Category Archives: Mercy

No Room – When the hustle and bustle replace the joy

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Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem because it was decreed by Caesar, but when they arrived, there was no room for them in the inn, so Mary delivered her firstborn son in a stable filled with animals, basically, the barn.

Or did she?

The picture I have had most of my life is of the two of them standing at an ancient bed and breakfast and a kindly elder gentlemen shaking his head telling them he was sorry he could not accommodate them. Everything was full because of the census. Even though Mary was with child they still could not find a place to stay, but this innkeeper did offer his stable and a clean bed of hay where she could give birth. Yikes!

But a little deeper look at the Greek wording might give us some insight and a better understanding of that holy night.

The Greek term translated inn (kataluma) had more than one meaning. It could be a small inn, or a group of people traveling together, a caravansary. This word is used only one other time in the New Testament… “And ye shall say unto the goodman of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready.” Luke 22:11.

This is the place where Jesus shared the Last Supper with His disciples! What kind of room does Luke say this was? “A large furnished upper room…” 

So the last night of Jesus’ ministry on this earth was spent in an upper room in an inn or kataluma. Sort of a guest room.

Now let us look at His entrance into this world…when they discovered the inn was full, it was no doubt filled with others, possibly even relatives, who had also traveled to the city for the same reasons. Older members of the family would be accommodated first so they could have possibly taken the rooms.

In this culture and time period, the animals were brought inside at night for several reasons. Mangers (animal feeding troughs) were also found inside the house, tools were stored and the animals were safe from harm. Their being inside also added warmth with their body heat, milk supply and dung for fuel.

So when it is said that Joseph and Mary could find no room in the inn and Jesus was born in the manger, in reality they were likely in a house of humble stature. The stable was on the ground floor, where they brought the animals in at night, the sleeping quarters were on the second floor.

True, it was never the best of conditions; it was still a very humble birth! And if all the rooms in the sleeping quarters were full, and they were, then Mary and Joseph did sleep with the animals on the first floor…the sounds, the smells, the shedding! Everyone was busy getting to the city of their birth to pay their taxes and be counted. There was plenty of hustle and bustle and no one had room for the King of Kings.

No fanfare, nothing flashy or royal by the world’s standards. But all of heaven took notice that day and the heavenly hosts sang, “Glory to God in the highest!”

Hustle and Bustle

Sadly, ever since then, our world has never had room for Jesus. Isaiah prophesied it would be so, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.” Isaiah 53:3.

We  have continued to push Him out of our government and our schools. Many now call it Winter Break instead of Christmas Break. It is no longer politically correct to say, Merry Christmas; that has been replaced with Happy Holidays, which they says covers everything and makes everyone happy.

I have even heard of a school on the east coast that gave a performance where the 5th grade sang Silent Night and the teacher had removed all of the references to Jesus in the presentation. What would be the point?!

There was a song back in the 1970’s that we used in a Christmas play titled No Room. The lyrics went like this:

No room,–no room for Him.
No room to let Him in.–
No room for Jesus in the world He made, no room.
No room for the King of Kings;
Room for others, and for other things.
No room for Jesus in the world He made, no room

No room,–no room for Him.
No room to let Him in.–
No room for Jesus in the heart He made just for Him.
No room–for the King of Kings
Room for others, and for other things.
No room for Jesus in the heart He made, no room.

Room for houses, lands and pleasures,
Room for things that pass away;
But for the One who reigns forever,
There’s no room today. 

Have you made room for Him? Are you taking time to remember the Reason for the Season? Is the hustle and bustle distracting you from the meaning and purpose of that first Christmas?

Take time each day this week to pause, pray and thank God for His entrance into this world. His birth made all the difference in our lives and is the Hope that will take us to be with Him forever one day soon.

When we make room for Jesus, our silent nights become holy nights. Let Him in today…make plenty of room!

 

When we are guilty of Schadenfreude

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When we are guilty of Schadenfreude.

I never did really care for slapstick comedy. The Three Stooges? Ugh. I couldn’t wrap my head around their warped sense of humor; twisting Larry’s nose or slapping Curly across the face just didn’t seem to be funny to me. But, then again, others loved it.

Dick Van Dyke did a spoof years ago on the comedy of seeing others in pain; the typical chair breaking, smashing his fingers, getting his tie caught in a drawer, etc. And he stated that people can relate to that type of humor because we all love a little sarcasm. And, when that misfortune happens to someone else, well, that is even better.

Schadenfreude is taken from the German language; Schaden, which means harm and Freude, which mean joy. But, put them together, and Schadenfreude means malicious joy at the misfortune of others.

Someone falls down and you laugh? It’s Schadenfreude! (pronounced SHAH:dən:froy:də or my simple pronunciation, SHA-den-froi-duh. A recent study indicated that children as young as two years old experienced and expressed Schadenfreude! “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Psalm 51:5 ESV.

As intrigued as I am by the word itself, and how much fun it is to say, it really isn’t so amusing, is it?

Before our granddaughter, Norah Jayne, was born, one of her uncles bought her a Onesie with the words “Silently Judging You” screen printed on the front. Little did we know that Norah, in her delightful personality, would also come with a furrowed brow at times that seriously does look like she is silently giving us the once over. (smile)

But I think we are all a little like that Onesie. We SAY we don’t judge, we SAY we wouldn’t laugh at another’s calamity or misfortune but inside we are likely guilty, at some point in our lives, of doing that very thing.

Jonah was one that came to mind in the Bible of someone who might have possessed a little Schadenfreude. He had a little trouble obeying God to begin with but he finally gave in, journeyed to Nineveh, delivered the message God told him to preach and then, basically, sat down and waited for the show. He knew they were going to be destroyed and he wasn’t really that unhappy about it. It was no secret that they deserved judgment. As a matter of fact, he was downright aggravated when they repented and God spared them! (You can read his story here.)

And aren’t we a little like Jonah, too? It’s so hard to admit that we could have any of these ugly attributes inside of us, but without prayer, without spending time in the Word and filling our hearts and minds on the good things of God, the ugly can creep in so unaware. Before we know it, we are standing back, silently judging and thinking things that we wish would go away.

It’s also hard to confess that we are human and prone to sin. Even as a child of God, we have to die out to that flesh every single day. Paul said we had to keep it under subjection, and the only way to do that is to make sure that we have relationship and connection with Jesus Christ.

Wile E Coyote would do his best to make a trap for the Road Runner, with the help of the ACME company supplying all of his tools necessary to carry out his diabolical plan, in the middle of the desert, no less. Of course we all realize that Wile E Coyote possessed Schadenfreude, he would so enjoy seeing the Road Runner get what was coming to him…even though every cartoon would end without that satisfaction. But I can’t help thinking that crazy Road Runner was really the one with the Schadenfreude problem. He would torment that poor coyote, watch him plunge off a cliff and with that silly grin on his face, holler the only two words we ever heard him say, “BEEP, BEEP!”

You see friend, the enemy knows how to work these things into our minds. He realizes it isn’t likely, as a Christian, that he can cause you to stumble with alcohol or drugs. You aren’t likely to go rob a bank or solicit on the street corner. He can’t entice us with things we think of as BIG SINS, because they would be obvious. But the sins of the heart, the not-so-obvious Road Runner sins, here is where he can start putting thoughts in our heads about others, sneak in the jealousy, envy and covetousness. Before long, we find ourselves feeling that malicious joy at the expense of another’s misfortune. We may even justify in our minds that it is okay to feel the way we do toward this particular person because of their actions. “I knew they wouldn’t make it anyway…” “It was bound to happen again, that’s just the way they are.”

“Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall; don’t be happy when they stumble. For the Lord will be displeased with you and will turn his anger away from them.” Proverbs 24:17-18 NLT.

God, help us today to realize that it is YOUR mercy that keeps us from falling every day. It is also of the Lord’s grace and kindness that we are not consumed for our actions and thoughts! He extends such compassion and forgiveness to us on a day to day basis and we are, in turn, to offer that same hand of mercy to others. And since most Schadenfreude takes place in the mind, and heart, that is where we must begin; submitting our hearts, our human frailties, to God and allow Him to take out the ugly and replace any malicious joy with His spirit.

For the kingdom

 

Here comes the judge!

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Here comes the Judge!

Jonah, Jonah, Jonah…we look at him and see stubbornness, disobedience, rebellion and definitely ungratefulness.

Yes, he did thank God for saving him from the belly of the great fish, and yes, he did finally obey and head for Nineveh. What he didn’t expect was for the people to believe, repent and turn from their wickedness.

Jonah arrives in Nineveh, (a city that takes three days to walk through!), and just one day inside he starts preaching the Word of the Lord. He told the people, in this wicked city, that they had 40 days to repent or the entire city, and everything in it, would be destroyed. “So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.”

They believed God, they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth (a sign of repentance and humility) even down to the least of them.

Word had come from the king himself, he had taken off his robe, covered himself in sackcloth and sat in ashes! He said,

“Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger,that we perish not?”

The desperate situation called for desperate measures. They humbled their souls with fasting and what happened?

“And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.” Jonah 3:3-10.

Did they change the mind of God? Of course they did!

Turning FROM sin and turning TO God will cause the Lord to reach out a hand of MERCY!

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This is what Jehovah wanted them to do!

But it is NOT what Jonah wanted them to do. At all.

This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry. “So he complained to the Lord about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.  Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.” Jonah 4:1-3 NLT.

Can’t you just see Jonah complaining to God? “I told you, Lord! I told you this would happen!” He says he knew all along if they repented God would go soft. And he was mad about it! He was upset that these people that he literally despised were going to receive the forgiveness of God…just like he had.

Now here is where we think Jonah is One Selfish and Self-Righteous Dude.

But is he really any different than so many of the rest of us? Haven’t there been times in our lives where we have been a little aggravated at some of the Ninevites in our own lives? Do we think they can’t be saved, that God surely wouldn’t bother with them; His mercy couldn’t possibly extend that far?

And when they do come to the Lord? When they DO repent? We doubt and say, “They won’t stick with it, that’s just how they are.” We second guess their motives, “They aren’t really sincere, they are just coming to church to put on a show or to be seen.” We are sure there is nothing to their experience.

We reason it in our minds…and sometimes speak it with our mouths.

Worst of all? Looking deep in our hearts we might discover we just do not like them. Maybe they have hurt us in the past, done something against us that we are struggling to forgive. We actually want to see them continue in their sinful life, they are deserving of judgment!

God is no respecter of persons. And the story of Jonah and the Ninevites is a wonderful example of the mercy of a loving God. It was a wicked city, the Assyrians were bent on world domination, they didn’t care who got in their way. They even sacrificed their children and served the idol Dagon! But when they heard the warning, and their king took it seriously, they believed, they repented and they were forgiven. They were spared!

Just like God told Jonah, “And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”

Can we just be grateful that God had mercy on us, that He loved us, in spite of ourselves, overlooked our faults, failures and sins?

Let us not be judgmental when it comes to the sins of others. Let’s not be critical of their motives when it comes to salvation.

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9 NKJV.

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