Advent, Week 3

December 13, 2020

Christians around the world will  light  a candle every Sunday for the 4 weeks prior to Christmas Day each year.

~ Today  we light the  THIRD   PURPLE Candle – JOY

Listen to “We Three King” and watch video – Here

 We light the  Candle of JOY  for the WISE MEN today!

because we  are anticipating  the JOURNEY of the Magi – Wise men.

The history of antiquity, as recorded in the Old and NEW  Testaments  of the Holy Bible,  provides facts, events  and discoveries that influence our present day.

© 2020. Lynda McKinney Lambert. All rights reserved.

Celebration of the 3 Kings – Light the Candle of JOY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listen to  Christmas music while you enjoy the photos and read about the Shepherds who had a visitation from a HOST of ANGELS on the night of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.   Here.

What do I know of  ROYALTY?   Not much!

 

I visualized the scene:  Wealthy men who left everything behind to follow a star in the sky – a brilliant star that led the way.  They knew they were seeking to find a baby – a newborn baby – at the end of their long journey.

 One IDEA kept recurring to me as I quietly thought about this week’s activities surrounding the Birth of Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem. It came to me that the one thread connecting EVERY character in this story is that each person was required to make an unexpected, unplanned trip from one place to another. Every single one! I felt like there is somber loneliness that underlies this miraculous story – everyone had to give up something familiar and travel to an unfamiliar place to do foreign things with unknown people.

From the beginning of this story, there is the central theme of traveling – leaving familiar places to go to a new place – inconvenience and pain, and sacrifice of something.

Travel – Journey – Go – Trip – Excursion – Passage – Flight

Mary and Joseph had to leave their home at a time when no pregnant woman would choose to be going anywhere on a trip – especially by foot and by donkey. Yet, the trip was mandated by the law, and they had no choice but to go.

My Story

When I was nineteen, I gave birth to our  first child. Eighteen months later, our  second daughter joined the family circle.

At age twenty-five, our third daughter  arrived in time for Thanksgiving Day that year.

For those three  births, I was living in a comfortable home with my husband. When the time came to deliver the babies, I had a local doctor who assisted me in our local hospital which was only 2 miles from our house. I remember how frightening it was – every time – when the pains of labor were intense enough that I was bent over double, unable to even stand up straight, and I knew it was time to leave for the hospital and give birth.

My Reflection on  Mary

OH, how did young Mary bear the long days of rugged travels when her body was heavy with her baby boy?

How did she straddle the back of a donkey and ride those many miles? Mary’s bones and muscles would have ached and cramped. How did Joseph bear the sight of his sweetheart so uncomfortable, in pain?

 Oh, Mary! My heart is sad when I realize  you did not even have a warm bed or the comfort of your family or friends that night. Mary, you knew you were carrying God in your womb, but how you must have wondered WHY you had to be so far from your comfortable home.  I feel like you were so lonely  in such a strange place as an animal shelter at night.  As a mother, I feel your  discomfort and pain – and fears.   Yes, I know you were  prepared  for this journey in advance when an Angel came to you to let you  know God had selected you  for this  moment.  And, I know you had a choice to make – and I know that you said, “Yes!”

Personally, I know that God always provides us with a choice. He calls us, and we respond in the way we decide to go. It is either “yes,” I will follow you – or – it is “No” I won’t. I came to this crossroads myself and I remember it  well.  As we ready about Mary’s calling from God, we can relate to it in a personal way.

The angel told you  not to fear.  I think you remembered those words as you labored  to bring your  baby   on a dark, cold night.

Depictions of the Nativity

I know that in art through the ages, in songs, and now, in contemporary depictions of the Nativity, we see Angels, the Holy Family, Shepherds, and Three Kings all there together with the animals. As I read the scriptures that recorded this event, I can see that modern Christmas depictions are not accurate in the characterizations. The nostalgic Christmas card scene has been pieced together into a fantasy world that never existed in that way. The centuries of lore have put together a very odd mixture of Christian history mingled with pagan practices, ideas, superstitions, and speculative myths. Add to this fantasy ethnic confusion and altered timeline that is not historically correct. 

Come Away, My Beloved.  I make a choice…

One evening in October 1973, I heard a whisper, “Come away, my beloved!” I turned, walked towards Him that night, changed the course of my life forever. Oh, but that is not all. You see, as I was walking to meet Jesus, I so clearly heard the voice of another man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” I knew I was laying down my life, as I had known it, and I stepped into a new one. You see, I was reading Bonhoeffer’s writings, as well as a book by  professor Frances Roberts – Come Away My Beloved. It was not by accident that  I was thinking about  these two Christian authors.  As we read, we absorb  ideas that we can either reject or embrace.  The writings of these two brilliant authors was speaking to my heart.

 

Discovery

The shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem traveled that night to find the infant, who would one day be known as The Good Shepherd.

There were only a very few worshippers around the manger in Bethlehem – just a handful of shepherds. Oh, yes, the Three Kings were on the way, most likely, but it would be quite a long time before they traveled the distance and bowed before the little boy.

Luke 2:7 sets the scene:

“[Mary] gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.”

When I look at this account of the birth, I can feel the loneliness of a woman as she takes her newborn child and wraps him in clothes, and places him on the straw—no room for them anywhere, except for a barn.

“The very nature of shepherds’ work kept them from entering into the mainstream of Israel’s society. They couldn’t maintain the ceremonial washings and observe all the religious festivals and feasts. Just a few miles from Jerusalem, these shepherds were undoubtedly caring for sheep that someday would be used as sacrifices in the temple. How fitting it is that they were the first to know of the Lamb of God!

More significant, they came to see Him the night he was born. No one else did. Though the shepherds went back and told everyone what they had seen and heard, and though “all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds” (v. 18), not one other person came to see firsthand.” 

(John MacArthur)

We are left to wonder when we search the historical scripture accounts – about the shepherds. We don’t know how they knew where to go. I imagine they just came into Bethlehem and began walking about, asking, “Do you know where a baby has been born tonight?” The important thing for us to know is that they came! They came because angels had visited them while they were taking care of their flocks at night. They had a visit from God, and they left their fields and followed the angels’ direction to go find the baby. The shepherds became that night, the first Christian evangelists. They went out of the manger, and they told others what they had seen.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged on April 9, 1945 for his part in the conspiracy to assassinate Adolph Hitler. It is here that he throws down the gauntlet for all people who choose to follow the path of the Messiah.   There is suffering on this path.   We accept this suffering when we choose to walk with Christ.

Here is the context of his most famous quote:

The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man, which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship, we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to the death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call. (The Cost of Discipleship, 99)

 

Now, I have talked my way through the meaning of the shepherds. I can better understand Psalm 28. (NIV). This passage is where I find the connection between “joy” and the journey of the shepherds. I wish you a joyous journey to the Christ Child tonight, too.

“My heart leaps for joy,

and with my song, I praise him.

8 The Lord is the strength of his people,

a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.

9 Save Your people and bless Your inheritance;

be their shepherd and carry them forever.”

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BONUS: 

Listen to Dr. Crystal Grimes  play and sing an old German Song_Come Ye Shepherds

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Read each Advent article. Use se the links below:

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Read each Advent article.

Use se the links below:

Week 1 – The First Purple Candle – The Candle of HOPE – Here.

Week 2 – The Second Purple Candle – The 3 Kings Candle – Preparation – Here.

Week 3 – The Third Purple Candle – The Shepherds Candle – JOY – Here.

Week 4 – The Pink Candle – Angel Candle – Here!

Christmas Day – The White Candle – Jesus Candle – Here.

Christmastide – The 12 Days of Christmas Here.

*This feature is brought to you through the courtesy of Pennsylvania author, Lynda McKinney Lambert. Please share with friends and always respect my copyright.

© 2020. Lynda McKinney Lambert. All rights reserved.

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Published by Lynda McKinney Lambert. December  13, 2020.

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Lynda McKinney Lambert – Author/Artist

 

My MISSION STATEMENT

• Seeking Euphoria  – through art and writing.

• I reveal what is forgotten, lost or invisible.

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