Monthly Archives: December 2020

The preacher who did not write “The Night Before Christmas”

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I stood in the “Book Nook” in Monroe, Michigan, perusing their huge assortment of Christmas books for children. Interested primarily in the artwork, I will purchase a children’s book just for that reason.

Many versions of The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore were available. That poem is as ubiquitous in this season of the year as decorated trees and jingling bells. But there is something vastly wrong with it.

That poem–also known as A Visit From Saint Nicholas–is said to be a fraud.

The evidence says Clement Clarke Moore did not write it.

First, a little background.

The September 2001 issue of “Smithsonian” magazine carried a fascinating article about a forensic linguist named Don Foster. Titled “Don Foster Has a Way With Words,” the article introduced this Vassar professor who is known for his detective abilities regarding works of literature.

This same Professor Don Foster proved that Ted Kaczynski wrote the Unabomber Manifesto. He identified Joe Klein as the “anonymous” author of “Primary Colors” a few years back, and he uncovered and established the authenticity of a Shakespeare elegy.

He does this by studying the wording of the written pieces–that is, the word choices, phrasing, and numerous other aspects of a document–and comparing it with known samples of the writings of various people. He then announces which of the suspects is the actual author.

I had to know more. So, I drove to our local library and checked out his book, “Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous” (published by Henry Holt, 2000).

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Your story might make a great parable

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This is for pastors.  The rest of you may listen in.

We have all had defining stories occur in our families and our personal lives that would make great teaching parables. Interesting stories in themselves, they also serve as vehicles to convey spiritual truths to our people.

I have three samples for you.  Whether you use them as parables–microcosms of spiritual lessons–or simply as sermon illustrations will be up to you.

First Parable:  Eugene Peterson, in his book “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction” gives one of his parables.

Dr. Peterson was in a hospital room, recovering from minor surgery on his nose which had been broken years earlier in a basketball game. The pain was great and he was in no mood for fellowship.

However, the young man in the next bed wanted to chat. Peterson brushed him off–his name was Kelly–but overheard him telling his visitors that evening that “the fellow in the next bed is a prizefighter. He got his nose broken in a championship fight.” Kelly proceeded to embellish it beyond that.

Later, after the company had left, Peterson told him what had actually happened and they got acquainted. When Kelly found out that Peterson was a pastor, he wanted nothing more to do with him and turned away.

The next morning, Kelly shook Peterson awake. His tonsillectomy was about to take place and he was panicking. “I want you to pray for me!” He did, and they wheeled him to surgery.

After he returned from surgery, Kelly kept ringing for the nurse. “I hurt. I can’t stand it. I’m going to die.”

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How God fooled Satan at Christmas

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“….the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” –I Corinthians 2:8

There is more going on in this universe–above us, underneath us, in the spirit world surrounding us–than we can imagine.

God is always at work. The hosts of Heaven are constantly serving Him in ways unknown to us.  But so is His arch-enemy at work, as well as his minions.  We see this throughout Scripture.

Satan is the enemy is all that is good.  Anything that would honor God, benefit humanity, and spread the gospel, Satan hates and works to sabotage.

But God is not stymied by Satan. The Heavenly Father loses no sleep worrying about him.  Satan’s doom is settled, his fate is sealed, his days are numbered.

“On earth is not his equal,” said Martin Luther about the devil in His majestic anthem “A Mighty Fortress.”  Granted, you and I are no match for Satan.  But in Christ we are more than conquerors.  This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith in Christ. (Romans 8:37 and I John 5:4)

God is constantly handing the devil defeat after defeat. We see it in life, we observe it in the world about us, and we see it demonstrated in Scripture.

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Christmas: No time to invent new twists on the old story

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“Unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).

Just tell the story.

Get over the need to be flashy, cutting edge, different.  Just tell it.

Tell the story with faithfulness and respect.  Tell it accurately and fully, bringing in the accounts of Matthew and Luke, drawing from the prophecies of old.

Tell it with gusto and love. Tell the story of the birth of Jesus with all the excitement of someone hearing it for the first time.  Tell the story without detouring into theories and guesses and myths and controversies.

Your Christmas sermon is no time to conjecture on how planets aligned themselves into creating that wandering star which led the Magi to Bethlehem.  Keep in mind that it “went before them until it came and stood over where the child was” (Matthew 2:9).  Try doing that with planets.  Stay on the subject, pastor, and don’t waste your time.

Your Christmas sermon should not waste everyone’s valuable time on the pagan origin of Christmas or the history of Augustus’ census, unless you’ve found something worthwhile, pastor.  Mostly those are fillers.

Stay on the subject.

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Revelation, fabrication, and making things up as you go

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“For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses….”  “For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:16,21).

I’ve been reading books again.

That explains a lot of things.  It explains where my mind is these days, what’s been bugging me, and where I’ve been searching the Word.

I’ve been reading “The Story of Ain’t.”  This is mostly the story of struggles to decide what goes into dictionaries, culminating in Webster’s Third Edition.  Author David Skinner brings us into the inner offices of G. and C. Merriam Company and tells how decisions are made concerning the English language.  If you like that, you’d love watching sausage being made.  (It’s a difficult book to read and only the wordsmiths among us should “rush out and buy this book.”)

I’ve been reading “The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844.”  Author John L. Brooke takes us back into the context of the birth of this American-made religion to show that almost everything about it was the product, not of revelation, but of ideas floating around when Joseph Smith was a young man.

I’ve been reading the Bible.

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Why racial issues are so difficult for God’s people

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“Work for the welfare of the city where I have sent you…and pray on its behalf. For as it prospers, you will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:7).

America is having a racial crisis.  Again.  Or, perhaps more accurately, the same crisis we have had for decades continues to the present day.

Here are some thoughts on the subject regarding the Lord’s people….

1) If you and I are of different races, we will see racial matters differently.

2) If your racial group is dominant and mine is in the minority, expecting us both to feel the same about racial matters is unrealistic.

3) When a racial incident breaks out, mature Christian people should measure their words and actions very carefully. None of us living hundred miles away know all the facts and anything we say is likely to be hurtful.

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Ron Dunn’s prayer stories

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Ronald Dunn, now in Heaven, was a prolific writer and speaker on prayer and the deeper life.  He pastored in Texas and authored many books.  What follows are stories taken from his book “Don’t Just Stand There, Pray Something: The Incredible Power of Intercessory Prayer.” Published in 1991 by Thomas Nelson.

First story. (I’ve heard this from numerous speakers, but it’s Ron’s story.)

I was speaking at a banquet for a church’s intercessory prayer ministry when (this mother of a teenager) shared a recent answer to prayer. A few days before, as she was getting a pie ready to put into the oven, the phone rang,  It was the school nurse.  Her son had come down with a high fever and would she come and take him home?

The mother calculated how long it would take to drive to school and back, and how long the pie should bake, and concluded there was enough time. Popping the pie into the oven, she left for school. When she arrived, her son’s fever was worse and the nurse urged her to take him to the doctor.

Seeing her son like that–his face flushed, his body trembling and dripping with perspiration–frayed her, and she drove to the clinic as fast as she dared.  She was frayed a bit more waiting for the doctor to emerge from the examination room, which he was now doing, walking toward her with a slip of paper in his hand.

“Get him to bed,” he told her, handing her the prescription, “and start him on this right away.”

By the time she got the boy home and in bed and headed out again for the shopping mall, she was not only frayed, but frazzled and frantic as well. And she had forgotten about the pie in the oven. At the mall, she found a pharmacy, got the prescription filled and rushed back to the car.

Which was locked.

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Christmas wondering

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“In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock.  Suddenly, an angel of the Lord stood before them….” (Luke 2:8ff.)

I wonder a lot about that first Christmas.

I wonder about the shepherds Luke told us about, the men tending their sheep throughout the night in the field outside Bethlehem.

What a magical moment this must have been for them.  I wonder what that was like.

As a farm boy, I can imagine myself outside in that field with them. I’ve kept the calves and cattle, the pigs and the mules and horses. I could keep sheep. It’s basically unskilled labor, we’re told. I’ve heard that shepherds in Judea ranked on the social scale one notch above lepers.  I could be a shepherd.  What would that have been like that night?

–I wonder what they were talking about in the few minutes prior to the angels’ visit.  Did they have a fire going?  Were they talking or dozing or joshing with one another?  Were they friends or even brothers?

–And when the Angel of the Lord arrived and filled the sky with Heaven’s glory, I wonder if anyone else could have seen what they saw and heard what they heard.  Could someone in an adjoining field have been dazzled by that same display? Or would it have been dark over there and they would have seen nothing?

I am almost willing to bet they would not have seen a thing, that the angelic host that evening was sent to the shepherds and for no other eyes.  Over in Matthew chapter 2, we’re not told of anyone else noticing the wandering star. No one else seemed to have been transfixed by a star that seemed to have a specific direction in mind.

So maybe this was just for them.

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Now, take Christmas. That’s certainly not how I would have done it.

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(With tongue firmly planted in cheek, let us rethink this greatest of all stories.)

What was the Lord thinking, doing Christmas the way He did?

A Baby is born to an unwed couple after a long, arduous journey.  The cradle is a feeding trough in a stable in Bethlehem.  Welcoming committees of shepherds and foreigners show up. A murderous king sends his soldiers to slaughter babies. The young family flees to Egypt.

And thus the Son of God arrives on the scene.

Admit it.  You would not have done Christmas that way.  It’s not just us.

As the God of the universe, the infinite and omnipotent Heavenly Father, you could do anything you please, right?  In the beginning, You created the Heavens and the earth, right?  The opening statement of Scripture certainly establishes who is in charge.  So everything is on the table.  Nothing off limits.

“Our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.” It says that right there in Psalm 115:3.

Now, all I’m saying is that had I been God and in charge, with no one to tell me ‘no’ and no supervisory authority to question my actions, I think I might have done things differently.

Take that stable.

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The ongoing, ever-living Christmas

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I sat in the congregation listening to the Christmas sermon.  Something was missing and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

The minister had selected one aspect of the Christmas story and read a text supporting it, then brought his sermon on that subject.  His points were properly related to the text and no doubt most people left the worship center satisfied they had been spiritually fed.  It was only later that something occurred to me, what was the missing ingredient in that morning’s service.

The worship leader and musicians and the pastor all drew our attention back to that night in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago, and they did a fair job of opening the text, explaining its message, and praising the Lord. But they omitted one major element as far as I could tell.

They forgot to give us the “so what” of the Christmas message.

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