Strong Finish, New Beginning, Part 5

Spirituality Column #164
December 29, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Strong Finish, New Beginning, Part 5
By Bob Walters

The only New Year’s resolutions I’ve ever kept – maybe the only two I ever made – were to quit smoking (1994) and to read the entire Bible (2002).

I started early on both of them. I bought what I planned and hoped would be my last carton of cigarettes just before Christmas 1993, and started reading the Bible in December 2001.

I mentioned the resolution to quit smoking a couple of years ago (Jan. 1, 2008, Column #60, www.believerbob.blogspot.com) in the context of finding strength I didn’t know I had from a God I didn’t think I knew. It was one of several examples I trace in my previous non-church life of what minister Russ Blowers called “prevenient grace.”

That’s when God’s grace is mystically, actively bestowed upon us and we are sure we have a) done nothing to deserve it and b) not confessed faith in Christ.

“Prevenient” means antecedent and doesn’t appear in most dictionaries. “Prevenient Grace” is an actual theological construct within the Calvinist vs. Arminian, predestination vs. grace debate.

(As an aside: Calvinism vs. Arminianism typically is a heated conversation between believers. I don’t think it is of much value to seekers, skeptics and non-believers; only confusing and beside the main point. For an article that explains without preaching, go to www.bible-researcher.com and search “arminianism.” The “main point,” by the way, is Jesus Christ.)

Anyway, I quit smoking. Cold turkey. Prevenient grace. I’m still alive.

The resolution to read the entire Bible in 2002 followed my being baptized in November 2001. Many things fell in place that led me to Christ, and held me there, in the latter part of 2001.

One of the pieces was that my then-pastor Dave Faust announced a weekly walking-through-the-Bible class starting early 2002. As I contemplated Baptism, I wanted to know the Bible, and by taking my heart and mind through that door, I could “learn from Christ, not just about Him.” (Hat tip for that line goes to preacher Dave Mullins’ sermon at E91 a couple weeks ago.)

As I was in the final throes of the decision to be baptized, the Bible class was the last nudge I needed.

I could read, I could learn, I could walk in my new-found faith.

Smoking remains gone, and the Bible remains on board. These were not resolutions, they were gifts. They were the real Christ in Christmas, continued.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com or email rlwcom@aol.com) tends toward being a grace guy, with no specific prejudices against the predestination crowd.

Christmas Spirit, Heavenly Peace, Part 4

Spirituality Column #163
December 22, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Christmas Spirit, Heavenly Peace, Part 4
By Bob Walters

I like to wake up in my own bed Christmas morning.

My parents were resolute in having Christmas at home, and I’m that way with my own family.

In fact, I like the peace of knowing I don’t have to go much of anywhere between about noon on Christmas Eve until whenever I decide to go do something on Dec. 26. I’ll certainly go see family or a shut-in (or maybe a good movie Christmas afternoon), but I like to be home.

One enthusiastic exception is church on Christmas Eve. It was a beautiful and reverent “Midnight Mass” when I was an Episcopal kid. Now it’s a heartfelt evening worship and vigil in the Evangelical community.

The first Roman Catholic mass I attended was on a Christmas Eve in college. I was astounded by its similarity with the Episcopalian Eucharist and Holy Communion I had come to know so well as an altar boy.

I’ve only actually attended a church service on Christmas Day once that I clearly remember, in 2005 when Dec. 25 was a Sunday.

Mostly, Christmas is not a go-to-church day. It’s a lazy stay home day, or a visit with close family day. Or it might be (horrors!) a climactic, stressful and tiring Iditarod of multiple stops and logistical finesse – a Christmas dash modeled after Santa and his reindeer. No, thanks.

The Conner Prairie pioneer living museum says that in 1836 children would attend school on Christmas – the holiday was no big deal. Our culture has turned Christmas into a big deal, but our traditions really aren’t that old … often not much older than we are.

What we should feel at Christmas – what puts the Christ in Christmas – is a personal and community grounding in something far larger, eternally older, and immensely more meaningful than idiosyncratic, habitual, nostalgic personal practices that harmonize our common rhythms of worldly celebration.

The Christmas spirit and the gift of heavenly peace reside where Christ resides … alive in our hearts and in our love for each other; not in displays or trees or presents or traditions.

It’s the time of year we should take and treasure the opportunity to focus on Emmanuel – God with us; the Christ in us. Our Savior. Glorious light. It’s what the season is built for. That is God’s gift.

Use it wisely, enjoy it intimately, and share it freely. Most of all, accept it unconditionally.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is unruffled by Christmas commercialism … Christ isn’t for sale; He’s forever. John 1:14.

Surprising Christmas Gift, Part 3

Spirituality Column #162
December 15, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Surprising Christmas Gift, Part 3
By Bob Walters

I’m trying to think of the biggest Christmas surprise I’ve ever received, and it was probably the electric train when I was 5 or 6 years old.

Having asked Santa specifically for a train, it was nearly devastating to find another “Santa” gift was in the living room for me Christmas morning. I threw a fit because there was no train, got spanked because that’s what parents did circa 1960, and when things settled down discovered a really nice electric train – beyond my expectations – was set up in the basement because it didn’t fit in the living room.

I remember being embarrassed – and really, really surprised – more than I remember the spanking.

Then there was the year I ruined any sense of surprise, because being 10 years old and sneaky enough to figure out where mom and dad hid the presents (in a crawl-space behind the basement furnace), I waited until I was alone in the house and looked through every gift they’d bought.

Holy cow. Talk about an unsatisfying success. What fun is Christmas if there is no surprise? I never again searched for the stash.

And please let me add that even as a kid, I always spent more time fantasizing about what I could give as a Christmas present than what I would get. I know … weird kid … but I did. It’s probably a sign of some behavioral disorder, no doubt triggered by the Christmas spanking some years early. But I digress.

These days, after 20-some Christmases as a father, for sure it is the giving part of Christmas that provides the season’s most significant secular joy. Giving is better than getting.

But let’s step back from Christmas lists and Santa visits, and talk about the true meaning of Christmas: God the Father’s gift of His incarnation among us as Jesus Christ.

And the Word became flesh. John 1:14.

That God loved humanity enough to come alive humbly among us, to feel our temptation and pain, is gift enough. Yet to go onto the Cross and defeat death, invite each one of us to live with Him forever as a part of God’s perfection, love and eternal life, is quite a bit more Christmas present than anyone would have imagined.

If only we could help give Christ, humbly and with love – and with heavenly peace – to others at Christmas.

It’s surprising when we don’t try.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) uses that train story to make a Christmas point every couple of years.

Counting on Christmas, Part 2

Spirituality Column #161
December 8, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Counting On Christmas, Part 2
By Bob Walters

It’s the time of year we count things.

At Thanksgiving, we count our blessings.

Then we count shopping days until Christmas.

We count gifts bought and gifts to buy.

Maybe we count on a Christmas bonus.

Stores count on sales and count on “making it” with Christmas commerce.

We are smart to count (and mind) our money and calories.

We count how many presents are under the tree for each of our children …

Because we can count on our children counting them and challenging any perceived disparities or injustice.

We count, we count, we count. How many presents? How much money? How many calories? How many bills?

We count up presents and we count down the days.

Now … does all this counting add up to a Merry Christmas?

Does it add up to the “ineffably sublime” participation in Christ – because God became human – that is ours purely on faith?

Can we put a number on God’s Creation, which is as inexpressible (ineffable) as it is wonderful (sublime)? Is there a satisfaction index for the birth of our hope in eternal life? Or for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?

Can you count up what it means for God Almighty to become flesh to demonstrate His pure and divine love for all mankind? No, no, no, no and no.

Christianity is a loving relationship with God, not an amount. This season’s joy is not a matter of economics or mathematics. Love is a gift, but not one that can be put under a tree or counted.

It can only be counted upon.

When we enumerate Christmas – making it a numbers game of counting and comparing – it costs us the peace that is too far inside our souls to ever properly be part of an equation. Christ personally gives us that peace – it’s a gift – which we should be overjoyed to celebrate in this blessed season. It’s the peace of knowing Him, of living with Him, of sharing Him, of obeying Him, of transforming our lives for Him.

Christ wasn’t much for counting things; He was for understanding the value of things that can’t be counted, the things that really matter.

Christ’s love is the true meaning of Christmas, and it is not a quantitative proposition. It’s a gift we simply have to accept, and Christmas is a good time to do it.

That about sums it up.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is writing this month about the Christ in Christmas, and pretty much always says “Merry Christmas” whether it’s politically correct or not.