A Baby

A baby, yes, like others born,

The dawning of another morn’,

A mother, yes, like ones before,

But in this birth there’s so much more,

Angels broke the veil to sing,

The arrival of a newborn King,

Shepherds left their flocks to see,

Salvation clothed in humility,

The pain - the joy of delivery,

The cry – the breath of eternity,

A couple looks through tears to view,

The infant who makes all things new,

This helpless baby, the hope of earth,

Nursed by the mother that gave Him birth,

Dependent on her He opens His eyes,

Dependent on Him she softly cries,

This child appears like all the others,

And yet He comes to save His brothers,

All others born to Adam’s race,

Now have a King to give them grace.

A baby, yes, like others born,

But on the first Christmas morn’,

Heaven came to dwell with men,

God came down to save from sin.

Unfair Weather Friends

In 2015, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson released an album together called “Django and Jimmie”. Of course, I bought it - not for Willie, but for Merle’s sake. On that album is a song called, “Unfair Weather Friend”. It describes the friend who shows up when everything is dark and bad and proves his fidelity in adversity. That, by the way, is the measure of a true friend.
Real friends show themselves to be so, not so much when we enjoy their company, as when their company is a sort of necessity. It is when we need them to be there to hold us up, not merely hang out with us, that we see why we really love them and call them our friends.
Proverbs 18:24 says, “…there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.” I have often heard that phrase applied to Jesus, and rightfully so. He is a friend of sinners, and being a friend of sinners (of whom I am one) He is faithful to them even when the weather is not fair in their lives. He is a friend to them even when the bad weather is of their own making. I bless Him for His surpassing friendship to me, and I long to be that kind of friend to others as well. I want to demonstrate and replicate the grace and mercy of unfair weather friendship.

In Harper Lee’s novel, “Go Set a Watchman”, Uncle Jack Finch tells Jean Louise (the grown up “Scout”), “…the time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when they’re right.” It is easy to be a friend when your friends are right. A friend to those who are wrong, however, is a true friend and one like the truest Friend I’ve ever had.

Contrarian Clinician

            I’d prefer positivity. I would. But, I can’t take blind positivity over sighted reality.

Walker Percy wrote about one of William Faulkner’s characters in The Sound and the Fury. Percy said:

“Naming death-in-life as Faulkner did with his character Quentin is a thousand times more life-affirming than all the life-affirming self-help books about me being okay and you being okay and everybody being okay when in fact everybody is not okay, but more than likely in deep trouble. Beware of people who think that everything is okay.”[1]

People today prefer to be affirmed in their lives and lifestyle choices. So, I recognize that standing behind a Bible and repeatedly pointing folks to where that Bible seems to contradict their comfortable lives makes me a cultural contrarian. I don’t necessarily enjoy that posture, but if a light above us illuminates how stained our lives are with sin, isn’t it better to talk about that, rather than trying to paint over the stains with bright colors that make us feel better, but don’t really clean up anything?

Pointing out the “death-in-life” doesn’t make you the most pleasant voice in the room, but it may just mean you are the most sane and sensible one speaking. Speaking to what is wrong isn’t always a pretty sound to hear, but if we can diagnose what is wrong – however painful that process may be – then we can start talking about how to treat it.

Here is what I believe (and hope) will happen. If most people simply continue to talk as if there’s nothing to be treated, eventually the stench of the dying all around us will overwhelm all the potpourri preaching, and somebody will say, “What’s that smell?” Maybe then the contrarian will become a welcome clinician who not only points to the festering sores of society, but also says, “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole.”

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[1] Percy, Walker, Signposts in a Strange Land, (Picador, New York, 2000), p. 164