Christmas in Perspective -The Wise Men's Story

Growing up, I always thought the wise men were just these three random guys who were really smart. But then I heard that they were kings. So that made a little more sense. They were rich, smart dues. But then I heard that they were Magi. What on earth is a Magi? Well, apparently a Magi is something like an astrologer. People who studied star patterns and what not. Okay, so they were three smart, rich dudes who liked the outdoors. But then they added something else. We don't actually know there were three of them. That's just a guess based on the three presents.

At this point in my life I was just like "enough with it already." Let's just agree on the fact that these were important people from the East who brought sweet presents. So that is what we are going to go with today. And for the sake of peace, we will assume there were three of them. 

We are first introduced to the wise men as they pull up in Jerusalem.

They get off their camels, buy a coke, and ask the nearest man, 

"Hey, where is the King of the Jews that was born recently? We were following that there star, well, you can't see it right now, but you could earlier. Anyway, the star that we can sometimes see if supposedly in the direction of the baby if we're correct. So all that summed up, do you know where this baby king is?"

Christmas in Perspective -The Shepherd's Story

Hey World,

As I'm writing this I'm sitting on the couch in my dorm room, listening to a Christmas song by Alan Jackson, and thinking about how fast this semester went by (which was fast by the way). I've learned so much this semester and had so many great times, it's going to be very hard to leave. Though I'll admit, it would be much harder if I wasn't going home to a snow covered Minnesota Christmas with family and friends. Christmas. I love Christmas. For that reason, I'm going to try and start a little Christmas themed series. With my consistency on here, I wouldn't bank on much, but you never know.

For this series I want to focus on different groups of people or individuals, and see how the coming of Jesus affected them. Tonight (3 AM so I guess it's this morning) I want to take a look at the shepherds.

  

A Failed Generation

For a long time growing up, really my whole life, I thought that my generation was going to change the world for the cause of Christ. The older I got, and the more I grew in my faith, the more certainty I had that this would prove true. Whether the world ended when I was thirty or thirty thousand years after I was gone, everyone would remember my generation as the one that changed the world. Every pastor and youth pastor and camp speaker told us over and over again that we had so much potential. The world had changed so much since the generation preceding ours. We were born into the age of the internet, and social networks, and cell phones, and on and on. We have every translation of the Bible, concordances, commentary, you name it, all at the click of a single botton. We have so many more tools then our parents ever had. These speakers would tell me these things, and the more I heard this message the more I believed it. My generation was going to impact the world like no time in history before, and I was going to be a part of it. 

 Tonight, my dream collapsed. Tonight, despite my aching for it to be true, I cannot force myself to believe we are that generation any longer. I look around at those my age, those older, and the children I see growing up now, and I do not see potential, as those speakers saw. I do not see hope. I do not see change, and if I see change, I see it for the worse. When I look at my generation I see pride. I see lust. I see hate and arrogance. I see children and teenagers who disrespect their parents. I see a generation that holds grudges and doesn’t forgive. I see a generation on their knees with hands lifted and eyes focussed toward Christ on Sunday night, sitting down with hands on the computer mouse eyes looking at pornography on Monday. I see a generation who sings of God’s kindness, who leave only to talk behind other people’s backs. I see a generation who watches “The Passion of the Christ” with tears streaming from their eyes only to go and with laughter watch “Family Guy” make fun of that same Christ. I see a generation who uses Scripture to justify the freedom they have to do sinful things, when that same Scripture was written to tell them they were free from the bondage of those things. I see a generation too busy on facebook and texting and twittering and playing World of Warcraft to stop for five minutes to talk with their Savior. I see a generation who tells me over and over how badly they want to live for Christ, and I wonder...oh i wonder why they never do. I look at my generation, and all too often I see myself.