The Following Blog Post Is By Brandon Adent

I am a sucker for Christmas movies, and one of my favorites is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I’ve probably watched it too many times. Well, most of it. There’s two parts that I’ve actually never seen, that we were trained to fast-forward, so I still do. My sincere thanks to Mom and Dad for that one.

I love Christmas Vacation because, like most Christmas movies, the protagonist is in pursuit of the perfect Christmas and does everything he can to make it happen. When things don’t go as planned, he forges ahead.

Of course, everything breaks. And it’s hilarious.

But in the end, the whole thing comes out more memorable, and “the best Christmas ever”. Why wouldn’t it? Isn’t that how Christmas works?

Ignoring Pain in Pursuit of Perfection

Last week, I referenced a chapter in J.I. Packer’s classic Knowing God. In doing so, I was reminded of how much I love it and began to re-read it in preparation for Christmas.

Which, by the way, is next Friday. You’re welcome.

Anyway, I got to thinking about Christmas as our culture celebrates it. Bells, reindeer, elves, snow-people, sleighs and Santa all came to mind, joyful and happy, and that’s great. Christmas is a really joyous time of year for a lot of people, and it should be, because it is!

But, it’s also a really hard time for others, their emotions sort of get sidelined in the whole thing. We’d rather not think about pain. We'd rather pursue perfection.

As someone who has always enjoyed Christmas, who gets along with family, who has always had more than he needed, and for the most part been able to give without worry or shame, it can be hard identifying with people who aren’t amped out of their minds about the Christmas season.

Actually, I often ignore them. Or call them Scrooge or something.

As I re-read Packer’s chapter on the incarnation, I was reminded that we are adopted by, love, and serve the God who not only cares for and about the broken, but identifies with them.

No Place

Jesus came to this world as God made Man in the body of a baby boy, born in a stable outside a hotel in Bethlehem, about six miles (as the crow flies) from Jerusalem, after Mary and Joseph’s multi-day journey from Nazareth.

The Bible says, in Luke 2.7, “And she gave birth to her firstborn son” - that’s Jesus - “and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn”.

In movies like Christmas Vacation, Christmas always seems to end up happy. Similarly, but I think even more so, this event has been really, really romanticized. If you think about it, there’s a lot of pain and sadness in this passage, alongside all the joy.

There’s not a whole lot in the text about Joseph and Mary’s interactions with the innkeeper. But every time I’ve heard or read this story, I’ve sort of thought of the innkeeper as gracious, doing as best as he or she could, and at least gave the young family shelter when there wasn’t any room for them otherwise.

Maybe there’s probably some truth to that.

But it never occurred to me that perhaps there was “no place for them in the inn” because no one made a place for them. No one looked at a very pregnant woman, likely in labor, who had just traveled several days, and offered her a bed.

I must recognize that this is a very “western” way of looking at the whole situation. I don’t know how this plays out seven thousand miles away and two thousand years later, or how this could have gone in a culture so different from ours. It’s tempting to turn this entire passage into a description of a mother mistreated, rather than the King coming.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think that’s the main point of the text. Packer argues that the text is not primarily concerned with morals, but what actually happened: the Son of God became human in Bethlehem, just as was prophesied.

Happiness and Sorrow

But I can’t read of such callousness toward the broken and needy and not be moved.

And it blows my mind that while I was needy, and calloused against God in His pursuit of me, the Son of God took the form of a human and ran towards the hurt, rather than away from it. That's what we celebrate at Christmas time.

Christmas is a reminder that God identifies with the broken, because He Himself has experienced brokenness, yet without sin.

That means that though we are broken, we have been healed in Christ. We can, and should enjoy and celebrate the coming of the Christ either way, while remembering the sad things we experience and looking forward to a day that there will be no tears.

So, just like sadness and joy coexist at the manger - and at the Cross - it’s okay to be happy and sad at the same time.

Honestly, I don’t really know how that looks practically.

But I think it starts with acknowledging pain and celebrating goodness where they’re found, rather than blindly forging ahead, intent on having a “perfect” Christmas. Jesus acknowledged the broken, identified with them in His coming, died and rose that His perfection might be ours.

Blog Post by Brandon Adent

One Sunday morning several months ago, my wife, Anna, made a quick stop at the grocery store.

She hastily chose the shortest line and, though she was in a hurry, struck up a conversation with the checker.

Somehow, it came up that she was on her way to (or from) church, which lead to questions like, "which church?" and "when do you meet?"

"I've heard a lot about it," the checker explained. "I'd really like to go sometime. It's been hard to find time finding a church up here,  mostly because of my crazy schedule. Between working Sundays and school, it's always a struggle to find the time or energy to go interact with a room full of strangers."

Though Anna had to get going, she encouraged the checker to come to Redeemer some time, and committed the checkers name to memory.

Anna related the experience to me later that day, and from that point on, every store run we'd always check the aisles to see if "Theresa" was working. If so, it didn't matter if her line was the longest or not. We'd wait to ask how her day was going, how school was going, what she'd done with her weekend, if she'd had one.

After awhile, when Theresa was finally able to get a Sunday off, she came and hung out at Redeemer for a service. My wife and I were ecstatic that she'd been able to make it, and did our best to introduce her to a few others we knew, trying to increase the number of friendly faces she'd be able to associate with at Redeemer.

Some time later, she's a committed member of a Gospel Community and is getting more plugged into the Redeemer family.

Now, I don't bring this up to make my wife or I look super innovative or heroic. In fact, what makes this story so encouraging to recall is that it didn't actually take that much effort, and the payoff was huge!

All that happened was Anna started a conversation, which God used to create a friendship. Once we had a friend at the register, it was just trying to consistently build that friendship.

All this to say, treat your small interactions with intentionality. Sure, it can be a little uncomfortable, but it's a small price to pay for getting someone plugged into a local church community or experience the saving power of Jesus.

So smile, say hello, listen, respond. You never know the impact you might have over time.

The year was 490 BCE, and the Persian empire was bearing down upon the Athenian army.

Their fate uncertain, a messenger called Pheidippides was sent from marathon to Sparta, another Grecian city-state, in the hopes that they would render aid. This was a distance of about 150 miles each way, and in the famous poem bearing the messenger's name, was described as a "two day and two night" journey.

Sparta, full of mistrust, said they'd think about it, sending Pheidippides back to Marathon with little hope of victory. The messenger was then given a sword, helped to defeat the Persians, and then, as his reward, was given the privilege of running the 21.4 miles to Athens, where he declared victory as his last act

"Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died - the bliss!"

Nineteenth-century poet Robert Browning's account is a composite story, consisting of legend and ancient accounts of what actually happened at the Battle of Marathon. No one quite sure what happened.

I'll leave you to Googling around to find what's closest to actual fact if you're interested.

The point is, the messenger Pheidippides had a story to tell, a victory to declare, in spite of the tremendous hardship he'd been through in a day.

What he had was a gospel, good news of victory. And it was an honor for him to serve in the way that he did.

The news we carry with us every day, every where, is the good news of the victory of Jesus over Satan, sin, and death. And that message is absolute good news wherever we are.

Making Disciples of All Nations

At Redeemer, we want everyone, everywhere, everyday to experience the Gospel of Jesus.

Before He ascended, Jesus gave us our mission:

"Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28.18ff)

It sounds kind of overwhelming, right? But there's more:

"Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

In the book of Acts, we read about how Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, empowering His church to worship Him in word and deed, teaching others about Him and proclaiming the Gospel boldly to the ends of the earth, wherever they ended up.

No One's On The Bench

If God has claimed us through His Son, we are ambassadors, taking the news of the One who sends us to whoever needs to hear it.

Some people are called to go places where there is no gospel presence, no church, no Christians.

Some people are called to stay in places like Bellingham.

In either context, ambassadors are what we are. There's no such thing as a bench warmer in God's family.

Again, this sounds really big, right? And it is. But it works out in small ways.

• When we gather on Sundays for corporate worship, we're being missional. We're proclaiming true things about God so that people would know about him, and giving generously as people who have been given so much.
• When we're getting our coffee our tea, mission being nice to the barista, who may or may not be having a great day, so that she can experience the grace of Christ through you in that moment, and creating opportunities for you to tell them about Jesus.
• When we're at home, it's inviting the neighbors over for dinner so that they would be shown hospitality by people who have been welcomed into God's family, creating opportunities to tell them about Jesus.
• When we're at work or school, it's working hard and treating fellow students and colleagues, engaging them with respect, while praying for and creating opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus.

Wherever we are, and in whatever we do or say, we seek to give glory to God and make His name known.

Missionaries for God's Glory

God’s people have a mission. It’s a mission that includes Sunday mornings but extends beyond that window of time and influences all spheres of our ordinary lives.

Our mission is to spread the gospel and make disciples so that more and more people can know and worship Jesus for their joy and for God’s glory. This means that every person in our church is vital to this mission. No one is riding the bench. Every believer is called to care, individually and corporately, for those around us by having an outward, missionary focus in our lives.