Behold Immanuel

Behold Immanuel

It’s a few days before Christmas and there is excitement in the air. My oldest is counting the days until Christmas in her excitement. We have been blessed with an abundance of friends, family, parties, and gifts. Truly Antioch has shown it’s love towards us this year in both word and deed and us here in the Newsome Family feel as loved and appreciated as any pastor at any church. As the song goes it’s the most wonderful time of the year. 

It’s also can be one of the worst. It’s easy in all the hustle and bustle of the season to lose track of honoring the Christ in Christmas. We start out at thanksgiving saying to ourselves we will keep the Christ in Christmas this year! We are going to say Merry CHRISTmas instead of Happy Holidays, we are going to be in church every chance we get, we are going to break out our CD of Handel’s Messiah and listen to it every day.  Yet by mid december things like this tend to happen. Every year we hear about the war on Christmas and it seems contradictory that there is so much conflict during the celebration of the birth of the prince of peace. 

Last year outside of a Phoenix Walmart, Kristina Vindiola wished shoppers “Happy Holidays” as she collected donations for the Salvation Army. An unidentified woman chastised her for not saying “Merry Christmas” Accused her of being an atheist and then physically assaulted her. I think we can admit that we’ve gone a little of the tracks of honoring the Christ in Christmas when we begin to insult and assault people in the name of Christ, which we claim to hold so dear.Yet, when we take time to study the gospels we shouldn’t be surprised about that at all. 

2:1-8 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,  Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.

Who were the wise men? How many were there? What were their names? Were they really kings? Did they ride camels? What does any of this have to do with the war on Christmas?

There are many traditions and guesses concerning this men. The most popular ones are that they were said to be kings and three in number. They were said to be representatives of three families of Shem, Ham and Japeth so one of them is typically pictures as an ethiopian. Their names are given as Caspar, Belthizar and Melchoir and their three skulls, amazingly enough, are said to have been found. Yes, they were found in the twelfth century by Bishop Rinald of Cologne." The bishop dug those up and knew right off they were skulls, very clear. Their eyes were still in the sockets fixed toward Bethlehem. Today they are still on exhibit in a priceless casket in a great cathedral in Europe. It is unlikely that they majority of that is true. 

So what do we know about them? Well we know that it was more than 3 of them in  the party. In fact it was probably somewhere between 30-60 of them in the group that came to see Herod.  

We know they were wise men from the east. The greek here for Wise Men is sometimes translated Kings. However, the actual word is magos/magi and there’s nothing that compares to it in English so it’s a difficult thing to translate. These magi were from a very ancient priestly line of the Medes and the Persians likely go way to the time of Abraham in Genesis. They were highly involved in both Astronomy (study of the stars) & Astrology (horoscopes). They also had a lot of parallels in their worship system to Judaism. Rules, hereditary priesthood, and burnt offerings along with being monotheistic. 

During the Babylonian empire the Magi were very high ranking officials in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. You know who else was a high ranking official in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, as in the book of Daniel and Daniel and the lion’s den. In fact in Daniel is made chief over all of these men and they had a great deal of respect for him. 

Daniel 5:11, "There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods, and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods was found in him:"

So they were made familiar with the Jewish prophecies of the messiah by Daniel and his friends. One of the specific prophecies made by Daniel was the time frame for the birth of the messiah. Keep this in mind. 

Not only were the Magi influential wise men/advisors during the Babylonian empire but also the Persian Empire, the Greek empire, and even the Roman Empire to a degree. They wielded tremendous political power and influence. In the book of Esther when you hear the phrase “The law of Medes and Persians” you know where that law likely originated from? The Magi. In fact, in Persia it was difficult if not impossible to become King without the support and approval of the Magi. They were known in some areas as “king makers.”

Whose in charge of Israel at this time? Herod. Herod, one of the worst people to ever exist. Herod was paranoid about losing his throne. He had killed of many of his friends & family because he viewed them as a threat to his throne. He was older and was only in power because Caesar Augustus had placed him there and Augustus was in very bad health on top of that Tiberius, commander in chief of the Roman army was retiring. This is important to note because Rome was a powerful nation that stretched out and took over as much as it possibly could but the one area they constantly had issues with was the Persians. They had become violent enemies and fought multiple times. They never felt like they had a secure grip on that particular area of their kingdom so they were always weary about threats coming from the east. 

So here’s the picture for Herod. He’s near the end of his life. The leader of his nation is hanging on by a thread, the army has no clear commander in chief. He has bribed, bullied and murdered to keep his throne and then all of sudden a large group of magi, king makers, from the east appear wanting to know where the new king of Jews was. 

Now Herod knew very well that he was sitting on a powder keg. In the first place he knew that the people of the city didn't like him, and they didn't like Roman rule, and they wanted their own independence and autonomy. And he knew that they had aspirations of overthrowing him, and overthrowing Rome, and he also knew that if the Persians got in on the act, and built this huge confederacy engulfing this individual called the King of the Jews he was really in trouble. His army was out of the country, temporarily. He knew that the eastern empire posed a constant threat to Rome and conflict was always brewing, and he knew his job and life were in the balance and even though he was seventy years old at least by this time, he  was determined to hold on to every single thing he had, so he was troubled. He was panicky.

So why was Jerusalem troubled? Because they knew how unstable and violent Herod was. They had a long sad history of the various wicked things he had one and knew that there were no limits to his wrath and quest for vengeance. They knew that Herod was upset and that when Herod got upset people died, lots of people died. 

All this really sets the stage to understand the circumstances around the birth of the king. Even the birth of Christ brought conflict and conviction. So it only stands to reason that the celebration of that birth will also bring about conflict and conviction. 

The question is how will we respond to this conflict? Do we respond to hate with hate? Violence with more violence? Intolerance with more Intolerance? Let’s say we win the culture war on Christmas and no one says Happy Holidays and every town hall has a manager scene. What have we accomplished? Will these things cause people to recognize their need for a savior? Will these things further the gospel? The gospel is not forcing the greeter at Walmart to say “Merry Christmas.” The Gospel is recognizing the incarnation, the birth of our savior, Immanuel, God with us!  

The Gospel is that same greeter seeing us living out our lives as if God is truly with us. It’s showing our friends and family the difference Christ makes us. How much more impactful would that be to our lost friends, family and neighbors? It is easy to be upset at a culture that no longer shares our values. It is much more difficult to consistently live out those values in the midst of it. We mustn’t let the real victim in our attempt to keep the Christ in Christmas be our gospel witness, our understanding of what Christmas is all about. The World knows we can be angry. Does it know we serve a risen savior who loves them? Does it know the gift of Christmas? Immanuel.

All about the Pentiums (Confessions part 4 )

All about the Pentiums (Confessions part 4 )

Recently I helped some friends move. My oldest daughter came with us to help. She helped as much as you can expect a 6 year old to help.  So once she was tired she sat there on the couch and the lady we were helping move showed Madison her Gameboy Advance SP. Madison has no clue what it was and no interest in it. I lit up like a Christmas tree. Then in appreciation for our help she gave it to us along with 5 games.  I told her a story of how I had one and I loved it and would play it all the time when I did Helpdesk at the bank. She gave me that look of “shouldn’t you have been working at the helpdesk instead of playing video games?” and I explained to her what it was like to work there.  She was very amused especially as Lindsey confirmed my story. Then occurs to me I hadn’t done a funny tech support post in a while and I have lots of story that fits this theme.

All those times the bank paid me to do nothing.

Doing call center work is difficult. It’s considered the armpit of the tech industry a lot of the time. These Dilbert comics are really not that far off. 

My job at the helpdesk largely consisted of me telling people two things. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” and “Ok. Let me reset your password for you.” That was half of what I did. The bank didn’t really invest in what you might deem “cutting edge” technology. So when someone rebooted, and we had to stay on the phone until they got all the way in, would take up to 15-20 minutes for some departments. The users would put you on hold for those 15-20 minutes so what to do? We would spend this time surfing the internet since we were on hold and couldn’t leave lest the user come back at any moment. Then of course they the bank blamed our long hold times on personal internet surfing instead of old tech and insufficient staff. So they made a rule, no personal internet usage. 

What do you do while you are on hold for 15-20 minutes at a time several times a day? We would draw, listen to music, write, email each other, play catch or trashcan basketball, eat, sing along to the hold music, and in my case, play Game-boy. While it was wrong for us to use the internet for personal reasons all those other things were perfectly fine. 

Eventually we were bought out by a larger bank, ironically two months after being assured by our CEO in a series of speeches all across the company that they were in no hurry to sell the bank. 

They were giving out 60 day notices to everyone but they overlooked our department. We were supposed to be let go in march/april and then a few days before what was initially supposed to be our last day they realized that no one ever gave our department our 60 day notice. So we got our 60 day notices on March 28^th. They removed all our responsibilities to the other bank on March 31^st. We still had to come in until May 27^th. So we came in on March 31^st and we had no work to do. The first day or two we just sat there not really sure what to do.

 We started taking longer breaks, longer lunches, a lady brought in her portable dvd player and we watched movies. That’s right the entire month of April and the first part of May they paid me to come in and sit at my desk in case they needed me. We weren’t allowed to look for or accept other jobs because they might endanger our severance packages. My last act as Team Lead was to teach my entire team how to play Texas Hold Em. 

It actually was a lot of fun all things considered. They laid me off In May then hired me back 5 months later. Fast forward to the end of August 2007. I get back from a trip to SE Asia and find out that once again our department is going to be eliminated because of reasons. Most likely we will get our notices come Sept/Oct 2007. So Sept 2007 comes around and once again I don’t have any work to do and since I’m a field technician at this point there’s no office for me to go into. So I “work” from home. I go from 40 hours a week to about 5-10 most of that being Monday. 

That’s right now they are paying me to sit at home and be ready to go to work in case they need me. So I get up each morning at regular time, get ready, then proceed to spend the first half of my day doing school/church work (I was in seminary at the time) and my afternoons involved a lot of naps and PlayStation 2.  

I beat this game in less then a month. Normally would have taken 4-5.

This went on from Sept 2007 until June 2008 when I got my second 60 day notice. Good times!

Glen

The Problem Solver

The Problem Solver

I imagine if you were to take a moment and rattle off your problems you would have a rather lengthy list that included such highlights as health, wealth and relationships. We all do. What if someone showed up today and offered to “fix” all of your problems. They would pay your debts, generously load your bank account, heal all your aches and pains, and make the difficult people in your life either go away or become much more agreeable. Then they leave never asking for anything, never hearing from them again. Would you take that offer? Most of us would say yes. Would we then be happy? Maybe. But for how long? Did they really solve your problem or just deal with the symptoms?

Matthew 9:1-8 “Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. 2 Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”3 At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!” 4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? 5 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” 7 Then the man got up and went home. 8 When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man.”

The Gospel of Matthew focuses on the Kingdom of God and how Christ is the fulfillment of that kingdom. In the previous chapter Jesus works many miracles. These miracles escalate in both power and authority. It began with the Healing of leper by the mere touch of His hand. He then healed Peter’s mother in law and the centurions servant. He went beyond physical miracles and dealt with nature when He stilled the winds and the waves. Finally he showed his power over supernatural forces, when He cast out demons into a herd of swine. Yet, here in this passage, He performs His greatest miracle yet. 

What is source of human suffering? What is the root of all evil? It’s not money, drugs, politicians, alcohol, sexual immorality or any other of a host of things we blame it on. All human misery stems from sin. Sin is the evil that separates us from God. 

What is the root of all evil? It’s not money. All human misery stems from what? Sin. Sin is the evil that separates us from God. Matthew 9 is going to focus on Christ and our sin. 

Back to my first story of the guy who “fixes” all your problems. What does he improve? Health, wealth and relationships. There’s a lot of people these days who preach that Jesus. The Jesus of healthy, wealth and happiness. Yet, if He can’t save us from our sins. Then what good is He? What point and purpose to His mission? 

So the friends of this paralytic carry him to Jesus hoping that Jesus would deal with his paralysis and instead he says your sins are forgiven? Why would he do that? Is that what they came for? Yes and No. They brought their friend to Jesus because they knew He was the only could help and help He did. Just not in the manner they expected. Instead of giving them what they thought they wanted. He gives them what they really wanted and what their friend really needed. Forgiveness. Why is this so important? 

Well it’s two fold. 1) Forgiveness of sin is what we all really need regardless of our physical condition.  2) Jewish culture of the time taught that that all sickness stems from sin, which is true in the sense if there was no sin in the world there would be no sickness. Yet, they were of the stance that the sicker you were the worst sinner you were, because all sickness was a judgment from God on your sin. If this were true none of us would ever be healthy again!  

In forgiving sin Jesus claimed to be God. This is why the Pharisees reacted such a way internally. They knew forgiveness was from God alone. Jesus knew their thoughts though and addressed that directly calling them out. The man was healed spiritually as well as physically. Often times we take our problems to Christ wanting Him to resolve them in a manner we think is best. By His Grace, He takes our problems and resolve them in a manner that is best for us and glorifying to Him. He gives us what we really need instead of the things we just think we need. When we keep in mind that Jesus is the one who has already solved our greatest problem, our sin, our temporary troubles really don’t seem like such a big deal. 

Romans 8:18 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Glen

Planes, Vans and Automobiles

I recently ran across this article thanks to a friend of mine. 

http://valleywag.gawker.com/people-keep-getting-into-strangers-cars-because-they-th-1623164934

For those of you that don’t know, there are now taxi type services (Uber, Lyft, etc.) that let you summon your own personal taxi at you convenience via app or text message. Equally, if you want to earn some extra money and have your own car you can register with Uber and pick up fares at your convenience as well. The article discusses how people (usually intoxicated ones) are getting in strangers cars thinking they are Uber drivers when they are not. You can imagine the issues created when random drunk people get into the backseat of cars driven by perfect strangers.

I commented to my friend I had a three tier system to prevent unwanted passengers. 1) Door locks 2) a back seat full of car seats 3) living in a small town. The article reminded me of my trip to SE Asia in 2007.

SE Asia Trip 2007

*Bear in mind I’m trying to recall stuff from 2007. This may not be entirely accurate but close enough*

 Our travel arrangements for that particular trip were Lemony Snickets, in that they were a series of unfortunate events. When you go through SE Asia (wherever you might go) you typically go through one of two airports. Beijing or Seoul. We went through Beijing on this particular trip and we would spend more time there then we planned. When we first got to Beijing we made an exciting discovery. While we made it there safely, our checked luggage did not. It would arrive the next day. We had two days in Beijing before the remaining flights to our final destination. Minus not having our checked luggage, that actually was pretty nice doing all the touristy things one does in Beijing (Great Wall, Forbidden City, Dumplings, etc.). Then it came time to start the final leg of our journey. It was Saturday, and we needed to be at our next place by Sunday to get ready for the work we would be doing starting on Monday.

Saturday

Saturday there were severe thunderstorms and we spent 4+ hours in the floor of Airport, as our flights were cancelled and we were trying to get everything sorted to get where we were going. Later that night we were booked to leave Sunday morning. We got to a nearby hotel late and had to get back up at 6AM to get to the airport.

Sunday

Actual Atari Game

Well, the alarm clocks in our hotel didn’t work and we woke up late. Had to rush to get ready and on the airport shuttle with another America couple. When we got to the airport we were already running late and all our luggage was grabbed by an ambitious baggage boy who rushed with us to our check in. We made it to Small Regional Airport (SRA) and had to get another flight to make it to the Worksite. It was close but it looked like we were going to get there in time and still be at the worksite on Sunday.

As we were leaving the plane, two rows in front of ours, they stopped letting people off the plane. A guy ahead of us had his wallet stolen and no one could get off until it was found. This delayed us another 20 minutes. We missed the morning flight to work-site. The afternoon flight to work-site was full. There were only two flights a day. We had to find a hotel in a city we hadn’t planned on staying in. Lindsey and I also noticed that the piece of luggage that had our clothes was missing. It was never found. Yup, we spent two weeks in a foreign country borrowing clothes from friends on the trip with us. Good times. 

Monday

The next morning (Monday) we got to the airport early to get on the flight to worksite and hopefully start working that afternoon. The flight was overbooked, there were 7 of us on this trip and they had sold 5 of our tickets. So we sent Lindsey ahead with the Team Lead’s wife and spend the afternoon in the airport. Finally, late Monday evening we made it. Roughly two days later then we had originally planned.

The Van

The actual work went very well. The Lord blessed it and I will happily tell you about that in person sometime. We would take Taxi Vans from the worksite to the closest city occasionally for supplies. Apparently it was illegal to have 9 people (us 7, plus driver & assistant) in a van in this particular part of the world. Once midway to the city (in the middle of nowhere) the driver stopped and had half of us get out along with his assistant and start walking. Eventually he came back and picked us up. However, we had to hide so I spent the rest of the that trip (another 10-15 minutes) laying down in the floor of the van in an awkward yoga pose.  We saw someone we knew from the worksite once we got in the city and we all road in the back of his truck on the way back.

The Return

Two weeks later we are on our way back home. Our flight from SRA to Beijing was running late but made it the airport giving us about 2 hours to get through Beijing customs. 2 hours is the bare minimum needed to do this. We then proceeded to circle the airport for 30 minutes before landing giving us about 90 minutes to do what normally takes 2 hours. We go in on a marathon dash through the airport, running at full speed wearing 30-40lb backpacks along with everything else, dodging people, furniture, luggage, looking kind of like an application tape for American Ninja Warrior. 

This might actually be easier then navigating the old Beijing Airport

We get halfway and then we discover that once again some of our seats have been sold. They have 5 tickets for 7 of us. Our team lead and his wife stay and send the rest of us on our way. An Airport Official helps expedite us to the head of the security line. Lindsey is the first one through and takes off running to hold the plane for us as we only had about 15 minutes to get boarded. Shortly after she takes off the lady in front of me starts talking in a very agitated voice to security and pointing at my wife. Apparently Lindsey grabbed the wrong bag of toiletries and the lady thought she had stolen them. 

I try to explain that this was an honest mistake but I wasn’t getting very far. Security doesn’t want to let me through because I have toothpaste in my toiletry bag. I throw the whole bag in the trash and show them my boarding pass that I am running late. They let me through. I offer to pay the lady 100 Yuan (which was roughly a week’s pay in that part of the world in 2007) for her toiletries. She says in English “Some things cannot be replaced” Ok. So me and random Chinese lady take off running through the airport where Lindsey is holding the gate for us. 

It was like this but with no smiling and much less photogenic. So, it really wasn't like this at all.

What were the important, irreplaceable, toiletries? Contact solution. At best 14 Yuan or so. She takes her bag and goes on her way. We sit down on the plan to the US exhausted (the rest of the team made it ahead of me not being held up by security) and finally many hours later. We landed in the US. The team lead and his wife made it a day later.

It was a crazy trip. Yet, I wouldn’t trade any of it for a second.It was an amazing journey and we got to see the Lord move among His people. There's a strong bond between those of us that went on the trip that still exists today even though we now live all over the place.

Romans 8:18 "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us"

Enjoy the journey. 

Glen