What if Christmas was about receiving a gift instead of giving one?

Do we miss the point of Christmas by giving away material gifts instead of receiving the immaterial? Do we spend so much time choosing, buying, wrapping and giving gifts that we pass by the ultimate Christmas gift? 

Our gift was chosen for us to bring us joy, peace, love and comfort, bought at a unimaginable price,  came from a place so beautiful our imagination can not fathom, and wrapped with all the tender care and love that a mother’s heart can possess. But can we receive that gift?  Have we room for it in our materialistic world? Have we time for it in our tightly scheduled lives? Or is it a gift that only appeals when we are left with no other options? 

It’s a strange gift, instead of us having to sustain and nurture it, it will sustain and nurture us. It’s a trusty friend that will never leave our side. It’s a warm and comforting hand that will lead us through our most troubling and trying times. It’s a rock solid foundation to stand on in an ever-changing troubled world. And most of all, it’s a gift.

Free.

If we only accept it. 

Merry Christmas 

The Hope that Christmas brings.

We live in a fallen, broken, hurting world. Everywhere you look you can see pride, greed, broken homes, broken hearts, hunger, disease, and finally death. Even if we win we still lose. For dust we are and to dust we shall return. 

But in Bethlehem was born a Son that tells us something new. He tells us the end is not the end. That we will rise again. That he will prepare a place for us and then come and take us there. That we will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down at that place. A place no eye has seen, no ear heard and no human heart has imagined! A place where every tear shall be wiped from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away, and behold, all things will be made new. A place where there will be no more night, where we will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give us light.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

Ich komme Jesus her zu dir. Easter hymn. Translation by Louie Vetter

I'm drawing Jesus to you near

In reverence, my prayers hear.

That rugged cross, that bitter anguish

In which I did participate,

Your death I did facilitate.

You will not allow me to languish, 

You gave me life, you stood condemned,

Reached out to me, became my friend

Oh Saviour, friend; yes verily,

Who else dies for his enemy?

Who serves yet rules over the nation?

Who becomes man but still is Lord?

Leaves heaven for a mocking crowd? 

Who dies, from whom comes all creation?

Is that not you, oh Jesus Christ,

You died for me, you paid the price. 

Faultless, before the human race, 

What you do here is perfect grace.

You pay in full what i have broken,

You suffer, yet the fault is mine,

A child of death is my consign.

You give your life for me in token,

You leave your home to do me well

When I deserve to be in hell.

Look, blinded Jew! and then take note

Whose face you spit, whose head you smote?

Is that the way you pledge allegiance?

Await you your Messiah so?

Adore you Judah's Saviour so?

Must not the stones cry out in grievance?

Is not your King so precious then,

Oh daughter of Jerusalem?

Why would a murderer then be

Of value so much more than He?

Do you accuse the one who frees you?

Do you condemn upon the cross

Him, without whom the world is lost,

And put to death the one who loves you?

But why do I give others blame;

Woe unto me, I've done the same!

Mine, mine is all iniquity,

I am the one that tortured thee.

I am responsible for murder,

I wove that piercing crown of thorns,

I spoke to you with hate-filled scorn.

I nailed you to the cross with fervour, 

Now, quaking knees, in fear I stand,

You suffered, Jesus, at my hand.

Alas, Alas, Oh Saviour mine,

Oh highest life, how can you die?

Beginning and end, can you relinquish?

Bows your head down, head of the world?

Goes still the hand that holds the earth?

Intrinsic light, can death extinguish,

Those eyes, that clearer shine by far

Than moon and sun and brightest star. 

I start to weep, what have I done?

I've helped to kill God's only Son.

He gave me life, He breathed creation,

I'm standing all alone today,

Where is my help on Judgement Day?

Satan is calling my damnation

Heaven is now my enemy,

And earth stands barren and empty.

Where find I comfort in my pain?

You are alone the remedy.

Lion of Judah, root of David,

You pleaded for your enemies,

You took for friend that wretched thief.

I cry out for that grace so sacred,

You say that everything is is done,

Why is my heart so woebegone?

Spite hell and death! Spite satan, ye!

You have no power over me.

My Jesus full of pure forgiveness 

Bent down to me arms open wide,

And took me in, now reconciled.

For I am saved, God is my witness,

I'm one with Him and He with me,

Heaven is now my destiny.

Haven of safety, highest friend,

Your grace and mercy knows no end.

I wretched man, I don't deserve it,

I stand here now and praise your name

Always, forever, I proclaim;

To be your faithful loving servant,

My life is surely lived in vain

If by your grace I don't remain.

This world disgusts me with her sin,

I search but find no truth within.

All things holy, stand desecrated,

Oh, take me to the tomb today,

There I can let Old Adam lay.

From sin now free, I'm liberated!

Come, come my death I welcome you
More than a thousand lives, adieu.

Thoughts on Hutterite Baptism Day.

Our life is like a grain of wheat. It is dead but precious life waits dormant inside. If it wants to live it has to die, totally and completely giving up its identity in order to live again.

When the seed gets planted it starts to germinate and life springs forth . The emerging plant rapidly finds new energy sources apart from the seed. The roots search downwards for nutrients and water while the new leaves unfurl upwards towards the life giving sun. The seed, rapidly depleting, is soon dead. It has served its purpose and brought forth new life. This new life is now being sustained by a source other than the seed.

This sequence has a lot to say to the Christian. If we want to live we have to die and be born again. We must willingly lay our life down in obedience and trust to Him, living not under our own will and power, but sustained by a source other than ourselves, Jesus Christ.

Yes, we can stay like the kernel of wheat, proud of who and what we are. But we need to realize that ungerminated and unregenerated (though we are still of worth...made in the image of God) we are a potential living plant locked inside a waiting seed, curbed only by our selfish desires and unwillingness to see what we are and what we were made to be.


"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Paul in Galatians 2:20

What Is Truth?

What is truth is indeed a hard question. Particularly at this time in history when #fakenews dominates and #post-truth was made 2016 word of the year. Time magazine ran the stark red on black headline "Is Truth Dead?" on its April 3, 2017 cover. That cover payed typographical homage to a headline they printed 51 years earlier on April 8, 1966, titled: "Is God Dead?"

Oxford Dictionaries defines post-truth as 'in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.

Let's consider the ramifications of living in a society in which truth is no longer objective, but relative. imagine a court of law running on this footing! Imagine a world where north can be east, where hot may be cold, where two plus two equals four only when it suits us. Imagine paying for your morning coffee that way, or deciphering traffic signals. It turns into the absurd!

So it seems we cannot live without truth no matter how we try avoid it.

 The closest man has ever got to receiving an answer to the direct question of "What is truth?" happened in a courtroom about 2000 years ago. Let's go back in time to see what transpired and we will see that the search for truth is not new. 

In Pilate's Court

Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. Pilate then went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this Man?”

They answered and said to him, “If He were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him up to you.”

Then Pilate said to them, “You take Him and judge Him according to your law.”

Therefore the Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,” that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which He spoke, signifying by what death He would die.

Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”

Jesus answered him, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?”

Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?”

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”

Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?”

Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all. 

Pilate asked that question as if there really was no answer and didn't expect one.

Are we in those same shoes today?

Has postmodernism and relativism made truth irrelevant? 

Is Truth Dead?