Friends: So many people ask, “What is the meaning of Christmas?” The Apostle Paul was maybe the first to figure out, “What is the meaning of Christ?” See the column below. May the heart of Christmas continue always.  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #893

December 26, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

New Every Day

By Bob Walters

“He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” 2 Corinthians 3:6

Family scheduling has pushed our Christmas back a few days this year, but we’ll do the same old things in the same old way with a renewed spirit of surprise and love.

We’ll just do them this coming Saturday: Merry Christmas Day, plus five.

Funny how Christmas is largely the same every year yet new every year.  With minor adjustments I’ve put up the same basic outdoor Christmas display for 10 years.  Ditto wife Pam on the inside.  We will end 2023, stow the Christmas gear, go into the new year with hope and promise, and see what new mercies and surprises God has for us in 2024.  Some things get old; some never do. Jesus is like that for many of us.

I am currently about 300 pages into N.T. “Tom” Wright’s 2018 biography of the Apostle Paul.  And I guess you could say – thanks to Wright’s scriptural depth and Pauline expertise – I have a newfound appreciation for the “newness” of Christ. Among the earliest disciples and saints, Paul more than anyone truly “got” the fact that Jesus was something entirely new, yet, also, as old as the Garden and as eternal as God.

We celebrate Christmas as the arrival of God into humanity in the human form of Jesus, born in Bethlehem to the virgin Mary from the seed of the Holy Spirit into the tribe of Judah.  That was something really new.  So new, in fact, few – including Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Wise Men, and later the prophet John the Baptist, all of whom had been informed by angels proclaiming Jesus as Son of God, the Messiah promised to the Jews, and the savior of the whole world – could disconnect Jesus’s newness from their errant assumptions the Law of Israel, i.e., the Old Covenant …

… And then accurately reconnect Jesus to what Hebrew prophets had been saying for hundreds of years. Jesus wasn’t here just to save the Jews; Jesus was here to save everybody.  In fact, the New Covenant in Jesus would restore all of creation to God’s original purpose: the expression of His love, and revelation of His glory.

What was new about Jesus, as Paul’s quoted scripture above reminds, is that for various reasons “the letter kills,” i.e., the Law brings death.  How? The Law points out Israel’s failures and invites unloving comparisons and competitions.  The Law was meant only for the Jews: to identify them as God’s chosen people.  But they were chosen to reveal God – the One, Almighty, Creator God – in a pagan world full of man-made idols and cultural gods.  Jesus embodied the whole new mission and gift: eternal life through restored relationship with God through faith in Jesus, brought by the Spirit.

See? “The Spirit gives life.” God was always good.  God was always the giver of life.  God was always love.  God was always the Creator.  Those realities are as old as humanity.  After the fall in the Garden, humanity stumbled around in sin for thousands of years until God initiated His eternal plan of salvation by introducing Christ.

That’s what Jesus was saying throughout the Gospels; that’s what Paul was first to truly identify and expound.  And it is our ministry today.  The world will be new again when Jesus returns.  But Christmas is when we know God came to gather us all back. 

It’s not just an old story; it is truth that remains new every day.  Merry Christmas.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) and wife Pam spent Christmas in northern Michigan.

 Friends, Our Christmas joy is because of a person, not a holiday.  See the column below.    Blessings and Merry Christmas!  Bob

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Spirituality Column #892

December 19, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Lord is Near, Part 4

By Bob Walters

“The Lord is near to all who call on him; to all who call on him in truth.” – Psalms 145:18

My friend and mentor George Bebawi, the Coptic priest, Bible translator, patristics (early church history) expert, and retired divinity lecturer at Cambridge University, England, teasingly but truly let his disgust for modern Christmas be known.

“What is this Jingle Bells?” he’d intone in his raspy accent. George joked about once taking a pen knife and carving up a blow-up Santa Claus at a friend’s place of business in Carmel, Ind., where he retired. Similar stories were part of knowing George.

Christmas, George maintained, was the incarnation recorded in John 1:14, “and the Word became flesh.” Salvation came near in a living person, Jesus, not in a holiday.

In Jesus, God entered humanity, the eternal encountered present time, and the Spirit embedded in man as God’s image quickened and animated the sinful human heart with hope and faith.  Jesus the Lord was now near, and joyous, renewed, personal relationship with God Almighty became possible for fallen man. “Jesus not only taught the truth,” I heard a radio preacher say recently, “Jesus was the truth to be taught.”

Yes, the Lord is the Truth and Christmas tells us the truth: the Lord is near.

Jesus at Christmas is that thing that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, and fills one’s heart with peace and joy.  That is God tapping us on the shoulder, inviting us to knock on His door and invite Him into our lives. We think we are seeking Him; Christmas should tell us He is already here, seeking us.

The Baby Jesus, gifts, and the red-suited Santa Claus may be the leading symbols of Christmas, but it is the rescue mission of God – Jesus coming to invite sinners back into God’s Kingdom – that is the true meaning and the true gift of Christmas.  Jesus is Emanuel, God with us. I believe Santa understands that.

Santa’s Letter to Jesus

Speaking of Santa Claus, I have no idea who wrote the following, but it has been working its way around the Internet: “Santa’s Letter to Jesus.”  Take it to heart.

My dear precious Jesus, I did not mean to take your place,

I only bring toys and things and you bring love and grace.

People give me lists of wishes, and hope they come true;

But you hear prayers of the heart and promise your will to do.

Children try to be good and try not to cry when I am coming to town;

But you love them unconditionally and that love will abound.

I leave only a bag of toys and temporary joys for a season;

But you have a heart of love, full of purpose and reasons.

I have a lot of believers and what one might call fame,

But I never healed the blind or tried to help the lame.

I have rosy cheeks and a voice full of laughter,

But no nail-scarred hands or a promise of the hereafter.

You may find several of me in town or at a mall;

But there is only one omnipotent you, to answer a sinner’s call.

And so, my dear precious Jesus, I kneel here to pray;

To worship and adore you on this, your holy birthday.

Santa is only as real as we make him, but Jesus is the real deal of Christmas.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wishes all a Merry Christmas! Be near to Jesus.

Friends, Christmas has always been a big deal to me, even when I didn’t know Jesus was near. See the column below. Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #891

December 12, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Lord is Near, Part 3

By Bob Walters

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” – Psalms 145:18

I’ve always been a big fan of Christmas, even when I didn’t know Jesus.

My parents made a big deal of it when I was a child, including Christmas Eve church. When living alone after college, I made a big deal of it, trimming a “real” tree in my small rental house. Upon marriage and parenthood, we made a big deal of it.  And now as a busy but empty-nester senior citizen, I put up more Christmas lights than ever.

“There’s a kind of hush, all over the world, tonight” was a pop-song lyric from the mid-1960s (by Herman’s Hermits) that had nothing to do with Christmas as a song but, now that I think about it, the words have everything to do with the truth of Christmas.

That “kind of hush” exactly describes Christmas Eves throughout my life. But I have to reflect back, in light of a new discovery at age 47, what that “hush” actually was and always had been: the true Lord and Savior Jesus Christ standing close to me, and the Holy Spirit saying, “Shhh … the baby is sleeping,” and “Jesus, the truth, is near.”

Christmas for me is not an exercise in precise definitions; truth is often that way.

I’m completely OK not knowing exactly when Jesus was born, and that the common nativity narratives, “no room in the inn,” etc., are generally misinterpreted.  Even biblical culture today has little appreciation of the tribe-of-David kinship and semitic hospitality of first-century Bethlehem. (See explanatory links at column’s end.)

An absence of facts does not necessarily mean an absence of truth. Secular philosophy rejects that notion, as it empirically rejects faith: only facts equal truth.  Nor does one’s refusal of faith or a misunderstanding of facts negate reality.

Reality, you see, equals truth, and vice versa; there is nothing more real than God. It is our understanding that needs work: not God’s messaging, and not God’s truth.

The secular, commercial, and winter festival trappings of this “most wonderful time of the year” (Andy Williams, 1963) bring near to us – unavoidably near to us – great opportunity for nearness to, and danger of distance from, the Lord who saves us.

The Lord is near when our minds and hearts welcome God Almighty into the human race He created for good. And when we embrace the loving, sacrificial, healing, and renewing arrival of His Son, that’s Christmas, that’s nearness to Jesus, that’s hope. 

Christmas at a distance from faith in Christ – as in, Happy Holidays/The Party – can be an unloving grind of obligation and a vacuously missed opportunity for divine, purpose-rich regeneration.  The true Kingdom remains distant if at Christmas the Bible is opaque and Jesus is unseen; gifts and worldly cheer are merely temporal comforts.

I believe it was Luther, or possibly Calvin, who put forth the notion of “prevenient grace.”  That’s when God, who is always looking for you, is also looking out for you before you come to faith in His Son Jesus.  The world’s hush and humanity’s wonder at Christmas is the grace of a God who is already near, inviting us to accept that grace.

I always felt a mysterious, loving hush and closeness at Christmas.  Little did I realize, until I was older, it was Jesus.

It was that kind of hush because the truth was that kind of close.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) offers some middle-eastern insight into Mary, Joseph, Jesus and that night in Bethlehem HERE column 736 and HERE column 372.

Friends, Generally speaking, the truth is better than a lie where relationships are concerned. Here is a story from my working past and some observations about Christmas.  See the column below. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #890

December 5, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Lord is Near, Part 2

By Bob Walters

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” – Psalms 145:18

Some years ago, I was the public relations exec for an Indy Car auto racing team whose owner had called a secret meeting in Denver of the other 16 or so team owners.

This was the old CART series in the late 1980s (which then fielded most of the cars in the Indianapolis 500) and every team owner was there except for Roger Penske, who was in touch by phone.  I admit many details have faded away, but I was the only non-owner in the room and charged with keeping the minutes.  So, I was there.

Somebody – not me – had tipped off the media, evidently just that morning, that the meeting was happening.  By mid-afternoon a handful of nimble-footed motorsports newspaper and magazine writers had hustled to Denver and camped outside the hotel meeting room where the owners had gathered.  Secrets were famously not well kept among the owners, but one owner proposed the following for dealing with the writers:

“Have the PR guy (pointing at me) go out and lie to them.” He sounded serious.

“Go out and lie to them.” I had seen PR guys try that before; it was never pretty.

I bring this up – a story not about Christmas or Jesus or church, but I’ll get to that – because it speaks to the fallen, human default mechanism of being threatened and evincing a first, self-preservation instinct to lie. Even if it is a joke. Or not. Ha, ha, ha.

The art of public relations, and specifically media relations, is to present the best possible version of the truth, or to say nothing.  Some PR efforts are successful because they widely promote a message; others because they maintain silence. Except in life-or-death or wartime security accommodations, rule No. 1 is that it is a bad idea to loudly proclaim a false idea, especially when the truth will be known shortly.

Like, from a chatty motorsports team owner’s mouth.  Lies kill relationships.

Now let’s tie this idea about truth into Jesus, Christmas, humanity … and Peter.

Peter famously denied the truth of his relationship with Jesus in the high priest’s courtyard as Jesus was “tried” by the Sanhedrin (Matthew 26:69-75).  I don’t believe Peter ever lost faith in Jesus, but rather he, momentarily, lost his own personal sense of security knowing Jesus would be killed. In his fear-driven weakness, I give that one to Peter. Besides, it was not his time, and Peter’s witness of Christ later would be critical.

At Christmas, today, we observe and, in many cases, share and even live the secular nonsense of all the “Happy Holidays” blather that may errantly lead us – and importantly, others, especially non-believers – away from sincere relationship with Jesus.  Our own closeness to Christ isn’t in danger because somebody wishes us “Happy Holidays”; we should live that divine closeness 24-7-365 (ok, 366 next year).

Our challenge is to use this season to promote the best possible version of the truth about Jesus … to anyone we can.  Like Peter in the courtyard, we may be cowed by public opinion: either reluctant to speak up, or swept along in the happy tidal wave of folks who celebrate Christmas but reject a saving and obedient relationship with Jesus. 

Yet … there is that unmistakable Christmas magic and truth – that presence and sense of the eternal, the heart-tug of “something bigger than me out there” – permeating the season’s joys.  I felt it long before I believed in salvation, God’s love, repentance in Christ, or the Spirit’s abiding comfort. Jesus was always near, but I denied His truth.

May the Lord’s Christmas nearness speak the best possible truth into every soul.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows discernment matters: lying to protect another’s feelings can be merciful, or to respect another’s privacy, honorable.  Let wisdom reign.