I have a Pizza Hut craving about once a year.  The quality of Pizza Hut pizzas is not so great, that I could eat it more often.  Not more than once a year - only then would the pizzas be sweet to taste.

We ordered Pizza Hut in for dinner today.  The last time we had Pizza Hut was almost exactly a year ago, a Christmas farewell which a couple of youths threw for Joyce and I - we had decided that it was time to leave our previous church.

Every bite today and that day a year ago was bittersweet.

Having just wrapped two copies of Elie Weisel’s "Night" to give away for Christmas (the shipment arrived late), the truth behind these dark words just struck me as I was doing my devotionals today :

And I declared the dead,
  who had already died,
are happier than the living,
  who are still alive.
But  better than both
  is he who has not yet been,
who has not seen evil
  that is done under the sun.

- Ecclesiastes 4 : 2 - 3

Dear friend,

Merry Christmas (slightly in advance) !  It’s been six (maybe more, not quite been keeping count) Sundays since I last saw you, and I hope you’re closer to finding the answer(s) to your disappointments with church (and life ?).

The church has a very poor record when it comes to demonstrating God’s love to the world.

• The Pharisees loved God and they killed Jesus.
• Saul loved God and he killed Christians.
• The earliest Christians (who were mostly Jews) loved God and they wanted to circumcise the Gentile believers (ouch).

But the fact that God had these recorded in the Bible reminds me that God’s love transcends our human imperfections.  That God has not ignored the reality of how human wickedness can twist love to terrible ends.  That, notwithstanding the imperfections of the church, there is a model of Godly love that we can aspire towards and look forward to.

That model is perfected in Jesus Christ.  In a world where the tired, the poor, the sick, the outcasts, the marginalised, the unworthy, were desperately in need of a hope that they were loved by someone - a need that the church at that time (ie. the Pharisees and other religious leaders) should have met but failed to meet - Jesus demonstrated the depth of God’s love by dying on the cross for them.

And for us.

In John 15 : 13, Jesus told His disciples that "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." 

Jesus did not die for strangers.  The tired, the poor, the sick, the outcasts, the marginalised, the unworthy, those who were desperately in need of a hope that they were loved by someone, these were friends that Jesus died for.

God loves us and calls us His friends today.

I pray that you will (re)discover the depth and breadth of God’s love, and look forward to your fellowship again.

Take care.

Joyce and I were discussing finances the other day. We kind of concluded that money can never be quite enough - those with little will want more, and those a lot will want a lot more. She reminded me of a Psalm / Proverb where the writer asks God not for too little - lest he rob - or too much - lest he forget God. I said that I didn’t recall reading such a passage before, and then I read it the next morning for my devotionals -

Two things I ask of you, O Lord;
do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, "Who is the Lord ?"
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonour the name of my God.

Proverbs 39 : 7 - 9

In this time of economic prosperity, where the fortunate majority have more than enough (if reports are to be believed), a minority have more than excess, and only an unfortunate minority have too little, I thought this passage is particularly meaningful.

It is not that we wish to ignore Josh, but with Jed being the handful that he is, we find it difficult to give to Josh the kind of attention that we gave to Jed before Jed was born.  Anyway, here is one of the rare ultrasound scans of Josh with his face uncovered.  Josh may be born anytime after Christmas.

Of the four Gospel portraits of Jesus, John’s Jesus strikes me as the most personal. 

In the other Gospels, Jesus comes across as a great teacher and miracle-worker who preached to large crowds (Matthew 5), fed thousands from five loaves and two fishes (Matthew 14), calmed storms (Mark 4), rebuked demons (Mark 5), and healed the sick servant of a centurion without even seeing him (Luke 7).  Not always personal; sometimes hard to approach, as was the experience of the woman who had to secretly touch His cloak to get healed (Matthew 9).

But in John, Jesus attends weddings and turns water to wine (John 2), takes time to explain theology to a Pharisee (John 3), makes a detour to minister to a Samaritan woman at a well (John 4), saves an adulteress from death by stoning (John 8), attends a funeral where He weeps (John 11), and washes His disciples feet (John 13).

Only in John is Jesus referred to as the "Good Shepherd" (though He is referred to as "shepherd" elsewhere).  Only in John does Jesus call His disciples "friends".  Only in John is recorded Jesus’ command that Christians should love one another, just as He has loved us.

In John, Jesus is personal, intimate, human, real.  Not some enigmatic prophet standing at a distance proclaiming judgement, but the Son of God become flesh, treading the earth as one of us, enjoying our friendship, partaking in our joy and suffering, expressing in word and in deed the message of hope and grace at a level which our simple minds can grasp.

The Jesus whom John knew and loved was "the Word become flesh" who "made His dwelling among us", coming "from the Father, full of grace and truth".  A personal saviour.  "Immanuel" or "God with us", as He is otherwise referred to in Isaiah 7 : 14 and Matthew 1 : 23.

This Christmas, amidst the shopping, gift-giving and feasting, let us remember this Jesus whom John loved.  The Jesus who is personal, who came to us and became one of us on Christmas day, in order to bring us hope in this life and thereafter.

(in advance)

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  (George Santayana)

World War II Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Holocaust Museum

(Is it my imagination or does that sculpture look like it’s giving Ahmadinejad the finger ?)