Brown's Daily Word 1/8/16

    Praise the Lord for this Friday.  Sunday is coming.  We will meet for worship and witness this Sunday at 11:00 AM, followed by a special fellowship time.  This weekend is a big weekend in terms American Football, one of our national past- times.  This weekend is playoff weekend.  My team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, are in the playoffs.  They will be playing tomorrow evening.  Yesterday I ran into a man who was dressed in Steelers garb from head to toe.  "What a fan", I said.

  

    Praise the Lord for the homes and the families where we live.  Praise the Lord for our loved ones, friends, families members, brothers and sister in Jesus Christ  in and through whom we are linked with one another.  One of the popular songs that  plays on Radio Stations during the Christmas season is, "I'll Be Home for Christmas".  As I was pouring over some authors in my own library and spending time reminiscing through previously read volumes, I picked up Frederick Buechner’s The Longing for Home.  Buechner’s deeply moving book of reflection and recollection on his own life and longing for home ended with some thoughts about what he called, “The Jesus Who Was and the Jesus Who Is.”

    Buechner wrote that the Jesus "Who Was" is a largely historical Figure who came, who lived, who died, and yes—we might add with confessional accuracy—the One who rose again from the dead.  However, the Jesus "Who Is" is the Lord who brings vision not only to blind eyes in the gospels but to our own narrow and blurred vision.  He not only is the Jesus who opened the ears of the deaf but the One who speaks to our deafened world, as Buechner put it, as “a voice unlike all other voices.”

    Buechner said: “The Jesus Who Is is the one whom we search for even when we do not know that we are searching and hide from even when we do not know that we are hiding.”³

    This morning, the blessings of the Newborn King come to those who welcome the good news of Jesus Christ.  The only thing remaining for each of us is to make certain we welcome not the Jesus "Who Was” but the Jesus "Who Is,” the Son of God, the Dayspring from on high, the Promised One for humble servants, who came, lived, died, rose again, ascended, and—right now by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit—stands in our midst, bidding needy people to open the doors of the secret places of our lives that He may come in and dwell with us.

   In Him alone.

     Brown

https://youtu.be/wNRFumI2ch0

Brown's Daily Word 1/7/16

Praise the Lord for this special day.  We join our brothers and sisters and fellow believers in the Orthodox church as they celebrate Christmas.  This day is a time of reflection, inner thoughts and healing in many eastern European countries.  Many Orthodox Christians fast before January 7, which is a day for feasting and enjoying the friends’ and family members’ company.  I spent some time at the local Civic Center where the Seniors gather every week day for lunch.  I announced to them that yesterday was Christmas Eve in the Orthodox Church.  They all shouted gleefully that they wanted Christmas gifts.  There was a couple whose husband was celebrating his 90th birthday.  He looked much younger than his age. 

    The Lord blessed us with a beautiful Wednesday Evening Gathering.  The food was sumptuous and the and study was provocative and challenging.  We are getting ready for our release time with the young students this afternoon.  We are excited.

    "When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.' So they hurried off…"

    In C.S. Lewis’ Narnia tales, Mr. Beaver tells little Susan that she’s about to meet mighty Aslan, king of Narnia.  Then Mr. Beaver adds that Aslan is a lion. “Ooh,” said Susan.  “I’d thought he was a man. Is he quite safe?  I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”

    “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver.  “Who said anything about safe?  ’Course he isn’t safe.... He’s the King, I tell you.”

    To come into the presence of God should give us a feeling not unlike that.  It’s been said the worship of God should give us the same feeling as if we were running with the bulls in Pamplona or surfing 40-foot waves along the Hawaiian coast, as if we were doing this wild, reckless, crazy thing that makes me feel more alive than we ever dreamed possible.

    May the Newborn King make us come alive this new year.  May He make us wild about Him.  May He make us reckless in loving and serving Him.  May He make us crazy about being in the Kingdom business.

   O come all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant.

  In Christ,

   Brown

https://youtu.be/e9GtPX6c_kg

Brown's Daily Word 1/6/16

Merry Christmas Eve!  As you may know, our Orthodox friends will be celebrating Christmas day tomorrow, January 7, 2016. 

    Yesterday the Lord blessed us with an amazing day. . . bright and beautiful.  I was in the Triple Cities yesterday doing some errands and I drove home in the  early evening. The evening sun was glistening on the snow capped fields and the hills.  It will be warming up somewhat today.  I was talking to friends in Orissa, India, who shared with me that the mango trees have already started blooming with sweet aroma.  The days have started to get longer, gladdening my heart.In the words of P. B. Shelley, the Romantic Poet of Great Britain, " O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?". 

    Praise the Lord for all sweet and simple gifts of love and grace.  My wife is busy concentrating with the latest of her puzzles, a vintage Harper's Bazar print - a Liberty puzzle.  Actually she started it on Sunday and just finished it this morning.

    I was talking to a local bee keeper yesterday. The wife shared with me that they have 800 beehives.  That is quiet impressive.  She said that they harvest honey of all kinds of flavors and colors.  In the Book of Genesis Jacob sent Joseph to visit his brothers in the fields away from home.  Jacob said to Joseph, almost out of context and out of blue, "And take some honey".  Life can be often bitter and brutal.  The Lord calls to us along the life's journey, "Take some honey (not vinegar)". 

    We will gather for our first Wednesday Evening Gathering of 2016 for fellowship and study this evening at 6:00 PM with a very special dinner.  We will be studying from the Gospel according to St John.  Lord blesses us with sweet fellowship and with His abiding love.  May He be praised.

    Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Epiphany.  The Epiphany narrative is recorded in Matthew chapter 2:

On their way they (the wise men) saw the same star they had seen in the East. When they saw it, how happy they were, what joy was theirs! It went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. They went into the house, and when they saw the child with his mother Mary, they knelt down and worshiped him. They brought out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and presented them to him.

    One of the favorite images of Christmas is that of the wise men traveling by camel through a starlit night.  One star dominated the sky as they arrived on the crest of the hill overlooking Bethlehem.  The journey was almost over.  It’s been a long trip from a country far away in the east.  There have been dangers along the way and they finally arrived at the town of Jesus’ birth.  With just a few hundred meters to go the wise men looked down from the star in the sky to the building lying below its light.  This is where they would find the new born king of the Jews that they had read about in the Scriptures.  This picture of the wise men is a very popular one on Christmas Cards and in our nativity scenes and Christmas plays.  We tend to place the wise men around the manger with the shepherds who have come to the stable to see the baby boy. 

    I am glad that the story of the wise men is told apart from actual celebration of Christmas when we focus on Jesus’ birth, the choir of angels, and the shepherds. The arrival of the wise men has been traditionally part of Epiphany which is celebrated on 6^th January, the 12^th day of Christmas.  One of the facts that Matthew  gives is that the wise men came with special gifts for the newborn king. The gospel writer tells us, "They went into the house, and when they saw the child with his mother Mary, they knelt down and worshiped him. They brought out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and presented them to him."

    Gold, frankincense, and myrrh – what strange gifts for a newborn.  Some speculate that these gifts were the principal items used in the wizardry and magic that wise men from the east may have dabbled in.  In this scenario, by giving the Christ-child gold, frankincense and myrrh, they were handing over their tools of trade.  They were demonstrating that they were no longer pagan dabblers in magic.  They were letting go of the past because they had found a new guiding star – the Christ child.

    Others have reasoned that these gifts are symbols of whom this baby was.
Gold is a gift fit for a king.  It represents power and wealth.  This child Jesus is both royal and kingly.  Frankincense represents that this baby is God come to earth.
Myrrh was used in embalming the dead.  It indicated this child’s humanity and foreshadowed his suffering and death as Savior of the world.

    These have been popular interpretations of the gifts that the wise men brought, but Matthew doesn't give us any explanation why they brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. Matthew simply gives us the facts. "They knelt down and worshiped him. They brought out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and presented them to him."

    To us these mights seem rather useless gifts but what do you give to this child who is the all-powerful God, who controls the stars to such an extent that a particularly bright star traveled westward and stopped over the place where Jesus and his parents were living?  When the Lord of the universe reaches down from heaven and touches the earth,

Brown's Daily Word 1/4/16

Thanks to be Jesus for this First Full week of the new year.  Praise the Lord for the magnetic power of Christmas that brings people, families, and churches closer to Jesus, the Prince of Peace, and closer to each other.  Praise the Lord for the Christ of Christmas who draws us to Himself once again, to the manger scene and the humble hamlet of Bethlehem,  where shepherds and wise men come to fall prostrate before Jesus.  Indeed the babe of Bethlehem connects us to the Divine and to others. 

    Thank you for your Christmas cards and greetings and gifts.  We heard from so many of you.  We heard from a very dear couple for the first time in 26 years.  They love the Lord and have served Him well faithfully.  They are now great-grandparents.  I rejoice in what the Lord is doing in all of our lives.  We heard from one family.  The wife was my secretary of the first church I served in 1978.  She had a stroke and is in rehabilitation.  Please join me praying for her that the Lord would raise her up into a newness of strength.  

    The Lord blessed us with beautiful gathering in His house yesterday.  Praise the Lord when His church gathers for worship and witness around the corner and around the globe.

    I read  a story of Kalamazoo, Michigan reporter Don Rice, who was stopped at a traffic signal when he saw a billboard for a medical center.  The billboard had a picture of the nativity scene with the words, “After Thousands of Births, One Still Inspires Us.”  Rice writes, “I salute the creator of the posting…I think one does not have to profess to be a Christian to get the impact of the message.  For whatever else Jesus was, I feel He seems to have been, and still is, man’s best man.”

    Mr. Rice is so right about the impact that Jesus’ message has made on the world.  Our Lord Jesus is God incarnate.  His impact is on several fronts in life.
Jesus impacts society.  Rice quotes Sidney Harris, “It is easy to think Christmas, and easy to believe Christmas; but it is hard—sometimes intolerably hard—to act Christmas.  It is not our false commercialism that prevents it, but our false spirituality, not the clang of the cash register, but the jingle of bells calls us to sentimentality, seducing us from the year-round ministry of brotherhood.”

    Doing Christmas isn’t easy.  Christianity is not a soft religion, but a tough faith to live and act upon.

    Rice said that the fraying of the fabric of our social life today is more and more perceived as a national obsession.  Fear is still everywhere, as it was 21 years ago when Rice was writing.  Fear is a major concern in our world today.

    A U.S. News & World Report editorial has stated, “Instead of a culture of common good, we have a culture of constant complaint; everyone is a victim…gone are the habits America once admired; industriousness, thrift, self-discipline, commitment.”
In such a culture it is more difficult than ever to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Despite this, our Lord calls us to make a difference in the society.  Jesus came to impact society, but He does it one person at a time.  Each of us matters to God.

    As I read the Bible I am impressed with the individual attention Jesus gave to people like us.  He talked one on one with people such as Nicodemus, Philip, Nathaniel, Mary, Martha, John the Baptist, an invalid at Bethesda, Peter, and many more.  We never will be lost in the crowd.  He knows us individually.  The Bible tells us that each individual is known so intimately that even the number of hairs on our heads are numbered.  Whatever we are going through, God will help us individually, so break down the walls and be open to Him.  It truly is a birth that inspires.

 In Christ,

  Brown

https://youtu.be/WIYz9w8Iom4

The Work of Christmas

by Howard Thurman
Graphics by Heather Peck

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the Kings and Princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flocks,

The work of Christmas begins.

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry

To release the prisoner,

To teach the nations,

To bring Christ to all,

To make music in the heart.