characters of CHRISTmas revisited: a Father's love

after writing the post yesterday, i was lying in bed thinking about my family (i am currently six hours away from them) as i was looking at the CHRISTmas tree on my little table.  i began to think about CHRISTmas, and why i love it as much as i do, and also about how much it’s changed for me personally over the years, and it got me to thinking about another overlooked character at CHRISTmas:  God the Father.  i want to tread very lightly for this post, because i would never want to be construed as speaking for God, or anything like that.  there are enough charlatans out there doing that already.  but i want to look at what we know from Scripture about the nature of God the Father, and look at it through the filter of the CHRISTmas story.

growing up, CHRISTmas was always an exciting time in my life, as my parents always made sure to make the day special for us.  my wife’s dad also did the same thing for them, with little traditions that he observed every year.  many families have their own unique CHRISTmas traditions that add to the holiday spirit, and build the excitement for the kids.  i can remember the excitement that would start after thanksgiving when the CHRISTmas commercials would start on tv, and the sears wish book would arrive in the mail.  back then, it was about the magic of the season, and somehow all seemed right with the world on that one day of the year.  even as a kid i felt that.  when the presents were opened, and the wrapping paper discarded, and the tree was once again empty of its treasures, the day still seemed special.  as i got older, things shifted, and CHRISTmas was a time to look forward to because it was a time all the family came together.  and when i became a father, it shifted in a way that can never be accurately described in words, but it was now different.

i was now a dad, entrusted with raising a son, which soon became two more sons.  as a father, i became their provider, and i would sacrifice anything i had to make sure my sons were taken care of.  i became their protector, and was prepared to rain down the wrath upon anyone or anything that hurt my sons.   when it came to CHRISTmas, i wanted my boys to remember CHRISTmas the same way i did, and to have that magic.  my wife and i took those traditions that meant so much to us from our childhoods and wove them together to create our own unique traditions that would instill that magic in our boys, and hopefully they can pass down to their kids one day.  

so last night, as i was thinking about all of these things, i started thinking about God the Father, and how He must have felt that first CHRISTmas.  i can never imagine the depths of love He must have for us to sacrifice what He did in sending His Son down to earth for us.  He was born in a stable, where animals were kept, and was laid in a feeding trough for those animals.  for those of you that have kids, imagine allowing your infant son to be born in the most squalid hospital in a third world country.  i wanted my sons to have the best, and i don’t have the love He has for us to the degree that i would allow my son to be born in those conditions.  

but God the Father did, and He did that for us.  

yet that first CHRISTmas was only to be the start of a very tough and challenging life for Jesus.  He would have a ruthless power hungry king try to kill Him within the first years of His life.  and it would cause his family to pack up everything in a hurry and flee to a foreign country.  

do you have enough love for others that you would allow your son to be born in an area where you knew his life would be threatened?  i don’t.  but God the Father did.  

Jesus would grow up in a meager home, what we would consider lower blue collar today.  this is someone whose rightful home was Heaven in all its splendor, and He would grow up learning to use His hands to work hard to scrape by a living.  

do you have enough love for others that you would send your son to be raised in such a meager way, when He deserved all the riches and glory of a king?  i don’t.  but God the Father did.

He would grow up and would be ridiculed and be the topic of gossip in the area.  Scripture tells us that people referred to Him as mary’s son.  in that society, that was a slight.  males were always referred to by their father’s name, yet they didn’t call Him joseph’s son.  so they were in essence calling him a bastard, implying that they didn’t believe mary’s story of the virgin birth and that joseph wasn’t His real dad; rather, He was conceived out of wedlock by mary’s indiscretions, and that joseph fell for it.

do you have enough love for others that you would send your son to be raised among people who would ridicule him and mock him?  i don’t.  but God the Father did.

the last time we see joseph mentioned in Scripture is when Jesus is 12, and is at the temple discussing Scripture with the rabbis.  many scholars believe that joseph likely died shortly after that time, because he is never mentioned again, even though mary and His brothers were.  in that society, there were many things that could kill a man, and for someone that worked with their hands, simple wounds from a wayward saw blade or smashed finger could turn gangrenous and quickly take a life.  this is likely why Jesus was never married, at least on a practical level, because the father was in charge of securing a bride for their sons.  so Jesus would have spent those difficult teenage years without a father, and would have been thrust into having to be the provider for the home at a very young age, since it was the male’s responsibility to provide for the home.

do you have enough love for others that you would send your son to a family, knowing that he would experience a heart-breaking loss, and would have to be responsible for providing for a family and never enjoy the bonds of marriage?  i don’t.  but God the Father did.   

He would grow up, and we know the story of His ministry, and the hardships He faced.  we know the abandonment He faced by those He came to save, who called for His death.  we know the betrayal He felt by those He called friends.  we know the horror of the cross and the cruelty of the romans who would torture Him in the hours leading up to His death.  

do you have enough love for others that you would send your son to be subjected to the emotional, mental, and physical anguish that would be forced on Jesus?  i don’t.  but God the Father did.

so that first CHRISTmas, i wonder how God the Father must have felt?  because i know how i would have felt.  it pains me to see my sons hurting, and i would have stepped in many times throughout their lives if they went through what Jesus did, but God didn’t.  i love people, but there is no one i love enough to sacrifice my family for.  sure, as a pious CHRIST-follower i’m supposed to say i would, but in being honest, i admit that i wouldn’t.  the song, “how deep the Father’s love for us,” is playing through my head right now.  as a dad, CHRISTmas has taken on a new meaning, a deeper meaning, a “peek behind the curtain and seeing the reality behind the magic” meaning.  so when you think about God the Father at CHRISTmas, remember that He is a dad, and Jesus called Him “Abba,” meaning “daddy.”  most importantly, remember the sacrifice He made in sending His Son for us, His “only begotten Son,” because He loved us so much, something unfathomable to me as a dad.  

CHRISTmas is about God the Father’s sacrifice. 

“for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

are you a “whosoever”?  

characters of CHRISTmas revisited: is this one of those "scary ghost stories"?

a few years back, (well, actually eight years!  wow!) i wrote a series of posts on the characters in the CHRISTmas story from the bible.  the major characters of mary, joseph, shepherds, wise men, and caesar augustus were all discussed, as were minor or implied characters such as zechariah, anna, simeon, herod, and even the innkeeper.  i thought i had covered everyone, but as i was reading through the CHRISTmas story in matthew today, one stuck out to me that i had never noticed before, enough that it caused me to want to get back on here and write about it, because odds are, you missed them, too!

i want to take you back, just for a moment, and have you revisit a scene from the CHRISTmas story.  this is not a character people like to focus on in the story, because it doesn’t fit their idyllic version of CHRISTmas, but it is one that is important to not miss.  imagine, for a moment, that you are a mother or a father in the region of bethlehem, an area approximately 16 square miles just south of jerusalem.  you have a toddler, a boy under two years old, that is playing in the floor of your house, when there is a knock at your door.  you answer the door and there are a half dozen soldiers at your door.  they push past you, and walk over to the toddler playing on the floor, and run him through with a sword, killing him, and then they walk out.  this is how you will forever remember this day.  not happy memories.  not peace on earth. it’s a memory that you would like to forever remove from your mind, but won’t be able to.  you may not have even been aware of the birth of a special baby boy within the last two years.  all you know is that your world has just been shattered and you are left to pick up the pieces, perhaps not even knowing why.

this is the reality of the CHRISTmas story.  it’s the reality of the world Jesus was born into.  it’s a reality of the world we live in today, a world marred by sin that Jesus came into in order to redeem.  while many of us have nice memories of CHRISTmases past, others are not so fortunate.  their memories of CHRISTmas are ones of nightmares. of abuse, of violence, of poverty, of drunken relatives, of absent fathers or mothers, of screaming, of trauma, of prison, of war.  they did not ask for these memories, they may not have a discernible source of blame for these memories, other than the ones that forced them on them, but they are stuck with them all the same.  they dread the holidays coming up, because of the memories they bring, or perhaps because they know what awaits them during the holidays.  the cycle may still be continuing, and their CHRISTmas will be filled with those same things that they grew up with.  as a chaplain, i hear it all the time, of how the sailor or marine will be staying on base for CHRISTmas because it’s better than going home.  i have known friends who hated CHRISTmas and did everything they could to avoid acknowledging the holiday.  they suffered with those memories that they could not/can not erase from their minds.  throughout our world, CHRIST-followers are forced to celebrate CHRIST and CHRISTmas in secret, for fear of tyrannical governments that would jail or kill them.  CHRISTmas day atrocities are committed around the world against CHRIST-followers, with increasing frequency.

so how does this line up with the story of CHRISTmas?  the story of CHRISTmas is there, in all it’s exposed truthfulness, as a story of peace in the midst of a broken and violent world.  not the peace that men envision, but peace between God and man.  Jesus repeatedly talks about this broken world, and how His coming would have far-reaching effects for the rest of history.  He reminds us that His peace is not peace as the world sees it, and also warned us that as far as His purpose, He came not to bring peace, but a sword.  that is because this world is the enemy’s territory, and satan hates the gospel, and will do everything within his power, including using people and their propensity for conflict and violence, to stop it, but ultimately will fail.  the Sword of the Spirit is the sword Jesus brought, which was the Word of God fulfilled in Him.  that is why john says, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  did you catch that? the Word is Jesus, the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.  why did He do this, knowing the calamity that His coming would bring?  He did it because there was no other way for the gap between God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness to be bridged.  He did it because the eternal is far greater than the temporal.

so while the CHRISTmas season may not be joyful for many people, that is all the more reason for us to tell them the real meaning of CHRISTmas.  the peace of God surpasses all understanding, and can not only redeem the holiday for those who dread it, but it can redeem their very souls.  Jesus said that in this world we will have trouble, not we might, but we will, but He has left us His peace.  and the only way that peace can be received is through the saving work of His death and resurrection.  because that is why He came, for the violence that His birth wrought would be the violence that He would surrender to in order to free us from the nightmare of sin and this broken world, and all of the horrible memories it contains.

my question to you this CHRISTmas is do you have that peace?  did you grow up knowing the meaning of CHRISTmas, or just saw it as a holiday with presents and a nice story juxtaposed over the trauma as the stresses of the commercial holiday resulted in conflict, oblivious to the coming of the CHRIST?  is the CHRISTmas season a time of rejoicing at the arrival of Emmanuel, God with us, or a time of getting bogged down in the tragic memories of the past, of failed examples of what CHRISTmas should have been?  if it’s the latter, i pray that you will seek CHRIST and His face, and you will truly find His peace.