Friday, December
7, 2018
For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even
better. But if
I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two
desires: I long to go and be with Christ,
which would be far better for me. But
for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live. Philippians
1:21-24(NLT)
Of the things of which I’m unsure about
Paul is whether the Apostle packed a Christmas tree on his missionary
journeys. I am certain beyond a
reasonable doubt if he did have a tree, he never had
to deal with a tangled mess of lights in his Advent celebrations. Not having electricity in the first century made
this a non-issue!
Well, a number of years ago my
distaste for dragging home a freshly cut pine tree (and the term “freshly cut”
is up for interpretation) …well, it turned that yearly season of joy into
something of an anguish-filled battle for how little I could participate in the
decorating process and still be a pastor.
Between the sap of a dying tree all over my car’s roof and the
interminable mess of pine needles littered everywhere for the next six months…not
to mention the pine sap and scratches all over my arms from pushing/pulling the
thing through doorways…there were times I considered investigating
Judaism. After all, you might run into
fire code violations with an eight-stemmed Menorah candelabra, but the absence of
a pine sap rash for a holiday gift that keeps on scratching might be worth it!
My bride made gracious
compromises, taking over most of the decorating chores, as well as conceding a
change from having a fresh-cut tree, to having a live potted tree we could
plant after the festivities. The weight
of that 9-foot tree with its huge burlap ball full of soil forced an even bigger
compromise the next year to our first artificial, realistic-looking plastic
tree.
Mercifully, here we will not
recount for you the anguish over how much storage space that behemoth box takes
up between January and November.
I must add that the concession
from a live tree to artificial was turned on its ear a few years later when a
second tree (also artificial, but a little smaller than the Hoover Dam)
was added to grace the back room. We now set up two trees. The kicker in this is that the back
room means this tree sits right in front of my desk, making it the
one thing I see from November to January when I’m trying to write sermons. And the thing has angels all over it – made of
OKRA. Yup, that’s right…my arch-enemy,
okra, that slimy menace, masquerading as a vegetable, is in my face for Advent.
Now, before you get the idea I’m a
Grinch who despises Christmas, let me assure you this tale of Christmas
woe is true, but not the end of the story. I’m not really satisfied with my attitude
about the tree business, and I do spend time and personal energy to overcome
it. I pray, asking God to help me be
better than the sour old guy who ruins other people’s joy in the season.
I’m working on it. But attitudes – especially less-than-gracious
attitudes – take time. They’re like big
ocean liners…you don’t turn an entrenched, selfish, loathsome mindset on a
dime. But, that said, it is possible!
Paul had a lot of questions
rolling around in his Apostle brain about his immediate future. He also had a great confidence that God was
going to do just exactly what was best. Paul
had that love-hate ambivalence about the ordeal of sitting in a jail cell on
death-row. It was good that in that
circumstance he could witness to the Roman guards, but he really wanted to be continuing
his itinerant ministry, starting churches and helping people grow in Christ.
And this is where my Christmas
tree rubber
meets the road of Christian service. I
really like Christmas trees; I just hate setting them up. In the same way, the confidence Paul had in
God’s handling all the details of what was going to happen was ambivalently-connected
to his anxiety of not-knowing what that outcome was going to be.
Like John Wesley’s question about
perfection – even though we’re not perfect yet, are we confident, even in our
ambivalence – that we are going on to perfection, and will be made perfect in
love in this life. Paul was:
I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or
that I have already reached perfection. But
I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed
me. Philippians 3:12(NLT)
For Christian believers, it’s never
been a question of if you’ve got it all perfect; it’s always been the question
of whether you’re perfectly confident, even in your ambivalent imperfection,
that God has it all perfect…and that’s where you’re headed!
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.
[1] Title Image: Russell Brownworth
photo
