Author Archives: John Keller

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About John Keller

I am a retired Lutheran pastor whose intention is to consent to God's gracious presence and actions within.

Christmas Is Natural

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During the season of Advent, I have been using Luther Seminary’s God Pause devotional. This morning Dr. Fred Gaiser reflected on Psalm 98, a favorite of mine, to help us see how the whole creation participates in Christmas.

O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things.
His right hand and his holy arm have gained him victory.
The Lord has made known his victory;
He has remembered his steadfast love
and faithfulness to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises.

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who live in it.
Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.

Dr. Gaiser wrote,

Advent means coming. God is coming to judge the earth, sings the psalmist. But will we survive this? Will we like it? The creation seems to—the floods clap, the sea roars and the hills sing because they know something we might not: that God’s judgment is always just, that this Judge is always good. But we humans are not as innocent as the creation.

Can we sing as quickly as the creatures? There is evil around us and within us that needs to be cleansed, removed, cut out. God knows this to be true—so do the hills and so do we. But even as we fear God’s coming, we look forward to it because it will make us new. Come, God. Come, Lord Jesus. Make all things new—me too.

All I can write is AMEN!  As the Christmas carol Joy to the World declares, “Let heaven and nature sing!”

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come. Make your world shine as on the day of creation’s dawn. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Christmas Peace

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Christmas Children and PresentsI normally add a picture after I write my post, but today is different. The picture above became my inspiration. I was struck by the serene, peaceful aura of each child as they opened a Christmas present. This is obviously a stock photo of an idealized Christmas morning, especially how the little girl is observing her brother as he opens his package. It is what families hope for, but somehow it is appears too surreal to be true.

None of my siblings did that with me when I opened a present and I don’t remember it happening with my children either. We did take turns; it was not a free for all. Still the rapt attention the girl gives to her brother is off the charts. I bet they ate their Christmas oatmeal and made their beds before they started opening presents.

But there is something else that caught my attention. It is the bookshelf behind them. I always like a well-stocked bookshelf. That made me wonder if the children know the Biblical story of Christmas: the birth of Jesus, the shepherds in the field, the angelic announcement.

“Behold I bring good news of great joy for all people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior.” (Luke 2:11).

What troubles me is that this idealized picture does not need a savior. The kids are angelic already. Now it is simple a moment caught in the lens. Who knows if chaos erupted immediately after the present was opened.  I wonder if there is a Nerf gun inside.

Now I hope your Christmas morning is peaceful and joyous. I pray that your children, grandchildren, cousins, or siblings experience a special moment of Christmas love and cheer. But remember, even if chaos reigns, a Savior has been born. One who comes to rescue us from our self-centered ways. And that might be the best gift of all.

Lord Jesus, come.

Rushing towards Christmas

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Santa racing on a bicycleChristmas is fast approaching. On my way to work this morning, two people asked me if I was ready. It seems like Christmas has become an invasion that requires complex preparation, sort of like the D-day invasion of Normandy beaches during World War II. There are the gifts to buy and wrap, the cookies to bake, the programs and parties to attend. Each is good in itself, but the intensity and high expectation surrounding each piece puts a crimp in the holiday season. Some people just seem to go crazy with the stress of the holidays.

Of course, the first Christmas was a very simple affair: a mom, a dad, and a baby. The setting was a lowly stable, nothing fancy. There was a great sound and light show with angelic choirs, but the family only heard about it second-hand. Mary and Joe kept their focus on the baby. Later Mary pondered the shepherd’s words (Luke 2:19).

As a pastor, my Christmas celebration revolves around the worship services on Christmas Eve and Day. With the familiar carols and Gospel story, it is hard to deliver something new and spectacular. Many have told me that their deepest, most joyful Christmas memory is lighting candle in a darkened church and singing Silent Night, Holy Night. Tradition has depth that builds intensity year-by-year. The new and spectacular is overshadowed by the old and familiar.

I pray that you will have time to ponder, to reflect, to simply embrace God’s love for you. It might be late at night after the packages are wrapped, or early in the morning before you run last set of errands. The Prince of Peace is coming. He is coming for you.

Lord Jesus, break through the complexity of my life and grant me peace, your peace.

 

From the Old to the New

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After four months of studying and preaching on the Old Testament story, I confess I am ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth and to refocus on Jesus’ story of  life, death and resurrection.  Though I greatly appreciate the marvelous stories and themes of the Old Testament, I remain a devoted Christian who reads the Bible with Jesus-tinted glasses.  I strongly believe that Christians need to have a basic understanding of the Old Testament story to fully understand who Jesus is.  The God of the Old Testament is the God of Jesus.

Yet Jesus reinterprets some of the Old Testament teachings in a radical new way.  For example: the Old Testament has many stories of violence and ethnic warfare.   From Moses attack on the Midianites in Numbers 31 to Elijah’s slaughter of the 450  priests of Baal in I Kings 18, violence is often condoned by the Old Testament.

But in Matthew 5, Jesus reinterprets the whole “love your neighbor” to include my enemies.  Here is how Eugene Peterson interprets Jesus’ words,

“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’  I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer,  for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best – the sun to warm and the rain to nourish – to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty.  If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that.  If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.  (Matt 5:43-47, the Message)

Jesus’ words certainly make more sense to me, but they are so a greater challenge by which to trust, live, and serve.  I recognize my need for a saviour, a deliverer, one who can transform my heart, mind and life.  I am sure glad God sent one 2000 years ago.

Lord Jesus, save us from ourselves.

Looking Backward and Forward

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The last verses of the Old Testament have both a backward and forward orientation. Malachi instructs the reader to Remember the past and to Anticipate the future.

Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. (Malachi 4:4)

Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents. (Malachi 4:5-6)

Malachi reminds us that God has worked in Israel’s past. Look back and remember how God worked at Mt. Horeb (Sinai). It calls us to remember how God has worked in our own past, to instruct and teach us.

I remember making a pilgrimage to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Port Angeles, Washington, to remember the place where I first learned the Bible stories, acted in Christmas plays and sang the familiar carols. Christmas has so many specific memories for many of us. It can be simple nostalgia, but it can also become a deep spring of joy, light and love that calls us back to our spiritual roots. Where and when do you remember hearing the story of God’s statutes?

Yet Malachi also pushes into the future, that God is not simply an ancient figure of distant history, but a God who will act in our future. The prophet Malachi recycles the ancient prophet, Elijah, to describe the messenger who is coming. (Elijah had not “died” but was taken up into heaven on a chariot of fire, 2 Kings 2:11). The future return of Elijah will cause our hearts to turn to one another, to bring peace and harmony to God’s family. And God’s family is much larger than our own households; Jesus redefines family in the New Testament.

Looking at those who sat around him, Jesus said, “Here are my mother and brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister and mother.”

Further, Jesus, the Son of God, turns the hearts of God’s children to their heavenly Papa. The future is so much brighter than our present reality. To what do you look forward in God’s glorious kingdom?

As we read scripture, we need to be mindful of how the past, the present and the future all intertwine.

Lord Jesus, be thou my vision, backwards and forwards.

See, the Day is Coming

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Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible yet it points beyond itself.  It is not the final chapter in God’s dealing with Israel, but rather points to something yet to come.

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.  But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. (Malachi 4:1-2)

Malachi assumes two things.  First, the future day of God’s judgment has not come yet.  God is not finished with God’s creation.  The second assumption is that you and I, the readers of this text, will receive mercy and healing, not burning judgment.  There is hope for you in this world.

As Charles Welsey wrote in  the third stanza of the Christmas carol, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, quoting Malachi 4:2.

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and Life to all he brings,
ris’n with healing in his wings.

God’s day will come with Jesus Christ.  He is the true climax to the story of the Old Testament as well as our human story. Are you ready to leap?

Lord Jesus, come quickly so I can leap with joy and justice.

The Fiery Furnace and Christmas

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The book of Daniel challenges the “normal” perspective of the Old Testament. Throughout the Old Testament, God addressed the people or culture of Israel as a whole. From the exodus, through the wilderness wanderings  up to the divided Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, God interacted with a unified culture: kings and prophets, merchants and farmers. “You shall have no other god before Me.”

In the book of Daniel this changed. The Jews who are in exile in Babylon are not the dominant culture, but rather a small minority. A king like Nebuchadnezzar might come to recognize the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when God delivers them from the fiery furnace, but he does not force the whole of his society to conform to Jewish culture. Instead the stories of Daniel show how the Jews resisted the religious rules of the dominant culture, even when it might cost them their lives. The Jews in exile had entered a multicultural world.

I wonder if this has a lesson for Christians in the season of Christmas. I know that some Christians are upset that the dominant culture gives only token acknowledgment to the religious basis for Christmas, replacing the manager and baby Jesus with the Christmas tree and Santa Claus.  There are some Christians who long for a more “pure” holiday, when school concerts could sing “Silent Night”” and public prayers could refer to Jesus Christ as Lord. But our current reality is more like the Jews in exile in Babylon than as citizens in the Kingdom of Judah. We might long to live in a monolithic culture in which society promotes our spiritual vision, but we do not.  We live in a multicultural world, with competing worldviews and behaviors.

What this means is that Christians need to do an even better job of telling the great true story of God and Christmas. The book of Daniel was written for the discouraged, scattered Jews to encourage them in the exile and beyond.  The story stated that God still ruled in Babylon, even when kings and other officials denied Him.  The story continues to proclaim that God still rules in America, even if our officials remain silent. And like Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego, we can serve in government, schools, or media, knowing that they are not “god,” and that we may have moments to bear witness to the God who can deliver, Jesus the Christ.

Jesus, let me bear witness to you as my deliverer.

Prison Prayer

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I have always admired Dietrich Bonhoeffer.   Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who worked for the resistance against Adolph Hitler and was executed in April 1945 for his participation in the plot to assassinate Hitler.  He reminds me of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they stood up to the religious tyranny of King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3.   Written in prison, Bonhoeffer’s prayer could have been their prayer.  It certainly can be ours.

 O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you;
I cannot do this alone

In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me.

O heavenly Father
I praise and thank you
For the peace of the night;
I praise and thank you for this new day;
I praise and thank you for all the goodness
and faithfulness throughout my life.

You have granted me many blessings;
Now let me also accept what is hard
from your hand.
You will lay on me no more
than I can bear.
You make all things work together for good
for your children.

Lord Jesus Christ,
You were poor
and in distress, a captive and forsaken as I am.
You know all man’s troubles;
You abide with me
when all men fail me;
It is your will that I should know you
and turn to you.
Lord, I hear your call and follow;
Help me.

I remember in your presence all my loved ones,
my fellow-prisoners, and all who in this house
preform their hard service;
Lord have mercy.

Restore me to liberty,
and enable me so to live now
that I may answer before you and before men.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised. AMEN.

(Letter and Papers from Prison, 1971, p. 139)

Recognizing Our Foolishness

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As Resurrection Lutheran nears the end of the Old Testament portion of the Narrative Lectionary, I look forward to Christmas and the birth of Jesus. Though I have enjoyed our survey of the Old Testament, I now long for the familiar story of promise held in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The stage is being set for Jesus entrance into God’s drama. Two more Sundays of Advent remain.

This Sunday we will embrace one of the last written books of Old Testament: Daniel. The stories and visions of Daniel are from the time of the Exile when the leaders and skilled labor of Jerusalem were taken to Babylon as captives. The Babylonians wanted to re-indoctrinate the Jews to forget their Jewish heritage and God so as to become productive participants in the empire. Daniel and others resisted such practices.

Daniel chapter three is familiar to many from their childhood. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are to be thrown into the fiery furnace but God delivers them. But our childhood version often misses the humor or farcical nature of the story. As you read the text, consider how the repetition and exaggeration  demonstrate how crazy King Nebuchadnezzar is.

King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent for the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces, to assemble and come to the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. So the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces, assembled for the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. When they were standing before the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, the herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.” (Daniel 3:1-6)

Is it not comical to read that a human being could “set up” a god? Yet that is how ridiculous King Nebuchadnezzar has become with his power. But are we not as ridiculous when we “set up” something as having ultimate importance? Whether it be our sports teams (think how “over-the-top” the Super Bowl has become), or our careers, or our expectations for Christmas celebrations or our greed. Such humor can disarm our defensiveness and open us to God’s healing. We need to laugh at ourselves when we try to “set up” our mini-gods and see our foolishness.

Lord Jesus, come quickly and deliver me from my foolishness.

Gloom, Doom and Light

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My nephew, Andy Young, an avid photographer, snapped this gripping photo of Seattle on a gloomy afternoon. I immediately thought of both the prophet Jeremiah and the season of Advent.

First, Jeremiah spoke to the people of Jerusalem of the impending disaster that was coming. The people had forsaken their covenant with God and so God gave them a real wake-up call.

But my people have forgotten me, they burn offerings to a delusion; they have stumbled in their ways, in the ancient roads, and have gone into bypaths, not the highway, making their land a horror, a thing to be hissed at forever. Like the wind from the east, I will scatter them before the enemy. I will show them my back, not my face, in the day of their calamity. (Jeremiah 18:15-17)

In 587 BC Jeremiah’s “Word of the Lord” became reality. The Babylonian army march into Judah and conquered Jerusalem. The temple of God was destroyed. The leadership and skilled laborers were taken as prisoners into Exile in Babylon. It was a day of calamity.

But Jeremiah continued to speak God’s Word and so streaks of light and hope came to the people. Jeremiah promised a new covenant, a new relationship between God and God’s people.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

This promise is one reason Jeremiah fits so well in the season of Advent. Though we may wait in the dark gloom of winter, praying for spiritual light, we lean towards the coming light of Christmas. A new covenant that will be born in Bethlehem. Alleluia!

Lord Jesus, let your light shine bright through me.