Lenten Thoughts

Are you giving up anything for Lent? I actually do not celebrate Lent, per se, but I do believe in the power of fasting. It seems that in my circle of friends January is the season of self-denial. Everything from doing without chocolate to the Daniel Fast to plain ole’ not eating for a few days.

Asceticism is not found in the Bible, but fasting is. Paul wrote to the church at Colossae, “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.” Then he went on to explain,”Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

Does this mean not to practice self-discipline or fasting? No, the Bible is full of great examples of fasting and sacrifice. But the clear message is that Christ alone can give us right standing with God. If you are sacrificing to please God or become righteous you will always miss the mark. Adding good works to your sinful nature will not change it.  Paul calls it false humility. (I guess because people tend to become proud of being humble.) We need a new nature, a new birth which can only come through Jesus.

Fasting does not change God, but it does make us more sensitive to His voice. It does show us just how much our fleshly desires distract us. It also helps us re-focus on the truest joys that God has given us.

Biblical fasting is always associated with waiting on God, seeking an answer from Him. If our purpose is to get still and listen, fasting is a powerful tool. If we are trying to atone for sin, it is a lousy technique. Only by submitting our lives to Christ in broken acceptance of His cross do we get peace with God. If we could have done enough to be righteous then Christ was mistaken and died in vain. He was under the distinct impression that there was no other way. 

It is often the case that our efforts to please God by our good works and sacrifice actually compete with the salvation found only is the blood of Jesus. We trust our own goodness instead of God’s grace.  He died in our place. It was enough. Anything we try to add to that is dead religion and proves that we neither understand nor believe the Gospel. Christ died for sinners to make them righteous. No one is too bad to receive instant and total forgiveness. No one is so good that he does not need it.

So lay aside whatever you feel you should in an effort to seek God, to hear His voice. But do not try to use this wonderful devotional tool for a cover for your vice. You will go from being a rank sinner to being a skinny sinner. Without receiving the life of Jesus as your own, you are just being religious.

Lombardi Gras

Before I get back to dealing with the contextualization of primitive Christianity in the post-modern environment…I just had to mention that the New Orleans Saints won the Superbowl.

You heard already? Oh, well, indulge me a little. Of course, this ruins half the jokes I know. But it also tells me that there is hope.

If the Saints can turn it around, anyone can. This franchise has been hopeless for a long time. I mean, really bad. But all of us Who Dats kept on believing. Last night, eight hundred thousand fans showed up for the biggest parade in the history of New Orleans (and that’s saying something!)   Lombardi Gras has come.

It’s amazing how many people felt that the Saints were the team of destiny this year. You know, the real Saints, those of us who have encountered Christ and follow His leadership, really are the people of destiny. But we often act so defeated.

I am telling you, we can see the power of the Gospel transform even the most desperate neighborhoods, the most ravaged cities, the most tragic families. God will use His people, who have been so inept for so long, to display His glory. It will happen, and has already started.

“Yea, right, Jimmy…Next thing you”ll tell me is that the Saints will win the Superbowl.”

There’s always next year…

I decided to write only about serious issues, so this is another post from the Who Dat Nation.

You know a Tru Dat Who Dat when you meet them. Yea, I have seen it all. Anytime you can have twenty-one years of losing seasons and still sell out the Superdome, you’ve got some real fans.

As Saints fans, we are not used to football interfering with Mardi Gras, or anything after Christmas for that matter. Maybe this confusion is what led to Superbowl Sunday kicking off the un-official Fat Tuesday. They just sort of blended.

I remember all those years that we saw our team miss the playoffs while we said,”At least we beat the Cowboys.” ( or 49ers,or whoever) We swept the Bucs the year they won it all. Of course Nawlins was at home that year. Now I am hearing Cowboys fans saying, “At least we beat the Saints.” ???!! I don’t even have a come-back for that. It is not in my training.

Now the NFL has tried to copyright WHO DAT…what? That’s been around longer than the Saints. But at least the Saints are marketable! No one made a dime off the Aints logo, or the paper bags for fans too ashamed to be identified in the ‘Dome.

Every year, we used to say,”Wait ’till next season!” And we believed it. We even cheered Billy Joe Tolliver and Danny Wuerffel….I was talking to a fellow ‘Who Dat from way back’ about Brees and company this week.

“Hey, man! Why don’t we have a paper bag burning ceremony before the game Sunday? You know, just to bury the past?”

He looked at me very seriously and replied,” I’m keeping my bag. There’s always next year.”

Now that’s an Old School Who Dat!

In It To Win It

There has been a deep philosophical debate among my friends and family lately. You may have heard, America’s Team, the New Orleans Saints are playing in the Superbowl. The question: Is that good enough? I have heard so many people saying, ” I will be happy no matter what. At least they made it to the game.”

Wait a minute! News flash! The season is not over yet! My stance is simple. If you are in it, win it.

How many times do we settle for second best because we can not stand the risk of losing? We stop short, because we have done well enough that no one will blame us.

“Hey, I have done better than I expected. No one will blame me for stopping here.”

But you still have one more game. Champions think like this: We have won some titles, but we still need one more.  The Saints are NFC South Division Champs. They are National Football Conference Champions. But they need one more.

You may have some great battles, but if you are breathing you have another fight ahead of you. Are you just trying to survive, or are you in it to win it?

Writing For Myself

You start blogging and everything gets complicated. How do you generate more traffic? How do you find that “hot topic”? How do you spell crysanthemon…I have decided that I have a definite focus on this blog. I only write about what interests me. Yes, I know that sounds self-centered, but it is my blog. The wierd thing is, there are people who actually want to know what I think. People that I do not even know. If I wrote for them, they will probably not come back, but now that I do not care what they think, they will probably hang out here like that last person to leave a party. So, here I am, just being me. Of course, I may be the only one reading this….oh, well. Live your life according to who you are. God has created us all unique and amazing, but so many people are  trying to be someone else. The rarest skill in life is the ability to really know who you are, to see yourself and recognize the fingerprints of God. When it was first said, “It’s not easy being me”, they sure knew what they were talking about.

Pax Romana- The Flip Side

Just thinking about how connected the world is today. I can find someone who speaks English anywhere I go. ( I have tried.) For a small fee, I can find just about anyone in the United States via internet. If you have a GPS-enabled device, you can be tracked around the globe. (And some kinds of phones, notebooks, and even e-books have them, I am told…)

The universal system of language, law, and government that allowed Christianity to spread freely throughout the Roman world was the same system that made possible universal persecution of the Church under Diocletian and other emperors.

Scripture tell us of a one-world government rising in the last days. John’s vision of the last days recorded in The Revelation mentions this. In chapter thirteen, John writes, ” He [the Anti-Christ] also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.”

This is a pretty amazing prophecy when you consider that such a thing could never have been possible when John saw it. It could be decreed, but would be impossible to enforce. But now we have a world financial system. You may have noticed that any recession is now world-wide. As more of our transactions are electronic (even personal checks are instantly debited at Wal-Mart) it is more plausible than ever that a worldwide electronic currency could be created. Could the mark be a chip in the forehead or hand? We already put them in pets. It is also interesting that he mentions that the system is based on a number. All electronic communication is digital, based on numbers. Even now, I can get cash all over the world, if I have my card and remember my pin. (I once had to use an ATM in Baguio City, Philippines.) We should pause to consider that all these things were unimaginable in the first century. Later, there is a scene in Revelations where the two prophets are killed and it is seen by the whole world. A satellite feed can be blocked at the source, as we have seen in Iran. But if something like this were picked up on a cell phone and put on YouTube… This is the first age that many of these details are even possible.

The same systems that are tearing down barriers all over the world, that are uniting us together, are also making us more dependent upon everyone else in the world. We have gone from a small world to a micro world.

What am I saying? Use all these advantages to share the life-changing message of Christ Jesus. But do not be surprised when, just like Roman times, they are used against the church.

By the way, at the end of the book, we win.

Pax Romana Remix

The world we live in seems to be racing into uncharted waters. Changes in how we do business, communicate, and wage war have come so quickly. It’s never been like this before…or has it?

We learn history so that we can understand today. I think that the modern world looks more like the Roman Empire than ever before.

Almost the whole world lived in one system. Latin was widespread, as was Greek for literature. A trader from Gaul could haggle with a ship owner from Tyre with neither knowing the other’s mother tongue. Today, school children in Finland and the Philippines have to learn English to graduate. It is the language of international trade. With internet protocols and work-flow technologies, even our computers can talk to each other.

Jesus never traveled more than a hundred miles from where He was born. He was executed in Jerusalem around 33 AD, on the backside of civilization.  That he was crucified, not stoned, attested to the fact that all these things took place under Roman occupation. Conversely, there were no national borders to keep His movement from spilling over the Empire.

Paul’s missionary journeys never took him over international borders. Every local area had their own gods and religions, customs and traditions. But they had something else-Roman roads, Roman language, and the all-important Pax Romana.

Pax Romana, or Roman Peace, was often at the tip of a sword and under threat of execution. One way or the other, they kept order. We are seeing something similar now. Sure, there are military operations against terrorists and a lot of posturing between nations, but China is not going to war with the U. S. anytime soon. Why? If we do not buy their goods, their economy is shot. The nations that are connected with international trade or that form the supply lines for American manufacturing will go to great lengths to avoid war. Not the threat of swords, but just as effective. Even twenty years ago, the cold war restricted half the world from traveling to the other half. Now, anyone in the world has access to travel anywhere else.

This is why Christianity is exploding worldwide. More than anytime since the fall of Rome, the world is one huge community. We can more easily connect with one another than ever before. Interestingly, this is not the sort of imperialist missionary endeavor of past European powers. It is more a free market exchange of ideas, with Christians from Korea and Argentina sharing as much as they receive. I recently became aware of a vast church building campaign for India, where churches here in the U.S. will partner with their Indian brothers to construct 25,000 churches. Half of the money is coming from India. The plan was initiated in India and the pastors of these churches are Indians. I learned of it by listening to a great Indian pastor telling us ( in English) his vision on a video played in our auditorium here in Louisiana via an Apple computer. No big deal. Just part of the new Pax Romana.

New Year’s Revolution

This is my favorite holiday. I guess it is because we all get a clean slate in the new year. 2010 has a perfect record! I have the chance to really do things right this year. It’s like grace written right there on the calendar. A fresh start.

Of course, the only thing that will make this next year different from the last is a new consecration to Christ…His Word and His Spirit alone can transform us. I know from too many New Year’s resolutions that I can not change myself. I can make a few small reforms, maybe, but under pressure I go back to the same old routine. But Jesus has completely transformed my life. Not just once, but time after time. Sometimes I have had to become broken before I really allowed Him to work, but the changes He makes stick. Who the Son set’s free is free indeed.

This year, don’t just resolve to do better. Lay down your life at the Cross. All you are, all you are not, all you could never be. Jesus will take it and revolutionize your existence. A New Year’s revolution. Yeah, that’s what I need.

Nicholas, Wenceslas, and Wal-mart

Every Christmas since I was a child has featured Santa Claus. So, as a naturally curious person, I wanted to know exactly who Santa was. Good question. Like so many of our Christmas traditions, it’s complicated.

Christmas in America has combined elements of several winter celebrations into one holiday spectacular. We have taken the Saturnalia traditions of the Winter Solstice ,the Christian holidays St. Stephens Day (Dec. 26), St. Nicholas’ Day and the Christ Mass, and rolled them into one. By the way, one of our “Christmas “carols is actually a St. Stephens’ carol, Good King Wenceslas. I will get to him later.

We have followed a similar path with Santa. Nicholas of Myra was a rich young nobleman whose parents died of a plague while he was young. A devout Christian, Nicholas took his wealthy inheritance and gave it to the poor. He became the bishop of Myra, in what is now Turkey, at a young age. He died in 343 AD. Since then, his legend has grown.

One story involves dowries for three daughters of a poor man. Legend has it that Nicholas snuck over to the man’s house in the dead of night, shortly before each one of the daughters came of age, over a three-year period. Each time, he threw a bag of gold into a window-the dowry which the father could never have paid. By the way, one of the bags is said to have landed in a shoe…which later became a bag thrown down the chimney landed in a shoe…then a bag thrown down the chimney landed in a stocking…

Eventually St. Nicholas’ Day was all but forgotten, except by children in Holland who believed that St. Nick, “Sinter Klaus” brought them gifts on his special day.

Enter Cromwell and the Puritans. When Christmas was banned in England ( for being polluted by paganism) there arose a symbolic figure known as Lord Christmas, or Father Christmas. Father Christmas did not have anything to do with children and he did not give gifts. He just went around in his green coat and long beard looking an awful lot like Woten, the Anglo-Saxon god. ( He was from Scandinavia, with reindeer and all…just saying.)

The Dutch came to New Amsterdam, soon to be taken over by the English and renamed New York, with Santa in tow. Somehow, in the next two hundred years, St. Nicholas melded with Father Christmas to become our modern Santa Claus.  He got his creepy ability to see you when you are sleeping and know when you are awake from Father Christmas, but he brought gifts down the chimney like St. Nick. He got his appearance (and sleigh) entirely from Father Christmas, except that he traded in the green coat for a red one. (St. Nicholas had always had a red bishop’s robe.) However he got here, he is definitely big time.

A lesser known Christmas figure is Good King Wenceslas. Turns out there really was a Wenceslas who ruled in Bohemia ( now in the Czech Republic) until he was martyred in 929 AD. It was said of him by Cosmas of Prague, in 1119 that, ” he went around to God’s churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched.” This was in the age when most of Europe was teetering between paganism and Christianity. The pagan lords of Bohemia backed his brother against him and Wenceslas was killed on the steps of a chapel as he went to prayer alone.

These summaries are a little over-simplified and the  real history behind our traditions is a little harder to follow, but I was taken by one thing: These two men, Nicholas and Wenceslas, served their communities to the point that their giving lived after them. What if I lived my life so sacrificially that legends were told of my giving? Songs were sung, and gifts exchanged?

We can protest all the non-Christian elements in our traditions, but does that really show the world who Jesus is? I will celebrate Christ at Christmas. I will also celebrate Christ on New Years, St. Patrick’s Day, and Secretaries Day…okay, that would take some imagination, but you get the idea.

So in the true spirit of Christmas, I went to Wal-mart this morning with a few crazy friends from my church, and we wrapped gifts and gave away cookies at no charge. One guy insisted on paying us and I told him that it was against my religion to take his money. We were able to pray with one young man about a need in his life and some people even gave us all hugs as they left. I do not have a personal fortune to disperse, but this was my best impersonation of Wenceslas.

In all your giving, give yourself wholly to Christ and to serve those  for whom He died.

Merry Christmas!

Of Solstices and Superbowls

Holidays are funny things. Even the word is misleading. It used to be, simply, Holy Days. But there are all kinds of holidays now, holy or otherwise. We have religious holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah,etc.), cultural holidays (Halloween…I know you pagans say it’s religious, too.), government holidays (labor day, etc.), and even holidays made up by greeting card companies (Mother’s Day..).

At this time of year, with Christmas coming up quickly, I always mess with my Christian friends about the Winter Solstice. Well, lo and behold, a group of atheists and agnostics has gone to court to put up a Winter Solstice display beside the nativity at the Arkansas State Capitol. As I checked it out online, they were not really celebrating the winter solstice, either. It is just a big wall of anti-God, anti-Christian quotes from celebrities. The winter solstice was celebrated by pagans, not God-haters.

The winter solstice, simply put, is the longest night of the year. After that night, the days begin to get longer. Many ancient cultures celebrated this night as the time when the sun began to re-emerge. Also, with the Romans, it was the time when wine and beer had fermented and were available for the long winter. The germanic tribes celebrated Yule at this time.

In the Julian calendar of Roman times, the solstice was on December 25th. Since the Gregorian calendar was adopted, it usually falls on the 21st of December.

How did this become Christmas? Long story short, the pagan festivals would not go away, even when Christianity was adopted by the populace. So the church chose this day, around the 4th century AD, as far as I can tell, to celebrate the birth of Christ. Still, the reindeer, the Christmas trees, yule logs, Christmas ham, elves, and a lot of other traditions all come from our Pagan forebears.

So what are we to make of all these things? Theologically, the December 25th celebration of Christmas has no real meaning. But culturally, it’s a stoke of genius. 

The church took the biggest pagan bash of the year and made it a time when even Wal-mart plays songs celebrating the birth of our Savior. The only problems come up when we mistake all these traditions as real Christianity. Then we have dead religion, received mindlessly by generations of people who go through these motions just because Mama did. But if you can celebrate real and vital faith in Jesus within the context of the culture, you can become an agent of change and renewal in that culture.

 This does not mean that we water down our convictions, but we see cultural festivities as an open door to be “salt” and “light”,  to use Christ’s terms. For instance, I do not drink alcohol. But I have gone to company Christmas parties where it is served. Now, when they start getting drunk and the party is getting to embarrassing proportions, I check out early and go home. But what good is salt unless it gets out of the shaker? I am on a mission. I can overlook some things to earn the right to minister to those people. By isolating ourselves from the culture, the church lets the culture decay further into rot.

So for those of you who were wondering last week, I love Christmas. I enjoy the opportunity for Christians to lead in a post-Christian society.  I will go even further than that: I think we should look into sanctifying other cultural events for the sake of the Gospel. Like Superbowl Sunday.

Hey, they put it on Sunday, I didn’t. This could be nati0nal men’s ministry night, celebrating fathers, sons, uncles, grandpas, best buds, and manly grilling. Turn off the TV at half-time and give a quick, inspiring word about Godly manhood and encourage men to commit to be that man Jesus made them to be, then turn it back on to watch the Saints win their first Superbowl. ( Yes, I said that.) If we can run with this cultural mainstay and make it our own, think of all the new people with whom we could come in contact. See, all those men have women and children it their lives. ( Ladies, this could be your big night…y’all do anything you like,  just let your man watch the game in peace.) I am sure, eventually, the play-offs would become the “Four Weeks of Superbowl”, and we would sings songs about it.  Then, years from now, we could complain about all those people who just come to church on Christmas, Easter, and Superbowl Sunday.