Month: December 2024

The Solemn Joy of Christmas

OLD TESTAMENT: Daniel 9

POETRY: Psalm 138

NEW TESTAMENT: John 11:1-37

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. 

It’s my absolute favorite time. I love the snow falling from gray skies. The world turned crystalline with ice. Warm homes with twinkling lights and fireplaces burning, keeping the dark days bright. 

But notice, all the things I am speaking of are the current time of the year. I could be speaking of “the holidays,” a societal collection of days starting usually on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and going to about January 1st. I’m not speaking of those days. Thanksgiving is a great reminder to give thanks to God, New Year’s is nice to think about the way we want to live differently and better in the year ahead. But the only holiday in “the holidays” that matters is Christmas, its twelve days beginning on December 25 and going on until January 6th! Before this time of Christmastide, we can celebrate Advent (meaning “coming”) about the coming of Jesus. Advent starts four Sundays before Christmas, meaning the first advent Sunday was yesterday. 

Though the weeks of Advent are based around familiar themes (hope, peace, joy, love), Advent should also be a time of solemnity. Why? It’s more fun to focus on the love of God and the peace toward men of good will, hope and joy given to those who see the babe in the straw. 

Why is the babe in the straw? “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” In Advent, similar to Lent (the days before Easter), though not as intense, the Christian world is encouraged to remember our sins and to confess them to God. Daniel, in Daniel 9, embodies this for us well. 

Daniel prays to God, but he does so with all the parts of his body. He covers himself with ashes, a symbol of mourning, and itchy sackcloth, and to show his total dependence upon God, he fasts, refraining from food. He claims responsibility for his own sin and for the sin of his people. “We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled.” (9:5) He recognizes that God is righteous (9:7), merciful and forgiving (9:9), but for the people of God he knows that they are shameful in their disobedience. He recognizes that he and all God’s people transgressed and disobeyed the law, the voice of God. 

When was the last time you laid out your sin before the Lord and repented of it? Maybe you do this every day, and recognize those things in you that need to change and course correct at the end of each day. That’s awesome. But maybe it’s been longer than a day, and during this time of Advent, when we consider that Christ had to come to save us from our sins, you can say “God, I’m sorry for the mistakes I’ve made.” If you have never given your life to Christ, that is necessary for forgiveness and hope. We trust that God is merciful, as Daniel says in Daniel 9:18 “For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.”

And because he is, forgiveness is quick to be given, and hope is not scorned, because we are not calling on a vindictive God but on a loving Father. Gabriel tells Daniel “as soon as you began to pray, a word was sent out.” Daniel gets a visionary message in answer to his prayer… but notice his prayer will be answered! We know now that it was answered. When we come to God and confess, he is faithful and just to forgive us of all sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.  (1 John 1:9)

So today, take the time in this Advent season to confess your sins, to course correct because you want to please the God who saves you and wants to bless you. But do so because of what Advent will receive, and what the season is Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. 

Merry Christmas, and God bless us, every one. 

-Jake Ballard

Reflection Questions

  1. What makes the Advent season so special? How can you celebrate it in a way that brings honor to God and to the gift of His Son Jesus Christ?
  2. What role does confession play in your relationship with God? What do you notice in Daniel’s prayer? What does he acknowledge? What are his requests? When was your last prayer of confession?
  3. What will you pray today?
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When the End Isn’t the End

OLD TESTAMENT: Daniel 8

POETRY: Psalm 137

NEW TESTAMENT: John 10:22-42

I love a good hyperbole. The standards like “I could eat a whole elephant.” The things you ask kids like “how much money does the president have?” ”A million billion dollars!” They reply. Or getting to more beautiful like the hymn “The Love of God.” “Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made; were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill, and ev’ryone a scribe by trade; to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry; nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.” That last one is beautiful, and maybe not completely a hyperbole; God’s love for creation *is* beyond words. 

Today, we are going to see how Daniel uses hyperbole in chapter 8. After reading the chapter, we can put together vision and interpretation to understand what is going on. There are two kingdoms, the kings of Media and Persia (8:20) represented by a ram with two horns. (8:3-4) Then a male goat (8:5-7), explained to be the Kingdom of Greece (8:21), comes along and destroyed the Kingdoms of Media and Persia. The first great King of 8:21 is Alexander the Great, the conqueror of the ancient world. Notice that the horn is broken into four horns, just like the Kingdom of Alexander was broken into four kingdoms after his death (8:22), and just like the horn of the fourth, terrible beast grows, so the horn of 8:9 starts small and grows in power. 

After Alexander’s death (323 BC), much later (215-164 BC), there is a man, Antiochus IV, who grew in power, who stopped the sacrifices of the people of God, who with a “bold face” decided to put his face on the statue of Jupiter and set it up in the sanctuary. Who sacrificed a pig on the altar, we put down those who opposed him and killed those who followed the law or who circumcised their children. (8:23-24) Antiochus even is judged by God and killed, not with human hands, but with a sudden sickness (8:25)

By now, you might be asking, “Why do I need the history lesson?” Because when we read about this, Daniel is told not to worry because this will be “for the time of the end” (8:17, 19) and again that this will occur “many days from now.” The first thing you need to see is that prophecies aren’t ALWAYS about the future. We should *know* this, because December and Christmas is the fulfillment of multiple prophecies to the people of God about the Messiah. There is a time when every prophecy will be fulfilled, some of those in our world, and some of those at the end. But, what I also want you to see is that Daniel looked at this time of Antiochus, and the coming of the Maccabean Kingdom and the Hasmonean dynasty which ended Greek rule in Judea, and he was told that it was like the end. God gave his people a kingdom, he gave them power, he gave them a thrown. They cast out their enemies. But, and this is the final point, Jesus points to the future with some of the language here. Jesus talks about, from his perspective a future “abomination of desolation” or “transgression that makes desolate”. Clearly, from our point of view the temple was destroyed, but immediately after those days, the world did not come to an end. Maybe it was, again, a type. It would not be impossible for God to fulfill a prophecy multiple times and more perfectly each time. (A young woman gave birth in Isaiah; but Jesus was truly born to a virgin. (See Isaiah 7:14))

What I want you to see is that Daniel, Jesus, and John the Revelator were not necessarily speaking only for the far future. Of the end times. Daniel’s message was important to the people of the 160s BC, Jesus meant something in 70 AD, John clearly imparted wisdom for the 90s and 100s. But that is not the end of their story. The command to remain faithful in the midst of chaos and challenge, to look for the coming of the Son of Man and not fall prey to false Messiahs, and to be faithful unto death, each of those messages matter every day. Maybe the reason hyperbole works so well is that it shakes us to our core, wakes us up to the message. “The world is ending today!”… maybe; but my world could also be after I finish this devotion. Am I awake to the Lord? Did I live my mission and my purpose faithfully? Isn’t that a question we should all ask ourselves? Maybe, when we can say yes, a day will come when we can finally sing full and true the love of God, because we will live forever. 

Luckily, there is no hyperbole to “eternal life.”

-jake Ballard

Questions:

  1. Does Biblical hyperbole scare you or make you uncomfortable? Why or why not? If the Bible is really literature, and in literature we use hyperbole, shouldn’t we expect to see it in the Bible? As a thought it might be helpful to remember the genre when thinking of hyperbole. “A log in your eye” is a teaching, and not to be taken literally; Jesus feeds 5000 is narrative of the miracle working Christ and *should* be taken literally. 
  2. Understanding the history of the people of God between 400 and 0 BC is very helpful. While I couldn’t go in to depth here, what does this brief overview show you?
  3. What is keeping you from being awake to the Lord? To live your life and purpose faithfully, so that one day you may live forever? Are you talking to anyone about those things that are holding you back? May you be blessed by sharing those this advent season. 
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