Month: December 2022

In an article in the New York Times by Ruth Graham with this same title, it was reported that:

“StoneBridge Christian Church in eastern Nebraska is known locally for hosting a big annual fireworks event, which this fall included 15 food trucks and portable firepits for making s’mores. But it’s the Christmas season that is “our Super Bowl,” said the church’s executive pastor, Mitch Chitwood. This year, the church’s four locations in the Omaha area will host four “Jingle Jam” family parties in December and nine services on Christmas Eve, complete with classic carols, Christmas-themed coffee drinks and a festive photo booth in the lobby.

“What they will not have is church on Sunday, Dec. 25. On Christmas Day, StoneBridge will offer a simple community breakfast, but no religious services.

‘“We still believe in the Sunday morning experience, but we have to meet people where they are,” Mr. Chitwood said…’

Again, the Article said:

“This year, more Protestant churches seem to be making the decision to simply opt out. Though a clear majority will meet in some form on Christmas Day, fewer will do so than in 2016, when 89 percent of Protestant pastors said they were holding services, according to a survey by Lifeway Research, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. This year, that number dropped to 84 percent….

“Among nondenominational evangelical pastors, who tend to be informal and pragmatic in their approach to church matters, the numbers hosting Christmas Day services are significantly lower: Only 61 percent say they will do so, according to Lifeway’s survey.” (New York Times, Dec. 18, 2022).

So, I just wanted to comment on this.

First, this Sunday will be like all of our other Sundays. We will have Bible classes on Sunday at 9:00 a.m. for all ages and we will have our worship together at 10:00 a.m. to celebrate with the Lord in communion, prayer, singing and preaching. It is, we believe, what the Lord has asked us to do on “every first day of the week” (c.f. Acts 20:7 with 1Corinthians 16:1-2).

Second, this Sunday will be like all of our other Sundays. Yes. I am repeating myself. It is a day we remember the Lord in the way He has commanded us to remember Him in worship (c.f. 1Corinthians 11:24). We may speak of any part of His life, including His birth, in the teaching of the day but our worship is to center around what we gather to do: “On the first day of the week when we were assembled together to break bread…” (Acts 20:7).

Third, this Sunday is not like a national or health emergency. If there was a tornado wreaking havoc or flooded streets from a hurricane, or a health emergency, that would not be the same reason as stopping services because families need stocking time, brunches or because attendance is expected to be low. The Pandemic was and is a painful reminder of the broken world in which we live – but canceling services because Christmas morning would require people to leave their PJs and come worship the Lord is an entirely different thing.

Fourth, it is not the America of my youth that I pine away to wish back – but the churches of my youth where serving the Lord in His way was the way to serve Him. The standard we follow for making choices for what we will do on December 25th is the same as what we do on every other day – whether it is a Sunday or not. But how much more will what we do on a Sunday reflect how earnestly we follow these words?:
• “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24)
• “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you” (Matthew 6:33).
• “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
• “He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything” (Colossians 1:18).
• “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2).
• “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).
• “But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4).

Lastly, I will be “in church” on Sunday because I want to follow Him. I could think of no better way to honor the Lord of my life; no better way to keep Him the reason for every season; and no better way to show my children what “As for me and my family, we will worship the Lord” (Joshua 24:15) really means.

I pray I see all of you too.

-Don Hooton

Taking the lead from a book called “Compassionate Creator: Becoming Human For Me” by Bruce Morton, we will take a look at the entrance of Jesus the King into the world in which He was born. Paul reminds us that “at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 6:6) and to the Galatians he wrote, “when the fulness of time came, God sent His Son..” (4:4). So, there is value in understanding, along with the written text, the events and the environment that led to God sending His Son into the world.

Secondarily, the study will also reveal how vastly different was the birth of the Son of Man compared to the gaudy scenes of popular religion. The scene of Joseph, Mary, the infant Jesus, wrapped in beautiful clothes, with animals, shepherds, angels and wise men all surrounding the manger to worship the Christ Child. The scenes, repeated over and over as if they are historically true, have contributed to the hindrance of people understanding the true message of that King.

So just how common was Jesus?

Was Jesus a man?

In the four Gospels, there is ample evidence that Jesus was fully human since He was born to a human mother (Matthew 1:25), He experienced hunger (Matthew 21:18) and thirst (John 19:28). Jesus also experienced temptation (Matthew 4:1) pain and suffering (Matthew 16:21), and He died (Matthew (27:50).

In fact, three words the writer of Hebrews uses indicate his understand of Jesus when he wrote: “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17).

So, we should not dismiss what we have in common with him – that He was “like his brothers”. In fact, the writer says, “in every respect.” This comparison is to all the things of the context – namely that we face death, and fear death, and that he has set us from those things that he shared with us.

Had Jesus only been fully God, then He never would have had these human experiences. However, Jesus was more than a mere human.

Did He claim to be more than a man?

The New Testament records several instances in which Jesus affirms, or at least does not deny, that He is God. In a few cases, He identifies Himself as divine outright. In John 10:30-33, Jesus says He is one with the Father God, which causes the devout Jews to want to execute Him for blasphemy. They say what His words imply: “You, a mere man, claim to be God?” (NIV); “make yourself God” (CSB; ESV). The context demands we consider Jewish history – the very thing that prompted their response. When God first appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses asked God for His name. And God gave Moses an interesting reply: God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). For generations following this interaction between God and Moses, the Israelites revered the name of God (“I AM”) as a precious title that was not to be slandered or given to anyone or anything other than God himself.

Now read again John 8:49-58. Jesus made two remarkable statements. First, he claimed to be eternal and to have existed before Abraham! But more importantly, Jesus called himself by the ancient title ascribed only to God Himself, “I AM”. The Pharisees knew exactly what Jesus meant by this. From their perspective, Jesus said specifically, “I am God”. How do we know this was their interpretations of His words? We know it from their reaction. They responded by attempting to stone Jesus for claiming to be God (an act of blasphemy they considered worthy of death). And then, in Mark 14:61-63 (NIV), Jesus is on trial for His life and is asked, “Are you the Christ, Son of the Blessed One [that is, God]?” He answers, “I am,” and then calls Himself the “Son of Man,” which is a title used for an exalted heavenly figure in the Old Testament on Daniel’s visions (Daniel 7).

Was Jesus God?

Because these are not our experiences and outside our own frame of reference, they are often degraded to the impossible and a difficult concept for us to understand. It would be easy to understand if Jesus were merely fully human but not divine. We could also more likely accept it if Jesus was fully divine but not human. And, if all humans were fully human and fully God we would easily understand it. However, no one is fully human and fully God except Jesus so we lack a frame of reference that helps us to understand this concept.

Because of this uncommon experience, some have theorized different views of the incarnation. One is called Kenosis Christology where it is explained that the incarnation involved Jesus leaving his divinity behind for a while and living solely as a man. Though, If there was ever a moment when God the Son stepped aside from his divinity then he was never God in the first place. How then could it be said that the Word became flesh? (c.f. John 1:1,14). Other theories of the incarnation presented for its explanation—sometimes labelled Monophysitism or Eutychianism—both try to preserve Jesus’ divine nature by having it operating inside his humanity. To say that God the Son never stopped being God, however, does not mean that his divine nature was lurking inside his human nature—as if baby Jesus was secretly sustaining the universe from somewhere inside his skull. This is to confuse the natures of Jesus.

Jesus the man was just that—a man: flesh, blood, body and soul. When he worked miracles, he did them the way other humans would do them—through the power of God’s Spirit. As Peter says to Cornelius: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). But He was acting as a man though He was God. He emptied himself of the right to act as God and instead as a servant and a man, be used by God through the Spirit to work miracles. When we appreciate the radical difference between God and creatures, we realize that we need this different way, the uncommon way of thinking about Jesus coming into the world. It’s less like Him moving from one place to another and more like Him adding an entirely different mode of existence.

Jesus was a man. But Jesus wasn’t just any man. He was God the Son

Based on these sources about the life of Jesus, Jesus claimed to be God more than once. Some of these statements were overt and clear and the claim made Him uncommon among common men. And as we will see in the upcoming lessons, He came in the first century A.D. to announce the good news of the kingdom of God, His kingship and kinship, to save people and make them new again. When He indirectly stated His purpose in statements like “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6) or “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12), He was preparing the way for us to see Him as the most uncommon among all of us.