May Day Might Have Pagan Origins, but so Does the Christmas Tree

On Christmas Day, we put gifts underneath a pine tree, hang socks above the fireplace, kiss under weeds hanging on the ceiling, eat a lot of candy, leave cookies and milk out for Santa and perhaps, in some circumstances, might even sing happy birthday to Jesus.  Now that I think about it, that sounds a bit odd.  And  actually, the more I think about it, the more I wonder why we don’t celebrate May Day as a nation.  I mean, it’s not all that different from Christmas.  Well…it’s a holiday with pagan origins.  I guess that’s about where the similarities end. 

The day has roots in celebrating fertility (ancient Egypt), remembering political/social victories (U.S. and U.K.), engaging in sexual activity (Germany), warding against witchcraft (Germany), and commemorating the beginning of spring (England).  During the festival in England, at the break of dawn on May 1, villagers would go out into the forest and gather flowers and wood for the day’s celebration.  The largest piece of wood brought back would be used as the Maypole.  This gathering of flowers and wood is calling “bringing in the may.”  Geoffrey Chaucer is attributed with the poem Court of Love, written in 1561.  The following excerpt is a glance into the Mayday Festival.  (It’s in old English…but you’ll do fine.)

And furth goth all the Court, both most and lest,
To feche the floures fressh, and braunche and blome;
And namly, hawthorn brought both page and grome.
With fressh garlandes, partie blewe and whyte,
And thaim rejoysen in their greet delyt.

I’m sure somebody will be able to put a Christian spin on this, right?

The Maypole, in England, in all its glory. 

Brian McLaren and Willow Creek: A Match Made in…

Brian McLaren spoke at a youth conference at Willow Creek in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. For those who aren’t familiar, McLaren is the spearhead for the Emergent Church movement in America. Despite what he says, his theology is ultra liberal and simply non-biblical. At the conference, McLaren said that Christians should put less focus on eternity and more on achieving justice in the here and now. In fact, one writer says that McLaren’s message is “serpent-sensitive worship.”

Just one question I will ask as a commentary on this: Why in the world would Willow Creek invite Brian McLaren to speak at their conference? It just makes me wonder how committed to sound, biblical doctrine Willow Creek actually is.

Chicago Has a Lot of Traffic

So, I’m in Chicago this week to help launch spiritual movements on some community college campuses in the area. So far it’s been a great week. Besides doing ministry things, Chicago is an awesome city with so much to do and see. We can’t possibly see it all in a week. The most frustrating thing here is that this city has 9.3 million people and it seems that everyone drives a car all day long, non-stop and that rush hour is anytime I’m in the road. I love the city. I love people. I love diversity. The traffic will take some getting used to. If I lived here, I might have a car, but I wouldn’t use it. It wouldn’t be worth it. The hardest part is trying to get to a campus that is 20 miles away and it takes an hour, no matter which way I go. Even to get across downtown, perhaps just four miles or so, might take 30 minutes. Oh well, that’s Chicago for ya.

Thanks for praying for us. God is doing cool things here.

Lord willing, I’ll have a Good Friday and Easter meditation up on the blog soon.

(By the way, the pizza isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But the hot dogs are.)

Martin Luther King Day

Today is more than just a day off of school if you are still a student. It’s more than just vacation day if you are a government worker. Most people don’t realize what Martin Luther King was all about. For the most part, I have a finite understand of his legacy in the United States. One thing I do know is that what he did, what he said, what he stood for, and how he initiated change has forever impacted this country.

Stop and think for a minute: King was killed April 4, 1968. That will be 40 years ago this April. Forty years. My parents were eight years-old. That is not very long ago. When I was born in 1984, his death had only been 16 years removed. That is incredible. This great “affluent” nation that is so “developed” and “sophisticated”, was lynching blacks and burning down churches just a couple decades before I was born.

If you think this country is free from racism even today, I would challenge you to open your eyes and look around. Maybe not in Lincoln. Maybe not in Hastings or Holdrege or Norfolk or Grand Island. But what about Omaha? What about Kansas City? What about St. Louis and Chicago and L.A. and New York and Memphis? My contention would be that we are still so racist that we don’t realize it. And if you are a follower of Christ today, as I am, my desire would be that we pray hard and trust the Lord to remove all those sinful negative attitudes toward people of a different color–or nationality or gender for that matter as well. It’s natural to have those attitudes–natural–but not spiritual. And when we have Jesus as King, we are no longer only natural.

I hope today would not just be a day off for you. I hope that it would be a day of praise to God for the way this country has turned around from racism, but that it would also be a day of pleading God for him to still work more change in us. Below is a excerpt from Martin Luther King that he wrote in April of 1963, five years before he died. I pray it convicts, teaches, encourages, and humbles you. I know it did that for me.

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dart of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six- year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

How Would Jesus Make Sense of the Shooting at the Westroads?

Luke 13:1-5 (ESV):

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

In a sermon to Campus Crusade students at the TCX conference in Minneapolis back in 2003, John Piper preached on this passage. You can find that message here and I would recommend you listening to it. It’s riveting and convicting. Some of what I will say has been adapted from Piper, yet much of it is simply personal reflection over the past four days or so.

On Wednesday, December 5, Robert Hawkins walked into the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, and shot and killed eight people, wounded five others, and then turned his AK-47 assault rifle on himself. It was the second deadliest mass shooting in Nebraska history. The scene was literally unbelievable as Nebraskans, and Americans, watched the aftermath unfold.

Personally, I was horrified. I grew up in Omaha and I’ve been to that mall probably hundreds of times. I have been right by the stores where those nine people were murdered. My parents’ neighbor and I talked on Friday night. His wife and two children were at the mall the day before. That’s extremely sobering. And for me, there was only one thought that reverberated through my mind all day and week.

Lord, why them and not me?

You see, the Bible makes it clear that I’m a sinner. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). What happens because of this fact? Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death.”

I deserve to die. There is nothing in my human nature that deserves to live. That is where my mind was last Wednesday. It could have been me. It should have been me. As John Piper said in the sermon, “Don’t be astonished the tower fell on those Galileans. Be astonished YOU weren’t under the tower!” How humbling is that? How much perspective we lack! Rarely, if ever, is this our first thought in a time of crisis.

Now, what would Jesus say about the shooting? I think Luke 13 speaks for itself. Jesus seems to make it pretty clear. For those eight people, and thousands of others who die everyday, it’s not that “it was their time to go.” Jesus says, “Everyone deserves to go. They deserved to die and so do YOU.”

Don’t hate me for saying this, because God said it first: There are no “innocent” people. There were not eight innocent people shot at the Westroads last week. We are all guilty (see Romans 3 for more on this). This may sound harsh, but if we die at one month, one year, or 100 years, God has done us no wrong. He is perfectly justified at taking us whenever he pleases. As Job said in Job 1:21, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And again in Job 2:10, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” What happened was according to God’s glorious will. Is it hard to take? Most definitely. Is it difficult to understand? It is a mystery. But the Bible says God has accomplishes his purpose, so must I trust and praise him through a situation like this? Yes.

What did Jesus say to the people who did not die in the tower catastrophe or by Pilate’s hand? “Repent or you will all likewise perish.” The events at the Westroads have brought me to my knees, more frequently and fervently than usual. It could have been me there. It could have been you. It puts life in perspective and makes you repent of the wickedness that lives in us. When Jesus says, “You will perish” he doesn’t mean physically. Everyone dies physically! If there is no repentance of sin, people die spiritually and are separated from God. Jesus is relating spiritual death to physical death here. “Repent, or you won’t see the Kingdom” is essentially what he means. This should offer hope to us; it should not make us afraid of going to Jesus. Repent! Be broken! Be contrite and reverent before God! This brings life and joy and peace and eternal satisfaction. Events like the shooting at the Westroads should put us on our faces, because God had mercy on us for one more day to confess our need for him and fall more in love with him. If that is not encouraging, I don’t know what is.

Martin Luther said, “Pray hard, for you are quite a sinner.” May that be what God moves our hearts toward when we consider events like this. We cannot control anything, so let us give everything to the King of kings and Lord of lords. And also, may we heed the words of the Lord Jesus when he said:

Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.