Merry Sabbath

Every seven years, Christmas and Sabbath happen at the same time.

Christmas is my favorite day of the year. Sabbath is my favorite day of the week. Both celebrate gifts--Christmas looks at the gift of a savior, while Sabbath reminds us that God gave us a coffee break.

You'd think that when the two fall on the same day of the year, something in the cosmos would build up pressure from all the happy synergy and blow up, showering the streets with candy canes and little scrolls that say "shabbat shalom."

Apparently not. See, traditional Christmas celebrations and traditional Sabbath-keeping are mutually restrictive. Which naturally leads me to the belief that one, if not both, of our holiday traditions is pretty screwed up.

Let's start with Christmas. Christmas is a holiday that started a long time ago. I was going to put a lot of facts in this paragraph about the origins of Christmas and when and where it started and why we do what we do on December 25. But as I started researching it, I found it to be really dull. As with any study of history, it really doesn't matter why people did what they did, it only matters why we do what we do.

So let's look at what we do on Christmas. By "we" I'm talking about the majority of Americans. We fly to the homes of our relatives. We cut down trees and put them in our houses. We drain our electric bills to power lights and lights and lights and lights. But, mostly, we buy things. We buy many things, and most of the things we buy we buy out of a feeling of obligation or necessity, or because we expect something in return.

If Christmas is a recipe for cookies, we're throwing in all the right ingredients--flour, sugar, chocolate--without rolling, mixing, or even turning on the oven.

Sabbath is a holiday that started many years ago, circa Day Seven. And Sabbath is a day I love so much that it makes me feel sorry for the world during those first six days. Let's be real, how are you expected to get through a week without the promise of Sabbath at the end?

Sabbath started something like this, "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done."

Got it. It's a blessing. It's resting. It's definitely holy, and as other parts of scripture claim, it was designed for the pleasure of man. Having observed Sabbath all my life, I'm very familiar with this blessing.

Recently I've gotten the feeling that Sabbath has become a list of things you shouldn't do instead of a list of things you should do. I see people, good people, who think they are observing the Sabbath by quitting certain things. And I guess they're halfway there. But the other half of Sabbath is DOING things. Things like resting, being still, knowing God, knowing each other, putting your heart and mind in the right place. God wants us to be active, curious people who spend the Sabbath hours cutting out distractions and formulas and replacing them with the real, meaningful things of life: poetry, music, each other, ourselves, art, good conversation, delicious food, friends who you can be yourself around--all with a thankful understanding of the God who loved us enough to give us all these things.

Add "salvation in the form of an infant God" to that list, and you're looking at my idea of Christmas.

See, if Sabbath is a recipe for cookies, we're leaving out the basil and hummus but forgetting the need for flour.

I can't wait for heaven, where I plan on celebrating Christmas and Sabbath for eternity. I can't wait for the day when we can all see, with thankful hearts, the gifts that God has given us, starting at Day Seven, and ending... oh, that's right. His blessings will never end.

Born of a Broken Man

I sat down to study for my organic chemistry final today. It all looked like nonsense. Structures and values and reactions and definitions were swimming in front of my face in a two dimensional slurry.

I thought, This stuff is hard...

Then I remembered how smart I am. How capable I am of doing almost anything I set my mind to. I enjoyed a short ego trip, thinking about my scholarships and academic achievements and my aspirations to become a doctor. And not just any doctor, a good doctor. One who saves lives no one else can save. Like a really, really smart superhero.

And, of course, I thought of how hard medical school is. I looked back at my chemistry book, still looking like it was written in the script of an ancient civilization. If my first semester of organic chemistry is this hard, how hard is medical school going to be? I broke down, and it sounded something like repetitive mumbling:

I am broken. I am broken. I am broken. I am broken. I am not good enough. I am broken. I am a shipwreck. I am broken.

I've been hard on myself this semester. When I'm lazy and watch movies instead of studying, when I spend too much time with my girlfriend, when I try to have a social life, when I get distracted by stupid things like doing nothing and procrastination, I get this feeling like I'm not living up to my own standard. Which is a little funny, really, because I never once took into consideration the fact that I am broken!

You don't expect a broken tool to create much of anything. Why do I try to squeeze so much perfection out of myself? Why can't I understand that I am broken? I will have lazy days. I will make mistakes (BIG MISTAKES!). I will fail tests. I will choose my girlfriend over my biology textbook (not sure if I'm even able to call that one a mistake yet...). I will try and try and try and try, and I will still not be good enough to meet the standard I set for myself.

Today I accepted the fact that I am broken. I accepted the fact that I really can't change my laziness, my distractions, my poor study habits. And acceptance, I found, is peace.

I'm not trying to excuse my imperfect behavior. I'm not trying to give up and walk away. If that was the end of the story, I would not have peace right now. But, thankfully, the story does not end there. In fact, the story hasn't even begun.

Accepting our failure is the first page of our new story with God. He works through our lives to make our actions perfect in a world where our intentions are not. If you don't believe me, watch my last post. He's more convincing than me. We are all shipwrecked people.

Before walking into my last final of the semester, I was talking to God. And an analogy arose in my mind. I looked at my guitar sitting across the room, and I realized that even if it had four strings instead of six, I could still make beautiful music on it. I could still make music so beautiful that listeners might not be able to tell that two of the strings were broken.

God can pick us up and make very convincing things out of us. All we need to do is surrender our brokenness to him and admit that we are broken, we are broken, we are broken.

Paul writes in his letter to the Romans possibly the most encouraging lines in all of scripture:

"For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different."

Praise God there will be no B's on my transcript this semester! I serve a God that loves me more than I can even imagine.

Stop and Listen

If this man preached at my church, I would be in tears every week.

My throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water
I wear this tide like loose skin, rock me to sea
if we hold on tight we’ll hold each other together
and not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep
all these machines will rust I promise, but we'll still be electric
shocking each other back to life
Your hand in mine, my fingers in your veins connected
our bones grown together inside
our hands entwined, your fingers in my veins braided
our spines grown stronger in time
because are church is made out of shipwrecks
from every hull these rocks have claimed
but we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change
so come on yall and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, were just tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember