Let’s start by looking at the beginning of the Story of Jesus in Luke chapter 2 verses 1-7. I know what your going to say, I know that story, and your going to skip the text below, but please take a minute and read the scripture below and really think about it.
Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth.
This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.
And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city.
Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child.
While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth.
And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Did you catch that? When Jesus was born, he was homeless. He was born in a city far away from his hometown. There wasn’t even a room for him to stay in at any of the local hotels. The only place they could find for Jesus to be born, was out with the animals in a barn. Then to top it off his parents were so unprepared that they had to wrap him in cloths, to keep him warm, and laid him in a animal feed trough, which they used for his bed.
As you continue to read we see that Jesus and his family return to their home in Nazareth, but only for a couple of years. When in Matt. 2 we see that an angel appears to Joseph and tells him to take his family and to flee to Egypt, because Herod is searching for and killing all the baby boys under the age of 2. So here we see that Jesus is a refugee, an alien in a foreign land, until Herod dies and it’s safe for their return to Nazareth.
What we learn is that Jesus was born into homelessness and for the first few years of his life he lived as a refugee, an alien, an illegal immigrant in a foreign nation. You might think it’s just chance that Jesus was born homeless and lived his first few years of life as an illegal immigrant, but its not.
Later during his ministry Jesus describes himself the same way, Matt 8:19-20:
Then a scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.”
Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
You see Jesus was born homeless, lived as an refugee, alien, and an illegal immigrant, and then ultimately dies homeless.
So now let me ask you:
How often do you think of Jesus as the homeless person on the street? Or as the illegal immigrant? Or as the visitor from a distant land?
How often do you ignore that homeless person, the immigrant, or the foriegner?
The story of Christmas isn’t just a cute story about the romantic birth of a baby boy that will grow up to be the Saviour of the world. It’s a story to show us that God came to this world in homelessness, and walked this earth with us as an alien, a stranger, and an illegal immigrant. He wants us to understand that the people we so easily disregard are the very we need to love, that He identifies with them.
The care for the homeless, the alien, the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger are all keys throughout the Bible. The people of Israel were commanded throughout the Old Testament to take care of these people groups. When an outside came into their community they were to make that person feel at home and comfortable. In Isaiah 58:6-7 we see what true fasting looks like:
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
You see the down and out are important in the eyes of God. The story of Christmas is here to remind us that Jesus has experienced life as an outsider, as the homeless, as the alien, and as the refugee. It’s to remind us to never take forgraanted all of the people around us, to love those that the rest of the world thinks are a lost cause. That is the story of Christmas.
Again let me ask you:
How often do you think of Jesus as the homeless person on the street? Or as the illegal immigrant? Or as the visitor from a distant land?
How often do you ignore that homeless person, the immigrant, or the foriegner?
There have been many occasions that I have said that I am going to try and read through the Bible in a year, but this is the year that I am determined to do it. Â By the end of 2009 I will have read through the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice. I hope I can stick with this. I am already a day behind.
If you are interested in coming along for the ride and sharing your thoughts on your reading, and reading some of my thougths, you can do so by joining me at You Version and  looking for themisfit.Â
Comment below if you are interested and leave your username so I can follow you.
In the Bible Jesus says, “Go into all the world and make disciples. “(Matt:28:19)  To me, the theme of this verse is to make disciples.Â
If the goal is to make disciples then realistically should churches have short term missions trips? And if so, what do you think they should look like?
The reason I ask this is because Jesus says to make disciples. Â He does not tell us to go, get people saved and then leave. But instead to make disciples. Â Discipleship takes time, sometimes many years.Â
Typically, a short term missions trip is just that, short, usually a week or two. Â Is this enough time for one to disciple a person? Not in my experience.
I am not against missions trips, in fact I have been on my fair share of them and have enjoyed, and learned from, everyone of them.
I would love to hear what you think, so leave a comment!
In my short life I have had the opportunity to travel to a number of different countries. And in each of the countries I have been able to see how and where people live. I have seen the homes of the rich and famous and have seen the homes of the poorest of poor.
When I was 11 my family and I attended Youth With A Mission. With this missions group we traveled to and around Asia for three months. One of the most memorable places we visited, on this outreach, was the Philippines. To this day I can remember the smells, the smiles and the beauty of the people and the country.
Manila is home to an estimated 19,150,000 people and is the most densely populated city in the Philippines. With all those people crammed into one area there are hundreds of thousands of “homeless,” as 33% of the population of the city live below the poverty line. Everywhere you drive the roads are lined with tin roofed makeshift shacks.
If living on the side of a major highway is not enough, you can drive down said highway to place called Payatas. Payatas is the home of the Metro Manila dump. This place is not only a dump, but it is home to approx. 10,000 people. That’s right there are 10,000 men, women and children living on a dump. Without seeing it, it is hard to believe that people can live like that, but they do. There are whole neighborhoods formed on the dump. These neighborhoods include homes, and believe it or not stores. For the longest time I thought that this was one of the worst places to live, but then I heard of a worst place.
What can be worse than living with your family living on a dump? How about living in hell, literally? Also in Manila, Philippines there is a place called the Manila Northern Cemetery and believe it or not there are approx. 10,000 men, women and children living in the cemetery. If living in a cemetery isn’t bad enough the cemetery is so overcrowded (by dead) that every five years the crypts are broken open and the bones are thrown on the ground. Children live and play amongst the bones and skulls of the dead.
Don’t believe me, watch this video by Bill Wilson of Metro Ministries.
It’s hard for me to believe that there are people that live like this, but I have seen life on the dump first hand. It’s encouraging to know that there are people, like Bill Wilson and others, that are doing what they can to help these marginalized people.
You too, can help, by going to the Metro Ministries website and making a donation, or by sponsoring a child.
Tomorrow is Halloween and I can’t wait to get the kids dressed up and go trick or treating. Halloween is a holiday that I have always enjoyed. I went out trick or treating right up until I was 25. That’s right, till I was 25. The only difference is the kind of treats that people offer you. Instead of candy, I was often offered cigarettes, cigars, and alcohol. But it was still fun to dress up and have fun.
The one thing I don’t understand about this holiday, is all the controversy in the Christian circles. I have grown up in the church and have heard all the arguments about why Christians shouldn’t celebrate Halloween. But what I really don’t understand is why it’s not good to get dressed up and go door to door in the community. But it is okay for Christians to get dressed up and head to the church for a “Harvest Festival” or a “Reformation Service.” Whether you are out and about with your kids going door to door, or if you are at church participating in a Christian celebration, are you not still celebrating Halloween, just with a different name?
I have been reading through the Gospels again and taking a look at Jesus all over again. What I have realized is that the Jesus I was taught about in Sunday school and even today in church is a sanitized, cleaned up, tame version of the Jesus that is in the Bible.
What characterized Jesus and the 12 was their unpredictability. Jesus was always surprising the disciples, by eating at the wrong houses, hanging around the wrong people, and healing on the wrong day. The disciples never knew what to expect with Jesus. One minute he could be teaching a large crowd, or walking with the disciples. The next minute he was cursing a fig tree for bearing fruit out of season. And after that he was in the temple making a whip and trashing the place. If that’s not enough after trashing the temple he sat down with the people he didn’t send out, and began to teach. When the disciple finished making new rules, no kids around Jesus; don’t let the crowd touch Jesus; don’t talk to the Samaritan woman; don’t let people waste expensive perfume, Jesus told them to knock it off and the rebuke was often followed by a lecture.
The pharisees wanted Jesus to be like them and I think today we want Jesus to be like us, tame, predictable and domesticated. But the truth of it is that Jesus is not like us, he is unpredictable, he is not tame, he is not domesticated. When Jesus is present everyone is uncomfortable, yet glad at the same time. People don’t like surprises, they don’t want to be uncomfortable. We want a tame Jesus.
When we tame Jesus we lose our awe. Lose your awe of God and your left with and impotent deity (Mike Yaconelli).
We need to again get back to a relationship with the real untamed, unpredictable Jesus of the Bible. When we come into contact with this Jesus, that is when we become alive.
I was driving around in the loader the yesterday and was thinking about the church in North America. I was wondering if Jesus was alive if he would attend the church that I attend. I then that about what a church that Jesus would attend would look like. Both of those thoughts were just that, thoughts. But when I go home from work there was a message for me to call my mom, who has been reading the book of Amos and read me a few verses. I was amazed at the relevance of the verses that she read to my thoughts earlier in the day. Here are the verses from Amos 5:21-27 (from the Message):
“I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religious projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice–oceans of it.
I want fairness–rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.“Didn’t you, dear family of Israel, worship me faithfully for forty years in the wilderness, bringing the sacrifices and offerings I commanded?
How is it you’ve stooped to dragging gimcrack statues of your so-called rulers around, hauling the cheap images of all your star-gods here and there?
Since you like them so much, you can take them with you when I drive you into exile beyond Damascus.” GOD’S Message, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
As I read these verses, I couldn’t get over how church today has not changed in thousands of years. I have said to Simone many times that I wish we would sing songs that are actual worship songs. Next time your in church listen and think about the words that you are singing, how many of the songs are about “ME?”
I think this is self explanatory. What kind of church would Jesus attend? A church where he is the center of everything, and where people are there to meet with Him. It has nothing to do with a building, the media department, the worship team or choir or any of our many programs. It doesn’t have to be polished, perfect, or programmed.
Jesus wants to be part of a church where people worship, “in spirit and in truth!” Where he is the center, where people are singing because there hearts are full of love and thanksgiving for what He has done for them. Where giving is from the heart and not coerced, or to buy the most comfy pews. Where social justice is key, where the community is constantly at the forefront.
Let me start with the Love Christmas part. I love Christmas. The whole true meaning of Christmas, the birth of Jesus to come and save me from the sins that I commit everyday. I love the story of awe and bewilderment of a teenage couple being told by angels that they would be the parents of the Son of God. I love the story of Jesus humble entrance into this world, the fact that he could have made the most stunning entrance and yet, He enter the earth in one of the messiest ways possible.Yes there is lots to love about Christmas. The songs, the sense of community that happens around Christmas. Even wars have been put on hold for this one important day. It was by far and the most important day in the history of man kind, followed by the death of Christ. But this is where I begin to hate Christmas. You see no matter how much as Christians we say we know the true meaning of Christmas, I don’t think we do.We sit in our nice, not so nice, even palatial, well lit, heated, homes around a table piled high with, chocolates, candy, baking, turkey and a multitude of other food and drink and look at our Christmas trees around which are surrounded by stacks and stacks of gifts. We spend day, weeks and even some of us, months ahead of time planning and spending for one day.I must say that my family is no different we have spent and ate our fair share this Christmas. But like at no other time in my life as I sat around the Christmas tree and watched my children open their gifts I was sick to my stomach. And later as we gathered around the table to gorge ourselves on turkey, ham and all the trimmings I felt even worse. I began to wonder to myself What would Jesus think about Christmas?”Now I am not claiming to know what Jesus would actually think, but I think that he may be a little sick as well. I am not sure that he would be there around our trees, or our dinner tables. I am not sure that he would be sitting in our churches during our Christmas Eve services timed so the family can get in and out and home to the really purpose of the day, opening presents. What would he think about our giving into 4 of the 7 deadly sins:
Again I love Christmas, but I am sad that as a Christian I have allowed the true meaning of Christmas to escape my family. I am sorry that instead of dwelling on the miracle of the virgin birth, and what it means, I have allowed it to be just a story that we read quickly before we begin opening our gifts.Sorry God, for not celebrating your Sons birthday in the way that he is due.