The Risk

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. — Hebrews 2:14-15

Surely the Creator, the One who created man in His image and likeness, knew what it was like to be human.  God dwelt within the world all along.  Yet the Incarnation is different for it is more than some stirring of God's empathy.  In Christ, God invests Himself totally in man.  

This is the meaning of Christmas.  God put Himself into the hands of man, specifically a woman and a man.  There was no backup plan.  If Joseph failed, if Mary failed, if Herod succeeded, it was all over.  The entire history of humanity — which means the whole of creation, hung upon one man doing the right thing under pressure.  We can understand, sort of, Jesus coming through for us, but before He could, He had to trust entirely in the love, the strength and the wisdom of two "regular" people.  God chose well, no doubt.  He poured His grace into their lives, certainly.  Still, history pivots on a hinge so frail and insignificant that we wonder how it could bear the weight. 

God came to know what it was to be flesh and blood, to be weak and helpless and to have someone risk everything to bring Him into the world and to protect and provide for Him once He was here.  Through the Incarnation, we learn of God's love for us, but He learned of our love for one another.  He knew our weaknesses and our sins.  He learned of our hopeless courage, our remarkable ability to endure, our almost stupid joy when a new one of us shows up. 

We get frustrated with ourselves and with those around us.  We see addictions and abuse, neglect and ingratitude, greed and violence.  We wonder sometimes what God sees in us, or how He could love us, or how a loving God could even have created such hapless and sometimes despicable creatures. 

But then comes Christmas. 

People remember that once a very vulnerable baby came into the world, and stars shone, and angels sang, shepherds marveled, and wise men traveled far.  We have made a lot of mistakes since then, but, once, we did the right thing.  Not all of us, not all of the time, but Christmas is a reminder of what we are can be, what we are at our best, and of where we are headed.

Merry Christmas.

Possibles

For with God nothing shall be impossible – Luke 1:37

Miracles by definition do not happen on a regular basis. A miracle cannot be replicated by formula. It is not subject to study except in its aftermath. It can be determined to have happened, and, perhaps, in some cases, the chain of events or the mechanisms that led up to it can be known. Examined under a magnifying glass like a dead butterfly, there may be some who conclude that it was simply a most fortuitous coincidence. If Christmas means anything, though, it means that we still cultivate a sense of the miraculous. We still believe that the possibilities are endless and that, united with God in Christ, we are without limitations. We believe this in spite of the rude material intrusions of humanity’s all too common sense. The angel’s declaration of God's limitlessness came as a result of Mary’s blunt statement of the human condition.

In a way, the humanists and the materialists have usurped our hope for the impossible. The difference is that they believe in the limitless power of human will, human knowledge, and human government. Some believe that highly evolved primates can warp time and space to travel to distant galaxies, or that we might be visited by advanced entities that have discovered ways to move faster than light itself. Others believe that man can be transformed by education and communal cooperation – if only the right people are in charge. I am not opposed to their hope or antagonistic toward their goals and dreams, any more than I am opposed to my own Mitty-ish daydreams. I simply recognize them for what they are. Those who dismiss fairy tales are always more susceptible to the confidence man for it.

Man’s best efforts to control his own destiny, to build his tower of Babel eventually come to nothing, collapsing in confusion under the rains of God’s grace. The magicians of materialism are scattered to their huts, often still thinking that if only they had altered the incantation just here it would have worked. There is always, for the true believer, a next time. Though technology advances, it makes little difference in the way things end while the wielder of the wand remains unchanged.

Those are the ultimate magic words: With God. With God, it all changes. With God there is purpose and direction arising from the chaos. The impossible takes shape before our eyes and that which cannot be becomes that which must be. The archer looses his arrow at random without thought yet it finds the mark, slipping even between the joints of the armor to strike at the heart. At Christmas, we are reminded that all things are possible. God the very God took on human form and flesh, walking among us, walking with us, attesting by signs to the glorious possibilities of the impossible, until it was time to bear away the burden of sin and break down the wall that separated man from God.

Now the Spirit of God abides with us and dwells within us always.

At Christmas, there are angels among us – bright messengers of God -- proclaiming again that the Lord dwells with man. Again, the Spirit lives in human flesh, and nothing is impossible.

Christmas Shopping Report and Catalogs

I went Christmas shopping Saturday, so I am now officially in the spirit.

It was clear from our excursion to the Holy City that America is held hostage to the worst economy since the Great Depression. One exit from the freeway was completely blocked with traffic – no accident, just lots and lots of cars – probably lined up for baloney sandwiches at the Salvation Army several miles away. People were actually eating at Wendy’s and Taco Bell. There were also quite a few cars at the Starbuck’s next to Wendy’s. I’m sure they were probably homeless families who had their houses repossessed by Dick Cheney and are reduced to living in their vehicles in the parking lots of overpriced coffee shops.

We had trouble getting into the Target parking lot. It took about ten minutes to get across the lot to the store entrance where I let my wife out and immediately lost sight of her in the crowd. Ten minutes later I found a parking spot in the overflow area – as far from the door as you can get and still be on the same block. I couldn’t see any Social Services employees handing out day-old bread, so I’m not sure why the crowd was so large. Once in the store I tried to get to the digital cameras but the crowd in the electronics section was so massive that I gave up. People must be buying cameras to take their passport photos so they can immigrate to Venezuela.

The mall was even worse. We spent fifteen minutes getting to the light in the left turn lane to get to the mall parking lot. There were no parking spots. There were lines of cars waiting for departing shoppers to back out. I wonder if the food court was giving out free meals. Another odd thing I noticed while walking around the mall is that no one looked like those Ethiopian people – though some did have distended bellies – most actually looked – well, well-fed. I guess the “new starvation” has a different look than the old starvation.

Anyway, that’s enough of that. What I really wanted to say was that, since I am in the Christmas spirit, I thought I’d give my reviews of some stuff I’ve run across.

A couple of weeks ago Lindsay’s Technical Books popped up on Cool Tools. If you follow the link, you will be able to order the catalog of “Exceptional technical books for experimenters, inventors, tinkerers, mad scientists, and ‘Thomas Edison-types’”. I am ordering three books for Christmas: Blacksmith Shop & Iron Forge, Teach Yourself Electronics (going out as a gift to a family member), and Peak Oil Survival. Frankly these are not Lindsay’s most interesting titles.

Check out: Home Cheese Making, Secrets of Building a Plastic Injection Molding Machine, How to Build and Fly a Glider, I Just Love to Fart Cookbook, A Practical Treatise on the Raw Materials and the Distillation and Rectification of Alcohol, and Deep Hole Drilling to name but a few. By the way, in case you are wondering, the last title is next to a related book, Making Rifle Barrels.

You can get a free catalog and then order all kinds of cool books about building steam engines and making tools to make tools. By all means ask Lindsay’s for their catalog if you are interested in buying a book or two.

They have some books that are dangerous for kids. If you have kids or grandkids, buy some of those dangerous books and hand them out to the younger generation. With ten days to go, it’s mostly too late for getting them anything by Christmas but there are always birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, weddings, MLK Day – which coincides with Robert E. Lee’s birthday in 2009, etc.

The other catalog that showed up in the Cool Tools shuffle was Cabela’s. They do have some things that you are unlikely to find just anywhere. I think they are a little pricey – not unlike their chief competitor, Bass Pro. Visiting a Cabela’s retail store – I’ve been to the one in Austin – is much like visiting my own local Bass Pro. They are big. I think I bought a little waterproof bag that has a zipper closure and a clip lanyard. It is good for sticking stuff in when canoeing. I also carry my wallet in it at amusement parks for the rides where you get wet.

I do buy stuff at Bass Pro, occasionally. I bought a canoe there. I have bought reloading supplies from them, but they don’t have much anymore. These days I only show up for sales or to buy bulk ammunition. Bass Pro is one of the few local retailer locations carrying Number 2’s – that is, Remington Nitro Express shotgun shells with the all-important #2 shot. It’s good stuff.

But the stores I like are the little gun shops where there are lots of used guns and guys in boots that look like they’ve been out in the “br’ers”. Something just bugs me about standing in line to buy shooting supplies behind a dude in Calvin Klein’s with tassels on his loafers. In the little stores you are more likely to get an honest answer than a sales pitch.

There is one mailorder company where that’s also true: Midway USA. Larry Potterfield is the company’s founder and president. They are located near Columbia, Missouri. Midway is strictly mailorder – their catalogs are great, or you can order off the website. If you’re an occasional customer like I am, it is nice to talk to knowledgeable people when you call in your order. They know where I live and how much shipping will be. They can answer questions, and they will ask if I want to “round up” and donate to the NRA, which I always do. I have never met Mr. Potterfield but I understand you can see him on one of the “critter-killing channels”. He and his family are hunters and shooters. If Midway has it in their catalog, it will probably work like it’s supposed to.

God Sticks

And after him came Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad; and he also saved Israel. – Judge 3:31

Shamgar saves a nation and he gets a single sentence -- though it is a sentence in the Bible, a pretty rarified Who’s Who. He acts openly, boldly, and heroically. He kills six hundred of the enemy – whether at once or cumulatively is unclear – with a sharp stick. Even assuming it was an assault oxgoad with a tactical iron tip, it’s still impressive. His efforts rallied the Israelites to return to the Lord and resist oppression.

The unlikely hero is God’s man. That doesn’t mean he is a particularly good man or a wise man. He may be a glorious loser like Samson – and a large subgroup of U.S. presidents.

The thing about the oxgoad or the jawbone of an ass is that these things are, in themselves, humble and inglorious.

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are – 1 Corinthians 1:27,28

A sharp stick indeed seems foolish as a weapon of revolution and liberation, as foolish and weak as the stick Moses carried to humiliate Pharaoh. It is as insignificant, well, as a child born in a stable.

It is a good lesson for Christmas. The Almighty came in the most helpless package imaginable, a tiny baby born in obscurity and poverty. God made Himself completely dependent on the faith and goodness of Mary and Joseph. He trusted them. When it came time to establish His kingdom, He gathered to Himself a few unlearned fishermen in a backwater country. He depended on them to carry His message. He trusted them.

God depends on you and me today to do His will. He does not have a backup plan. He doesn’t need one. He trusts us. Now that might be all right, but for the fact that I know I’m not trustworthy, and I am deeply suspicious of just about everybody else except the Pope, Billy Graham, and my dog. The Lord must know something I don’t.

Don’t let anyone lead you astray. The future does not depend on what happens with the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England, in Congress or Hollywood. It depends on weak, foolish, mostly unknown people in Podunk.

We have sharp sticks, and we’re not afraid to use them.