Merry Christmas!

To those wanderers and fellow pilgrims who might read this: Merry Christmas!

Hold your love ones close. If for whatever reason — without or within — you find yourself alone, know you are dearly loved. Hold to the good given you. Be thankful for the good you’ve given. Rejoice over being a blessing to others! No matter what the scars try to show you or what the shadows try to hide from you, please believe there’s more good coming. Take away the fears and the uncertainty. Take away the greed and lust. Take away the anger and shame. Take away what’s passing away anyways and there remains the saying first spoken that night by an angel to shepherds in their fields.

Moreover, when the shepherds saw the baby lying in a manger, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

“How shall we know this?

Such a thing does not fit in with all that ever happens around here.

The sign to which they bear witness is foolish.

Everyone knows the Christ, our Messiah, God’s anointed one greater than even Caesar, would never be born in a manger.”

Nevertheless, Mary treasured the saying. She gathered all that she already had heard to set these things around this one saying. She remembered Zacharias being struck dumb, and then the prophecy he proclaimed. She remembered Elisabeth’s greeting. She remembered the angel Gabriel telling her she would bear a son called the Son of the Most High. She remembered Joseph telling her of his dream. She remembered the seven-hundred year promise. She remembered there was no room for them in the inn, nor could they find a mid-wife to help her in her appointed time. And now there he lies, asleep in the manger. What was it the shepherds told her? What was it the angel said?

“Fear not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

She looked upon her son. The word of old spoke to her. “And He shall stand and shepherd His flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. And they shall dwell secure, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth. And He shall be their peace.” The Spirit awakened her innermost being to the truth of the angel’s saying. Something stirred in her soul deeper than a mother’s love. She was the first from among the fallen to know! She rose up from resting while He was sleeping. She knelt before the manger. She bowed her head. She whispered, “Jesus is Lord.” She worshipped her first born. She worshipped her Lord, the Word, God almighty, who became flesh to dwell among us. She worshipped her Savior. It was all beyond her. Filled with the peace of God surpassing all understanding, she believed, rejoicing and abounding in hope. I trust you too worship Him this Christmas night. May God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. May His grace be with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Theophanes the Cretan, Stavronikita Monastery, Athos, Greece (1546)

How Did It Come to This?

The Preferred

Heroic-Warrior,

Èlite-Nobilis,

Fanciful, ‘Harmless’ and

Profitable View: 

Tolkien-Boyens-Jackson-Hill-Theoden:  “Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this?”  Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000155/quotes

How the Titular Individual

Came to Remain in the West,

Cued through a Biblical Testimony 

As Ridiculous Then as it is Now still New:

A certain man upon entering as a vision the sleep of the apostle Paul cried, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately Silas and the others sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called them to preach the Gospel to them. Who would have us think like this to believe something like that? Acts 16:6, 7.

“Sing Silas, sing!”

A certain woman named Lydia sells purple fabrics. A lying spirit speaks through a slave girl to usurp truth’s rightful authority. Owners, Romans, the crowd and magistrates are stirred into unlawful action. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

“Sing Silas, sing!”

And the prisoners were listening to them.

“Sing Silas, sing!

Don’t look at the wind! The Lord is not in the wind, or the earthquake or the fire. For I have seen him, this man of Macedonia, in a vision. He who fastened our feet in these stocks is the man who cried out, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’”

Do we understand? Will we listen? The man didn’t say, “me.”   The Sower prepared the good soil of his heart for receiving the word of God.  He said, “us”! Nonetheless, for yielding a crop a hundredfold he asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

So in the telling of the whole tale only one man from Macedonia, the jailer, is referred to in the singular.

Lord,

grant that

the anointing that

teaches us about everything

keeps us

willing to be rightly taught. 

Whatever might be

the injustice,

the storm,

the earthquake or

the fire

that seeks to

harm us,

catch us,

crush us or

consume us,

may our fellow prisoners hear us 

praying and singing hymns to God.

But what about the individual de jure? 

How did the statutory individual come to be? 

Please accept my sincerest apologies,

The closing of the loop took me elleswher.

Pick up the Bible to find this hinge

story in determining global history, and,

read it for yourself? 

Acts 16:6-40.