Do you like Maple Syrup?

    I love maple syrup.  I put it on pancakes, waffles, french toast and even scrambled eggs!  Maple syrup comes to you exclusively from the New England area of the US where maple trees are in abundant supply.    These trees not only supply us with a sweet treat for our breakfast meals, they also supply us with a beautiful array of colors this time of year that millions of people flock to every year to get a glimpse of.

    Ever wonder how New England became a bastion of maple trees?   If you thought it was some by-product of some ice-age phenomenon you'd be wrong!   No, the reason the New England area is covered in maple trees is all do to deforestation.   When New England was still owned by Great Britain, New England was covered with pine trees (and in many parts it still is) that Britain wanted for its ship-building.   Trees were cut down in large swaths for this purpose.   Later, dairy farming became big business as well and more trees were cut down to make room that as well.  When dairy farming stopped being profitable, many of these farms were abandoned and Mother Nature took over and filled in the empty regions with trees that were still left over.   That tree was the tasty maple tree.

    The mistake that many environmental purists make today is thinking that areas that are deforested never grow anything back in its place.   We think that the land will become a barren desert or wasteland.  It turns out, however,  nature is remarkably resilient and adapts.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  It fills in with something else.  Sometimes something even better than before but was not given a chance because of the abundance of another inhabitant. 

    So next time you are sitting in your favorite breakfast restaurant and enjoying a stack of pancakes dripping with maple syrup, be thankful for the lumber and farming industries that deforested the New England Area in the 1700 and 1800's.   It wouldn't have happened without them!

 

God jumps right into our messiness

      I love the show "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe.   Mike takes on some of the most disgusting jobs there are in our country.   He has done everything from pig farming, sheep neutering, sewer cleaning, to worm farming. There seems to be no job too dirty for him to try at least once.  Often he will don a plastic hazmat suit and look at what he is about to encounter and say, "Well I guess I just have to jump right in!".  

   The Christmas story is in reality at story filled with dirt, filth and the outcasts of society.  We have cleaned it up over years and in the process have lost much of the message God is communicating to us.  

   First we have the angel appearing to Mary in the small town of Nazareth.  A town in northern Israel with a bad reputation. We know this because later when the disciple Philip is called to meet Jesus of Nazareth he comments “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”   A dirty little town with a bad reputation.  

    Next we have a Virgin who is pregnant.  Not even Joseph believes her until he is visited by an angel as well. A scandalous e relationship.  In todays world it wouldn’t even be noticed but in their day it was on par with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.  We have Joseph who needs to go to Bethlehem where his birth record is kept to pay a Roman tax.  Under normal conditions only Joseph would go and Mary , who is 9 months pregnant, would stay home with family to take care of her. Instead, we have both of them traveling to Bethlehem together.  Message: Mary is disowned by her family and she’s Joseph’s business now.  Upon arriving in Bethlehem the rejection continues as none of Joseph’s extended family has no spare room for either of them. Apparently the word about Mary has spread to there as well. 

    Second, we have the shepherds watching over their flocks by night.  It sounds so quaint doesn’t it?  It’s not.  Shepherding was not a glamorous job and it paid very little. These were the most likely the homeless of their world just trying to get by and survive.  Because of their constant handling of livestock they would be “ceremonial unclean” and unable to go to the Temple in Jerusalem.  Poor , outcasts and ignored by everyone.  Yet it’s these outcasts God makes his first Gospel declaration to.  

    Next you have the scene at the manger. In Israel there are very few trees , but lots of rocks and caves.  The barn we view in our mind is most likely a cave and the manger is not made of wood ,but instead is carved out of rock.  The scene of the shepherds visiting the manger with Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths has more meaning than what meets the eye. To understand this you needs to understand Bethlehem’s connection to king David and their connection to the Temple. 

Bethlehem was the town of King David’s birth and growing up. Having this very important leader gave Bethlehem a unique position.  They became the main supplier of sacrificial lambs to the temple of Jerusalem.  These sacrifices were for the atoning of their sins.  But no ordinary lamb would do.  It had to be without blemish and so it had to be examined by the priests.  But touching a newborn lamb would make the priest unclean.  To deal with this the priests supplied the shepherds with “swaddling cloth”.   They would wrap the lamp in this cloth and place it in a manger for the priests to come in and do their examination.  

Do you see the connection now?  Here we have the shepherds present and Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. The message is unmistakable from God: “This is my chosen lamb without blemish to be the sacrifice for all the worlds sins”. 

   Finally we have Jesus wrapped head to toe with dirty cloth used to swaddle newborn lambs , making him ceremonially unclean as well.  

    So often when we start a new job or new endeavor we want a grace period. A time to get warmed up to the new environment or new people.   We want to "ease our way into it".    Most of the time we want this so if we find out it's not really our thing to do or not.  If it's not, then we can just exit without having been inconvenienced too much and go back to what we were doing before.   But not Jesus.   He doesn't ease his way with a nice birth and a nice middle-class upbringing and later expose himself to the more lurid parts of our world to see if it "fits him".   Instead, like Mike Rowe in “Dirty Jobs” “, Jesus jumps in with both feet to take on our filth and our separation from God.  He’s associated with scandalous people, the unclean, the unwanted and the unnoticed.  
   
      He does this to show you how much he loves you and how much he wants to help you.  He wants your filth. He wants it all.  Only then can he take it away as Gods own “sacrificial lamb”