Advent is Pregnant

Galatians 4:4-5

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

There are a few things we know about pregnancy. There’s no such thing as a little pregnant. She is or she isn't. Also, a pregnancy eventually leads to a birth. Pregnancies end. They’re supposed to – for the joy of the new birth. Just as it isn't possible to be partially pregnant; neither is it possible to be permanently pregnant. I think there are a lot of women who are glad for that. Lastly, there’s always an explanation behind a pregnancy. They never just happen.

Well, Advent is like pregnancy.

No one can prepare spiritually for the coming of Christ – kinda. That’s like kinda repenting or kinda believing. Which is it? Do you repent this Advent or don’t you? Just as there’s no such thing as being “a little pregnant. there’s no such thing as being a little baptized or a little forgiven.

Since none of us can be sorta wrong, there’s no place in Advent for being partly repentant. Nor are any of us just kinda under the law. If we are human beings, we are totally under the rule of God's law. That goes for Jesus too. When He was born, he didn’t just put a toe into the world. In Mary’s womb, Jesus was already entirely under the law. The embryonic Jesus, the gestational Jesus, the fetal Jesus, the newborn Jesus, the toddler Jesus, the pubescent Jesus, the adolescent Jesus, and certainly the adult Jesus was never just a little bit under the law.

And add on this: God didn’t send his Son to just kinda redeem those under the law. No. He redeemed us -- period.

Advent is like pregnancy. It’s wonderful, but it leads ultimately to the “blessed event.” The fullness of time did eventually come when everything God said would happen did! At the perfect time, God sent His Son to us. Just like pregnancies always lead to a birth, God's promises always lead to their fulfillment in Christ.

If you read this passage carefully it sounds like time itself was pregnant, full of expectancy from God's first promise of a Savior in Genesis right up to Nazareth and Bethlehem.

Pregnancy is always looking forward. We observe the time of Advent looking forward to Christmas … because God really came through for us! Our anticipation isn't wasted. It never is when we cling to God's Word. Christian faith is never disappointed when it nests in the Word.

Yes, those Old Testament years became heavy and heavier with waiting, but faithful believers always knew God’s Word isn't a kind of spiritual Siberia where promises go to die. God's Word is where those promises are made and fulfilled.

Anyone who by-passes Advent never gets to Christmas. There’s never a birth without a pregnancy. Advent is like pregnancy. If you don’t have that first, the result is some sort of Christmas without the birth.

How many misguided folks just think Christmas comes around the same every year in a kind of unending loop where everybody does the holiday thing but never gets around to the baby’s birth? Passing up on Advent, they never really get to Christmas. They don’t see the central Advent significance that God honors His promises in Christ! Christmas is those promises fulfilled.

Advent is like pregnancy bursting with eagerness and expectancy. Why? Because God's Son is coming. And not just coming, but God’s Son is coming to be born of a woman! This isn’t something that just happens inexplicably leaving us to go around scratching our heads and pacing back and forth as if we don’t know what’s happening in the delivery room.

God tells us exactly what’s happening and why.

God's Son is born of a woman, in time, and under the law. This pregnancy and birth isn't more or less about Jesus. It’s all about Jesus. God deliberately sent His Son to be our Savior. So, why? Well; without God Himself coming as a true man (“born of a woman”) in our place there wouldn’t be any redeeming, no saving for any of us from our debt to the law.

So, what’s the real consequence of this pregnancy? It all comes down to this: His coming and living in our flesh and being obedient under the law in our place is the very thing which has made our adoption as God's children possible.

So start getting out those birth announcements that proclaim how He is absolutely one of us and what He’s done is nothing less than re-birth me! That’s not more or less the message of our Christian faith. That IS our Christian faith. Jesus Christ, the one great, perfect, never-to-be-surpassed Gift is coming! And Advent is pregnant with this news.

Between Pride and Meekness

As a young friar in Ken Follett's epic novel The Pillars of the Earth, Philip struggles between pride and meekness in his aspirations as a man of God. He is counseled by a wise monastic brother, "When you're thinking, please remember this: excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility."

Never can it be said Jesus was not humble. No greater king had ever appeared before more sacred precincts than those at Jerusalem, yet, this king rides to his awe-full destiny on a donkey's colt. Protected by no weapons, attended by no security, bearing no symbols of conquest, Jesus is carried by a lowly beast of burden. Relatives of burros and mules convey no majesty.

Here is acute meekness. No, there is no danger of presumption here.

Yet, Jesus does not hush the disciples. Laud and praise for Him is loud and prolonged. Already from the Mount of Olives, through the Kidron vale to the city gate, Jesus is extolled and exalted, "Blessed is the King ... glory in the highest." The refrain is cried a thousand times. Joyful liturgy of the Advent King resounds across the valley and echoes in the hills. "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!" and to it comes the jubilant response, "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest."

Here is perfect royalty. No, there is no danger of timidity here.

Jesus will neither sin by false humility nor by lofty mendacity.

He is, in truth, the King who comes in the name of the Lord, speaking the Lord's Word and doing the Lord's work of accomplishing our salvation. He is the fulfillment of all Messianic promises, rejoicing for which must eternally resound and rise to new heights with every breath.

Yet, Jesus is also scorned and shamed. Beneath scourings, beneath even contempt, Jesus is the nadir of indignity, the Scum-in-Chief. Soon he is not even good enough for a jackass but becomes a beast of burden himself who must heave his own cross to the place of execution.

What beast of burden is this? The Lamb of God who carries the sin of the world! This-- not by any disobedience or even one minuscule flaw of his own but because He comes for you.

Therefore, when you find yourself showing off as a hedge against bent moral inferiority or when you congratulate conceit within yourself behind a coy exterior, know you have fatally tipped the scales one way or the other against yourself and frustrated the will of God.

Yet Christ came to free you.

Jesus came to Jerusalem in favor of you. His advent was not in false modesty or swollen superiority. His greatness was in humility; his strength was in his weakness. Now our living is in His dying and all of our receiving is through His giving.

Remember this during Advent and you'll find yourself singing not once or twice, but unendingly, "Blessed is the King ... glory in the highest. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"

Dream !

To wish, to hope, and to dream. Since these occur so naturally to us from childhood, the practice is most often associated with childish flights of imagination. In fact, we encourage and celebrate the fancies of innocent children especially in a season such as that ahead of us which is ripe for such yearnings. The wish lists of boys and girls and the eager expectations of little ones cause their elders to smile and often work to fulfill those dreams. No one wants youngsters to set their hearts on something only to have hopes dashed. So, make a wish and dare to dream, children, before reality sets in.

Yet, somehow we never outgrow or shed our weakness for hopes and dreams. Imprudent and impracticable as it may seem, and hardly adult, there isn't one of us who doesn't yearn for something or someone. Even the most grizzled pragmatist bears his secret wishes. Admit it. You dream too -- a lot. You may believe yourself to have learned to manage such naïveté without letting wishes run away with you. Yet, like a climber clutching for a handhold or a doctor's patient waiting by the phone, the hunger for something good to happen is universal.

Our inclination as Christians may be to separate ourselves from wishful thinkers and pride ourselves in grounded hopes. "For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Romans 8:24-25)

It is not our idea of Christian belief to dream the impossible dream, to wish upon a star or cross our fingers. Of course not. Yet, let us be cautious not to reduce our Christian hopes and dreams to dull practicality. Christian faith does not mean we simply man up to the realities of life, put aside childishness, and begin some tedious wait. Advent joy is not in a Gospel merely sensible or serviceable.

The coming of Christ is the uprising of outrageous hopes, radical dreams, and sweeping expectations beyond anyone's highest imaginations. We are youngsters of a good and tender Heavenly Father who will not have his children's hearts set on eternal life, peace and paradise only to have such hopes dashed. That is why He invites us to behold His servant, God's own servant, God's own beloved servant -- His Son, Jesus Christ, in whom the Spirit of hope dwells.

The Apostle Paul does not over-speak his wishes when he writes to the Romans, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." (Rom. 15:13)

Yes, compared to the comparatively mundane things of which people so often dream, our greater Christ-anchored hopes of an endless life in communion with God, of joy exceeding, and being clothed with righteousness seem unattainable. It is hope above all hope. But of this we may truly dream with soaring forethoughts of all good to happen. Our dreams are not silly nor our hopes preposterous. One cannot imagine any good beyond our Lord's ability to supply. No thought can surpass His gifts. No dream is too lofty. No hope is too vast.

So, with the coming of Christ, should we not be wish-full thinkers and dreamers of dreams? We live in the actual days of which God declared, "I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men will dream dreams." (Acts 2:17)

The Dear Desire of every nation comes. In the Christ of God the Gentiles have placed their hope. Dreams may fly. Our yearning faith may leap with delight as an unrestrained child foresees a perfect Christmas morning.

The fact is -- reality has set in. A Christian's dreams are not protection against reality -- an outlet or escape from it -- but a confession which embraces it. We dream from the certainty of Christ, Hope of the world.

Things Will Never Be the Same Again

Through the curtain of mist which hung before sunrise on the western hills of Galilee a shiver of joy ran through the brotherhood of Jesus’ beloved ones. From the water’s rim they heard the sound of His voice skim the surface and a glow of fire piloted them toward shore.

The turbulent, glorious days of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection were accomplished. Now the disciples were back home working. And into that waxen hour Jesus came. When men were stripped down for work Jesus revealed Himself into the life setting of a workday morning. Things would never be the same again.

At an unexpected moment the Lord appeared to them as if to say; it doesn't matter the day, the hour, the place, or occasion, Easter isn't over! From now through eternity itself, at your every morning, at every meal, inside every activity it will never be the same again for you.

The dynamic of Easter is not a pause in the day's occupations but propulsion into new life!

Because of the events of Easter, the bodily resurrection and victory of Jesus Christ over death, we are literally propelled from our own unprofitable darkness into the whole-hearted, life-long, chock-full, over-flowing joy of Easter brimming, like nets bursting with fish, in the never-ending color, aroma, and relish of life. The grace of Easter is ours forever.

Via Easter we may now get on with real living!

"Get on with your life" is another way of saying, "Leave your troubles behind and enjoy the carefree privilege and zest of having been re-born which not only sounds mighty wonderful Easter morning but is also directly intended for the gray chilled twilight when a man comes off the night shift.

When we encounter times of personal reversals, when life seems like a string of inevitable disappointments, when God sometimes seems to have failed to vest us with a bit of the divine energy that brought Jesus from the grave, we are reminded Easter isn't over—death is!

Things will never be the same again! For any of us!

Isaiah wrote, "On this mountain (that is Calvary) he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that enfolds all nations."

Because of Jesus’ resurrection, things will never be the same for you and me. Death is over, and with its destruction go all it's accessories: the distress of the women, the perplexity of the disciples, the fear of the upper room, the doubt, the weeping, the grief, all past failures and misdirected thoughts.

It's like when a sickness is taken away, and with it go the pills, lozenges and plasters, the elixirs, therapy, and tonics, as well as the pain, the bacteria, the weakness, the depression, the infection, and everything else associated with it. "The last enemy to be destroyed is death," Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

Easter is the new day. Live in confidence, in power, and in grace. Just hearing John say from the boat, "It is the Lord" is the greatest single antidote for discouragement. Our Lord Jesus makes all the difference in the world! We are not just celebrating His resurrection, but also our own!

Stress Test

And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise." - Mark 10:32-34

Walking is good for the heart. Why? Because walking is hard on the heart.

Walking makes the heart work. What good are hearts unable to function under the demands of the body?

Walking is good for the heart because it demands from it. Yet, for Gary Pyle this week, a walking stress test failed. Immediately doctors canceled the walking. To tax a weak heart would be malpractice. Gary is in the hospital. Notwithstanding appearances, Gary couldn't handle it. His blood was thinned, and surgical intervention is now planned for Tuesday

Sure, we want Gary up walking again, but right now he can't.

You can't make successful demands of a weak heart.

Walking with Jesus is hard on the heart. On the road to Jerusalem, on the way toward having his own heart traumatized and broken, Jesus walked ahead of his anxious disciples. Their walking behind Jesus was stressful. It was, quite literally, an uphill climb. But as they walked, a far greater and extraneous stress, beyond the normal demands of the topography, was applied to their hearts.

The Son of Man, the Friend they loved, spoke of a fatal attack coming against his own heart. Treachery, condemnation, mockery, brutality, and finally death claimed His heart and would end His life.

Jesus didn't shade the awful truth. Each terrible prediction was an ordeal against their hearts.

Yet, hearts are made to believe. Healthy hearts are given to faith, and Jesus tests theirs. He walks them. He walks them up to Jerusalem though they do not fully know what great good would come from such a climb.

Jesus walks ahead of them. Not to provoke thrombosis; not keen to suffer; but He walks to Jerusalem because His heart is prepared to bear the lethal injury of our sins.

Jesus walked into a heart attack even though He was completely and perfectly healthy. His faith was flawless and fit and His love robust. His heart was pure. No obstruction, no resentment, no repression of love whatever.

You can make demands of a strong heart. And His was strong.

We do not say believing is an easy undertaking. In fact, it is impossible on our own. Walking in Christ's footsteps is difficult, and serious. Our hearts have so often failed to trust Him. Our hearts have not worked as they were designed. Clogged with grievance and failure, we are congestive, unable to meet the simplest demands a heart should handle.

Only a strong heart can walk behind Christ.

Therefore God told His people (Ezekiel 11:19-20), "And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God."

Christians aren't "fixed." Christians are reborn with a new heart ... Christ's heart.

Such a heart can be exercised, taxed, and strained without fear of even a trace of failure. God sets upon us the weighty Word of the cross and we can believe it. He foretells resurrection, and against all opposition and doubt, we know it's true.

Jesus said what He would do, and then He did what He said He would. He walked to the cross. He walked with His cross. He walked under the crushing demands of the Law and put His heart and life in the balance.

And after three days ... after those three days of which He told his disciples, Jesus walked free of death and tomb and trauma.

For us who often regard matters of the heart an inconvenience (and surely heart surgery for Gary next week seems so untimely), yet we have in Christ a Lord who has given us a living heart to trust all He has said and done. Though our hearts be pressured or courage taxed, we are revived by God's Word so formidable, so athletic and durable, that by the strength we have in Christ, we may walk without fear or faltering.

The Very Gospel of Christ is at Stake

After unanimous recommendation by its Commission for Theology, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany (EKD) has formally rejected the Augsburg Confession of 1530 as among its fundamental documents. There was a time when merely the idea of such a thing would have made Lutherans weep.

In an official statement published this past Fall, the EKD (Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland) jettisoned the keystone document of Lutheranism as no longer a primary confession. Such surrender, although a scandalous demonstration of what happens when a church abandons God's Word, should be no surprise. Many claiming the name Lutheran in America are also rapidly abandoning Scripture as the sole rule and norm of doctrine and practice.

Such neglect of the Bible leads swiftly to a disregard of the very substance of the Gospel of Christ and the doctrine of justification through faith by which the church stands or falls. At stake in our generation is not how we look to the world (relevant, sharp, inclusive, or booming) but whether we are the church holding only to the truth of Christ.

Are we to believe the Reformation has nothing to teach our “enlightened” progressive age? Apparently, the confessional documents which generations of Lutherans have cherished with uncompromisingly loyalty are disposable. Many of us are descendents of those who left their homeland in large part to preserve fiercely the pure Lutheran faith for their children. No wonder churches in Germany are empty.

The Augsburg Confession’s solid, faithful exposition of the Christian faith is as robust and wonderful today as it has ever been. It stands absolutely in contrast to the paper thin, makeshift nonsense being passed off today as the voice of Christ in so many places. Frivolous practices introduced into churches today have preachers trying to be perky and chummy instead humble heralds of God's Word. How is this not related to the devaluation of Scripture and the Confessions?

Can anyone imagine Luther clowning around in the pulpit or prancing around in the house of God? Can anyone imagine Bach’s music inspired by anything less than the glory of the Gospel? Can anyone envisage C.F.W. Walther or any of our Lutheran forefathers tolerating doctrinally questionable, insipidly shallow and repetitive ditties in worship when great hymns with theological meat on their bones are available?

Can the Augsburg Confession actually now be merely an insignificant hand-me-down, inadequate and maybe even detrimental to modern thought? Is the church of the Augsburg Confession to be a pipsqueak where one can be a Lutheran without the source and substance of Christ?

Nothing could be further from the truth. The core doctrine of justification by grace through faith in the incarnate, crucified, and risen Christ according to Holy Scripture stands against all alien opinions, canons, and judgments of men. To be Lutheran is inseparable from Holy Scripture and the Confessions. To be Lutheran is to rest in the mercy of God who delivered His only-begotten Son to a cross that we might live thereby. To be Lutheran is to cling to the theology of the cross, to confess our sins and receive the undeserved mercy and compassion of the only God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let us be unashamedly Lutheran. Why? Because our worship is centered in the Word and Sacraments, not in cultural niceties or clever style. Let us be uncompromisingly Lutheran. Why? Because our catechesis is Christ-centered. Our practice is evangelical, and our liturgy is profoundly biblical. We are neither conventional nor contemporary. Why? Because our life doesn’t flow from old routines or the latest novelties. Our life is Christ. Our preaching is Christ. Our worship is Christ’s service to us -- never centered is us but expounding God's grace and delivering His gifts.

If the distinctive truth and good news of Jesus Christ, the very heart and soul of Christianity is compromised or dismissed in favor of moral relativism or ecclesiastical innovation, the church will soon be stone dead.

This could happen to The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod if we yield doctrinal ground and Lutheran practice. If we flatter Scripture but never read it, what is that but blatant condescension? We could hardly call ourselves Christian let alone Lutheran if subscription to the Confessions is only so much talk without conviction. If allegiance to the Gospel is limited to an occasional acquaintance with a back pew divorced from daily life, then repent and come again to the place of honor God has given you in His throne-room.

Take a Bible in hand with the creeds, catechism, and confessions and never let go. Why? Because from the Holy Scriptures you receive life and light in Christ. You find there the source of what the true church of God believes, teaches, and confesses. And what is this? It is precious good news! Good news of Christ.

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Men and Angels Sing

There are moments no camera, microphone, canvas, or poetry can capture. They must be lived.

One such moment of transcendent wonder was the night of Jesus' birth which must have been etched forever in the minds of anonymous shepherds who first received the great and joyous news that their Savior was born in Bethlehem.

Glory shone around them, but the glory "of the Lord" is a singular grade of splendor not reproducible through an artist's brush or poet's pen.

Thomas Kindade, the popular "painter of light" has portrayed on canvass a Jerusalem sunset and a sunrise on the Sea of Galilee. Another, called "The Good Shepherd's Cottage" is described in brochures as "utterly comfortable" and "radiant with light." But should he attempt to capture the field of Bethlehem washed with the glory of the Lord, I imagine the shepherds would politely decline it as nothing near what they saw. The splendor of the Lord was neither soft nor mellow.

Rather, this glory unnerved and overwhelmed the shepherds --- and, mind you, these were not men easily upset. The Bethlehem shepherds were not delicate fellows. They earned a masculine and wearing livelihood. They weathered the elements. They drove away predators. Familiar with sling and staff they clearly were not shy or timorous men.

Yet the presence of one angel made them faint of heart, and the glory of the Lord filled them with fear. Hard-edged men, tough, veteran fellows quaked with fear. We usually don't dwell on this part of the Christmas story. In fact, perhaps too hastily we picture ourselves in their sandals and think how enchanting to be visited by an angel.

It must be remembered however that any emissary from Almighty God is not someone to meet casually. Yes, the angelic declaration is gladsome, but it is also sobering. I've wondered about our ordinary greeting of "Merry Christmas." To me the word merry suggests a cheery joviality of wassail and spiced punch.

However, let us never be casual or cavalier with the awesomeness of Christmas. The scene of trembling shepherds reminds us no matter how rugged, practical, or composed a man may think himself to be, no matter how sure of himself, unflappable, levelheaded, or cool, the bare glory of the Lord reduces all men to jelly.

One may be a roughneck, but coming face to face with the glory of the Lord is a seriously seismic moment.

For angels also.

Bear in mind, as this was no ordinary night for the shepherds, neither was it for the holy angels. I don't think it adequate to call them "merry." They were jubilant. As sacred ambassadors with a message of overwhelming importance to the world, they delivered it in the exultant strains of an anthem echoing ever since, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"

There is nothing routine in this holy night for the angels. Even though they had witnessed great events from creation to the giving of the Law, even though a cherub was stationed at the entrance of Paradise armed with a flaming sword, even though angels of light guided Hebrews in the desert, contended with Satan for the body of Moses, and fill prophetic literature nothing rivaled this night. They had long sung His praises and adoring His holiness, but this night is the superlative hour.

This night is God's magnum opus, a divine tour de force. In Bethlehem is revealed an act of God so amazingly beautiful that it must bring forth the full choirs of angels to sing the heavenly song of peace and goodwill even to an audience of lowly shepherds.

Here was not jolly news to jingle about, but the universal Gospel. Here were momentous tidings of great joy for which the world had waited thousands of years. It was the glorious and magnificent information that told of God and His care and love for mankind. The battle for the salvation of all people from sin and death would not come through legions of angels or by the ranks of tough and sturdy men. It would be waged by a single baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

The angels can only watch with awe. The shepherds can only go and see this wonder. Neither light-invested angels nor strapping men familiar with hard toil will be able to do what this newborn Christ will do. In this child is God's ultimate commitment of Himself. He has made His eternal Son a man-child. He has made the Son of God not only lower than the angels but lower even than these earthy shepherds.

God has humbled Himself and exchanged His glory for the gore of a cross to come. This too, no pen or paintbrush, no human word or wisdom can fathom.

It must be lived.

And Jesus Christ lived it. He lived our life. He took on our nature and our burdens. He lived our sorrows and assumed our sins. And then He endured our death. He came and completed what choirs of men and angels will sing about for all eternity -- the gladsome truth that the Savior of the world is Christ the Lord.

It Ain't Easy

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

The Christian vocation calls for maximum exertion of thought, speech, will, and endurance along with plain guts. To say the least, it is difficult to live by faith in Jesus Christ. The hard work of a Christian is too frequently ignored by arm-chair Christians and, I’ll admit, not often enough preached.

Of all human callings the most difficult is a profession of Christ. It has nothing to do with talent. Whether one is clever or clumsy, whether mentally challenged or excels, the demand is the same. Let me be blunt: self-governance of thought, speech, and will is not just difficult, it is impossible. None of us has mastery of the tongue (James 3:8), of unruly thoughts, or of a flaccid will?

I have tried to picture even one day perfectly lived in Christian faith and discipline, a day without regret or shame. If I can't even imagine such, how shall I achieve it? In all my years I have yet to boast of one hour of reaching righteousness let alone a day. No Christian can manufacture perfection.

In sports one may hope one day to bowl a perfect 300. The amateur may accidentally heave a full court basketball into the hoop -- once. The no-hitter in baseball is rare but isn't impossible. But reaching moral perfection and righteousness before God by talent, effort, or luck is hopeless. To imagine otherwise is delusional.

In his letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul does not promote a “zone” of Christian action by which to earn God's praise and achieve a little private satisfaction. It is said of athletes that being "in the zone” is an exhilarating experience. The truth is that being a Christian is most often wearisome hardship, persecution with continual struggle and strain. (2 Tim. 3:12)

Of his record-setting performance in Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan said, "I couldn't miss. The threes were like free throws; they just kept dropping. I was in a zone. It's like it doesn't matter what they do [to stop me]." The ”zone” seems to be a charmed place where mind and body work in perfect synchronization and seemingly without conscious effort. You can be sure this doesn’t describe the Christian life of which St. Paul writes.

“Without conscious effort,” “perfect synchronization,” and “charmed” don’t describe Christian faith and duty. The Christian life is hard-charging discipline of thought, effort, and will.

Paul doesn’t picture Christians as a gaggle of runners all competing to see who is better, but of spiritual athletes striving to live out that best of all lives given us in Christ.

It’s not about scoring higher or accumulating better statistics. The Christian is anyone who lives by faith in Jesus Christ, and the person who thinks that’s easy doesn’t know what faith is in actual practice.

The discipline and struggle of the Christian, the enormously difficult self-control and exercise of love is not what makes someone a Christian. Rather, it exemplifies Christ, confesses him, and reflects His living presence in us.

Our Christian life, for now, is here on earth where the life of faith is a cycle that begins with the gift of the Holy Spirit, concentrates on reception of grace and mercy through meditation on God's word, and results in spiritual attack. This in turn leads a person back to further prayer and intensive meditation. It is rigorous spiritual labor.

A Christian must not be a sofa spud or deadbeat. A Christian must not be aimless or worthless. Anyone who contributes nothing, volunteers nothing, tries nothing, changes nothing, and never takes a stab at living by faith is not a Christian -- NOT because he has to do something hard to become one but because a living faith in Christ dares to believe. We believe that for us Christ contributed everything, volunteered everything, endured the consummate struggle, and redeemed the world through His own sacrificial life, death, and resurrection.

If someone believes this, then the new life must, of necessity, will oppose with every fiber a flabby, carnal, and meaningless existence.

The Christian disciplines himself. He works and serves and struggles because he has not been called to be a bystander or mere spectator. He has been called into life -- robust, vital, and gusty life in Christ.

When it is so easy to be limp, baggy, or wilted, let us confess our puny faith and give thanks that living out the Christian life isn't easy.

“Enter by the narrow gate,” Jesus said. “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

Hear, hear!

Sound Fit for a King

Death Sentence Sermon

Genesis 3:15

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

In Genesis 3, God preaches an Advent sermon to Satan. With no cute or clever delivery, God simply preaches the Advent of His Son, Jesus Christ, the woman’s offspring and Satan’s doom.

God speaks to the essential point which must be resolved. What is to be done about sin and it mastermind?

The Word of God is unambiguous. He makes no concession to demons who stir God's children to transgress His Word. Not for a moment will He endure sin without answer.

Here is God's counter-blow. There will be enmity; there will be hostility because no agreement can exist between darkness and light.

“For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor. 6:14b-16a)

The first Advent sermon was a death sentence. Satan didn’t come away bewildered by a wrong impression. God unmistakably set down what He would do and endure to redeem His people.

God conclusively declared that He would give over His Son, born of a woman, to bear the poison of death for each of us.

There would be fatal conflict between the evil one and the pure beloved Son of the Father. There would be no middle ground.

All Christ-centered preaching is direct address. It is not give and take, negotiable nor elastic. Preaching is divine monologue which, without compromise or concession, proclaims Christ alone as God and Savior.

Ever since this investiture of the Gospel Satan has sought to bleach and neuter Advent. Short of having his crushing defeat annulled, and unable to conquer Christ, the devil haggles for parity, still to make a fight of it. But God preached the conquest of Satan, sin, and death by the coming of Christ. The preaching of Christ in Genesis 3 was not a set-back for Satan. Rather, it was his shattering.

Without Christ’s Advent, there would be no life for us, no future and no joy.

I often hear Christians lament how Christ is being taken from Christmas by substitution of “holiday” trees or the safer “seasons greetings.” But I believe Satan is far more interested in taking Christ out of Advent and Advent from you.

Christmas is subsequent to Advent. Advent delineates Christmas. Without Advent there is no Christmas. Without Genesis 3 there is no Luke 2. Without the witness of God's incarnate Son to the woman in Eden, there is no Son of God in the woman’s womb at Bethlehem. Without God's ultimate first Word there is no ultimate final hope.

God came to our rescue. Genesis 3:15 is the proto-Gospel, the direct antecedent of “good news of great joy that will be for all the people; for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

The pulpit is for Christ alone. The mighty Advent sermon of Genesis 3:15 disallows anything other than Christ-incarnate, Christ-sacrificed, and Christ-victorious.

The Son of God has devastated death and sin. He has crushed Satan's head and in so doing borne all the damage of our iniquity Himself. The coming of Christ to have done this for us -- to have endured all this for us -- this is the incomparable Advent Gospel.