Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-25-24

~ A guest message by Clarence Larsen ~

Once across the Christmases of time, swirling in the snowy winds of December comes a memory. Perhaps it was a vision. Perchance a dream. I know not.

All I know is… it changed my life.

Christmas Eve was splendid! The choir processed in the darkness as candlelight flared throughout the sanctuary.

Silent night, Holy night. All is calm. All is bright.

All too soon the congregation sang their last notes of praise. The candles were extinguished, one by one. The church lights rose as the singers filed out.

Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her King!

The congregation bundled themselves against the cold. Sharing last-minute hugs and holiday greetings, they trundled off, into the dark. And I shuffled off into the fluffy snow of December.

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.

Upon arriving home, a box awaited me on the stairs. I scooped it up, entered the hall, and flung my snowy coat over the hook. The warmth of the kitchen… aaahhh… time for a cup of hot chocolate! Now, Christmas was complete.

God’s perfect gift waited in silence, just as He had for thousands of years. Even since before the Creation. I pondered who had left it, and what was in it. My mind began to swirl with all the possibilities. Just like the snow.

We three kings of Orient are, bearing gifts; we traverse afar…

There was nothing extraordinary about the box. Just a plain white cardboard box, bigger than a breadbox, not as large as an appliance crate. There was a note attached. I ripped open the envelope and read:

Merry Christmas!

I cannot keep this any longer. This has meant much to me for many years, but I must pass it on to you.

You see… Christmas is broken… and I cannot fix it alone, but I hope you can help.

I wish you a COMPLETE and Blessed Christmas!

The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee tonight.

I scanned the cryptic message a dozen times, and became increasingly puzzled. The box had been labeled by a spidery, cramped hand. It read: BROKEN – PIECES MISSING.

Away in a manger, No crib for a bed

The mystery was intriguing. With gentle hands, I opened the box. What was missing? Was an important piece gone?

The little Lord Jesus Lay down His sweet head.

The innocent carol from my boyhood returned. I lifted the lid of the box, and behold, it was a nativity set of Jesus’ birth. The figures were lovingly painted in jewel-toned colors. Mary and Joseph, shepherds, wise men, even camels, cows, and sheep. There was even a rough wood stable. I felt like a little child again, pulling each piece gently out of the box.

While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground.

The shepherds were set on the table by the window. Sheep and lambs, too. I found the angel and hung it over the stable.

An angel of the Lord came down, and glory shone around.

I unpacked the Wise Men and camels, complete with their gifts of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, and stored them behind the manger scene. My custom was to add them to the diorama on Epiphany. They would just have to wait!

O come and behold Him, born the King of Angels

The Holy Family was gloriously depicted. Mary looked at the manger with adoration. Joseph looked on, leaning on his staff. Wonder was written all over his bearded face.

What Child is this who, laid to rest…

What Child? Indeed, there was no Christ Child! Where was Baby Jesus? What would Christmas be without the Savior? I sat in front of the crèche staring into an empty manger.

And stay by my cradle Until morning is nigh.

Was Jesus the missing piece? I remembered many years where the Messiah was the centerpiece of Christmas. The music, the candlelight services, family feasts with loved ones.

O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!

I had to admit in recent years we didn’t even mention Him. Now it was simply Happy Holidays! We mustn’t offend anyone. I turned back to rummage through the box. I needed Jesus in my Christmas… and in my heart.

Unto us a child is born, Unto us a Son is given.

There was a growing mound of packing paper on the table. It was higher than the crèche itself. It reminded me how the busyness of the season could bury someone. The lights. The rehearsals. The parties. Jesus had to be somewhere here in this avalanche.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky How Jesus, the Savior, had come for to die

In the very bottom of the box, I found a small figure. The tiny Baby’s face radiated innocence and the purest love. Thank you, Lord. Jesus was not missing at all! He had been given for all the world.

And the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called…

BROKEN! Baby Jesus was not missing, but he was broken. The tiny baby had two perfectly formed arms and feet, but he had only one hand. This tiny missing part was the reason the box was marked: BROKEN. Christmas was broken. The world was broken. And I was broken.

He rules the world with truth and grace And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness And wonders of His love.

Finally, the Christ Child smiled up at me from the hay. The Nativity was complete. The same childlike awe and wonder I knew as a boy flooded my soul. I prayed for a while and thought of the story recorded in Luke. I began to nod off, and sleep overtook me, plunging me into a dream.

… and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

In the dream, I found myself at the manger. Mary and Joseph greeted me, the little Lord Jesus cooed, and smiled, and reached toward me with His single hand. It broke my heart. How would this little boy ever become Joseph’s apprentice in the carpenter’s shop? Could He lay His hand on the children, and on the sick? Would He be able to break the loaves and fishes? I knew He came to give His life for mine. I knew His blood was shed to wash us clean. And stripes were laid on His back to heal the world. He would wear a crown of thorns that was meant for me. There would be nails that pierced His feet and his hands. Well… Hand. What did I have to offer Him? I was broken, too.

So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh; Come peasant, king, to own Him. The King of kings salvation brings; Let loving hearts enthrone Him.

I asked in the midst of my dream, What do I have to give You?

The voice of the Risen Savior answered with a single word… EVERYTHING… I will always be with you. I have given all for you. Come, follow Me.

His calling has echoed in me for nearly three decades. I have praised Him with music, teaching, and writing. Here I am, Lord. Send me!

Courtesy and © Clarence Larsen. Clarence is a member of Marlene Bagnull’s Write His Answer Fellowship, a writers’ and critique group. It meets regularly and is accessible on Zoom. Marlene also leads two writers conferences every year; I have been a faculty member for two decades.

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Click: Mary, Did You Know

12-15-24

Chreasters? What’s a Chreaster?

Oh, yeah; it’s a nickname for folks who go to church maybe twice a year, on Christmas and Easter. Maybe like some people my German relatives describe, who go to church three times in their lives – Baptism, wedding, and, um, their funeral.

Well, I am one believes that you can be Saved, and even a good Christian, without belonging to a church. We have Bibles and fellowships and electronic worship on TV, radio, the internet… Maybe we won’t be as joyful or fulfilled or spiritually provoked, but choosing to be a Chreaster is not a ticket to hell. Not necessarily.

If it is a symptom, however, of a casual or formal or non-existent faith… then that sound you hear, or should hear, is alarm bells. And this Chreaster Season is a good time to discuss it. Let’s chat, you or friends-of-friends and me…

Why do you have a faith in name only?

Do you deny food because you once experienced food poisoning? Do you avoid a great friend because he has jerks in his family? Have you not heard that Jesus stands at the door, humbly, and knocks? It is your part to let Him in; He will not invade your life. That would not bring the “change” He desires for you, and you need.

To follow Christ is not a command to follow every one of those who call themselves His followers. To be a Christian has little to do with hundreds of rules and traditions. It is to believe He is the Son of God; that He became incarnate – of human flesh to dwell among us – and that He died to take the punishment for our sins upon Himself; and that He overcame death so that we will too, as believers, and to live with Him for eternity.

Once upon a time in Western Civilization, Christianity was interwoven in the affairs of daily activities; essential to social contacts, the arts, and governance.

Henry Adams described in Mont St-Michel et Chartres how in the “Dark Ages” churches and cathedrals were at the geographical and social, not only spiritual, centers, of towns and cities. Townfolk worked their usual labors, and then worked to build or maintain the houses of worship. Books like The Canterbury Tales, bawdy as it was, revealed foundational concerns of all characters, in the church and its centrality. The book Robinson Crusoe, an adventure story, yet has heavy and constant evidence of the hero’s Christian viewpoints. Even the Deist members of the Framers, to a man, respected Biblical principles and relied on God’s Word as they structured the Republic.

Today there is no such a priori agreement that God is the center of our several universes, so to speak; nor an acknowledgment of Biblical standards as society operates today. And when no standards are agreed upon, there are… no standards to judge right from wrong. That post-Christian America is awash in moral anarchy should surprise no one.

But if the world has been turning against God, that does not require us to follow its corruption or error or suicidal tendencies. God (whoops) forbid!

The “Christmas” part of Chreaster is not the only time to turn things around and ignite or re-ignite your faith. But God and His people and their churches have made it a darn good time to discover or re-discover Him.

If I can share a secret, He has a present waiting for you.

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Click: Mary, Did You Know?

12-25-22

As we have shared here, often, the birth of Jesus, His ministry and even His death and Resurrection, were not events that took place in a vacuum.

The ancestry of Mary and Joseph are delineated in the Gospels, generation by generation. Myriad prophecies were fulfilled in the person of Jesus in so many aspects that would baffle statisticians. Hundreds of years before Bethlehem, the Book of Isaiah described things like the betrayals Jesus would suffer; even his physical appearance.

Whether from ignorance of Scripture or the Hallmarkization of our culture, a lot of us think that Mary looked up one evening and wondered “Who’s that angel?” Oh, she was surprised. She certainly was humbled. But… she knew Bible prophecy.

She knew that God had planned that a virgin would conceive in the City of David… that the Baby would be the Incarnation of God… that His purpose would be to serve as the Salvation of His people. His job description, we might say today.

And she knew – as she knew Bible prophecy so thoroughly; as did her betrothed, Joseph – that her baby Boy was destined to be the Servant King. And also the Man of Sorrows. She was humbled; she was full of joy; she knew there would be smiles, and tears. Perhaps the lot of all mothers. But Mary knew.

Her response to the angel, and with her cousin Elizabeth, has become known as The Magnificat. It is one of the Gospel’s tenderest and most profound passages, part of many liturgies and church music, including one of J S Bach’s foremost works.

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.

For He hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden: For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.

For He that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is His Name. And His mercy is on them that fear Him, throughout all generations.

He hath showed strength with His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich He hath sent empty away.

He, remembering His mercy, hath helped his servant Israel: As He promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, forever.

Mary knew, because she knew prophecy, because an angel had visited her, that her beautiful, innocent baby Boy would do great miracles; heal the sick; comfort the afflicted; indeed, save His people and be the Savior of humankind.

And she knew no less that her beautiful baby Boy would grow up to be despised and rejected; acquainted with grief; wounded, smitten, and whipped for the punishment sinners deserved; brought like a lamb to the slaughter; put to death with the wicked. Mary knew.

She rejoiced to be used of God in such a role. But how excruciating nonetheless to be a mother in all these moments. Mary knew.

So she prayed her Magnificat – “my soul doth magnify the Lord” – and she planned with Elizabeth the birth of their babies; and traveled with Joseph (again fulfilling prophecy) to the spot where Scripture said the Messiah would be born. Humankind’s Messiah. Her baby.

No room in the inn? We know the story. So humanity’s Savior was born in a manger. Once again, try to erase the greeting-card scenes from your mind. “Manger,” from the Latin “to eat,” is where the animals chomped their hay, and it is reasonable to assume that the Christ Child came into His world amidst a few bugs and some animal spittle. A little town, a crowded hotel, the backyard where cattle and sheep slept and ate. Mary thought she already knew “humble.”

But that evening, the rough manger piled with straw became a King-sized bed. Mary knew.

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Click Video Clip: Mary, Did You Know?

Mary, you are a little teenage girl. Can you believe that it was an angel who talked to you, or was that a mad dream?

You find yourself pregnant, even without a husband… even without a man. How can this be? And if so, what will your family say? What will Joseph, your intended, say? You wonder these things.

You know your scriptures. You know that God promised to send the Messiah in the form of a humble baby, born of a virgin. But… you? You know these things, but can you believe God has chosen you?

You are asking: “Me? Blessed among women? Of all generations?” You humbly fall to your knees and weep. Yes, you are blessed. But you know scripture well enough to know that your baby will grow to heal, and teach, and love, and… be rejected of men. Be persecuted, tortured, despised, and die. Why? Because he loved.

Mary, can you know?

I think you do know, because you know what the scriptures foretold; you heard from angels.

You know that when your baby’s ministry is finished – after you give birth in a lowly place, after your baby grows in wisdom, sinless, even does mighty miracles – you will be helpless as you watch him suffer and die. At the moment when a mother should protect her son, you will be unable.

On that day in the future, you will be in a small group at the foot of a cross, and maybe the only friend or family member who has remained loyal.

Because you are a mother. Because you listened to an angel. Because you know scripture. Mary, can you know that at that moment your baby Jesus will look down into your eyes and say, “Mother, behold your son”?

Can you know these things?

All these events – prophesied in great detail 700 years earlier in the Book of Isaiah, or looking forward to the end of days – Mary knew. And if she did not… she believed; she trusted; and she was obedient.

You and I should bring such gifts, ourselves – belief and trust and obedience – to the Babe in the manger.

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The amazing song Mary, Did You Know is here performed by its writer, Mark Lowry, and its composer Buddy Greene.

Click: Mary, Did You Know

7-29-19

There is a story about the late gospel singer J D Sumner, once cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as possessing the deepest bass voice ever recorded. He performed as a member of famous groups, and even backed up Elvis Presley for a time. Variously gruff and given to broad humor, this story showed a side of him that displayed, appropriately when all is said and done, Biblical wisdom.

J D held sway in parts of the South, and one Christmastime he persuaded local authorities to release a prisoner whom he befriended and witnessed to, from jail over the holidays. The inmate would visit and stay with his own wife and kids.

The singer-comedian Mark Lowry was a neighbor of J D and when he heard this news he asked what the prisoner had done; what his offense had been.

“Does it make a difference?” Sumner replied in his other-worldly deep drawl.

How much do we really appreciate Forgiveness and Pardon? When Don Adams’ catch-phrase in the old Get Smart TV show entered the language, “Sorry ‘bout that” became everybody’s euphemistic apology. A substitute, really. Once upon a time, “Excuse me” and “I beg your pardon” were more formal ways of expressing formal apologies, perhaps until dulled into irrelevance.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This is the best-known reference to Forgiveness in our language; and, again, perhaps blunted by uncountable recitations. But we must realize that Jesus, when offering this “model prayer,” suggested a deal of sorts. He suggested that God’s forgiveness is granted in some relationship to the forgiveness we show others.

But isn’t God’s forgiveness, as an aspect of His love, unconditional? Yes, if we repent He will forgive our sins.

But we should be prompted – by gratitude if not basic theology – to forgive unconditionally, in the same manner as God does, those who have sinned against us. Wronged us, offended us, harmed us. “But, Rick, that’s hard!” (By the way, talk to God, not me…) Yes, it is hard. Almost impossible. But as God reads our hearts, He does not count the results of our forgiving spirit, but the number of times we exercise it.

“Forgiveness,” “Pardon,” “Second chance,” and all those related impulses, elevate our spirits. Indeed they open our ability to receive God’s forgiveness… more accurately to be aware of it and savor it. No longer an aspect of a spiritual bargain as we might be tempted to think, the Spirit of Forgiveness is blessed liberation you cannot imagine until employed fully and without strings.

There are very few things the Bible suggests that God cannot do. But it says that when we are Forgiven, God takes our sins and figuratively “throws them into a Sea of Forgetfulness.” I return to my question up top – how much do we appreciate Forgiveness?

Here is what I mean: have you ever done something, or thought something, that made you feel guilty? Did you repent and pray for God’s forgiveness? And again, and more times, reflecting your remorse and guilt?

You can understand Forgiveness a little better if you realize that after your first sincere prayer you are only telling God about something He already forgot.

Forgive… and forget. We have a great Role Model to show us how.

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Click: Forgiven

A short message about the greatest message ever delivered.

This week’s music is the recent, but already standard, Christmas favorite, Mary Did You Know, sung by its co-writer, Mark Lowry. The lyrics are a profound statement of Christ’s incarnation, in which we are invited to see through the eyes of His mother.

At this concert in Birmingham, Bill Gaither then draws the very proper — the essential — connection between Jesus’s first coming and His second coming. Christmas and Easter should not be two separate celebrations. The same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, He was here among men, and will return for us; the vulnerable baby is also the Great “I Am.”

St Augustine, 1500 years ago, put it this way: “The nature of God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” And that is Jesus, first born of all creation.

And… He came… for us. As you listen to “Mary, Did You Know,” let me ask: “Do YOU know?”

Click:  Mary, Did You Know

Here is a tale about a not-so-happy Saturday I just endured… that got me thinking about current events as microcosms of larger issues in life.

I stupidly opened a blind link from a bogus e-mail address (“cloned” to be similar to that of a friend). Well, dozens of pop-ups popped up. I lost access to all my filters and cleansing software, my internet connection, even my Word files, proposals, unfinished manuscripts, research notes… and I went of my mind.

I pulled out the laptop and Googled everything I could. The pop-ups were phony ads trying to save me from viruses, but was itself a virus. “RansomWare,” it is called, because I was frozen unless I would purchase the program (and even at that, who knows?).

Frantic, I checked in with my new son-in-law in Ireland, a computer wiz. He has a Mac, so (all together now) “never has to deal with such things.” But he Googled too, and checked blogs of other victims, and on the phone and Skype simultaneously, we found a solution that worked. I am now free and clean. Six hours total of angst, three and a half solid hours on the phone with Ireland.

When I recovered, I got to thinking…

It shows how little — that is, not at all — human nature has progressed. People who cause these problems, whether for a little profit or pure malice, are no different than highwaymen hiding behind trees along forest pathways a thousand years ago, or urban pickpockets of Dickens’ time.

It’s the same thing with, say, abortion. Forty million dead babies today since Roe vs Wade — how is this different than “human sacrifice” or babies on pagan altars, in ancient or “primitive” societies? In fact, it might be worse today, in terms of the blackness of our souls. In ancient and primitive societies those people were mistaken, grievously, but at least believed they were serving and appeasing their gods. A murdered baby is still a murdered baby, but in American today, abortion (and so many other sins) are sacrificed to the “gods” of selfishness, greed, laziness, hatred. That’s not progress.

Is there a spiritual lesson? Yes. Human nature has not changed. Human nature won’t change. Human nature can’t change. One of the 700-billion reasons to resent politicians’ assault on freedom and responsibility these days, is that they nurture the lie that human nature is perfectible… and that government can bring perfection about.

Only Jesus can change humans’ nature. And do we despair that the world, without Jesus, is as rotten as it ever was? No… because we are not without Jesus. That’s the plan.

Sometimes this walk seems so dreary, life’s problems seem so challenging. God never said He’d keep us from troubles… just be with us through troubles. A friend wrote the other day, “Life isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain”!

So, we go through this ol’ life, in the words of this week’s song, “While I’m here I’ll serve Him gladly, and sing Him all my songs”…

… because we know at the end, we’re headed  Home, Where I Belong