Bittersweet Farm
I once visited a weaver’s school where the students were making beautiful patterns. I asked, “When you make a mistake must you cut it out and start from the beginning?” A student said, “No, our teacher is such a great artist that when we make a mistake, he uses it to improve the beauty of the pattern.” That is what the Lord does with our mistakes.
Corrie ten Boom
It is the 28th of December and I’ve just stepped into my study. I’m hanging my new 2012 calendars today, but my heart is tender when my eye falls on the page that was December.
Never before have I had such sweet sadness after Christmas. Maybe it’s that a couple of our children now live a long way away and it is so hard to work out times to be together.
More and more the family is growing up and they are launching off and that’s as it should be. Kyle and Heidi are married. Neither of them lives nearby. Kyle and his little family are three and a half hours away. Heidi and Austin are over six hours away. Heidi is radiant and with child. They will be parents in late February. We were all together for just a few hours last night. We celebrated Christmas. Soon they had to leave and I stood in the snow in South Bend until they drove out of sight.
Between us lie the vast blue sweetwater ocean of Lake Michigan, the great metropolis of Chicagoland, and over three hundred and forty-three miles of farm and field.
Today I am re-entering the regular, post-Christmas world. Everywhere I look are bittersweet reminders of Christmas. Colorful wrapping paper just a day or two ago adorning gifts of love under the tree, is now crumpled and soiled on the garage floor. I gather it up and walk it to the curb. I have a lump in my throat. I find myself fighting back tears. I’m doing an emotional inventory, an assessment of my soul. It’s sadness at the passing of Christmas, but it is also sweet gratefulness for the outpouring of family love I just experienced.
For the first time in about three weeks the boys will be sleeping in their room instead of camping out in the family room by the tree. Soon we will have to bring ourselves to remove the lights and the decorations. Daniel will pack his things in his car and return to college in Grand Rapids.
I’ve always planned a number of things to look forward to after Christmas. I’ve never been blue. There is always a New Year full of plans just ahead. I’ve always told others to keep doing Christmas things after Christmas is past. I know the secret to joy is communion with the Spirit of God dwelling within us and obedience to his quiet voice. Today I need to preach that truth from my head into my heart.
Thank you, Lord for the love that was expressed at Christmas—for the month that was December. It was sweet. May the ring of it reverberate in my heart throughout the New Year that lies ahead.
Ken Pierpont
The Pastor’s Study
Evangel Baptist Church—Taylor, Michigan
December 28, 2011
Christmas Day my daughter Hannah added a treasure to my library. Jerry Dennis has written another wonderful new book. This one is about the Great Lakes in winter. It is called “The Windward Shore.” Jerry is a skilled writer who lives in Northern Michigan. If you love good writing and nature and Michigan you will love his books.
Before the message Hope sang “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” and Holly and I sang back-up. Here is a little amateur video of it.
This is the final message in my Christmas Series for 2011. This message was preached at Evangel Baptist Church in Taylor, Michigan on Christmas Morning 2011. During the message I tell a little story about James Taylor’s Christmas album. Hope you are helped by the message.
A Classic re-post from 2001 We went on our annual Christmas tree excursion Saturday. If you don’t have beautiful fluffy white snow blanketing the brown earth, bright sunshine on a cold winter day is the next best weather for getting the tree. We stopped for donuts and cappuccino. On the way we sang a few carols.
At the farm all ten of us spilled out and hiked back a lane and over a little hill to where the trees grew. Most of them were huge but there were still dozens small enough to fit into our living room. We searched up and down long rows of trees and among stumps of last year’s choices. Eventually we complied a short list of finalists. We all offer our opinion but the final decision is always left to mom.
Finally we settled on a beautiful Douglas Fir. I knelt to cut its umbilical cord and make it ours. It has been growing there just for us since about 1993. It’s a year older than Wes and a couple years younger than Dan.
Through the long warm days of seven summers it has stood on that pleasant hillside. On the fresh rain of seven springs it thrived. Seven winters flocked its branches with snow. And the geese of seven gold and auburn autumns passed over it by moonlight.
Somewhere this spring someone will plant the tree we will gather around Christmas of 2010. By then our family should have grown. Somewhere a the tiny tree is taking shape around which our oldest son will celebrate Christ’ s birth with his new wife five years from now. We’re not sure who she is yet but she is out there somewhere waiting for him, just like their tree.
Our tree grew up gracefully within sight of the farmhouse a few hundred feet back of the barn surround by its kin. It sheltered fowl and shaded rabbits and ground hogs and squirrels and deer. Incredibly we adopted this beautiful creation of God into our family for the paltry sum of only ten dollars.
Kyle and I carried it back to the van and put it on top. On the way back to the car with our tree it occurred to me that at a place where you can cut your own tree for only ten dollars you should not expect many extras. It is unlikely that they are going to shake it, trim it, bind it, tie it on top of your car and offer you a train ride and hot chocolate for a family of ten. We had noting to secure it to the top but a set of jumper cables.
I asked Wes who is now a strapping six-year-old if he would mind riding back on top of the car holding the tree on. It was only about fifteen miles. He said he would but he forgot his gloves and he thought his hands might get cold. They don’t make kids as tough as they did when my grandpa was a kid. So we used the jumper cables.
We were able to get to a little store and buy a bungee cord to secure our treasure. (The bungee cord has got to be one of the greatest innovations of civilized humanity since the invention of the wheel).
I love Christmas. The birth of Jesus was predicted all the way back in the book of Genesis. The prophet Isaiah announced the virgin birth of Jesus seven hundred years before it happened. For years we will remember our Christmas celebration because God has had it on his mind for all time. I’m glad he plans ahead better than I do.
Look on the sweet baby Jesus in the tiny infant form he took upon himself the night of his incarnation. Now step out into the cold Judean night. There no city lights obscure the grandeur of the heavens. The winter night is clear and cold and quiet. You can hear noises echoing through the mountains. You can see the uninhibited brilliance of the stars and the suns in the night sky. Stand silently for a while. Remember the Shepherd Psalmist who said, “when I consider the heavens the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him…”
Then think-the tiny tender mouth that nurses at the breast of the Jewish peasant girl in the manger spoke into existence everything you can see tonight to the farthest corner of the cosmos beyond the scope of human investigation.
The dimpled hands of the infant boy formed all the great mountain ranges of the world like a child playing at the beach.
The chubby feet of baby Jesus walked the waves of all the thundering oceans of time.
The dark eyes of the little Jewish infant beheld the unfolding of time from before there was time.
His body was new to the world, but his spirit never had a beginning.
The voice that cried out in the Palestinian nighttime commands the loyalty of the entire world
He is maker of the universe
He is the master of the universe
He is the maintainer of the universe
Now go back and fall on your knees and worship the Baby creator!
Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation
Oh my soul praise him, for he is thy health and salvation.
All ye who hear, now to his temple draw near.
Join me in glad adoration
If you read the first chapter of John, the first chapter of Colossians and the first chapter of Hebrews you will see that the little baby Jesus was active in creating everything that you see and millions of things beyond your sight.
He is the Creator of the Cosmos in a Cradle.
He is big enough to make everything out of nothing. He is big enough to make anything out of you. He is the God of creation and he is not done creating. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation, old things are passing away and all things are becoming new.” He can create in you a clean heart, he can renew a right spirit within you.
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