I spent a good part of today digging through canvas tents, heavy metal stakes, and numerous wooden tent poles. Why? We’re selling the Civil War-era wall tent.

Getting ready to part with the camp gear made me think of something we had in our family newsletter back in 1997, related to the reason we had the wall tent. To wit:

Maybe you saw us in Braum’s the other day.

We were the three ladies in hoop skirts, two soldiers in shell jackets, and one gentleman in a frock coat. We were tuckered out from dancing at the ball.

War is hell. Especially the Civil War. And especially the reenacting of the Civil War. So who would do such a thing? On purpose? We would, of course.

Mom pulled together a group of families, and connected us with some friends who teach a class in living history. Since last fall, we have “lived the history” of the 1860s.

It’s no easy task to live the history.

It required extensive use of the Internet to find the right sutlers. (See how educational this is? If you hadn’t read this, you might not know that a “sutler” is a person who followed the army around to sell them food, liquor, and other necessities.)

Today’s sutler is a retailer who specializes in Period Correct gear. (See how educational this is? “Period correct” is the term for “the way they really did that.”)

If you’re not Period Correct, your behavior is called “farbe,” pronounced far’-bee. (See how educational this is? “Farbe” means “far be it from me to wear/do that!”)

OK, enough education.

Let’s talk FUN. Because this is the place where you get to march! And dance.

You get to shoot guns! And dance.

You get to make bonnets! And dance.

You get to sew! And sew. And sew.

You get to make your own tent poles, and waterproof your own tent.

This April [1997] we went off to Shiloh, Tenn., for the 135th anniversary of that battle. There, along with thousands of soldier and civilian reenactors, we looked right at home in our 1860s garb.

From our perspective as Civil War reenactors, we enjoy a splendid perspective. We already know who won the war.

Which reminds us of another spring event, Easter. Easter marked the decisive victory in a cosmic civil war between God and a rebellious angel.

In a daring rescue, God took the form of His own created beings to force a confrontation with the enemy. Catching the enemy off guard, God submitted to a grueling execution of body and reputation — only to defy death three days hence.

In that resurrection, God won the war for Himself, and for any of us who choose to wear His colors. Even those of us who once sided with the enemy.

War is hell. But God’s victory is heaven.

Kind of makes us want to dance. How about you?

Early in the fourth quarter of the ill-fated Cowboys game today, a TV commentator referred to an earlier quote from one of the Cowboys — that if they did not make the playoffs, it “all was for naught.”

All strategies.
Recruiting.
Previous wins.
Previous losses.
Playing while injured.
Super-dollar spending on superstar players.
Comeback games.
Intrasquad squabbles.
Late nights studying the competition.
Standing strong against media criticism.
Everything that dominated and consumed the lives and thinking of so many fans, players, coaches, and owners 24/7.
All the all.

It was all for nothing. The whole season was about the final result.

Life’s the same way.

My life may be full of nonstop activity, frenzied positioning, tense conflicts, thrilling victories, crushing defeats, mountain tops, and valleys. But what counts is the end of the season — when the final commissioner looks at our records and compares it to… His perfect record. (Nobody else’s record counts.)

My record doesn’t measure up. My final outcome is for naught, except for one thing. God erased my record and replaced it with His. The righteousness of Christ replaced my total disregard for righteousness.

I’m not even like the Cowboys. I’m worse. I’m like the Detroit Lions, who became the first NFL team to ever go 0-16 for a season. We’re all Detroit Lions, without Christ.

By way of penance for the previous post, here’s something more serious, something that occurred to me this morning.

Rome declared that all the world should register so they could be taxed (Luke 2:1).

What’s the big deal? Rome counted the people. Locally they were counting the Jewish people, over whom Rome ruled there. Globally they were counting people from every tribe and nation over whom Rome ruled — virtually the entire known world at that time.

God superintends all counting. He forbade David to count the people (2 Samuel 24). And He ordained Rome to count the people (Luke 2).

Here’s the big deal. God added His Son to the population of the world, at the very moment when He ordained that the world would count its population.

Rome counted Jews, and Rome counted gentiles, but Rome’s rule would not last. At that very moment, the One whose kingdom will last forever entered the world, whose kingdom would extend beyond anything Rome imagined.

As the world was counted, God used a census to turn the spotlight on His Son, declaring, “As long as you’re counting, BE SURE TO COUNT THIS ONE!” — “…and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).”

For Christmas 1946, employees at a certain printing and publishing company gave their employer a recording machine — a device that recorded audio onto 78 rpm records.

Their employer, Aaron Smith, was remarkable in that he had been born with no arms toward the end of the Civil War. Yet God gave him devoted parents, a loving wife, and a strong mind.

As good steward of these things, Smith founded a number of businesses and used them to provide for himself, family, distant relatives, and friends.

I am one such distant relative — distant in time, that is. He’s my great-grandfather.

Smith was ill that Christmas in 1946, but he sent his thanks and greetings to the employees on a record created on the machine. Employees in turn recorded their Christmas party for Smith’s amusement, since he could not attend. Later recordings include various family gatherings, usually accompanied by a piano and singing.

This Christmas I’m reminded of two other voices. One was loud and heard by many, as a “multitude of the heavenly host” announced Christ’s birth to the lowly shepherds. The other was a solo confined to an animal stall — the cry of a baby, Emmanuel, God with Us.

These voices from the past still call our names and guide us.

God’s voice is found in the Bible. Smith’s voice has been preserved on that recording machine his employees gave them, which you can hear here.

This week was marked with some conflict in the family. Yes, the same week when we remember how angels proclaimed, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Some people think that means all men should be at peace now — like nations can all be at peace if we just sit down and talk it out. That’s precisely what the angels meant could not happen, on our own. We are ruled by selfish natures. So no man or nation is able to make peace with God himself, since we keep making war against him. For the same selfish reason, we refuse to make lasting peace with other people or nations. Self-centeredness leads to conflict.

What the angels meant was, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth (where selfishness made peace impossible), peace has come in the form of Christ — to those with whom God is pleased (because he made them pleasing to himself)! In the age to come, those who believe in him will also be at peace with each other.”

The conflict, it turns out, is far from localized, as the prophet Daniel discerned. It’s not just terrestrial or even extraterrestrial. It’s beyond flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12).

While many Jews were still exiles, Daniel was grieved to learn that conflict had stopped the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Daniel 9). He mourned with fasting, until an angel appeared to him. The angel explained that he was delayed in coming to Daniel by a conflict in the spirit realm. Besides encouraging Daniel with a vision of the future, the angel had helped Daniel — and us — glimpse a truth:

In this age, conflict dominates both the spiritual and physical sides of Creation. What we experience here is no different from what angels experience, when it comes to the struggle between right and wrong. We might even say our conflict flows out of the spiritual conflict.

The angels proclaimed truly Good News to the shepherds on Christmas Day: Christ has come with a permanent resolution to those conflicts. In his first coming, he made peace with God possible as he satisfied justice perfectly. In his second coming, he will bring all conflict to an end, in heaven and earth.

Godlikeness is peace. Godlikeness is justice. On Christmas Day, peace and justice begin the long march to Calvary… where the conflict between the two is crucified.

“For [Christ] is our peace, who has made us both one…” (Ephesians 2:14)
“And he [Christ] shall be their peace.” (Micah 5:5)

I’m a sucker for Christmas movie classics like It’s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas. I’m not sure why — especially White Christmas.

Snow is awful stuff. Flashback to a certain Boy Scout project. Leaders are dragging us out in the frozen stuff to tramp through neighborhoods to raise money by selling something that nobody wanted. I’m wearing tennis shoes. I freeze my toes off. Still, I like watching White Christmas.

I admit that nothing beats snow for expressing the fresh, the new, the unsoiled, the pure. So I shouldn’t be surprised to find that it’s an expression of just that for God. Of the resurrected Christ, we read, “His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.” (Matthew 28:3)

Psalm 147 expresses the wonder of God’s creation, as “He gives snow like wool; he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.”

If it’s a blessing from God, I’ll embrace it. But I’ll embrace it from indoors. In fact, we built a winter wonderland in our attic this fall. We call it “insulation,” and our friendly snowman recently spent some quality time up in his element.

As for snow, I figure I’d better get used to it. “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:22) Heat? That’s why we added that thermal radiant barrier, as well.

At Christmas, there’s a place for bells and choruses and all the rest. But nothing’s better for sitting down and meditating on the meaning of Christmas than the sound of a harp.

On Sunday, Denton (Texas) Bible Church worshipped with 18 harps on stage, one played by our daughter Rebecca. Besides accompanying the orchestra on the hymns, they played this heart- and soul-stirring piece. While you listen, ponder the lyrics below.



Lyrics:

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times did’st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

The voice on the other end of my cell phone was anxious. “Dad,” said my daughter, “I’ve been in an accident…. I’m on the freeway.”

Strange how, just a few minutes earlier, I’d said a prayer of thanksgiving that none of us in the family was hurting from an accident. A short piece on the car radio had observed how the holidays often accentuate our pain. The physical example was a car accident, and the bruises endured through the observer’s holiday time. The spiritual application was the unseen pain accentuated in those who had lost a loved one or experienced other trauma near a holiday.

Now we had an accident. “Call 9-1-1,” I told her. I’ll be right there.

Her car. Another vehicle. Airbags inflate. Other vehicle flees. Daughter manages a safe stop against the median, barely off the fast lane of a four-lane freeway.

Was she OK? Well, her chest hurt a little from the air bags. Thank God she wore her seatbelt.

But she may have some pain this holiday. So may those in four other cars, victims of supplementary accidents from closing two lanes of the freeway.

Her car looks very said, but she’s OK. Just sore (and probably sorer this morning).

Why do these things happen? One reason might be to remind me that people are hurting this season. Their expectations of the season may make them hurt more. Their loss of joy may be compounded by others’ apparent happiness.

They need a hope more than ever. I pray they find it in front of their face — in the Christ of Christmas. He was born into a world of hurt, for just such moments as these.

It’s hard to believe — just five more days until Christmas.

Years ago, our family started celebrating Christmas on a day besides Dec. 25, and next Tuesday is that day this year.

We have nothing against Dec. 25. In fact, we also celebrate with extended family on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day. But we devote our off-Christmas celebration exclusively to the Christ child (who, by the way, is the same Christ who grew up in faithful obedience to the heavenly Father and died as a perfect sacrifice for my sins).

In the past dozen years or so, it’s grown to be a very special time for us, when even the gift-giving is “in honor of Jesus.” As I looked down on last year’s stack of presents, a handmade ornament from the grandchild held equal value with a carefully selected book or fine shirt.

The celebration started with six of us. This year we’ll have 10, including a baby. We’ll feast on dinner, meditate on the story of Christ’s birth, walk through our neighborhood to reenact Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem, and rejoice with the herald angels. You can read about it here.

It seems fitting to initiate a blog with a mention of a new beginning — the incarnation of one who “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” (Hebrews 1:3-4)

We rejoice that Jesus-God was “made like his brothers in every respect,” (2:17) that he might “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery [to sin and, therefore, eternal hopelessness and separation from God]” (2:15).