ABC Messenger

DECEMBER 19, 2005

“HOW SWEET IT IS!�?
By Pastor George Van Alstine

One of the lines made famous by comedian Jackie Gleason, in his weekly variety show on early TV, was this: “How sweet it is!�? That was his way of summing up the situation when everything seemed to go his way. Of course, the comic character he created usually looked no deeper than the surface, and his “sweet�? situations often turned sour pretty quickly.

The spirit of the Christmas season builds, and as the day approaches, especially when our shopping is done, we may be overcome by that feeling “How sweet it is!�?

Adding to the sense of sweetness is the fact that, for some reason, candy and cookies abound during the Christmas season. You’ve worked all year to keep your weight down, and it seems that all your friends are now conspiring to make you gain ten pounds by giving you candy at Christmas.

I’m looking at a box of See’s right now. Bless the person who gave it to me! No, seriously. You’re helping me to learn self-control. I haven’t yet unwrapped the package, and I plan to reward myself with one candy per day—no more. Visitors who come to my office will be offered unlimited candies from my See’s box: “Here, have another, so I can watch you balloon up and feel even better about myself.�?

Other styles of discipline fascinate me. My wife is a half-candy eater. If we have a box of chocolates around for any length of time, more and more half-candies appear in the box, showing that she has been half-tempted and has only half-sinned. The nibblers and samplers go even further. They may leave an entire box looking as if it’s been attacked by a herd of mice. It’s their idea of self-control.

But it’s the crushers and borers who bother me most. They use some pretty crude means to get beneath the chocolate so they can see what’s inside. If they like what they find, they gobble it down. If the candy’s innards are not on their choice list, they disdain it and leave the candy carcase lying in the box for the candy coroners to clean up (the people who will eat anything sweet).

Christmas itself is like a tantalizing candy. Some people just lick off the chocolate and leave untouched the core of Christmas truth about the Baby Jesus, God-with-us. I’m glad that early in my life I trusted God and ate the whole thing.

How sweet it is!

DECEMBER 12, 2005

REVIVAL IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS
Pastor George Van Alstine

The important relationships in our lives are not static or totally predictable. They are organic interactions between individuals, each of whom is constantly changing and evolving. Therefore, they can’t be taken for granted, but need constant re-evaluation, adjustment and nurturing. Christmas is a great time to take a fresh look at our relationships and make necessary changes.

Think of how radically relationships changed within the Holy Family that first Christmas.

Joseph was a man of honor. He believed it was time to marry, and he went about it in the right way. A marriage was arranged between his family and another respected family whose teenaged daughter Mary would likely become a good match with Joseph. We don’t know how well he knew Mary before their engagement, but their interactions were certainly formal and restrained. Now, all of a sudden, his predictable world was turned upside down. His young bride was pregnant!

Joseph had every right to call the deal off. Because he was sensitive to her dilemma and the social stigma she could expect, he decided that he would “dismiss her quietly�? to save her from “public disgrace�? (Matthew 1:19).

But God had other plans, and he sent an angel to tell Joseph that he was to go ahead with the marriage even though she was pregnant. This meant that Joseph would be the one facing “public disgrace.�? Joseph obeyed the Lord and he “took her as his wife�? (vs.24). We have a clear impression that he showed great tenderness and support for Mary during the months remaining before Jesus’ birth. Joseph had to find a new way of relating to Mary, and, by God’s grace, he did.

Mary found all her relationships dramatically change by the realization she was pregnant before her marriage. In her society, she could expect anger from her family and scorn from the entire community. One day a young innocent girl, the next a fallen woman destined for a life as a second-class citizen.

And this man Joseph, who had selected her with the help of their families, who had trusted his future to her by becoming engaged to marry—he would now see her as his betrayer. She could expect to pay for this throughout the years of their marriage.

But God gave Joseph a different spirit. Instead of judging her harshly, he believed in her innocence and fully supported her in bringing her Baby into the world. This man whom she had hardly known before was now her best friend! She knew they would go through thick and thin together.

And then the Baby came. A new Person entered into the family network of relationships. Many of us know from our own experience how a baby can change the dynamics of a marriage. Husband and wife see each other in a new light. Their needs have changed, as well as their priorities.

The Baby bonded with Mary first. It was in an animal barn on a bed of straw that they first looked into each other’s eyes. What a long, mysterious, intense, often wrenching drama lay ahead for Mary. Her relationship with her son would change many times over the next thirty-three years, as the son of Mary proved also to be the Son of God.

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All of us are in relationships with family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers, and every one of them has changed since last Christmas. In some cases, we may be feeling isolated from someone with whom we used to feel comfortably intimate. Or we may have wronged someone by word or deed; or have been wronged.

Christmas is the best time to express that long-needed word of apology, or forgiveness, or assurance, or love. This may be the key that opens the door to a new, more profound chapter in your relationship.

Reach out to those around you this Christmas, and be ready for a revival in your relationships.

DECEMBER 5, 2005

REVIVAL IN YOUR FAITH
by Pastor George Van Alstine

In last week’s Messenger I encouraged you to consider this Christmas season to be a time of revival in your life. I suggested you think about three areas for potential revival:
Revival in your faith
Revival in your relationships
Revival in your commitment.
I thought it might be helpful to expand on these three aspects of revival during the remaining weeks of Advent.

The word “faith�? is used in two ways with reference to our experience of Christianity:
1. the things we believe, and
2. the activity of believing.
The things we believe are important, and Christmas challenges us by confronting us with Christianity’s most stupendous claim: that God became human and lived among us. This fact, known in church circles as “The Incarnation,�? is the basis of all other New Testament claims about Jesus and the salvation he offers.

The Virgin Birth of Jesus is an important Christian belief, but it is only the gift-wrapping of the more profound truth, The Incarnation, God in our flesh, walking where we walk, feeling what we feel. In order to be our Savior, he got inside our skin.

Christmas puts this great fact right in our face. All the tinsel, the lights, the Santas and the gifts can’t obscure the greatest Christmas truth—that the Baby who was born in Bethlehem that day was Emanuel, “God With Us.�?

The second aspect of faith, the activity of believing, can also be revived at Christmas time. Maybe we’ve been kind of passive for most of the year, but here in its last few weeks we feel a special inner urge to get a little more excited about our belief in Jesus. We find it easier to express our appreciation to God for coming to earth to save us, and we worship him in the company of shepherds and wise men and angels. People who are closet Christians the rest of the year come out of the closet for Christmas.

Well, why not build on that spontaneous little outburst of spiritual energy and pray for a revival in your personal faith that will last throughout the new year ahead?

We’re probably all familiar with that word the Apostle John used in the Book of Revelation to describe the Laodicean church: “lukewarm.�? What an awful description! We all identify with the impulse God had to their lukewarmness, as John described it:
“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.�? (Revelation 3:16)

This Christmas, examine your own faith. Might it be described as lukewarm? God doesn’t like lukewarm. If thinking of Christmas has made you want to become closer to God, pray that the Lord will heat up your faith.

A revival in your faith this Christmas season will be a blessing to all those around you. This revival should focus on both aspects of faith, the things you believe and the activity of believing. Be revived in your belief that in Jesus’ birth God entered your world of human experience. And believe this great truth in a super-heated way.

Such a revived you will guarantee a revolutionary 2006!