Brutal

    I realize our weather reporters need to shake things up a bit by using different terms for weather, but snow banding, monsoonal, and atmospheric river sound like names in a pot dispensary or a Hollywood day care. Lately our weatherman is using the term "brutal", as if the weather really wants to hurt us. I think we have carried anthropomorphizing a little too far. What he actually means is temperatures near or sub zero. Those terms would do nicely, or even old fashioned "frigid" would work. It is bad enough that college educated meteorologists ascribe weather to Mother Nature, without implying criminal intent on her part.   

    Another term for brutal is inhuman, but weather is more un-human in that we do not control it. They can hold COP climate conferences to infinity and beyond, but these are more like field trips for the Doomsday Club. Government representatives get paid to travel internationally, meet in conference facilities, stay in hotels, and eat meals, all while using massive amounts of fossil fuel energy, so that they can decide no one else should. Unless they can stop volcanoes from spouting off, wildfires from burning and all the other ways Mother Nature produces CO2, there is little point in holding a COP.

    The ones I feel sorry for are the sportscasters. There are only so many synonyms for the word won. Sports reporting must be brutal.

I Have Lots of Questions

   This Christmas, having stretched out my BSF lesson as far as it could go, I decided to study Luke's account of Jesus' birth and childhood. I have lots of questions, and a few ideas about what I would have done. When Luke mentions Mary pondering or treasuring things in her heart, I believe it is because she herself told him these events. Luke 1:3 states he "carefully investigated everything from the beginning." I could almost hear him asking Mary, "What stands out to you from Jesus' birth and childhood?" We sometimes view Mary and Joseph as if they were streaming God's will in a daily podcast, but the angelic visits and dream guidance to Joseph about going to Egypt were very rare events. Most of their daily lives were lived just like ours. 

    So when Simeon and Anna prophesy about Jesus' future, Mary and Joseph marveled because they did not really know what lay ahead for God's Son. God had promised Simeon that he would see the Messiah before he died and, having seen and held Jesus, he was content now to do so. However, if I had been Simeon (unless I was especially old and achy) I would have said, "Wait, Lord, I meant the grown up version!" Now for the questions:

If he was officially named Jesus at his circumcision (Lk. 2:21), what did they call him the first 7 days? What name did the shepherds use? I assume giving the name at the temple was for purposes of the geneology records, but still I wonder if he was just "baby" before that.

 

If Mary and Joseph went back to Nazareth after Mary's purification (Lk. 2:39), why were they back in Bethlehem when the Magi came (Mt. 2:6-11)? 

 

How did Jesus learn scripture growing up in Nazareth? Nazareth was a podunk town with a small synagogue and limited resources for buying scripture scrolls. If I was Mary or Joseph, I would have wanted to move the Son of God to a larger town with a bigger synagogue and access to more scripture. If I were Joseph, I would have felt the need to get out of carpentry and into a profession that paid enough to send Jesus to school and was more fitting to train God's Son.

 

    If Luke did ask Mary what stood out from Jesus' childhood, I can see why Jesus being left at the temple is recorded only here. That would be pretty memorable. Three days of searching through Jerusalem at Passover knowing you had LOST GOD'S SON would stick in your mind. More questions:

Where did Jesus sleep and eat those 4 days? Were there guest quarters?

How big a group were Joseph and Mary traveling in that it took a whole day to notice Jesus was gone? Did they not count kids back then?

Why didn't Jesus know his parents would worry? I know he was 12, but he was also Jesus. 

Were his siblings glad Jesus finally did something to trouble his parents? Was he punished when he got home? Did he get extra chores? If I had been Mary, my first words would have been harsher and include the phrase "worried sick".

 

     I did some research. Although Jesus was about the age for it, Bar Mitzvah was not really a thing until the middle ages and does not mean a ceremony, but a recognition of reaching the age of personal accountability before God in relation to the covenant. What Joseph and Mary understood way better than I, is that God had called a carpenter and his wife in small town Nazareth to raise His Son. If He had wanted Jesus to grow up in a wealthier family with more access to scripture, He would have chosen other people. His parents did not need to pave Jesus' path to success because His Father would take care of that. As parents, wanting the best education and opportunities for our children, we sometimes forget that all God wants is our faithfulness. Then and now, He will take care of the rest.

Gateway

    We normally think of gateway in terms of drugs, as in using drugs like marijuana opens the way to using hard drugs like heroin. Legalized marijuana advocates deny this, of course, and most of us know of stoned who remain unturned, content to shrivel their brains and body one puff at a time. Most hard drugs users, however, say they started with marijuana, so the gate can swing both ways. But I am not talking about drugs. I am talking about cheese. I used to dislike blue cheese, then I started eating feta cheese and developed a tolerance to, and eventually love for, blue cheese. Feta was my gateway cheese.

     I experienced the same thing with coffee. I discovered frozen coffee drinks made me feel better when I had a migraine. Ice chips are commonly given for nausea, and most migraines are nauseating. But it was when I read about brain freeze that I understood how it helps the headache itself. Brain freeze happens when something cold is held against the roof of the mouth, the blood vessels open to warm it, and that sudden dilation can cause a headache. But if you already have a headache, a migraine, the blood vessels are constricted and opening them is a good thing. That is how many prescription migraine medications work. By trial and error I discovered ice cubes did not work, only blended ice. And blended ice, like a smoothie, did not work because there was no caffeine, which is also helpful for headaches and is a common ingredient in over the counter migraine medications.

    In time, I went from tolerating frozen coffee drinks because they helped my migraines to enjoying the taste of coffee. Now I crave coffee because what my aging body lacks in energy, I must make up for in caffeine. Frappes were my gateway to coffee, although it is not "hard" coffee because I still require lots of creamer. The good news is that coffee is no longer on the food naughty list. In my 30's, coffee was the designated scapegoat. If I went to the doctor for anything from hangnails to hemorrhoids, they asked me if I drank coffee. When I said no I felt like I was letting them down. Now, in my 60's, three cups a day is considered minimum for optimal health.

    The feta and frappe gateways have led to delicious results, but I will not enter the marijuana gateway, even if it is declared an essential nutrient for human life. I can do forgetful, unfocused and lazy drug free.

Does That Sound Like . . .?

   There is a persistent belief among some Christians that the Covid vaccine is the mark of the Beast. There are a number of logic and, more importantly, Biblical problems with that viewpoint. For example:

The Beast has not been revealed yet, much less his mark. 

That does not mean he is not around yet, but it is hard to take someone's mark when no one knows who they are. If the Beast is a national leader insisting everyone get vaccinated, there are many of those. Ours is Biden, but it would take imagination bordering on madness to believe our forgetful, powerless president will become in his dotage a charismatic leader who will unite the planet by promising world peace. Does that sound like Biden to you?

The Beast offers peace, not healing. On a recent radio program where the speaker explained that we should take the Bible literally--America is not mentioned in prophecy, and Babylon means Babylon not New York City, the host broke in to say Covid has prepared the world for the Beast. Really? If  by preparation, she means mindless compliance to the government, that has not happened. Even in typically "sheepish" nations, there are pockets of resistance willing to butt heads with their government. America, which began by butting heads with their government, has pockets of resistance larger than the sheepish nations. If the vaccine offered escape from certain death, the Beast could certainly exploit that for his purposes but, in most cases Covid is not fatal and, despite the hypo hype, the vaccine doesn't prevent infection, much less cure it. It only lessens the symptoms.

 

The vaccine is not a mark. There is a big difference between The Mark and a needle stick that disappears in two days. Unless the Bible is lying, the mark of the Beast will be visible on the right hand or forehead (Rev. 13:16) Does that sound like a shot in the arm or card in a wallet? It will identify who can buy and sell because it is visible. Something has always been required to buy and sell and currency has had images of rulers on it since the beginning of history. The Mark will be different. Now if the Covid injection was given in the right hand or forehead, that would be cause for worry. But the only injection I know of that goes in your forehead is Botox, in which case, I guess merchants could identify the "marked" by their lack of frown lines.

Taking the mark is an act of worship (Rev. 13:8) or a pledge of loyalty. Only those who are not written in the Lamb's book of Life will take it. But would God let even unbelievers take a mark that damns them for all eternity believing it was something innocuous?  Would God condemn vaccinated believers despite the many Bible passages that teach "no backsies" on salvation? Does that sound like God to you?

 

    It is good to study prophecy, but it is our nature to warp it to fit our preconceptions. Do we have the right not to have something placed in our bodies against our will? Absolutely. In America women are allowed to have a human being who resides in their body for a few months of a potential 90 year lifespan (usually with their cooperation, if not intention) killed and forcibly removed. Does that sound like a right to you? There are legitimate medical concerns about the vaccine, although surgical skills are required to separate truth from the pro and anti propaganda involved. Even more complicated is discerning if the motives behind our vaccine decisions are medical, political or carnal. Because telling health officials, the government, and even God, "You're not the boss a me!" sounds just like us.

How Could God Do That?

    It has been so long since I had an idea for my blog, I wondered whether this year's Christmas letter had used up my few remaining brain cells, although that might have been an unnoticed, preexisting condition. For me, the last few days before Christmas are like finals week when I was in college. I am a never put off until tomorrow . . . type person, so, while my classmates were writing papers, finishing projects and cramming for tests, I was bored. Now we are in the finals week of Christmas preparation, my cards were written and mailed weeks ago, the decorations are up, the gifts are wrapped, and the cookies are baked--which may explain why my thoughts were too scattered to wrap in words. So once again, while others are busy shopping, wrapping, mailing and finishing projects for the holidays, I am bored. But the aftermath of recent tornadoes and the impending celebration of Christ's birth have scraped together enough brain residue for me to blog.

    This December, off-season tornadoes brought death and destruction to Kentucky and neighboring states, obliterating homes, and killing people from infants to elderly. Tragedies like that can cause even believers to question God. And our secular society, which usually ascribes control of the weather to Mother Nature, declares a disaster such as this tornado an act of God. Ma Nature makes a nature call, God is suddenly the one in charge, but He is a sadistic Sovereign. Natural disaster, how could God do that?

    And then there are the personal tragedies. We have had seven funerals at our church in the past year, four more than the year before, and only two related to Covid. Sympathy cards arriving with Christmas cards, how could God do that?

    But then I think of Christmas, the most unlikely scenario imaginable. A King was born in a stable, his royal birth attested by lowly shepherds. A Mighty God became a helpless infant, grew up a child of the poor, lived as other men, loved as no man can, worked miracles, died for our sins, rose to conquer death, and will someday be acknowledged as the culmination of all things. What Christmas commemorates is that Christ loved us enough to become one with us. Immanuel, how could God do that?