journey onWord with us

I’m going to break pattern on this last post of Advent and invite you first to experience our song for this week (“In Your Care” by 4Him) by clicking here. And if it is also helpful, here is a link to the lyrics. This is certainly not a mandate. It is only an intentional invite.

The humanity of Jesus is something I have come to see and know more deeply since beginning to write for Passion Week one more than ten years ago. The song that chose me for this final week of Advent centers squarely on that humanity by imagining the precious heart of the yet born Christ child for Mary, Joseph and His people. I am deeply grateful that I don’t have to attempt to speak my words to you. It is hard enough in stopping every sentence or three to compose myself while typing. I can’t imagine having to stand and speak what this song wells up inside of me.

It’s more than a challenge to wrap one’s mind around Jesus being an infant or adolescent. We know He couldn’t have been a “terrible two,” but how hard would it be to parent a perfect child (maybe you’ve had one or more who insisted they were <insert smiley face emoji here>)? God’s inconceivable plan meant for Jesus to be born and grow like every one of us, which meant he had parents who provided and guided. In very much the requisite way we are, Jesus was a dependent. And in a way that we can’t quite, Jesus loved his earthly mother and father. I love the way this song imagines that love in the anticipation of being born.  I love the way this song speaks the truth of this one layer of Jesus’ submission to the limits of becoming one of us.

“I’ll be in your care,” the first two occasions of the chorus begin. The One who divided day from night by speaking the celestial sources of light into existence to mark days and seasons and years (Gen. 1:14) submits Himself to being changed and fed. He accepts counsel and obeys. He will say during His ministry years that He had not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. How beautiful is the picture of Him fulfilling the fifth commandment as fully man who was first fully a boy. It’s been impossible for me to hear those words that begin the chorus without tearing up. The gravity and beauty of Jesus’ humility wrecks me.

The sentiments imagined for Mary and Joseph are equally beautiful and moving. And those directed to His people speak an earnest and meaningful hope, but the ones which literally took my breath away were those of the final stanza and chorus. For me, they represent the fullest expression of the fully God, fully man mystery. The incomprehensible truth of Jesus in the womb and through the tomb. In every precious breath, the Creator and Savior of the world was God in flesh. He both knew and went through. He didn’t supplant, He submitted.

What begins as directed to both mom and dad then continues to a comfort that could only be meant for Mary, finishes in a way that truly feels meant for us all. And in the moment where a breath was quite literally caught up in my throat, the chorus takes a momentously meaningful one-eighty. The precious sentiment of God in flesh shifts from the child who came as one of us to the King who came for all of us. The boldest expression of His humanity (placing Himself in the care of a teenager and carpenter) turns to the boldest expression of His divinity (He is their and our God). One of the thoughts that most moves me is that of Mary standing near the base of the Cross. There can be no argument she was chosen intentionally by God to be the earthly mother of Jesus. In her encounters with the angels and her dear cousin who bore the Savior’s herald, she believes and perceives uniquely. Maybe more fully said, it is the both-and of that and the Spirit within her. It would make sense to me that was also true as Jesus grew and when He had to go (from her home toward His express mission). I expect she knew things in her heart that confounded everyone else. But it was altogether something else to be near Him in the times and places very near when He became sin so He could save us. And then when He ascended so He could come again. I cannot know a mother’s heart. I’ve seen and experienced it up close but cannot know it truly. But I know it well enough to know some manner of its ache in suffering and separation. How deeply beautiful are the words of the concluding refrain:

You’ll be in My care
Safely harbored there
My heavenly host will follow you close
But always remember, please be aware
You will be in my care

Oh, the thrilling mystery of God in flesh. Oh, the tender and triumphant imagining of the heart of Jesus in this week’s song,

Merry Christmas, brothers and sisters. And if you’re reading this and don’t yet believe, today is the very best day and this moment is the very best moment to give your heart to Jesus. Sincerely speaking the words out loud or in your heart that you believe in Him and that He died for your sins and rose again to pay the price that you could not. If/when you do that, fully receive the lavish and thrilling gift of unconditional forgiveness He’s given you. Embrace and celebrate that He has genuinely made you new. I, and we at Journey onWord, sing and celebrate with you! And please use this link to tell us! We’d be thrilled to come alongside and celebrate with you.

Glory to God in the Highest!

I want to begin this week in explanation and lament of a choice I made last week in writing. I added an adjective (that reflected my heart in the moment) to a short sentence that ended one of the latter paragraphs. Prior to the impulsive edit the sentence read, “Until then, mystery is a must.” In the last stroke of my pen before posting, I amplified the must with “beautiful.” The specifics of why I felt convicted about the choice in the early moments of the morning after aren’t important here, but my confession and correction are. It’s not that the word itself and the genuine truth of “beautiful” relative to mystery is wrong. It’s that it’s incomplete. The mystery is not always beautiful. The mystery in the why questions in the song as they pertain to our own lives are sometimes harrowing or deeply painful. This season of love and joy is not always so. God is always good. Yes, and Amen. But not all is good, or healed, or made well in this world and in our lives (and a holiday season doesn’t change that truth). God is able. Yes, and Amen. But He doesn’t always. To anyone who felt harm rather than encouragement from the impulse of my heart last week, please forgive me. Maybe not by name, but I am mindful of and prayerful for you now. And I stand or sit with you as a brother.

Maybe, for you, this beginning was not needed. Maybe it has the potential to distract from the new song and thoughts for this third week of Advent. But even as I continue to type, I’m seeing a meaningful thread that God’s Spirit has woven through this thought to the ones which had already begun marinating before this meaningful morn (and mourn). More on that in a bit.

Rediscovered very soon after my listen to last week’s song was this next one. It’s absolutely not unique to 4Him, and it’s quite literally the only Christmas song for which I have a Top 5 (versions). It’s my very favorite Christmas song to listen to while driving (especially on long drives—the over the river and through the wood’s ones—the ones where you’re more likely to sing out loud and, perhaps, use the steering wheel as percussion—my boys will smile when they read that specific mention). The song is also the title of my youngest’s favorite Christmas special growing up. An unexpected but deeply meaningful favorite … The Little Drummer Boy.

Apart from the thrilling reminder of how much I loved this particular version, there was a singular thought that washed over me when I stopped all else to immerse myself in the goodness of this song. The morsel in that moment was invited by the lyric, “I have no gift to bring.” I am typically most humbled in the Advent of our dear Savior’s death and resurrection. That is the season where my heart and mind are most overcome with His extravagant meeting of my desperate need. His can and my can’t. I am absolutely humbled by His humble in His first coming. His sacrificial choice to leave everything that was perfect union with the Father to become one of us in the lowliest of how’s and where’s. We can’t have life without Christ’s death and resurrection. And because it was God’s plan, He couldn’t die for us without being born as one of us. So, it would be right to experience it all in the celebration of Jesus’ first coming. I just don’t know that I have before in the unique way that He’s invited me to this year in the rediscovery of these songs.

I am that imagined Little Drummer Boy. I have no gift to bring. In and of myself, there is nothing worthy and able. In and of myself, there are no words to write that are worthy to be read. In and of myself, a choice to amplify can become an exponential subtract. A word meant to nourish or heal, suddenly becomes a weapon that wounds. I have no gift to bring.

And yet, because of Him I do. Because of Him, the absolute last thing I liked to do as a kid (especially as homework!) becomes a thing I can’t not do and that brings me such joy. Because of Him, I can see purpose in that particular word from last week. A purpose, maybe, meant only for one. A new purpose, maybe, meant only for one other this week in what He worked out in my own heart’s lament.

My words in Advent are nothing more than a clanging cymbal unless they first come from Him and point you to Him. The things we read, see, hear and experience are meant to know Him more and make us more like Him. As I pa-rum, pum, pum, pum on my steering wheel this year, I’m going to be more mindful and exceedingly grateful for the gift I don’t have but that He’s given me in coming to be one of me (us). Let’s play for Him—together—on the drums He’s given us and make His name and love ring out in the hearts of others … especially those who still don’t know Him.

Glory to God in the highest.

I invite you to experience “The Little Drummer Boy” by 4Him by clicking here.

p.s.  As an inconsequential aside for anyone who is curious, my Little Drummer Boy Top 5 is:

1. 4Him
2. For King & Country
3. Chicago
4. TobyMac
5. Bing Crosby

Two pregnant cousins: one shockingly aged, one scandalously young. A brilliant and boisterous herald to, perhaps, the very most unheralded. The One who spoke the stars and mountains and man into existence growing inside an unmarried minor. A very literal average Joe as the father of the Father’s Son. A Savior who: clothed His divinity in the limits of our humanity; chose thorns for gems in His crown; and death so that we could live. This was such a strange way to save the world.

The lyrics of one of my very favorite Christmas songs quite literally speaks to the miraculous truth of the first paragraph’s concluding sentence. “A Strange Way to Save the World” is written as an imagined internal dialogue of Joseph. A man with whom I can absolutely relate. No, not because I believe God could have chosen me for such a divine earthly purpose. But because we both could have never believed He would.

Infinitely beyond the shocks of a ninety-something, a not quite-yet-a-woman, and the humble man of trade is the one that God authored and Jesus chose as His way to save you and me. With all the infinite possibilities that didn’t involve the straight-jacket of our sin, why this way? The answer? Because there weren’t infinite possibilities. There was only one way. I love how the imagined lyrics of the song speak that truth. Imagined, from an earthly perspective, but can I suggest they could be as are the words of Scripture … Inspired.

But Joseph knew the 
Reason love had to reach so far.

I would be the first person to wrap myself up in the warmth of the season and settle into a cozy spot to drink it all in. The first one to travel the rabbit holes of deep meaning in the people and particulars of the story of our dear Savior’s birth. But I believe this story is just as much about the “mundane” as it is the meaningful. Just as much about the humanity as it is the divinity. But in saying that, please hear that I believe it’s the most wondrous and glorious both-and. This story’s humanity never rises above its divinity, just as Jesus’ never did. It’s a both-and just like Jesus not coming to abolish the Law, but to be its fulfillment—its perfection. The Law as God wrote and meant for His people to know and obey. The Law in the person of Jesus, lived out in the language of His sermon on the side of a hill.

So, how do the mundane and meaningful meet as a both-and? For me, the answer is a single word, rooted in a single Person … mystery. If there is one victim which is greatest in the dogged pursuit of this-world progress and knowledge, it’s mystery. In our seek, and even demand, to know why, we often insist on reason and hold-in-our-hands fact or illustration. Mystery, like faith, is more often than not in the crosshairs of the learned or wish-to-be’s. But mystery and faith are essential to knowing God on this side of eternity. One day, we will truly and fully know Him. Until then, mystery is a beautiful must.

Our song asks several beautiful why questions—why me, why Him, why here, why her? The story of God and His love for us answers them all. And the answer is necessary and life-changing. Knowing why shouldn’t be rejected in trade for the beauty in the mystery. The beauty in the mystery should be embraced in our asking why and how. They are not an either-or in knowing Him (and knowing Him more).

For me, this rediscovered and favored Christmas song invites us into a deeper and grander experience of the Advent and celebration of our dear Savior’s birth. It is that He came, yes. But it is also why, and where, and how, and when, and to whom He came. Every minute detail, a unique and worthy voice which join together in the most glorious harmony that heralds the depth, breadth, and beauty of the story of all stories—the story of His great love for us, and His coming to be one of us in order to save us. It was such a strange way to save the world.

Glory to God in the Highest.

I invite you to lean into the mystery and experience the song for yourself by clicking here.