Day 5 The Serpent's Curse

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring;

 he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."   Gen 3:15 ESV

The preparation for the coming of the Lord begins at the dawn of time, with the story of Adam and Eve.

When Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit,  God punished them by casting them out of Eden.  But before he punished them, He punished  the Serpent, who was really Satan in disguise.

God's cursed serpent by making him crawl on his belly and eat dust for the rest of his life.   That is why serpents crawl along the ground.  Vestigial leg bones are still found in modern serpents.  But it wasn't really the serpent who was being cursed, but the demonic spirit who had taken residence in the serpent--Satan himself. 

God placed an "enmity"--that is a symbol of rejection or hostility--between people and the serpent.  But it isn't the dumb animal we call a serpent who is the real target. Rather, God has caused something to stand as a guard between Satan and the human race. 

This enmity God describes will be a person--the seed of the woman.  This is not the usual way of talking about offspring in the Bible. In other places, children are called the seed of the man, not the woman. The only way a  child would be called the seed of a woman were if no man were involved in his conception--in other words, a virgin birth! 

So God promises that a human child, a male person, would come from a woman alone and would stand between Satan and all humanity.  This person would be bruised on the heel by the Satan, but would crush the head of Satan--in other words, destroy him.

This  verse is called by a special name protoevangelion--or First Gospel. From then on, humanity came to hope for a promised time when this seed of woman would reveal Himself and destroy the works of Satan. The suffering caused by Satan would not endure forever, but would disappear when the seed of the woman would be revealed.

In time, this seed of the woman was given a name--the messiah, which means the anointed one.  He would be a God's answer to the problems of the world.  This messiah would suffer--his heel would be bruised-- but through that suffering He would win a great victory that would reverse the conditions that were caused by sin and the Fall.

This prophecy was fulfilled in Christ.  He was born of a virgin, and grew to become a great man on the earth. He was bruised in the heel in his crucifixion; but with his resurrection, He  crushed the head of Satan and gave us freedom from his power.

The messiah's work was complete, but its effects are not yet fully realized. Satan still bruises us, through lies, temptations, and persecutions.  But his power is waning. Christ's victory is becoming clearer.  Now, when we are pressured by the evil one,  we can find relief and rest in Christ. 

We were hopeless and helpless in our sins--but not anymore. We are no longer imprisoned by Satan's lies. Don't ever give up hope, because God will bring the victory in the end.

"Dear God, help us to keep our hope, when times look hopeless. You have crushed the power of the Evil One, and have set us free. Help us to live in that freedom through Christ our Savior.  Amen."

Day 4 Holy day, Holiday, or Hollow Day

 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Heb 4:9-11 ESV

Christian holy days are not required in the Bible. In Romans 14, we are specifically commanded not to keep any holy day or to look down on those who do not celebrate them.  But there is nothing in the Bible that condemns us taking special days as holy days.

Holy Days, or Sabbaths, are meant to be a blessing, not a burden. In deciding when to celebrate Christmas we should look at our motivation. Do we keep Sundays or other holy days for God's sake, or for our own? Are they times for getting closer to God, or do they distract us from Him? 

Christmas in our time has changed over the years.  Hundreds of years ago, Christmas was observed as a holy day.  Christ was the center of the season. 

But, unfortunately Christmas changed.  The Christian elements of Christmas have been eclipsed by secular elements.  The holy day as become a holiday—a vacation from work and a time for having fun.

Secular Christmas may not be holy, but it is still a time to enjoy the good things God gave us.  But today, Christmas for many people is not even restful.  It has become a hollow day—not holy, not restful, just a frantic rush to get things done. 

It’s time for us to rethink our Christmas rush.  Stop buying so many presents.  Curb our desires to overeat and over-decorate.  

Christmas is a Sabbath for the Christian--a time of worship, rest and reflection. Don't make a big deal of the secular and commercial aspects of the season, but instead concentrate on two neglected aspects. 

The first is stillness.  At some time during the month of December, make time to be quiet and still.  “Be still and know that I am God.” If your holiday planning doesn’t allow you time for stillness, then you are too busy.  This month would be a good time to renew your prayer life, reread the gospels, all of them, and take time to think how God has blessed you.

The second is worship. Spend time among God's people.  Most of us would never think of going through a Christmas without trying to be with family, but many spend Christmas away from God's house.  Come and join other believers at the Table of the Lord, every chance we get.  

You don’t have to celebrate Christmas. But if you do celebrate it not as a hollow day or even as a holiday but as a holy day, sacred to the Lord.  Give Him this time, and see what He can do for you.

"Father, teach me how to set aside time for resting in You. Free me from  my busyness, so I can discover what is really important in Your presence, in Jesus' name, Amen"

Day 3 The Meaning of Advent

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.  You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. James 5:7-8  ESV

The church as a whole never believed or taught that Jesus was born on December 25, nor did it ever require that everyone observe Christmas.  The ancient church always celebrated Christ's nativity--it's mentioned in manuscripts from the early Second Century, but at first they celebrated  at different times.  The date of December 25 was eventually settled on the time of the celebration for reasons that had nothing to do with Jesus' actual birth. 

Christmas means Christ's Mass. A mass is a worship service, meant to be a reminder of a great event.  Christmas annually celebrates God's coming in human form.  It never mattered to the church which date on the calendar was His real birthday, but only that they annually remember the reason He came.

An internet search of Christmas will quickly reveal a lot of websites which argue that Christmas is a pagan holiday.   The Mithra cult, which was popular in ancient Rome, celebrated the feast of The Unconquerable Sun on December 25. Some of the Roman emperors worshiped Mithra and declared it a holiday.  Most Romans celebrated a Roman holiday called saturnalia somewhere between December 17th and 23rd, but there is no real historical evidence  that these holidays had any bearing on the church's choice for the date of Christmas.  The most ancient churches in existence today celebrates Christmas on January 6.  

Even if there were a connection, and the date was chosen for conveniences sake, since so many were off work on those dates anyway,  it would still not make any difference to the meaning of Christmas. The ancient church developed a yearly cycle of feast days as a method of keeping Christ's  birth, life, death and resurrection in front of us annually. It made sense to begin the year with the celebration of Christ's birth.

The period before the feast of the Nativity was called Advent, when people prepared themselves for the coming of the Lord.  It was originally a time of fasting and preparation, similar to Lent.  Like Easter,  the feast of the Nativity was a popular time for people to unite with the church and be baptized. It was  a time for setting aside the business of the world,  for fasting, repentance and confession, so we would be ready to receive the blessing of the coming of Christ.  The time after Christ's Mass, the so-called Twelve Days of Christmas, was a time for rejoicing that He came.

In our world, we seem to have reversed these. December is our time of fun, feasting and parties.  The average American will put on three to six pounds of excess fat in the next month, due to overeating.  January is our time of making resolutions, going on diets, joining health clubs, and paying down credit card debt we accrued in celebration. 

Our world prepares for the holidays, but we don't prepare for Jesus.  We look forward to holiday joy, but we have disconnected it from the source of that joy.  Jesus is an afterthought to us, and worship is something we turn to only after we have satisfied ourselves on worldly amusements and  mindless commercialism.  We approach Christ at Christmas like  a drunk returning home to his wife after an all-night bender--hung over, distracted, and more than a little guilty. 
Let's do better this year Use this season to prepare ourselves for God's blessing.  When the early church celebrated Christmas, the only present was Jesus Himself.  Everything before Christ is nothing compared to the joy that comes in Him.

This season,  prepare your hearts for the coming of the Lord, by making room for Him in your lives. 

"Father,  let us know the darkness of our own lives, before we come to seek you.  Help us prepare for your coming, and help us to anticipate the joy that comes in Christ's name.  Amen"

Day 2 What God Wants for Christmas

 "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;

and he who has no money,  come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;  hear, that your soul may live;

 and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. . .

 . . . Seek the Lord while he may be found;  call upon him while he is near;

 let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts;

let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,

and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.   Isa 55:1-7  ESV

Today is "Black Friday", the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season.  Stores opened at midnight today, and (as everyone knows) the traffic around the shopping malls and department stores will be heavy.  This next month,  forty percent of the retail sales will occur.  Credit card debt will soar.  s people buy juicers,  digital watches, neckties,  video games, and toys. We will load our lawns with Christmas decorations and trim our trees with lights and balls.  In January, we will box them all up for next year and figure out how we are going pay for our indulgences as the bills return to us like the Ghost of Christmas Past.

What drives us to spend so much?  Mostly, it's advertising.  Everywhere we look there are ads delivering the message that the only way we can enjoy the holidays is through overspending, and the only way we  express love is by bombarding our friends and relatives with unnecessary trinkets.

None of this has anything to do with Christ's Nativity.  God doesn't really go in for extravagant shows. What He really wants is our love and friendship.  Love is when we expect nothing in return for our investment in another person's happiness. That's the kind of love God gave us at Christmas.   It's hard for us to grasp that God's love really is free, and that our love for others should be free as well.  Our overblown materialism at Christmas is the result of our feeling of inadequacy, that somehow we must prove ourselves to God and others.  We have responded to God's free love with a performance-based celebration.  Our feelings of inadequacy drive us to try to achieve the illusion of holiday perfection.

The holiday season was created not for business, but for stillness. It is supposed to be a resting time when can stop and meditate on where we are, where we have been and where we have going.  We have taken that resting place in the year and turned it into a shopping mall. No wonder so many people dread the holidays.

Christmas exists in our hearts, not in the shopping malls.  You can't buy Christmas on Amazon or Ebay.  Any time we choose, we may stop listening to our cultural voices and pay attention to God's voice within. 

Before we hit the malls,  let's fall to our knees and find rest in our souls. Then when January comes again, we will be rested and ready for the new year,  refreshed in grace and love. 

Prayer

"God, spare us from the burden of useless and futile obligations, and pointless activities that give us neither rest nor joy.  Instead,  renew us with Your Spirit and point us to the manger, and beyond it to the Cross.  Help us to be at peace in a world gone mad, and to keep our eyes focused on you.  In Jesus' name, Amen." 

Day 1 The First Thanksgiving

 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.  Phil 4:10-13

The story of the Pilgrims began in England in 1609 in a little church in Weymouth, England under a pastor names Rev. William Brewster.  They believed that England had become so corrupt that believers should withdraw and start the their own society. Brewster and his followers moved to Leyden, Holland, where they could practice their religion freely. 

Unfortunately, Holland did not welcome them.  They were not allowed to own property or practice a trade unless they were members of the Dutch Reformed church. So Brewster and his flock decided to move to the New World.  A group of businessmen agreed to sponsor their trip if they were to  grow crops and give half of their crops.  They reluctantly agreed. 

The little church pooled their money and bought a ship for the journey. It the Speedwell--a leaky boat barely able to  stay afloat.  But they loaded their belongings on board and started for America. Their own pastor was afraid of it and refused to go.  

The Speedwell  did not make it past England before it sank, so their backers hired another ship--the Dutch merchant ship named the Mayflower. 41 Pilgrims along with 61 settlers and sailors left on a three month voyage to the New World.

The Pilgrims had believed God in God's providence, but so far that belief had not worked for them. Every time they did what God wanted, they wound up in a worse mess than before.

When the Mayflower arrived, small pox had wiped out eighty percent of the Indian population. They planted the same crops that were grown in earlier colonies in Virginia and Carolina--tobacco, sugar, and indigo. None of them grow in Massachusetts.   That winter was the hardest on record. Over half of the pilgrims died the first winter of cold and starvation.

Then one day in the spring, a nearly naked Indian walked calmly into the camp and addressed them in perfect English! His was Samoset.  Later, he returned with Squanto, who was the interpreter for the chief or the Massasoits.  They showed the Pilgrims how to plant crops that would grow in New England, and survive the harsh New England winters.

The next Fall, the Indians arrived unannounced for dinner. There were about forty colonists and about a hundred and fifty Indians. here were no turkeys, but plenty of wild game. The Indians ate them out of  supplies, and if it were not for Massasoit bringing wild game, they might have starved. 

Was this the first Thanksgiving? No, the Pilgrims thanked God every day, even while dying of cold and starvation! In spite of all their disasters, they never stopped giving thanks.  Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and yet they gave thanks at every occasion.

Being blessed is not about our circumstances. It comes from our reaction to circumstances.  It is not an absence of trouble, but an absence of cares in our trouble.  We may be down, but God is still the same God and He still is in control.

In Philippians 4"13 Paul says--:I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  

Faith isn't a magic word that makes our problems go away.  It is a promise of supernatural contentment in the midst of trouble. Faith does not take us out of the world, but gives us contentment in it.

The Pilgrims survived and grew.  Their descendants became leaders in New England and later the country.  In spite of their rough start, Jesus gave them the strength to endure. 

When we  give thanks to God, we recognize that He is in control. The Pilgrims knew this,  that’s why we celebrate them today.

Paul knew this, too. That’s why he is called St. Paul.  God’s grace in Christ will help us to endure the worst of circumstances, and give us contentment in the best as well.

Prayer

"Father in the midst of the troubles of this day, help me to give thanks that You are still in control. Let my thanksgiving not be just for what I have been given, but for the fact that above all and through all You have been with me. In Jesus' name, Amen/"

Welcome to Forty-Two Days of Grace

This is a daily devotional blog for use in the Advent-Christmas Season.

Advent begins each year four week prior to Christmas. This year, the official beginning of Advent it November 29. 
This blog begins the day after Thanksgiving, November 27th.  It will end on January 6th, the twelfth day of Christmas.
If you are interested in receiving these devotions, please subscribe to the email list. You should receive it via feedburner each morning through January 6.  Each one will include a Scriptural meditation and a prayer.