Shade Tree Wisdom 12/8/08

The news is starting to reflect that we are officially in a ‘recession’. One columnist figures the total cost of attending the inauguration of president-elect Obama would be $10,000.00, and they are not going. Hotels in DC have hiked their price, some double, some triple the normal rate for the event. Peter Funt, son of Allen Funt of Candid Camera fame, writes an article suggesting the Democrats stop fund-raising please. He says the funds from under the mattress have been spent. Yet Austin reports lobbyist are still busy sending emails to raise funds.

And here comes an article about how parents are trying to get the message across to their children. One father in Webster Groves, Mo, (a suburb of St. Louis), suggested his sons also put down the price to things on their Christmas wish lists, and his 8 year old was amazed to find his came to $906.00. Other parents are cutting back on snacks and other ‘extras’ in lunch, and some are starting to carry brown bags to work, instead of going to a nearby restaurant. And many teens are looking for after school jobs! ! ! And the paper boy sticks his usual Christmas card into the delivery.

And December the 7th passed without so much of a mention that I noticed. And I can still hear the voice of our then president FDR intone, “December 7th, a day that will live in infamy”, as he called on the Congress for a formal declaration of war on Japan. A declaration that sent the country on a different course and changed so many lives in so many ways.

BUT, here is some news most of you won’t really care to hear. The Houston Texans played the Green Bay (Wis) Packers at Green Bay yesterday, the temperature was a frigid 3 degrees, and the Texans won with a field goal kicked when time was running out. In the course of history, an event that is soon forgotten, not “long remembered”. I just threw it in to sort of change the course of the dreary news I have been talking about.

Because there is Good News, the best. The shepherds heard the angel give them this direction, “And this shall be a sign unto you. You will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”. Luke 2,12. And after hearing the multitude of angels praising God and singing, they “came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe, lying in a manger”. V.16.

So familiar, we heard it so often. Doesn’t it move us? The fact that things had come to such a pass that Almighty God had to take on human flesh in order to save us from the sins we do and are daily engaged in? That fact ought to shock us to our roots. God comes to us, and we, sin-drenched and bedraggled, say proudly that “I accepted Christ”? What amazing thinking leads to such a conclusion. St. Paul had it absolutly right when He said, “It is a GIFT of GOD, not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2,8.9.

This is the Gift we celebrate, and rejoice because He came.

Down in a lowly manger, the humble Christ was born;
And God sent us salvation, that blessed Christmas morn.
Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere,
Go tell it on the mountain. That Jesus Christ is born.
LSB 388

GPD 12/8/08