Christmas in Egypt

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Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Jeff Lampl  

Christmas in Egypt

"When Israel was a child I loved him as a son and brought him out of Egypt."
 Hosea 11:1 (TLB)  

“an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up and flee to Egypt with the baby and his mother," the angel said, "and stay there until I tell you to return, for
King Herod is going to try to kill the child."  That same night he left for Egypt with Mary
and the baby,  and stayed there until King Herod’s death. This fulfilled the prophet’s prediction, "I have called my Son from Egypt." Matthew 2:13-15 (TLB)  

Going to Egypt was not unusual because there were colonies of Jews in several major Egyptian cities. These colonies had developed during the time of the great captivity.   Further the borders of Egypt extended eastward past the Sinai.

Matthew writes that Jesus was sent to and returned from Egypt so that the prophet's words, “Out of Egypt I called My Son”, might be fulfilled.  This is a reference to Hosea 11:1 where Hosea is actually writing about God's calling Israel out of Egypt.  

Matthew, as he contemplated his incredible life of experiencing all that Jesus was, looked back reflectively and through his sanctified mental “eyes” was able to see the profound parallel.

Israel was God's chosen "son" by adoption (Ex. 4:22), and Jesus is the Messiah, God's Son. In both cases the descent into Egypt was to escape danger, and the return was crucial in the history of Israel and eventually of the world.  

While Hosea was specifically referring to Israel's deliverance, Matthew saw the fuller deliverance of Israel (all believers through faith in Christ are included) through Jesus.   Matthew gives us the gift of seeing not just the words of scripture, but of God’s heart and plan behind those words.  

Enemies, danger, fear, deliverance, return.   The pattern is experienced by Jesus.   It’s the pattern of our lives as well.   Today would be a good day to reflect on how God has played that out in your life.   Wherever you are in the pattern, the final chapter, the final scene, the final ending is sure.   It’s return.   This is a story with a happy ending . .  . .  

 . . . . as is your story, regardless of how your story feels to you right now.

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Christmas Eve

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Thursday, December 24, 2015
Megann Graf




Christmas Eve

I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas!  If you’re like me, this week has been full of last minute preparations, frantic last minute purchases, and lots of chocolate and caffeine.  I don’t why it seems to happen every year, but no matter how prepared I try to be, there’s always a few things that get lost until the last minute.  I always hope to be better at it the next year, but alas, I am not.  That’s why I like this little quote above from “Scrooged.”  It ends with “…For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people we always hoped we would be.”  I started thinking about what that meant.  Am I who I want to be?  Am I being that for the right reasons? 

On Christmas Eve, lots of people are being nice, so it makes it easier to put on a smile and be nicer.  But, the truth is, some of those people will be going through things this next year that will make it very hard for them to smile.  Can I still be nice to them then?   What about the people who are hurting this year, and they are just putting on a good face to go along with everyone else.  I pray that they don’t hope to be people who can hide their pain from others.  See, the problem with this, is that it’s not real.  It’s the big mistake we can sometimes make when we think of that first Christmas.  That it was soft and sweet and nice and perfect.  And, that’s how we want to wrap up religion, in a nice and tidy bow that makes everybody feel good and doesn’t push the envelope too much.  If that’s what we hope to be, then I have to disagree with that quote.

God came into a broken world to get right in the midst of all our pain and all of our shame and all of our hurt.  He doesn’t hope for us to be people who put on a good face for the sake of looking nice.  He wants us to be real.  He came and lived on this earth and suffered for us, so that we CAN be real.  There’s a reason why we have a hard time living up to the “perfect person” standard all year long.   We aren’t perfect.  We aren’t always happy.  We aren’t always nice.  We are in desperate need of a Savior.   We are in desperate need of grace and mercy and love.  That’s why a baby was born on this night so many years ago. 

Now, don’t take this as a pass to go out tonight and complain about everything that’s not great in your life.  On the contrary, go, be nice, and smile.  But don’t do it just to put on a good face.  Don’t do it because it’s what everyone else does.  Do it because you are celebrating the birth of hope!  Let’s celebrate the Savior.  Let’s celebrate the hope that he brought.  Don’t be the person you hope to be, just be the person who has hope!  Hope in a Savior, whose name is Jesus.  He is Christ the Lord! 

Merry Christmas!!

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Christmas in Ramah

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Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Jeff Lampl  

Christmas in Ramah

The Lord spoke to me again, saying: "In Ramah there is bitter weeping—
Rachel weeping for her children and cannot be comforted, for they are gone." 
Jeremiah 31:15 (TLB)  

"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for
her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." 
Matthew 2:18 (NIV)

Rachel, Jacob's favorite wife, was the symbolic mother of the northern tribes (known as the Northern Kingdom or Israel), which were taken into captivity by the Assyrians in 622 BC.  Jeremiah pictures Rachel crying for the exiles at Ramah, a staging point of deportation five miles north of Jerusalem.   Ramah was actually the staging point for the deportation of the Jews in the southern Kingdom, Judah, in 586 BC when they were deported to Babylon.  Imagine women crying, double over in agony, because their husbands are dead and they will never see their children ever again.

After the Magi had left Bethlehem (Jesus was perhaps two years old), Herod sought to ensure that this prophesied new King of the Jews would not grow up to usurp his throne.   He did so be sending his troops into Bethlehem to kill all male infants under the age of 2.
(Matthew 2:13-17) Can you imagine the pain of the scene?  It must have been sickening, horrendous, certainly to awful to think about on Christmas.

Christmas is the most painful time of year for many people.  Maybe it is for you.  Some of us spend Christmas alone.  Others are with family, but all are not present, perhaps due to estrangement or divorce or death.   For others this Christmas will be sparse because of recent job loss.  For still others this Christmas is probably their last.

In the metaphor of Rachel weeping for her children we see God weeping for each and every sufferer on planet earth.   In Jesus we discover Immanuel, God who is with us.   It is to bring His salvation, comfort, love, hope, tangible presence to the Rachels who weep, to men and women who are alone, to teens who are hopeless, to the sick who are both sick and sick and tired of being sick. 

I find it to be a very strange but very real and powerful thing.   Having lived a decent number of years now, I can look back on many Christmas seasons and among the most special were the ones where I was hurting the most.   In retrospect it was in those times that that I made the discovery that God was there.   I probably can’t explain to you why and it probably didn’t look to others who were with me that I was being comforted by God.   Yet those times stand out.  I remember them.  I remember the excruciating, gut wrenching pain.  I remember feeling like I had hit bottom and there was nowhere lower I could go.  

But I also remember discovering, after a time, that the bottom was solid.

And, after a time, I was able to get up again . . . . . . or rather I was picked up again.

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Christmas in Bethlehem

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Monday, December 21, 2015
Jeff Lampl  

Christmas in Bethlehem

“Mobilize! The enemy lays siege to Jerusalem! With a rod they shall strike the Judge of Israel on the face.  
"O Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are but a small Judean village, yet you will be the birthplace of my King who is alive from everlasting ages past!"
God will abandon his people to their enemies until she who is to give birth has her son; then at last his fellow countrymen—the exile remnants of Israel—will rejoin their brethren in their own land.  And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and his people shall remain there undisturbed, for he will be greatly honored all around the world.  He will be our Peace.”               Micah 5:1-6 (TLB)  

Micah, an 8^th century BC contemporary of Isaiah, foresaw a time when Israel would fall under the military assault of an alien power.  We know that Israel did fall to Babylon (Iraq) in 586 BC.    

But Micah wasn’t done with his prophecy.   He also foresaw a woman giving birth to a son, a new kind of ruler, who would reunite his people, provide for their needs, rule with strength and majesty would be honored around the world. And indeed, “He will be our peace.”   A new kind ruler arising out of Israel would reestablish the nation and bring it peace.   Recall some of Jesus’ last words

"I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid"       (John 14:27).

Seven hundred years later the Grande Miracle occurs.  God merges Himself with humanity in a peasant teen, Mary, while He at the very same time plays chess with world history by moving his pawn, Caesar Augustus, to call a census which would cause Mary and Joseph to have to go to Bethlehem to register in the town of their ancestry, thus fulfilling another of the many prophecies of the coming of God Himself to earth.

Are you amazed yet?  And humbled?

Of Course God still isn’t finished.     The picture above is an artist’s attempt to show us how the Prince of Peace hasn’t finished His work.   The picture depicts how, if Mary and Joseph set off from Nazareth to Bethlehem today, they would cross 11 Israeli checkpoints, a security check and a 30’ wall.

Yet the day is coming . . . . . !!!!!!

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Christmas looks back and forward to and through David

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Sunday, December 20, 2015
Jeff Lampl  

Christmas looks back and forward to and through David


 
“The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you:
hen your days are over and you rest with your fathers,
 I will raise up your offspring to succeed you,
who will come from your own body,
 and I will establish his kingdom.” 
2 Samuel 7:11-12 (NIV)  

In about 1,000 BC Israel got its 1^st King, Saul.  He was succeeded/supplanted by David.   In the above passage God (through the prophet Nathan) promises David that God will establish His forever Kingdom through his son.   We know that David’s son (by way of Bathsheba through adultery) was Solomon.  

But we read on:  

“He is the one who will build a house for my Name” 2 Samuel 7:13  

We also know that Solomon did indeed build Israel’s first temple to God.  

“and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.  But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.  Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.'"                 

2 Samuel 7:13-16 (NIV)  

Forever?   But we know that didn’t happen!   After Solomon came civil war, the secession of the north from the south, the destruction of the north by Assyria and the destruction of the south by Babylon.  After Solomon Israel had never again been an independent nation until 1948 AD.   

This section of scripture predicts both immediate and distant history.   David is told that the temple will be built by his son, Solomon, and that Solomon will be punished just like Saul was (Solomon did fall as if punished by the rod of men).   This is a prophecy referring to the immediate history of the day.   

However, “I will be his father and he will be my son” is a typical Old Testament Messianic prophecy.   Both the geneology of Luke and of Matthew trace Jesus’ lineage right through 

King David.     

Why does this matter?   These prophecies (hints) of Jesus birth, death, resurrection, Lordship, and eventual Renewal of the world, tell me that God has a plan that he began, is working, and has written us into it.   We are not the victims of randomness, rather, regardless of the degree of difficulty of each our lives, our lives have meaning and purpose and a calling to join God in his purposes for His Good World.

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Christmas Prophesied Through Judah

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Saturday, December 19, 2015
Jeff Lampl  

Christmas Prophesied Through Judah

“Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli,  the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,  the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai,  the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda,  the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri,  the son of Melki, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,  the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi,  the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim,  the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David,  the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon,  the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah,  the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,  the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah,  the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,  the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan,  the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.” 
Luke 3:23-38 (NIV)  

"The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler's staff from between his feet,
until he comes to whom it belongs 
and the obedience of the nations is his”.       Genesis 49:10 (NIV)   

Luke traces Jesus’ family tree all the way back to God and he does so through Judah one of the 12 Sons of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham.    It is noteworthy that in the last days of his Jacob pronounced a blessing on each of his twelve sons.  After addressing Reuben, Simeon and Levi, he blesses his son Judah by telling him that he will be praised by his brothers, that he will triumph over enemies, that he will be like a lion (Notice Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia is a Lion), that the ruler’s staff will be his, and that the obedience of the nations will be his.

“The Obedience of the nations”?  

Fascinating isn’t it?   Jesus’s lineage went right through Judah.   Judah became the name of Israel’s southern Kingdom, the place where Jesus was born.   Neither Matthew nor Luke could help but see and then record that Jesus’ coming to earth, dying and rising again was in no sense a “plan B” of God, rather it was part of “plan A” all along.   The “ruler’s staff” was taken away from the nation of Judah when it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.   Yet the Gospels proclaim that Jesus is currently ruling not just Israel but the nations.  

No, the obedience of the nations is not yet his.   We are in an as of yet unfinished story.   But it will be finished when the King returns to complete his powerful renewal of all things (Acts 3:21)

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Christmas Foreseen in Abraham

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Friday, December 18, 2015
Jeff Lampl  

Christmas Foreseen in Abraham

“The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.  "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." . . . . .  “The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring (or seed) I will give this land."                                                                  Genesis 12:1-7 (NIV)  

After the huge mess that the world had become as described in Genesis 3-11, Genesis 12 marks the beginning of God’s renewal project for planet earth and all creatures on it.   God started with Abraham and tells him that that “all peoples on earth will be blessed”, through him, a pretty big promise don’t you think?  

The message to Abraham was that he would father a nation which God would send on a rescue mission to the rest of the world with the clear implication is that this nation would succeed in rescuing the world from sin and evil.   

Notice verse 7 (the last line in the scripture above).   The promise is made to Abraham and to his “seed” which is a singular noun, meaning one seed.   We know that Abraham had one son by Hagar and another, Isaac, by his wife Sarah.  It was this one seed, Isaac, which led to the creation of the nation of Israel (through Isaac’s son Jacob and Jacob’s progeny)  

But there’s a problem.   

Israel never did become the healing and rescuing force for the world that would fulfill God’s promise to Abraham.   How, then would the promise get fulfilled?  

The Apostle Paul explains in Galatians 3:16  

"Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, 'And to seeds,' as referring to many, but rather to one. 'And to your seed,' that is Christ."

Paul is telling us that Genesis 12 is saying that through Abraham would come a great nation. From that nation would come great blessing to the world. In that nation there would be a seed, a seed that is none other than Christ through whom all other promises are fulfilled, which is why when you open the New Testament to the first page and the first verse, this is what you read in Matthew 1:1,

"The book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham."

And there is a genealogy that follows to show you step by step, person by person the full genealogy that begins with Abraham and ends up with Joseph the “father” of our Lord Jesus. The Old Testament said the Messiah would be a descendant of Abraham and the New Testament confirms that indeed He was.

God has a plan and you and I, incomprehensibly, are written into that plan.

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