails to fulfill their role the mission is doomed to failure for all the players. Success of the mission definitely requires an all-out team effort.

Now it seems to me that God’s intent for the Church, the Body of Christ, is similar to this in many ways. Each of us as members of the Body have unique natural strengths and weaknesses, as well as God-given gifts. As the Apostle Paul said to the church at Corinth “Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed…There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.

There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” (I Corinthians 12:1, 4-7 NIV) He then goes on to list a number of these gifts, although not all of them.  These gifts allow each individual to perform at a higher level that they are capable of using only their natural strengths.

Paul goes on to describe the Body of Christ thusly “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ…Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many…But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” (I Corinthians 12:12, 14, 18 NIV) Paul then goes to some length to make the point that it takes all of the parts to complete the Body and that each is just as essential as the next.

The upshot of this is that, just as in Jumanji, each of us with our own unique strengths, gifts and even weaknesses must work together if the mission of the Church is to be accomplished. That mission will be impossible to achieve without utilizing the unique strengths and gifts of all the parts of the Body of Christ. Now it happens that, just as in Jumanji, some of us are jealous of other’s strengths and gifts, and wish we did not have the weaknesses of our character (that is, us). And just like in the game we occasionally cause someone else (or even ourselves) to fail. In the game that means we cause someone to lose one of the three lives allocated to them. Hopefully in real life the failures are not fatal since we only have one life, but they represent setbacks to the mission anyway. So whether you prefer to think of the universal Church as the Body of Christ or as a team of people each with their own unique strengths (and weaknesses) and roles as in Jumanji, we would be much better off in pursuing the mission of the church to share the gospel of the kingdom of God with the whole world if we would learn to work together as a unit rather than arguing over who has the better strengths or the worst weaknesses and by combining all of our best efforts to reach a common goal.

Given the fractured and fragmented state of the Body of Christ today, as it has been for all but the first few decades of the Church’s existence, with all of its dissensions and bickering, it may seem that achieving a unified body with one common goal is impossible. But I believe that nothing is impossible with God. I am confident he is not surprised by this lack of unity and that he has a plan to accomplish that goal in spite of it. I have seen several posts on Facebook recently that say essentially the same thing; i.e., when God called you to the mission he has called you to do he took into account your own faults and stupidity. I would add that his plan includes a way to overcome those shortcomings. And I believe that applies not only to each of us as individuals but also to the Church as a whole and the mission to which he has called us. I am beginning to see some signs of that already and am eager to see how God completes the work he has begun so that we can all come together and complete our mission. It will be done!

Now that Christmas Day is almost here I find myself rethinking about the way we celebrate the birth of Christ these days. I don’t mean all the commercialization of the holiday by merchants eager to bolster their sales. I mean all of the Nativity scenes on church lawns, the crèches in our homes, and the Christmas plays depicting the royal birth. These invariably include Mary and Joseph in bright, clean clothes, baby Jesus wrapped in cloth and peacefully sleeping in some sort of cradle, all sorts of cattle, shepherds in clean robes and three kings with crowns and royal robes and laden with expensive gifts. Quite a spectacle.

But what was the Nativity really like? I believe it was very much different than usually depicted and for very good reasons. Royal births usually take place in palaces, or these days, in modern hospitals and are announced to all the public in the worldwide media with great fanfare. But if Jesus had been born in the palace in Jerusalem he would never been able to relate to the common people the way that he did. In fact he would probably never have even met any of them. But Immanuel (God with us) entered the world in the rural hometown of his supposed father Joseph, a working class carpenter, some 10 kilometers south of the capital city.  He was born in a stable because when his parents arrived in Bethlehem after traveling on foot and donkey back from Nazareth (some 110 kilometers to the north as the crow flies, but much longer by the footpaths they had to take) all of the hotels in town were full. There was no advance reservation system in place back then. The only option available to them for shelter was to share a stable with their donkey. There was no valet parking service available then either.

Mary and Joseph were undoubtedly covered with dust and sweat after their arduous journey and may or may not have had a chance to bathe and change clothes. They certainly had no deodorant or perfume and anyway were staying in an environment that smelled of hay, manure and donkey (no pleasant Christmas aromas of pine boughs, hot chocolate and spiced cider or gingerbread). Whether or not there were other animals present is somewhat problematical. It was a stable after all, not a barn. I doubt there were any cattle (they are not usually kept in stables). There might have been horses, but more likely, if anything there might have been other donkeys as most of the working class folk did not have horses. We are not told how big the stable was or what animals were housed there. But I find it unlikely there was the kind of menagerie found in some Nativity scenes.

When the baby was born he was swaddled in cloths in the manner of a newborn lamb and laid in a feed trough. It was apparently the only viable option to keep him off of the dirt floor of the stable. So the Son of God entered the world as the baby of a working class couple in a very crude, smelly and none too clean environment. Not what you would expect for a royal birth.

And as to fanfare, there was a spectacular display of that, including an angelic messenger announcing the birth, surrounded by a terrifyingly brilliant display of God’s glory and accompanied by a massive heavenly choir. However, the announcement was not made to the general public, but only to a handful of working class shepherds spending the night outdoors in the midst of their smelly flocks of sheep.  After they recovered from their fright, the shepherds decided they had to go into town to see the newborn king for themselves. I don’t believe they took the time to fetch a change of clothes. When they had seen the baby they spread the word about what the angel had told them to the amazement of all in the neighborhood.

So the King of Kings was born to working class parents in a dirty, smelly stable with the only witnesses a group of working class shepherds. No kings present, no royal gifts. The news of his arrival no doubt spread throughout the surrounding area, but apparently never reached the palace in Jerusalem until somewhat later when a group of magi (that is, priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians per Wikipedia) stopped off in Jerusalem to inquire about the birth. “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” they asked. Adding “We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2 NIV) This caused quite an uproar. When word reached King Herod he was disturbed and called all the chief priest and teachers of the law to ask them where the Messiah was to be born (He was apparently Biblically ignorant as are many who call themselves Christians even today). When told that the prophets had said the birth would take place in Bethlehem, Herod asked the Magi the exact time the star had appeared and then sent them on their way, asking them to alert him when they found the child so that he could worship him also.  His real motive though was to find the child so that he could kill him and eliminate the threat he perceived to his throne.

However, after their visit to Bethlehem the Magi were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, so they returned home another way, bypassing the palace without stopping. This must have been some time after the birth occurred, because when Herod realized they were not coming back he issued orders to kill all of the boys in Bethlehem and the surrounding area who were two years old and under.

So there were no kings at all at the Nativity stable and when the Magi (a special class of Zoroastrian priests endowed with occult knowledge, magical powers and power of divination who also interpreted dreams and performed divinatory rituals to portend the future – according to Hinduwebsite.com) finally arrived in Bethlehem, instead of a newborn infant, they would have found a one or two-year old toddler (living somewhere other than a stable I hope). Although they were not kings, they presented him with expensive gifts (gold, frankincense and myrhh) possibly signifying his kingship, his priestly role and prefiguring his death and anointing for burial. At any rate the fact that the Magi (representatives of a non-Jewish nation and religion) came to worship the king of the Jews presaged the offer of grace to all peoples of the earth, and their gifts hinted at the coming of Gentiles to offer themselves to Christ.

So it seems to me we have lost a good bit of the full significance of the Nativity, as well as the Epiphany in the way we celebrate them today. God was incarnated in very ordinary everyday circumstances, totally helpless and dependent on his parents for his care and feeding, much as any other human baby, and grew up with respect and obedience to his parents’ authority, to demonstrate that, with God’s help, we can live the way that Jesus did and as he calls us to do.

By the way there is another thing that has occurred to me in researching how the Nativity really went down. At the risk of alienating a whole lot of folks, let me say the concept expressed in the carol “Silent Night” seems ludicrous to me. How can it be a silent night when there is a vast heavenly choir in a brilliant cloud of glory announcing the royal birth? Bright yes, but calm and silent? And since I have opened that can of worms, how about the third verse of “Away in a Manger”. If baby Jesus was awakened by cattle lowing (or more likely a donkey’s braying) I believe he would signify his displeasure by crying loudly as any normal baby would. Newborns are seldom quiet as many sleep-deprived parents will tell you. If you’ve ever been a parent of a newborn baby you know what I mean. Come on! Get real!

I just realized that the Kingdom of God is a party. There are hints to this throughout the Scriptures, but I only recently put them together to reach this conclusion. Jesus said he had come to give life more abundantly (John 10:10). The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines abundant as “occurring in large amounts” and “marked by great plenty”. Now having an abundant lifestyle seems to me to be a good reason to rejoice and throw a party. And throughout his ministry Jesus gave people reason to rejoice.

When Jesus began his ministry, he proclaimed “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the gospel.” (Mark 1:15) The Greek word translated “repent” is “metanoia”, meaning “change your mindset”. And the Greek word translated “gospel” is “euaggelion”, meaning “glad tidings”. So Jesus was saying “The kingdom of God is coming, change your outlook on life and believe the good news.”

I find it telling that the first recorded miracle of Jesus occurred when he and his disciples were invited to a wedding reception. When the host ran out of wine, Jesus’ mother urged him to do something about it. So he had the servants bring him six 20 or 30 gallon jars of water and turned the water into wine. It wasn’t cheap wine either (think Thunderbird or Strawberry Ripple), but wine of the very best vintage, to the amazement of the master of ceremonies, who apparently thought the bridegroom had been holding out on him. And the party went on. (John 2:1-10)

Jesus obviously wanted everyone to enjoy themselves and live life large (i.e., abundantly)

As his ministry continued “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.” (Matthew 4:23-25 NIV)

Everywhere he went Jesus invited everyone to follow him into the kingdom of God (or kingdom of heaven). In the Beatitudes he said the kingdom of heaven belonged to the poor in spirit and those who were persecuted because of righteousness. He said that those who mourned would be comforted, those who were meek and humble would inherit the earth, those who hungered and thirsted for righteousness would be filled, the merciful would receive mercy and the peacemakers would be called children of God. (Matthew 5:3-10)

He used many illustrations to describe the kingdom of heaven, comparing it to a hidden treasure, a priceless pearl, a net that brought in all kinds of fish and a tiny seed that grew into a great tree. In other words, he was saying, it is greatly to be desired and is open to all sorts of people. His invitation included those who were outcasts of society: lepers, those considered unrighteous (sinners), the working poor and even the hated tax collectors.

He obviously enjoyed being with all kinds of people and sharing good times with them. In doing so he violated all sorts of current social norms. So much so that he incurred the wrath of the entrenched religious and political leaders. He simply wasn’t austere enough to suit them. They thought he was enjoying life too much and was inviting all the wrong kind of people to join him. Because he came eating and drinking, they said of him “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” (Matthew 11:19 NIV) Eating and drinking; sounds like a party goer to me.

Jesus reserved his harshest words for those who not only refused to join him but were hindering others from entering the kingdom: “You hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matthew 23:13 NIV)

Shortly before this Jesus had likened the kingdom of heaven to a wedding banquet.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come…Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.” (Matthew 22:2, 3, 8-10 NIV)

One thing about this story used to bother me. When the king came in to see the guests, he noticed one man who was not wearing wedding clothes and had him thrown out. But then it occurred to me that the man must have tried to enter on the basis of his own righteous acts, which Isaiah tells us are “like filthy rags”. (Isaiah 64:6) If he had sought the kingdom of God and his righteousness as Jesus had instructed (Matthew 6:33), then he would have had the righteousness of God imputed to him and been properly dressed. Jesus concluded the story by saying, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14 NIV)

So when Jesus calls us to follow him and enter into the kingdom of God he is inviting us to the ultimate party, the wedding feast of the Son of God. As he said, “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 13:29 NIV) And the Apostle Paul tells us “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (I Corinthians 12:27) And furthermore Paul says when a man is united to his wife in marriage,   “the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:31, 32 NIV) So if we are the body of Christ, as a man and wife become one flesh, we must be the bride of Christ. So we are not just to be guests at the wedding but Christ’s bride to be. Talk about a reason to celebrate.

John the Revelator was given a vision during which, he said, “After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God… Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’ (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) Proper attire indeed for the bride of Christ.

So I am filled with excitement when I think about the unbelievable party Christ has invited us to. How about you?

For a number of years I have carried in my wallet a card with the Prayer of Jabez because it expresses my desire to reach as many people as possible with the good news of the kingdom of God on earth. Jabez called on God and said,

“Oh that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, and that you would  keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.”

And God granted him that which he requested. (I Chronicles 4:9)

And God, being no respecter of persons, has granted me the same. I have always been the recipient of God’s blessings, from my birth until now. I was born into a family of believers, raised in a 3-generation household that taught me to honor my parents (and grandparents), how a Christian gentleman should behave and the value of hard work and perseverance. Although I strayed from the fold of God when I left home to go to college, my parents and grandparents kept me covered with prayer that kept me from too much evil and insured my survival. So God’s hand never left me even while I was otherwise engaged and ignoring him.

However, after I met and married my wife, Mary, and our daughter Jennifer came along, things escalated dramatically. Mary and Jennifer were the two greatest blessings I have ever received and they are the gifts that just keep on giving. That would be enough for a lifetime in itself, but God was just beginning. I should point out here that this was long before I ever heard of the prayer of Jabez, but God, knowing I would one day utter it myself, began granting that which I had not yet requested. What an awesome God!

It began in earnest when Mary and I jointly made a commitment to follow Christ wherever he led us and to do whatever he asked us to do. As we described in “Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Fulfilling Your God-Ordained Destiny”, God began to lead us on an adventure that took us many places we had never expected to go and gave us the opportunity to do things we had not known we could do. I had been born and raised in Texas and had no desire to live anywhere else. But God began to enlarge my territory by calling us first to move to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and then to Virginia Beach, Virginia before calling us back to Texas. In the process Mary and I both were given opportunities to employ our God-given abilities in ways we had never anticipated. God also both planted in us a desire to travel and gave us the means to do so. In doing so he managed to enlarge our territory to include all 50 of the United States of America and over 60 foreign countries. We began to realize that the kingdom of God on earth was meant to encompass all of humanity throughout the whole world.

God’s hand was with us everywhere we went, protecting and guiding us and empowering us to accomplish all that came to our hands to do. This awesome adventure together lasted for nearly 53 years before God called Mary home to be with him. However, I was not truly left alone. Mary is still with me in spirit every day, everywhere I go, and God has never left my side. He is always with me and in me by his Spirit. So now I travel solo, but never alone. And God is still enlarging my territory.

After all the places Mary and I had travelled to, there were few places left that we had a desire to visit. One of these was South Africa, but Mary’s declining health prevented us from being able to undertake the rigors of that long a trip. But earlier this year (2019) I did make that trip, and I felt her presence with me throughout it. I took her in spirit where she had not been able to go in the flesh. And I did it in September and October to celebrate what would have been Mary’s 75^th birthday.

Then this November I participated in a mission trip to the Texas border at Brownsville to take meals to the asylum seekers in the migrant encampment across the border in Matamoros, Mexico. Closer to home I have been given the opportunity to serve once again as a Deacon at Grace Presbyterian Church in Plano, Texas, to serve on the Men’s Council planning the 2020 Men’s Conference at Mo Ranch in the Texas hill country and to participate in the outreach effort to get people engaged in their local church and community through the North Texas Presbyterian Pilgrimage organization. Next Spring I plan to take a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, one of the last areas Mary and I wanted to visit. Once again I will take her with me in my heart.

As you can see, God has abundantly answered my prayer as he did the prayer of Jabez. I can hardly wait to see what else God has in store for me. One word of caution here: Be careful what you pray for; God may just give it to you in ways you don’t expect.