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The Silence Of Christmas

Peace And Quiet? Or Peace On Earth?

My kids typically sleep in a little more than most. And that has been a blessing in a few different ways. Especially at Christmas time.

The Silence Of Christmas

We homeschool our kids, and because of that, we can begin our day on a little different schedule than many families. That enables us to allow them to stay up a little later than some, and it results in the fact that they sleep in a little later than many kids do.

That’s a fact that my wife and I enjoy, especially at Christmas time. I’m typically an early riser, and most of the time, I am in my office at the church before most of our kids are even awake. More often than not, even my wife is still snatching the opportunity to sleep a little more before the day’s chaos begins.

But at Christmas, I don’t head off to the office, I stay at home. I’m still up early. I shower and dress, and then I sit down with a cup of coffee and my Bible.

It’s quiet. It’s almost eerily quiet. I know that, soon enough, everyone will be awake, and then it will become crazy around our home while we begin the Christmas festivities and traditions that we enjoy.

But for a time, I enjoy the peace and quiet.

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The Timing Of Christmas

The Coming Of Christ Happened At Just The Right Time

I am really good at imagining a lot of “what if” style scenarios. I must have an overactive imagination, I’m not sure. I can come up with a variety of scenarios that spark my thinking. What would it have been like if it had happened this way? Christmas is a prime example of this.

The Timing Of Christmas

This displays itself mostly in those moments after a verbal exchange with someone. I can be thinking about it later and that’s when the perfect rejoinder appears in my mind. Mostly, it’s far too late to do anything about it, but my mind works along those channels sometimes.

I do this with biblical stuff too. I ask questions like, “Why did God do it that way? What if he had done it like this instead?” And most of the time, in situations like these, I end up at the somewhat unsatisfying conclusion of, “Well, that was just God’s timing.” Or, “That was God’s design.”

I don’t like that conclusion. It seems to be a cop out. But there are many times when that seems to be the only answer I’m going to get.

Take the birth of Christ, for example. Why did God choose to send his Son as a baby at the specific time that he did? I can think of several eras that I might have chosen instead. And so my mind wanders of into the land of “what if…” What if Christmas was different?

We wish you the happiest of Thanksgivings this year! Even with all the craziness we have experienced in 2020, please make sure you take the time to be thankful for the good things that God has blessed you with! Happy Thanksgiving!

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Jesus On Relationships in Matthew 5

A Look At Matthew 5:27-32

The next two topics addressed in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew both are centered on relationships. One is internal, and the other is more external.

Jesus On Relationships in Matthew 5

Many of the topics that Jesus address in this passage are topics that are covered in the Old Testament Scriptures. The Jewish people would have known these laws and rules quite well, and the Pharisees were known for keeping the Law to the letter as perfectly as they could. However, Jesus turns all of that upside down and makes the keeping of rules a matter of the heart.

He did that clearly with the topic of murder and anger. Now he turns to a couple of more intimate relational topics: adultery and divorce.

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Jesus On Anger in Matthew 5

A Look At Matthew 5:21-26

After the Beatitudes at the beginning of Matthew 5, the rest of the chapter is filled with short snippets of texts that are very familiar to our ears. The first one that Jesus addresses is the topic of anger.

Anger: Matthew 5:21-26

“You have heard it said…” That’s how Jesus introduces many of these topics. And for most of his hearers, they had heard it said. They would have been very familiar with the Mosaic Law, and for those who were part of the Council, the Sanhedrin, they would have been intimately familiar with it. They knew it frontwards and backwards. But they were missing the point.

Moses had given them this Law, and had done so while the nation of Israel was encamped around Mount Sinai, after the exodus from Egypt. But even though it came through Moses, he wasn’t the author… God was.

Jesus is about to turn their understanding of both the Law and its Author completely upside down.

He takes a phrase that they would have known well, “You shall not commit murder” (Exodus 20:13; Matthew 5:21), and completely reinterprets it. Murder was wrong, God had told them so when the Law was given.

But Jesus then states, “But I say to you…” He gives a new understanding of the Law. And he does it with the forceful authority of the Lawgiver, God himself. His hearers, especially those in the religious council, would have heard both messages quite clearly: Jesus was giving them a new understanding of the passage, and he was claiming to be God in the process.