The True Meaning of Christmas

Whenever Christmas season rolls around once again many of us are reminded to think about "the baby lying in the manger."

That brings to mind an old saying that goes something like this, “careful you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”

It’s a saying that’s hard to disagree with, and yet when it comes to God’s message to us all, that’s what many people do. 

There is absolutely no doubt that there has been confusion, lies, greed, hypocrisy, selfish ambition and every other bad human behavior among some church leaders and those proclaiming to be followers of Jesus. (That’s the bathwater.)

But the important thing, the thing that we mustn’t throw out with that dirty bath water is indeed “the baby” and yes, unlike the character Ricky Bobby from the silly movie Talledega Nights, I do know that “baby Jesus” grew up to become a man.

The precious part that we need to hold onto in that scenario is the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done for each and every one of us.

A Statue of Jesus in a little prairie church

If you’ve never heard it before, hear it now.

Jesus is God. He came to the earth and lived among us as a completely sinless man until He was betrayed, humiliated and crucified as the ultimate, willing sacrifice to atone for the sins of all humankind. 

After three days He was resurrected and appeared before many witnesses who have left their testimony for us so that we also can believe and have hope. 

He did this so that we all could have the chance to freely make the choice to be forgiven.

We do this (be forgiven) by choosing to recognize and admit that we are sinners in the eyes of the God that made the universe and by choosing to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour so that we too can be forgiven and have new life, eternal life.

That’s the good news also known as “The Gospel”.

The first line of a popular Christian book from a few years ago began, “It’s not about you.”

What the author was trying to get across is that we were all created for a purpose and that purpose is to be in a relationship with God, through Jesus. Many people today, for various reasons, reject God out of hand, without knowing this simple truth, “God is real and He wants to have a relationship with you.”

Every person who has somehow stumbled onto this truth has a duty, a responsibility and hopefully a desire to share this good news with the other people in their lives and of course, I’m no different.

So that means, even though this is my story, my testimony, still, it’s not about me. In fact, it’s much more about you than it is about me.

The reason for that is this: who I am and where I’ve come from, my experiences and life story is mostly in the past, yours on the other hand, at least in how it pertains to your relationship with Jesus is most likely in your future.

I can say that because in this country of Canada, the vast majority of people have only a vague, distorted and incomplete idea of who Jesus really is and most have no relationship with Him at all.

There are many, many, reasons why people reject the idea of “religion” and they may seem like good reasons. But what is missing from our understanding of who Jesus is and our perceived or experienced reality of religion is that Jesus and Christian religion are not the same thing and are sometimes very far apart from each other.

So before I begin to tell my own story I want to get across one very important point.

The historical church and the church that exists today, even though they may try very hard to be what they were intended to be, fall short of God’s mark, just as you and I fall far short of God’s design for our lives.

Sure we may try hard to do what is right just as the church tries, but the problem is the same, human nature and sin can corrupt our lives just as they can corrupt the church.

It has been said that “all religions lead to God.” But the sad truth is that “NO RELIGION necessarily leads to God!” 

Jesus Himself often spoke warnings about the hypocrisy of religious zealots who put religion ahead of people. 

He often warned against focussing on the trappings of religion and He instructed His followers to concentrate on doing good, loving others and being in a right relationship with God.

Originally believers and followers of Jesus referred to themselves as followers of “The Way” and unfortunately over the years, many people and even some churches have lost their way.

The Christian church today (just as it always has been) is composed of people; flawed, imperfect, damaged people who for many reasons may have “joined the club” that is the church and these people may or may not have an actual relationship with Jesus.

For the first few years that I attended church with my family I didn’t have a real understanding of what it means to be a Christian and that’s on me. I was afraid to totally commit to anything in life and my Christian faith was no different. Like many people, I had one foot in my new Christian life and one foot still in my old life and that doesn’t allow you to move forward very easily, as a matter of fact it’s an extremely uncomfortable pose making it very easy to fall on your face!

But thankfully I stuck with it, mostly because I enjoyed the life; I enjoyed the people and the sense of belonging and being part of something much bigger than me. Eventually, in spite of my reluctance, I managed to soak up enough of the atmosphere and information so that God finally got through to me and I did “get it”. 

I finally understood that God is real and accepting Jesus is the way that we come into relationship with Him.

I wish that I were one of those people who are just blown away in the love at first glance sort of way and thereby avoid the slow arduous journey to faith that I experienced and if that first scenario describes you, then lucky you! Perhaps you’ve managed to avoid a lot of the heartache and wasted time and probably a few of the big, life sucking mistakes made by those of us who are slower to make that move to faith.

God calls us all to be in a relationship with Him but we are free to ignore that call and many of us do just that. We lump Christianity into the bag with all of the rest as “just another religion” and in some ways that’s not wrong. But as I explained earlier, Jesus is far bigger and more important than the jerk across the alley that calls him-self a Christian but insists on feuding with you over some petty grievance.

If you are a human being and I’m assuming you are (welcome aliens if you are also reading) you will occasionally hurt those around you, sorry but it’s the truth. You will also be hurt by many people, ranging from strangers, to authority figures and especially by those that you love. It is inevitable.

This world that we live in is a fallen world, full of sin, evil and pain and alongside all of that awful stuff there is also kindness, generosity and beauty.

It is important to note that we do have an enemy here with us, we find we are trapped here with a being the Bible calls “a liar and the father of lies.” There is no making peace with this enemy.

I believe that anyone who takes an honest, eyes wide open look at the world we live in will see that the evil that exists is not just a dumb, blind evil but instead it is a directed force that hates us and wants to destroy everything that is good.

Much of what we know of Satan comes to us directly from the mouth of Jesus and He is very clear that Satan is a dangerous adversary who will “devour us” if we are not careful. Our defence is our faith and the power that comes from being in an authentic relationship with Jesus.

Some of us are determined not to believe in God or Jesus and are apt to summarily dismiss the Bible but we do this at our own peril.

Years ago I purchased a book to send to my sister called “The Case for Faith” by Lee Strobel and as I traveled around Edmonton for work, the book sat in a bag beside my seat, waiting to be mailed. It just so happened that day as I worked on a POS system at a service station, I was talking to the attendant, a middle aged woman that I knew from previous visits. 

After a bit she confided in me that her life was a mess and she was going through some serious issues with one of her kids. I was feeling bold that day and when she asked how I dealt with life’s big problems I mentioned that I was a Christian and my faith got me through a lot of stuff.

I went out to my van and took the book that I had bought for my sister out of the bag and brought it inside to give it to the woman. I told her that it was well written and explained a lot and how it had helped me to understand much better that faith in God is not some crazy delusion but that there is real evidence that the God of the Bible is very real.

She said that she didn’t believe in God and if she was going to change her mind then He was going to have to show up in her life and speak to her.

As I handed her the book I just looked her in the eye and said, “well, maybe He just did.”

I don’t know what happened after that, I don’t think I ever saw her again but I often wonder what she did with that book and if the encounter that we had perhaps led her to give God a chance. It was up to her at that point to choose to open and read the book and maybe to open her mind to the words and ideas that were written in it pointing the way to the Bible.

She had her own choice to make, just like we all do.

God rarely appears in person or speaks directly to us, although it has happened. He prefers to work through people, He has often operated that way, right from the very beginning.  

People can be positive examples to us; they can actively pray for us, they can speak into our lives by showing us love and kindness or reminding us that we can be better people and calling us to a higher standard. Or they may give us a Bible or a Christian book and invite us to Church where the transformation of our lives through exposure to the Word of God can truly begin.

People can also influence us to pull away from God, convincing us that God isn’t real or if He is real then He must be a terrible hating being that is a destructive or uncaring force.

They say that ”misery loves company” and that tendency sometimes comes into play here, after all if you start following Jesus some of your old friends may be afraid that you will be “less fun” because all of a sudden some of the more destructive behaviour will begin to lose its appeal for you.

Hopefully they will say to you something like, “you’ve changed” and that’s a good thing because if we are following the ways of this world, we are likely doing a lot of behaviors that are bad for us and the people around us. Some people don’t like it when anyone (especially God) says anything that might spoil their “fun”.

When we hear the Word of God we are absolutely free to reject it out of hand, to say that it contradicts science or that Christians are intolerant maniacs or we may point at the abuses of the “church” over the years and the harm that resulted. 

Many people will summarily reject God for various reasons, denying His existence or relevance and that is their prerogative of course, but if they/you will thoughtfully and carefully examine the evidence with a truly open mind, you may be surprised.

Hearing about God through others, whether it is friends, celebrities, media outlets, scientists or some other source is not the same thing at all as reading the Bible with an open mind, after prayerfully asking God to speak to you and to make His word come alive to you (even though you may not believe that God exists at all).

This is a subject that shouldn’t be decided upon without careful consideration and a thorough, personal examination of the Bible and the history behind it.

The Christian Church, flawed as it may be, is God's creation and is part of His plan for us and it is within these local churches that most Christians first hear about Jesus and learn that they too are called to be in a relationship with their creator.

It has been my own personal experience that if you give God a chance, He will reveal Himself to you in ways that right now you can only imagine, taking away your doubts and confusion through His Word and your own spiritual journey to faith, and replacing them with His Truth.

(See my blog post - Room 1219 - An Appointment With Jesus)

https://thedoorinside.blogspot.com/2011/11/room-1219-true-story.html

Please don't take my word for any of this, or the word of anyone else. Instead, search the scriptures for yourself. 

At Christmas when you hear the music and see the nativity scene with baby Jesus lying in a manger, I hope you will at least consider that His birth and life are historical fact. 

We are still celebrating two thousand years later all over the world for the simple reason that "God so loved the world that He gave  His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

So please don't throw the baby out with the bath water! 

Each one of us owes it to ourselves to make a truly informed decision about the most important choice that we will ever make.

Blessings all!

A Farewell to Uncle Johny

While I was growing up, I had the privilege of having some very special people in my life. I had close relatives on the farm and there was a real community of them, all clustered around a few square mile chunk of some of the most beautiful land in Alberta.

A little West of Pigeon Lake, (my mom went to school at Lakedell school near Westerose Alberta) was where my moms family homesteaded back in the twenties or thirties. The land was pretty raw back then with a lot of trees and rocks and it took  a lot of backbreaking labor to clear the land and make it productive, but they persevered and had kids (a lot of them) and spread out and married and had more kids and bought more land and cleared it and on and on.

My Grandmothers brother (one of them, anyway) was John Satre, the big man that I always knew as Uncle Johny. He was one of those wonderful, laughing, wise, hardworking, great men that it is such a privilege and blessing to know and his farm was one of the regular stops in the valley whenever we would head out in the country to visit the family.

I always liked him a lot and when he passed away at the age of 97 on December 25 I got a call from his son, Roger. He asked me to pass along the news to the rest of my family in the city and he happened to mention that they might need someone to speak at the funeral.

Well always up for a challenge, (well not always, if I'm honest) I told him that, "of course I will speak if it will help out." I was a bit nervous about it because doing a eulogy (and I've done a few) and actually officiating at a funeral are not exactly the same thing.

He assured me that they probably wouldn't need me but of course a person can't just count on that happening and so I set about preparing. My uncle wasn't exactly a church going man and so the situation called for some delicacy, (not my strong suit) and I started to think about what I knew of Uncle Johny and what I would say to his family and friends who knew him so much better.

A funeral is one of those few times in life when people who might otherwise not be willing to listen and hear about Jesus are a bit more open and receptive to the message that Christians call "The Good News." That Jesus wants to have a relationship with them, He loves them no matter who they are and what their past is and that He died for them, so that they could have the chance to choose life.

So I thought about it and I prayed about it and I got a very clear picture of a man in a field running his hands through the heads of grain and stripping them off the stalk and crumpling them in his hand, (as farmers do) and just knowing, knowing, knowing, knowing. Without church and sermons, without the bible even, and I do know how important the word of God is, but without all of the usual and very necessary trappings of Christianity, just knowing......that, THERE IS A GOD!

And I wrote it down and I read it to my wife and when the time came to call Roger, he said "don't worry about it, we have an old friend of dad's to speak." And I said, "Oh, OK."

And that was that.

Well, it would have been, if not for Rose, she of course said, and I'm paraphrasing here. "NO, God gave you a word and you need to call him back and tell him that you have something to say and you need to speak!"

(But of course she said this in a way that was loving and supportive, but firm!)

So I tucked the paper in my pocket and told her I would ask him at the funeral and that's what I did, and when he and his wife read it, they said, "yes, please read it."

And so they tacked me onto the program and when the time came and they called, "Doug Perry, has something to say." I went up, (even though my name isn't Doug Perry!
And this is what I said.
"A lot of no nonsense farmers and ranchers whose life is taken up with their families and the land and their livestock and crops and the weather and the markets and their machinery…. maybe don’t think about it much. But when they're up before dawn, out bringing the cows in and getting ready for milking, when they look out over the foggy fields and dew covered grass and trees and they see how the thousands of spider webs are covered in dew and sparkling in the light of the rising sun, even then, they might not say it aloud, but inside, in their hearts, they just know, there is a God.

They might not have time to acknowledge Him in public or pursue Him in the way that others might, but when they hear the rain drumming on the roof and smell the new-mown hay, and strip the head of grain off the stock and marvel at the miracle of those tiny grains transformed into the slices of freshly baked, golden brown bread that is their lunch, they just know, there is a God.

When they reach for a tool to get the job done that needs to get done, that has to get done, and they strain and they wrestle with that stubborn rusty bolt that just has to come out because the combine is broken down and the crop has got to come off and the harvest is only half done and time is running out... and then, with one more heave, it breaks loose, finally: they whisper, "thank you Lord" And He hears.

Some men never really get into the habit of going to church, but they know there's a God just the same. when they look into the cradle and see the newborn child that is the product of the love that they have for their wife and they see those perfect little hands and those perfect little toes and those long eyelashes and the downy covering of tiny little hairs that covers a new baby, they just know, there is a God, because only God could make such a miracle."

It is always a privilege to speak in public and a funeral is one of those occasions when there is a lot of emotion and all a person can do is be willing and to do their best when called upon. And to trust that God will do the rest.
And I do.
And He will.

About: Gains and Losses - Lifes Ups and Downs

This post started out as a short sermon to some elderly folks and I thought that perhaps it’s a message that deserved a bit wider audience.

I called it “Gain and Loss” because that is what life is like, and if you haven’t discovered that for yourself, look out!

Eventually, we will all discover the nature of loss, even though for the first part of our lives, most of us experience gain, after gain, after gain.

Our youth is all about discovery, learning, exploring, receiving, in fact it’s a bit of a dream world for many of us. I realize that this is not always so, many children experience an untimely loss of a parent, a pet, a sibling or grandparent or even their innocence.

But in general, the first half of our lives is often a steady series of gains and in the whole, is probably quite positive. But eventually we realize that there is much more to the story, this state of being can’t go on indefinitely, eventually life (or death) catches up with us.

Even though we probably recognize that life is a series of gains and losses, ups and downs we try our best to forget that every time that we gain something, as wonderful as that is, it opens us up to the possibility of losing what we’ve gained sometime in the future.

A house can burn down or it could be re-possessed, a car wears out and eventually quits. When we get a new puppy or a kitten, we know that it will grow older and one day it won’t be with us anymore.

We know that a job doesn’t last forever, our health deteriorates over time and when we get married, part of the vows say, “as long as you both shall live” so we know that even the best marriage doesn’t last forever.

Our kids don’t stay little; they grow up and move away. Our hair doesn’t stay red or black or brown or blonde, eventually it turns grey and sometimes it even falls out!

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. “Who is this guy with all the bad news? This is depressing.”

But there is some good news and I’m getting to it right away here, don’t worry.  Because even though every single thing that exists will someday fade away, absolutely everything, even mountains will one day be gone, but there is one gain that will never turn to loss, there is one thing that is very real, that will never perish, never fade, never disappear.

Some of you may have guessed already what it is I’m talking about.

I’m talking about being fortunate enough to gain Jesus in our lives, to have a personal relationship with God; I’m talking about salvation, the most incredible gain that we can ever experience.

And the wonderful thing about knowing Jesus as our savior, about being saved, and having that assurance that we will spend eternity in the presence of God, the wonderful thing is that this is a gain that we will not lose.

In Romans 8:35-39, Paul says that nothing will be able to separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing! And that my friends, is GOOD NEWS!

So even though everything else will one day end, the most precious thing, the most valuable thing, will never end. And this is something that we can all have if we choose Jesus, it’s not some exclusive club that only the rich get into, we all have that opportunity to choose life.

Once we have truly accepted Jesus Christ into our lives and made that choice to love Him, to follow Him, to worship Him, then He will never leave us and our eternal future is secure.

I’m just full of good news now, aren’t I? This is the part of being a Christian that I love, not just knowing the good news, but also being able to share it with others!

So here it is again: Jesus died, He gave His life for our sins and He did it so that we can be forgiven, and our faith in Him guarantees our forgiveness and that means that we are truly saved.

Our faith in Jesus means that we are forgiven, our faith means that we can have hope, it means that we are adopted sons and daughters of God like it says in Romans 8:23.

Loss is part of life, death is part of life, and every gain will one day turn to loss and disappear, except one, the very best one of all!

Antique Skates at the Ukrainian Heritage Village

Picture Perfect

My brother, sisters & I

I was thinking today about what makes a photograph art? And is there such a thing as the perfect photograph? Of course there's the subjective side of things and we may all have a different opinion on any given image. But for me, the answer might be connected to our concept of what life is. Is life just a random confluence of matter and time and events that just sort of falls out of the sky, or the brain, to splatter on the pavement in front of us to be interpreted sort of like a street Rorschach test? Or is there a lot more meaning to life, and a lot less random particle collisions with weird outcomes and more ………………….life, love, beauty, and God?

A photograph can be a lot of things, just like a human life. It can be dull, boring and flat, but useful. It can be a record of a place or time, but with no-one to care about it or be interested in it, it might seem to have no point. But if it has a connection to something or somewhere that people care about and are interested in, it has a life and a magic of its own. If it has a provenance that is somehow intertwined with our lives or something we care about it comes alive to us.

 Today I was looking at a box of old pictures that really tells a story of who my family is. After my mom’s death, it seems I was appointed as the “keeper of the past” without even realizing it, (and I didn’t even get a tee-shirt). There are hundreds of photographs and negatives and papers and keepsakes that are a living record of my family throughout the generations. As I looked at these old pictures of people, many of whom I didn’t even recognize, I was sad. Who were these people who were so obviously important to people who were important to people who were important to people I care about?

Normally, I don’t spend a lot of time taking family pictures or people pictures at all, but looking back through these old photos, I realize that they do have importance, even for those of us who are not sentimental about them. Most people are kind of funny looking and they definitely are not models so they don’t know how to pose very well and they make funny faces and have bad hair and weird clothes, wait a minute, that’s just me I’m talking about, you on the other hand, look great!

Don’t get me wrong, there is beauty in just being family to one another. All of those traditions and little rituals and trade-offs that are part of growing up Canadian in the times that we live in, have a meaning and a beauty of their own, I know that. And I know that an incredibly beautiful photograph can be absolutely empty of any other meaning if it doesn’t connect the viewer with life in some way. The best pictures connect us to something in our own lives, a memory, a moment, a fear, a shared experience, a dream, an emotion, even a nightmare. That’s the challenge of artists of all kinds, but especially the photographer. That’s what separates the record keepers, from those that can draw the viewer into the scene and capture their heart.

There are at the very least, two kinds of beauty when it comes to photographs: The kind that comes from the existing emotional attachment that we have with the subject and the kind that the photographer manages to evoke through the subject, or in spite of the subject, even without a pre-existing connection.

Life also seems to diverge into two parallel paths, do we choose door A with the easy path, the wide path that so many are taking, do we just follow along because it happens to be the easy way and everyone is doing it, or do we choose the narrow door, the one that looks hard to enter? If my record in the supermarket checkout line is any indication, I’m in trouble! But I've learned to stick with it and ride it out, even if my mind says, “go that way, fool.” 

Sorry, I don’t have a lot of answers, but when it comes to beauty, I’m convinced I have it right. To me, much of the beauty around us comes from the family who loves you and makes you happy. Beauty and perfection, in a photograph are very similar, if you love it, and it makes you happy, that's great, and if it happens to serve God in some way, even just by sharing the wonder of creation, or by recording the family that He gave you and the moments that you've shared with them, you just might be on the right track.

Mom, Terry, Chris, Doug, & Duke in 1962.

An e-mail to a friend

I really think I need to tell this story. A few years ago we were out at Moose Lake Gospel Camp and it was part way through the week and one night after the evening service had ended, (it wasn’t really over, but you know what I mean, a lot of people had wandered off for mug up or whatever) something special happened.

See if you can imagine the scene:

It was a hot summer night, so hot that in the old Tabernacle they had raised the sides up, they were on hinges so that when it was hot you could prop them open and let the cool evening air into the building. It was an absolutely perfect summer evening, not even any mosquitoes!

Rose and I and April were standing along one side where the walls were propped up and the worship team, which happened to be from NECF that year, were still playing. Many people had left and the worship team was very tired, but there was obviously something special happening, you could just feel it. I should say here that many times in the past I had a hard time really entering into worship. I was often distracted by what people were doing, what they were wearing, how the music sounded or noises or just what was going on in my own life and in my own head, or what the worship team looked like, you name it and it distracted me!

But that night God did something, he gave me a gift, (one of many over the years) that totally changed my concept of worship. Of course I knew intellectually what worship was supposed to mean, that we worshipped God because He asked us to, that it is an important part of our relationship with God and it’s one of the ways that we communicate with Him. Worship is one thing that we can do that we know pleases God. I knew all that, but I don’t think that I really got it, if you know what I mean.

As I said, it had turned into a bit of a marathon worship session and maybe 25 people were still left when I began to sense something happening, it was no longer the same old worship for me in the sense that I wasn’t completely still me. It was the weirdest thing, I felt like I was seeing the worshippers and the worship from god’s perspective. Not completely of course, but I got just enough of a glimpse that I think I gained an insight into just why we are called to worship God in that way.

You’ve probably seen those dramatic re-enactments of near death experiences when the sick person hovers up by the ceiling looking down at themselves? It was kind of like that. I saw the absolutely pure and beautiful faces of the worshippers, without the distractions that would normally cloud things. I could sense the pleasure that God felt as he received and communed with His people. I could see what worship should truly look like and how it was designed to be. It was a truly remarkable and wonderful and beautiful experience and back then I had no idea why I had received such a precious gift.

Of course I told Rose later that night and a few other people at camp, (Rose made me tell) but I have never put down in writing exactly what happened until now. Often we don’t know why God chooses to put people in our path, or why circumstances seem to throw certain people together. 

I know that The Alpha Course has brought many special people into my life. God has richly rewarded me through my participation in the Alpha Course in so many ways. It was through Alpha that I was nudged out of the pews, (so to speak) and into a position of leadership through service, and I will always be thankful for that. God could have used anyone to reach out to certain people, but He brought them to me and somehow, despite my weakness and inadequacies he spoke to them and brought them into a relationship with himself. It was such a blessing, and it gave me such confidence to write the eulogy for my dad and to be able to deliver it with faith and compassion. I feel God used even that to reach out to people in my family.

I love God. He loves us all and He wants each one of us to experience fully what it means to be in relationship with Him. That’s why He does these amazing things for us when we just can’t seem to get it on our own. Maybe God showed me that little glimpse of what worship means to him, partly so I could share it with you now. Maybe He wants you to be able to push past whatever barriers prevent you from really entering into the beauty of the full worship experience. I can’t say for sure, all I do know is that I felt compelled to send this out to you!

I wish you all the best, all the blessings that God has for you, all the adventures and all the abundant life that is God’s wish for those who Love Him and follow Him and serve Him. May you be counted among them!


Copyright - Doug Petry