My father was an avid story-teller who knew how to create suspense.   He masterfully drew listeners to the precipice of a story’s climax.  He was often called upon to speak publicly, especially at celebratory or ceremonial occasions.  With carefully chosen words, he lent gravity and significance to every proceeding, no matter how small or common. The natural drama that surrounds the holiday season especially primed my father’s pump. 

Christmas Eve brought convergence to my father’s love of suspense.  Before bed, we set out chocolate pie for Santa.   Then Daddy would pull out his giant reel-to-reel recorder and conduct interviews with my sisters and me. With a news reporter’s demeanor, he would conduct his man-on-the-street interview, probing our expectations for the day ahead.  As we prepared for bed, he scanned across oceans of static on his transistor radio for reports from NORAD about an unidentified inbound object over the Bering Sea.  We were never sure which was imminent – Santa Claus or nuclear holocaust?   Every detail of the evening was calculated to create suspense by asking the same question.  “When we wake in the morning, if we wake, will we encounter wonder or disappointment?”

My father knew this was never a settled question for me.  He knew that sometime in the night, I would wake and slip, as noiselessly as an eight-year-old can, into the living room where all things Christmas were contained. He knew I would investigate the pie plate then the wing-back chair which was the designated landing spot for the evidence of my goodness in the preceding year.  The pie plate looked like a crime scene and in the chair were many good things, but not every good thing.  Something was always missing.   The big item on my list – that something more — was never there.   Even as he slept, my father created suspense. 

In the morning, after Santa’s gifts were examined and family gifts were exchanged, just as my mother was getting up to begin lunch preparations, my father would notice something out of place, stuck in an unused corner or fallen behind some furniture.  With great fanfare and musings of “what is this” and “where did that come from,” he produced ‘something more.’

Christmas is often a season which leaves us looking for something more. Expectations are high, but our celebrations rarely deliver. And even when we take to heart Linus’ words to Charlie Brown that Christmas is about the birth of a Savior, we are left wondering what type of Savior He is. Is He a mere teacher, who increased the demands of the law from mere outward conformity, to the perfect obedience of heart, mind, soul and strength? Is He a mere example, come to demonstrate to us how to love and sacrifice for one another? Is He a revolutionary who incites us to throw off convention and tradition? Or should we look for something more? Our catechism asks, “What kind of mediator and deliverer must we seek?”

In Matthew 1, Joseph wrestled with the revelation of Mary’s pregnancy.   How should he respond?   What was to become of her?  And what about the child?  The Bible narrates Joseph’s deliberation and the Lord’s intervention.

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and they shall call his name Immanuel”

(which means, God with us)

Matthew 1:20-23

That path laid out for Joseph was, no doubt, not one of his alternatives.   But the angel’s words which vindicate Mary’s honor are given for much more than that.  They reveal to Joseph and to us that this child is much more than a mere human.  Or as our catechism says, he is “one who is a true and sinless man, and yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, one who is at the same time true God.”   This is the only type of savior who can save.  And this is the only type of savior we should seek.  

The doctrine of the Virgin Birth is not about Mary, but about Jesus.   The grace that is ours in the gospel is much more than we imagine or expected.  Join us this week as we examine God’s promise of Immanuel in Isaiah 7:1-17 and consider how God’s gracious promise points to something much more than we dared to hope or imagine.  

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

My enthusiasm for the Christmas season rivals that of ‘Buddy the Elf.’  Growing up, Christmas-time was filled with daily wonder.   Each Sunday we would light a bulb on the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering wreath for each $100 given for world missions.   A few Saturdays before Christmas, Daddy and I would load up our ax, travel to our garden spot, and cut a sparsely foliated (but free) pine for the living room.  What it lacked in branches was easily compensated with icicles.  The color-wheel was set up and blue electric candles lighted every window.  My mother made fudge and divinity on an industrial scale.  And on Saturday mornings, my father would patiently take me on the annual Christmas shopping pilgrimage – which always included chocolate-covered cherries and a calendar refill for Mama.

On Christmas Eve we would make all the final preparations.  Mesh stockings were hung on each door knob, in hopes that they would be filled with an apple, an orange, a giant candy cane and spice drops.  After supper, we would open our gift from Nana.  She always gave us the same thing — a new pair of pajamas.  Predictable though it was, it never got old.  Donning those flannel PJs signaled the beginning of Christmas.   Before bed, we would set out chocolate pie for Santa because my father said he would be tired of cookies by the time he made it to Georgia.   Then Daddy would pull out his giant reel-to-reel audio recorder and conduct interviews with my sisters and me.

My father had a flair for the dramatic.  With a news reporter’s demeanor, he would conduct his man-on-the-street interview with us, always wrapping up with the devastating question, “Have you been good this year?”  Of course, I always tried to answer a confident, “Yes.”   But in the quiet of my mind and the long night, conscience began to do its work.  Had I been good?  Had my merits exceeded my demerits?  Had my kindness overshadowed my unkindness?  Had I helped others more than I had hurt them?  How good did I need to be?  Had I obeyed my parents?  Had I obeyed them joyfully?

These days the darker side of Santa is rarely discussed – the vindictive, cold, works-based side of Santa Claus that delivers the punitive gifts of a lump of coal and a bundle of switches to bad children.  But in my childhood Santa’s Covenant of Works was well publicized.   Many hours of reflection would follow bedtime.  While Nana passed the hours in sonorous oblivion, under the weight of three quilts on my bed, I pondered the question, “Had I been good?”  How good did I need to be?  I had never heard of any of my friends actually getting a lump of coal or a bundle of switches, but would that be my lot?  Between considering other questions such as “how will Santa get in our house since we don’t have a chimney,” and “how can he get to every home in just one night,” the central quandary would return.  Had I been good?  In the final assessment, I could only hope that Santa’s intelligence network was not very good, otherwise I was sunk.   If he really knew who was naughty and who was nice, it would be coal and switches for me.

A man once came to Jesus and posed the same question, but concerning for a more serious outcome.  “Good teacher, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus reply was devastating.  “Why do you call me good, no one is good except God alone.  You know the commandments!”  Then Jesus proceeded to remind him of those commandments which related to people.  The young man’s superficial claim of perfect obedience was then met with a final command which utterly crushed him.  “One more thing, go sell everything and follow me.”    At these words he was saddened and went away grieving.   How good do you have to be ‘good with God?’   Well if it is up to you, you have to be perfect.  Unless you can love God perfectly with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength and your neighbor just as much as you love yourself, you will receive, not just the temporal punishment of a lump of coal and a bundle of switches, but the eternal wrath and curse of a just and holy God.

Who can make a claim to this kind of goodness?  The Bible tells us that “no one is good, no not one.”  But it is in that same context that we are told the good news that the judgment of God is not the last word.   God loved us and sent his son, the eternal Son of God, to become man, to live a perfect life and to die a sinner’s death on our behalf so that we might receive the gift of life through faith in Him, not by our works.   There is no hope for bad children with Santa, but with the eternal God, sinners have hope.  For Jesus said, “the one who comes to me, I will never turn away.”

Join us this Sunday as we examine Genesis 3 consider what the Bible teaches about the justice and the mercy of God for men who recognize that they are not good. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Life is better with a soundtrack.  In movies even the most mundane actions are rendered dramatic by a soundtrack.  We fill our lives with music to give emphasis to our daily life.   Our soundtrack takes shape in the playlists we curate.  In my youth this was limited to FM radio, but with the advent of Napster in the 90s and then its legal offspring, iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, and a host of others, we can add just the right musical context to every aspect of our lives.

One aspect that gets the most carefully crafted playlist is our funeral.   As a pastor and hospice chaplain, I officiate many funerals.   Sometimes the playlists are quite imaginative.  They reveal a lot about the person being eulogized.   And sometimes they are quite long.   One included, Tuesday’s Gone and Stairway to Heaven.   I have also seen Chubby Checker’s The Twist included.  And to the horror of the funeral directors, The Twist was accompanied by the family dancing around the casket.    

And while less, unconventional, there are many country songs which, though sweet in their sentiment, have significant theological problems.   Now I like Vince Gill and Steve Wariner as well as anyone, but Go Rest High is a tribute to Keith Whitley’s troubled life and Holes in the Floor of Heaven teaches in idea of heaven at odds with the Bible.   So let me encourage you as you are thinking of your funeral playlist.  Take some time to look at what the scripture says about life after death – both for the believer and the unbeliever – so that every part of our funeral service can bear witness to the goodness of our God and the truth of the gospel.

But what does the Bible say?   While we have considerable data in Isaiah and Revelation about life in the New Heavens and the New Earth, very little is given about the time between death and the resurrection and return of Christ.   Theologians refer to this time as the Intermediate State.   Some hold this is a time of unconscious soul sleep, others that it is a dreary dream world of souls in limbo.  Still others view this as a time of probation with a second chance for those that either did not hear the gospel or rejected it in this life.   But the Bible soundly refutes all these ideas and gives us a much better picture of a life absent from the body, but present with the Lord.

Sara Groves’ song, What Do I Know? articulates well the truth that despite what we don’t know about the ‘intermediate state’, it is what we do know that matters most.

I have a friend who just turned eighty-eight
and she just shared with me that she’s afraid of dying.
I sit here years from her experience
and try to bring her comfort.
I try to bring her comfort
But what do I know?
What do I know?

She grew up singing about the glory land,
and she would testify how Jesus changed her life.
It was easy to have faith when she was thirty-four,
but now her friends are dying, and death is at her door.
Oh, and what do I know?
Really, what do I know?
I don’t know that there are harps in heaven,
Or the process for earning your wings.
I don’t know of bright lights at the ends of tunnels,
Or any of those things.

She lost her husband after sixty years,
and as he slipped away she still had things to say.
Death can be so inconvenient.
You try to live and love.
It comes and interrupts.

And what do I know? What do I know?
I don’t know that there are harps in heaven,
Or the process for earning your wings.
I don’t know of bright lights at the ends of tunnels,
Or any of those things.

But I know to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord,
and from what I know of him, that must be pretty good.
Oh, I know to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord,
and from what I know of him, that must be very good.

What Do I Know? Sara Groves

Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine 2 Corinthians 5:1-9 and consider what this beautiful passage tells us about what we can know for certain about life in Paradise, while we wait for the Resurrection and the New Heavens and the New Earth.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.