Grinchiness Doesn't Have to be Terminal!

The Grinch WAS a horrible character!  He hated Christmas, but his worst, most terrible problem was his heart! Dr. Seuss says it was at least tthree sizes too small!

That's why he plotted and planned to get rid of the Whos' joy! That's why he sneaked into all the houses in Whoville and stole every present, every bow, every bit of Christmas food, every stocking hung by the chimney with care, every Christmas tree. He didn't get Christmas because his heart was just too small!


The heart of Christmas is Jesus. To really understand Christmas we have to embrace Jesus. It's a heart matter! Those with small hearts don't get Christmas either! 

Grinch is only a character in a book, but his tribe is alive and as well as a Grinch tribe can be!  All those who also hate Christmas want to do exactly the same as Grinch did!  They can't even stand for us to say Merry Christmas. And, the reason is exactly the same: their hearts are also too small!  Those who belong to the tribe of Grinch also try to steal Christmas. 

I think that the indomitable spirit of the Whos in Whoville came from knowing that Christmas is all about God coming to earth to call His people to be in His forever family!

Now, whether there are Whos or Whoville or even a Grinch (and they are all fiction found only in the pages of a children's book), there is something profound in this amazing story.  The Whos in Whooville knew (and so do we) that Christmas is not about stuff! Christmas is all about a Person – Jesus - Who put on skin like us and moved into our world (John 1:8).  Actually it was a colossal step down for Him as He is the King from another world, from outside time and space. He is the Creator. But, He was willing to take on our skin and live like we do so He could make a way for us to move into His world forever!

When people around us are Grinchy, they do their people-watching too. What do they see? What they need to see is Jesus? What does that mean? It means our doing what Jesus did when He lived on earth for a while: He ate with IRS types, played with children, made food for thousands of poor people, hung out with hookers, and touched lepers (and others) making them whole again.  Jesus made it look easy, but it’s most certainly NOT!  It’s hard to love the poor, the lame, and the blind and social outcasts and more!  The watching world is looking to see what we do. They don’t give a hoot what we say unless we do it too!

Grinchiness doesn't have to be a terminal condition. It wasn't for Grinch, and it doesn't have to be for his tribe.  Grinch's heart grew two sizes the day he discovered the Whos' secret - that Grinchiness doesn't have to be terminal but it is very serious.  The anti-venom for Grinchiness is Jesus who shines through you and me!  So, go find some IRS types, children, poor people, hookers and lepers to start hanging out with them. It will be hard! It will make you weary - guaranteed!  It will be costly and inconvenient!  It will also make your heart grow three sizes at least!

Jesus talked about a feast and party - not just at Christmas:  When you give a [party], do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a [party], invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed!  Your heart will grow, and you will push back the darkness of Grinchiness in the name of Jesus!

The Real Who in Christmas!

He’s green and he’s mean! He hangs out in a cave – a quite maleficent knave! He’s Dr. Seuss’s creation who tried to steal Christmas from the Whos in Whooville. He hates the Whos, and he detests Christmas!

You see, the Whos down in Whoville – as the Grinch looks down from his cave high on the mountain – sing and laugh and make other happy noises.  The Grinch hates happy noises! SO, he hatches a diabolical plan – to steal Christmas! Ah, then, all the happy noises and all the Christmas clamor will stop, Grinch reasoned as he schemed. So the curmudgeonly, reclusive Grinch plots and plans. Finally, Christmas Eve arrives, and Grinch whizzes down to Whoville stripping Whoville of every last present, Christmas decoration, and including all the ingredients for a Who Christmas feast.

But, Christmas morning comes anyway. There are no presents, decorations, or holiday foods! NOT ONE SINGLE Who sits down to cry. No! They all gather around in the center of town, join hands in a gigantic circle and begin to sing.

Grinch hasn’t stolen their Christmas at all! The Whos knew what Grinch didn’t. They knew Christmas is not about fruitcake or shiny balls and bows! Personally I suspect Whos and Whoville don’t really exist, but – on the off-chance they do – I think the indomitable spirit of the Whos in Whoville came from knowing that Christmas is all about God coming to earth to call His people to be in His forever family!

Here’s the thing: We can learn from the Whos how to attract Grinches to take a look at Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas! We can do without stockings and presents. We can do without feasts. What we cannot, absolutely cannot ever do without is Jesus! He came to be God-with-us, Immanuel!  THAT’s Christmas!

When Angels Fold Their Wings ...

Christmas and sermons ... since I happen to sleep and do life with a pastor, I'm familiar with the holly and lilies crowd. There's one, at the most two, cracks at them a year. They only come Christmas and Easter.  So, the annual or biannual question is how to tell a wonderful old story in a new way.  And, for the rest of us we also hear the same wonderful old story in a new way!

Today we heard about angels and here's the shorter version:

Have you ever met an angel?  Do intelligent people believe in angels? We sing about angels at Christmas, but do we believe in angels?  Would we know one if one showed up?  What’s the angel side of Christmas?

There are 66 books in the Bible and more than half of them make reference to angels.  Angels are significant in the Biblical story.  Angels appear in Scripture as messengers, as protectors, and as watchers.   

Peter had a dramatic encounter with an angel recorded for us in Acts 12 when an angel sprung him out of the slammer!  Perhaps Peter was remembering his angel protector when he wrote 1 Peter 1:3-12:

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

¹⁰ Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, ¹¹ trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. ¹² It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

Peter says the prophets wondered about the meaning of their own prophecies: where Jesus was going to be born (in Bethlehem) or what it meant that the Messiah was going to come as a light into darkness. Do you guess Isaiah understood what he was writing about a virgin and a child and a son to be given? 

Peter says it’s not only prophets who wonder, who scratch their heads and ask:  Apparently angels also wonder and think about the real message of Christmas!

What do we know about angels?

·       Angels are God’s heavenly messengers.  That’s what angel means – messenger.  Angels go back and forth from heaven to earth carrying messages from God Himself.  Angels visited Abraham and gave him the message that he was going to have a son.  An angel actually burned Isaiah’s mouth in Isaiah 6 when Isaiah tells the story of God calling him to be a prophet.

 

·       Angels are God’s front line of defense for us earthlings.  The most important role of angels is to serve God by defending the people of God.  Unnoticed God has sent His angel messengers to stand guard over you and me as He works in our lives and in the world. 2 Kings 6 records the attack on God’s people in Israel by the Arameans. Elisha’s servant got up one morning and saw a huge army with horses and chariots surrounding the city where he and Elisha lived. He was terrified. Elisha told him that God had the situation in hand. Elisha prayed and asked God to open his servant’s eyes to see the spirit world reality. The servant saw that the hills were full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding him and Elisha to protect them. The Psalmist says God gives His angels the mission "to guard you in all your ways" (Ps. 90:11). When Daniel was thrown to the lions God sent an angel to shut the lion's mouths. (Dan. 6:22) 

• Angels are God’s heavenly watchers. What are they watching? They watch what goes on in heaven. They watch us. Some of these angel creatures have many more eyes than we do. They can watch more than one thing at a time. They watch what God Himself is doing. In Genesis 1 God says,  Let us make man in our image ….  Angels were there. They eavesdropped on the whispered conversation between God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Angels wonder what God is doing and what’s going to happen.  It must have been an amazing conversation for the angels to overhear! Do you guess they hushed their singing for a moment so they wouldn’t miss a single word? 

Imagine the watching angels! Can’t you almost hear the rustle of their wings? God said, Go! Go to Bethlehem. Sing your hearts out in the Bethlehem sky announcing the birth of My Son, the King of Israel!  And they did!  Angels were there when Jesus was tempted in the desert and in the Garden of Gethsemane when God sent a solitary angel to minister to Jesus in His hour of anguish.  Don’t you imagine how the angels must have been peering down from heaven watching in horror as Jesus hung on His cross? They must have been ready to take off in a flash when God spoke the word. But the word never came because Jesus had to die to become the Savior of the world!  Angels were there and were the first to see Jesus rise from the dead on the first Easter morning. Angels were there when Jesus went back to heaven.

I think there's something else angels wonder about. I think they are totally puzzled and ask among themselves:  WHY don’t they (meaning us, the earth creatures) realize what He’s done for them?   That just might be the greatest mystery of all to an angel.

Holy, holy is what the angels sing and I expect to help them make the courts of heaven ring!

But when I sing redemption’s story they will fold their wings, for angels never felt the joy

That our salvation brings!   --Johnson Oatman Jr., 1894

The good news of Christmas is that God has done something for us earthlings that his extra-terrestrial creatures (aka angels) can only imagine.  God sent Jesus to take care of our biggest problem - sin - and Jesus did just that!  The good news of Christmas is that this is all true – every last word!  Jesus is real! God is real! Angels are real!  And it's really, really true that God loves you and me far more than we can possibly imagine!

Easter's Over???

Yesterday was Easter. Today is not Easter. Is Easter over?
The answer is a plain and simple but resounding NO! Easter isn't Christmas. When Christmas night comes I am always hit with a bit of angst that Christmas is over until next year.
I love holidays! I love the memories, traditions (including the new traditions that we've done once so it becomes a tradition), decorations, food and the list goes on! Given enough time and energy I have often put up more than a couple of Christmas trees! Christmas music and the sights and sounds and smells of Christmas fill the air!
I love Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Fall and Thanksgiving! And they all come and go until next year.
Easter? Not so much! Easter is more than a holiday; Easter is a matter of the heart! Easter is the hinge upon which all of life depends for the Christian. And this matters in humongous ways!
We live in a secular even hostile and pagan world in increasing measure. No longer is our world covered with a thin veneer of Christian faith! That's one reason Easter is so critical! Easter is all about the resurrection. If Jesus only died, then He did no more than any other man. His death alone isn't the pivotal issue. His death bracketed by life on both sides is the essential essence of Easter!
Easter matters and it matters every minute, hour and day of life for a believer. We MUST live in the peace and hope of the resurrection before a watchin' world! The resurrection of Jesus is the heart of why and how Christian believers all over the world are salt and light in a dark, broken world. The other wonderful thing about Easter is that God has built in a weekly reminder as each Sunday - in a sense - is Resurrection Day! Easter must matter in how I live, think and act!
Easter is more huge on my horizon this year than ever before. My sweet Daddy went to heaven last August leaving a huge hole in this world! At Christmas I wondered about what Christmas in heaven is like and shed a few self-serving tears. But yesterday - as we sang and worshipped the Living Savior - I pondered Easter in heaven and concluded that it's always Easter in heaven, always all about the Resurrection. Heaven's light according to Revelation 21:23 is the Light of the World - Jesus!

Jesus, may the power of your resurrection, we celebrated yesterday, show up in our disruptions & disappointments today!  (Thanks, Scotty Smith, for this "nails it on the head" prayer!)

A Christmas Prayer for a Christmas Heart

If our hearts be not rocks, this love of Christ should affect us . Behold love that passeth knowledge! --Thomas Watson

Lord, this is my Christmas prayer: Give me a living heart to love and serve the Christmas Savior always! Take away my heart of stone! Come to my heart, Lord Jesus! Come to my heart to stay!

Heart Gifts

A sign you're growing in grace: You'd rather give & receive costly heart-gifts than expensive stuff-gifts! --Scotty Smith

Why the Grinch Tried to Steal Christmas!

It was a heart problem - plain and simple! Mean, green Mr. Grinch hated the Whos, their singing, their sparkly trees, their Christmas feast, their fun and what he hated, hated the most was their joy! Quite mistakenly Mr. Grinch thought the Whos joy in Whoville came from the trappings of Christmas. So he hatched a diabolical plan to steal Christmas from Whoville and put to death forever all the joy in Whoville.
He rides into Whoville in the dark of night and absconds with every present, decoration and morsel of the Christmas feast he can choke down his mean, green throat or carry away in his buldging bag. Then he stands high above Whoville just watching and waiting for the cries of "BOO-HOO"!
"He stared down at Whoville! The Grinch popped his eyes! ... What he saw was a shocking surprise! Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small, was singing! Without any presents at all! HE HADN'T STOPPED CHRISTMAS FROM COMING! iT CAME! Somehow or other, it came just the same!"
Mr. Grinch just didn't get the heart part! Mr. Grinch had an epiphany of sorts high on his icy mountain: "How could it be? ... Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more."
Mr. Grinch finally started to understand. Without radical surgery on every Who in Whoville he couldn't steal Christmas as Christmas comes from the heart.
It started long before the world began in the heart of God. It was thousands of years before God dropped the greatest Present of all into our world! God had been watching and waiting for just the right time and then "Kazaam!" Jesus came and Christmas was and IS in the heart of every man, woman, boy or girl who understands that Christmas comes from within the heart no matter whether there is a tree, a gift or a treat when Jesus lives in that heart! That's why Whos in Whoville can sing when it doesn't seem possible - because the joy is heart deep! AND the Whos down in Whoville say, "The Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day!" (with apologies and thanks to Dr. Seuss!)