50th Anniversary of the first 'selfie' and its Christmas Message!

God walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon. 

Astronaut James Irwin 

- 8th man on the moon

WATCH THIS GREAT VIDEO 

TO FIND OUT WHAT ‘SELFIE' THAT IS!!!

50 years ago today, humans on board Apollo 8 saw earth ‘rise' for the first time from space!

That mission paved the way for the first landing on the moon a short while later.

It’s also 50 years since the broadcast of the first book read to earth from space by one of the astronauts on that Apollo 8 mission….and it was read from the Bible - Genesis 1!

But greater than man rocketing into space or walking on the moon, is the awesome and humbling fact that God became Man and came to dwell on this earth, in order to save his rebellious, wayward, shameful, sinful people from their sins and offer them reconciliation and eternity with God. 

He came, not with pomp and fanfare, but to a simple poor family, born to the sound of mooing cows, braying donkeys and baaing sheep. Instead of others making space for him as someone of importance, no room could even be found for him in the inn.  The world paid no attention to the immensity of what was happening, and God announced it not to kings but to lowly shepherds.  But lowly shepherds weren’t too proud to go into the animal ‘kraal’ area to visit this new baby, and welcome Immanuel.

Our world pays little attention to the true meaning of Christmas and doesn’t understand the importance of Immanuel.  But maybe you can use this 50 year anniversary of a momentous ’space’ event, to point people to the good news of how and why God entered ‘our space’ so that we could once more, go far beyond moon-space or even outerspace, all the way back into God’s ‘space’ for all eternity!

Extra Info from Wikipedia:

Apollo 8, the second manned spaceflight mission flown in the United States Apollo space program, was launched on December 21, 1968, and became the first manned spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit, reach the Moon, orbit it, and return. The three-astronaut crew—Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders—were the first humans to witness and photograph an Earthrise and to escape the gravity of a celestial body... 

Apollo 8 took 68 hours (almost three days) to travel the distance to the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times over the course of twenty hours, during which they made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read the first ten verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8's successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. president John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the northern Pacific Ocean. The crew members were named Time magazine's "Men of the Year" for 1968 upon their return.

A week after Easter

Its now a week after Easter.

For most people, we take the time to focus on the Easter message and events at Easter, and for some, in the lead up to Easter as well.  But after Easter, we get back to 'regular' life and issues.

If you live here in Botswana, after a few weeks we have the Ascension Day holiday and some churches have services so we are reminded that Jesus ascended back to the Father after Easter. But in many other parts of the world, like Australia, there is no such holiday.

But it is worth considering the realities for the disciples and for us, of the 'after Easter' weeks....and how, like for Peter, the cross and resurrection deals with our guilt and our shame.

And this is what this great sermon by Pastor Brett McBride from The People's Church in Toronto, Canada does:

click on the link to view...

Unfinished Business

The "Mary" Honour Blessing that Prosperity Churches Don’t Want

Christmas has just passed and many of us will have heard the Christmas story read in our churches from chapter 1 of Luke or Matthew

In these passages we read about how the Angel Gabriel brought news of pregnancy both to Elizabeth and her young cousin Mary. Both refer to the messages as evidence of God showing them His favour. 

Two Women, Two Miracles

The news to Elizabeth brought a removal of her shame: 

Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people

Some translations use the word 'disgrace' instead of 'reproach', but both mean shame.  The New Living Translation, instead of saying 'among people' gives cultural meaning to the words by saying 'disgrace of having no children'.  In other words the blessing was that God removed her cultural and earthly shame of infertility.

The news to Mary, however, which was almost identical in that it was an announcement that she was to have a baby, had a different immediate earthly outcome.  Both babies were unexpected miracles that seemed to be outside the realms of possibility (Elizabeth being humanly too old to conceive and Mary not having 'known' a man in a sexual way), and Mary's miracle is also described by the Angel as evidence of God's favour in Luke 1:28,30:

And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!"

And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

 But the news to Mary didn't remove any public shame.  Instead it brought shame for Mary and for Joseph.  

Joseph, when he found out the news, wanted to divorce Mary quietly and 'privately' so as to avoid public shame and disgrace.  However, with God's intervention through the angel's visit to Joseph in a dream, he didn't divorce her. Instead he and Mary had to live with the rumours, stories and shame that went with a baby being concieved by Mary while they were still in the betrothal period.

So we have two women, two stories of good news of a baby, and two stories of favour from God, but one brought relief from earthly shame and one was the very means of bringing earthly shame.

Earthly Shame in Eternal Honour

This raises a significant issue that Prosperity churches, here in Africa especially, don't talk about.  

It's the issue that honour from God may equal shame on earth.

It's an issue I've spoken about before on this blog and an issue that needs to be re-calibrated for many Africans.

Culturally for Africans, earthly shame is the only shame to factor into life.  When a person becomes a Christian, they think that the type of honour God gives, is honour according to how they understand honour.  And so if Scripture says believers 'will not be put to shame' (eg Romans 9:33), it is understood Christians will never experience shame on earth if they are truly living in God's favour, blessing and honour.  It is believed that blessing from God always equals earthly shame removed.

But here, in Scripture, are two women, who God tells us in His word, were godly, blessed and favoured, but the outcome for one of them was only earthly shame compounded and heaped on.

Yet, did Mary seek God to remove her shame and seek a prophet for deliverance from such a curse, deciding it could not be of God because it brought shame to her and her husband? No. 

Mary recognised that God's honour can result in earthly shame, but God's honour always, always is supreme over any earthly shame.  

As we look at her praise song, often called the 'magnificat' (in Luke 1:46-55), she knew that God looks on the humble, and exalts the humble.  He feeds the poor and hungry and sends the rich away empty. God humbles the proud and brings them down.  God's accounting system of what is of high value honour status and what is of low value was the opposite of her culture's accounting system of honour and shame.

She knew that in God's system of things, honour and shame were not just about today and what people around might say today.  She didn't just live for today.  She was a woman who lived for God's eternal purposes.  She knew that a day would come when future generations would call her 'blessed' even if they didn't just now.  What God thought of her, and that God chose her, was of far, far greater value to her than what others around might say. 

In the events which spelt 'Earthly shame' for Mary, she described as her 'mighty' and 'holy' God doing 'great things' for her.

This is the message we have to preach, preach, preach, counsel, counsel, counsel, teach, teach, teach, live, live, live……especially here in Africa.  Because it is a message that is mis-understood - in endemic proportions!

Sadly its a message of truth that is not only opposite to cultural honour and shame values, but it is opposite to the teaching of a huge number of churches and TV preachers across this continent.

It's passages like the first chapter of Luke and Matthew that have to be looked at with non-Western eyes and seen for the rich truth they have to speak powerfully into honour/shame dominated hearts.

Be Willing for a "Mary" Plan 

Yes, we can be thankful when God's plan and favour include a removal of earthly shame, like for Elizabeth. 

But we need to help folk understand that instead of an 'Elizabeth plan', God might have a 'Mary plan'. ….a plan that from our temporary, 'now', earthly perspective looks shameful, but from an eternal, future and heavenly perspective is of great blessing. 

If God brought His greatest gift to the world through a 'Mary plan' of earthly shame (of which Jesus' conception was only the beginning of much earthly shame for him and his family), then why should we even begin to doubt that He can bring great blessing to us and the world through what seems to us as shameful means in the eyes of those around us?

Let us lift our eyes to heaven just as Mary did and praise and thank the Lord for whatever situations He chooses for us - whether honourable or shameful in the eyes of the culture around us - trusting that God sees more than we do, knows more than we do, has much bigger plans than we do and loves us more than we can imagine.  

The honour God wants us to enjoy is on a 'Mary' scale - He wants us to know the type of joy Mary had as she praised her Lord and Saviour for the great favour and honour He bestowed upon her even though it meant her life was about to be clouded in earthly shame.

Let's not choose joy and honour limited by worldly and cultural terms.  Let's choose joy and honour that supercedes earthly definitions!  Let's not just seek God for 'Elizabeth plans', but be eagerly willing and rejoice in 'Mary plans' too!

False Christmas Hope.....and the True!

…it’s one of the words often seen as part of Christmas decorations or on Christmas cards, and its because the true message of Christmas brings true HOPE and we should never lose sight of it.

The World needs it more than anything.

Recently it was reported that Michelle Obama was interviewed by Oprah and she expressed her thought that she felt that under her husband’s administration there was ‘hope’ and that this was evident by the fact that she believes there is now a lack of ‘hope’.  She went on to say:

"Hope is necessary. It's a necessary concept….

"I mean, he and I and so many believe  what else do you have if you don't have hope?

"What do you give your kids if you can't give them hope?”

…...Hey, it's gonna be OK. Let's remember the good things that we have. Let's look at the future. Let's look at all the things that we're building'."
"All of this is important for our kids to stay focused and to feel like their work isn't in vain, that their lives aren't in vain,”

How sad!

But this is a reflection of how people understand hope.

The hope they seek is based on what they see.  Mrs Obama wants people to ‘look’ at the good things we have, what we are building and what we think the future is going to be.

Unfortunately, much of the reason people don’t have hope is because of what they see.

And when we start building hope only in what we see, in what we do, and what we have and what we think lies ahead, we are building false hope on unstable sinking sand.

You see when we are brutally honest with ourselves we know we are not the biggest and most powerful force on the planet.  An accident, bad health, terrorism or the evil of others, and our own foolishness or inadequacy can wipe out or prevent what we put our hope in.  Deep down, apart from God, we know our lives and efforts are all in vain….just have heart-to-heart counsel with a few people and read the book of Ecclesiates.

We are fearful because we have lost hope in what we see and have no hope beyond our human existence with its limitations and risks and even our smallness in the face of natural disasters.  We know we are not all-powerful, and when life looks ‘uncertain’ to any degree to our own eyes, we lose hope.

Just finding ways to instill greater hope in ourselves and our world doesn’t ultimately build hope - its destroys hope….because it excludes the only ONE who can bring a sure hope to us.  To tell ourselves over and over that we determine our own destiny, or that we can do anything, or that we are in control, and even that we can instil hope in others, is to set ourselves up for a fall!

photo credit: CreativeCommons2.0

BUT, in the midst of reminders that what we do see is not secure,  Jesus brings hope for what we don’t see.  

When He came into this world, he didn’t come to encourage hope for this world, but to bring hope despite this world and beyond this world.  The Jews, like the Obamas, and so many like them, were/are looking for a change in politics, circumstances, education, health cover, and laws to bring hope.  The Jews wanted Jesus to change their circumstances and be a new earthly ruler to conquor their enemies.  

But Jesus came to be an eternal ruler to conquor the greatest enemy - sin and death.

People in our world are looking for hope through rescue from their earthly fears and concerns, - through better circumstances as they understand it.

But the message of Christmas is that the hope promoted by the Obamas is an empty and false hope and will ultimately dissapoint in this life, and destory, bringing death in the ‘life' to come. It doesn’t matter which human being or which human ability or which human achievement we put hope in, it is not a secure or sure hope.  It will not only be empty of all it promised but it will bring the opposite of all it promised.  It will bring heartache and turmoil and despair, because at some point it will fail us.

But Jesus is the one in whom we can have true hope - He brings answers and enabling and joy and peace to this life and brings the true and sure hope of victory over death. He brings eternal hope.

I started this post by saying how sad it is that this world is only looking to itself for hope.

But I want to finish with how glad I am that this world is verbalising that it is looking to itself, and that at this Christmas time, we can agree that it is hopeless if we only look at this world. To tell ourselves something is hopeful when it is hopeless is foolish and destructive, because God says a ‘fool has said in his heart there is no God’. When we only look to this world for hope, we are functioning as if there is no God.

Recognising the hopelessness of what can never truly offer us hope anyhow, is actually a good start on the road to discovering there is true hope on offer - from the ONE who is not only bigger and more powerful and in control of what we aren’t, but He is our Creator and loves us and wants the best for us……

And then the good news is that God has not ceased to exist or care just because we have rejected or ignored Him…..that is why He sent Jesus, to be and bring THE hope which we had lost sight of. He reminds us this world is not that which will give us hope, and it was never meant to be.

God alone, in Jesus - Immanuel, God with us, brings true hope.  

Don’t settle for the false.  

And this Christmas, share this truth with the world!….and REJOICE in the wonderful HOPE we have!