Our 2008 Christmas poem

Several things in our lives have made it rather hard

To organize and send out a traditional Christmas card

Instead I will narrate our year with some poetry

And conveniently send it out en masse electronically

 

We began the year with 5 in our clan

We outgrew our car and bought a minivan.

The kids thought it was cool to have a new ride

Mommy loved the practical space we had inside.

 

In February Christopher came down with the flu

I also felt sick and just figured I caught it, too.

Weeks went by and I still felt all wrong

Until a sonogram showed I was nearly 12 weeks along!

 

You can imagine the surprise and all of the fun

Of hearing this news before Hannah turned one.

Another McCracken would be added to our number

And she would be born some time in September.

 

In early April, John got in a wreck

Someone ran a red light and totaled our Buick.

Thankfully John walked away without much harm

But a few days later, Christopher broke his arm!

 

After a cast and 4 weeks, you know how boys do

His arm healed up fine and he felt good as new.

We drove up to PA for the whole month of May

To visit my family that lives too far away.

 

We returned to Texas in the heat of the summer

After perfect weather in PA, this sure was a bummer.

We spent most of our days at the neighborhood pool

Sarah learned to swim while we tried to stay cool.

 

Christopher developed an obsession that went way too far

He poured over books to know all about dinosaurs

Before we knew it, he was reading very well on his own

His interest in fierce and wild animals has grown and grown.

 

At the end of August, homeschooling had begun

Though I was nervous at first it has really been fun.

We learn lots and work hard in the first part of the day

While his sisters distract us with their loud and hearty play.

 

On September 11^th we got to meet face to face

With our new little bundle - precious Mary Grace.

Now 3 months old she is chunky, happy and bright

But most importantly of all, she sleeps through the night!

 

Hannah is walking, talking and charming with her looks

She loves for us to read her lots and lots of books.

Sarah loves to color and put puzzles together

She also takes good care of her sisters and brother.

 

John’s been the pastor of Trinity for more than 7 years

While he’s still not yet 40 he has lots of gray hairs!

We love our church family and are excited to find

How the Lord will work in our church in ‘09.

 

While sleep-deprived and busy we must tell you this,

We love you and wish you a Merry Christmas!

We hope you’ll stop and wonder in the midst of all the fuss

That the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.

Don't Be a Scrooge about Christmas

Here is an article on Christmas by RC Sproul that pleasantly surprised me. I like it.  

Here is a snippet:

Every generation has its abundance of Scrooges. The church is full of them. We hear endless complaints of commercialism. We are constantly told to put Christ back into Christmas. We hear that the tradition of Santa Claus is a sacrilege. We listen to those acquainted with history murmur that Christmas isn't biblical. The Church invented Christmas to compete with the ancient Roman festival honoring the bull-god Mithras, the nay-sayers complain. Christmas?A mere capitulation to paganism.

And so we rain on Jesus' parade and assume an Olympian detachment from the joyous holiday. All this carping is but a modern dose of Scroogeism, our own sanctimonious profanation of the holy.

Read the whole article.

On omnipresence and incarnation...

Christopher, our 5 year old, has asked me on a few different occasions if God is bigger than Jupiter.  I've told him that God is bigger than the entire universe.  Not able to get his mind around that, he asked, "How can God be bigger than outer space?"  I said, "Well, remember God is everywhere."  "But how can God be everywhere?"  I said, "Well, God is a spirit and is bigger than everything He created and...well, that's just a really hard thing for little people like us to understand, isn't it?"

The other day while the kids and I were driving down the road in the minivan, Christopher asked me, "Mommy, if God is everywhere, does that mean that we are driving over God?" Chuckling at first but then wanting to give him a serious answer, I confidently replied, "No Christopher, remember that God is a spirit and doesn't have a body like men."  I was hopeful this would satisfy him since the answer recalled one of the catechism questions he has memorized. But no.  He then said, "So does that mean we are driving on God's non-body?"

Today as we were driving home from church, our 4-year old, Sarah asked, "Mommy, is Jesus in the van?"  Happy that I could again refer back to already-memorized catechisms I replied, "Yes Sarah!  Remember, God is everywhere and Jesus is God."  Unsatisfied, Sarah demanded, "No, I said is Jesus right here next to me in this van!"

Then after we arrived home, Hannah and Sarah were sitting together on the sofa reading a book and I noticed that Hannah had something in her mouth.  I immediately asked her to spit it out and saw that it was the baby Jesus from their Playmobile nativity set.  I found myself laughing while saying, "No, Hannah - don't put baby Jesus in your mouth!"

On the one hand, it is true that God is a spirit and does not have a body like men.  This is an incredibly abstract concept for us to grasp, let alone to explain to our children.  On the other hand, John 1:14 is also true - "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us."  This infinite God who created the universe and everything in it, entered our world by taking on human flesh.  This is Christmas - God became a man.  I find that my children better understand and grasp who God is when they hear about Jesus.  In Jesus, "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell."  (Colossians 1:19)

Christmas/New Year's with Paw Paw

My mom arrived Saturday evening - early enough to greet the kids, who were VERY excited to see her! Sarah seemed to find every excuse imaginable to come out of her room to say something to Paw Paw. After the kids were fast asleep, I made my mom a spinach omelette since she was still hungry after eating my lentil soup. You'd think that vacation time was the only time my mom ever got to eat...


Here she is with all 3 kids on Sunday afternoon.


Hannah's cousin, Elijah, is just a few weeks older than she is but is quite a bit bigger (I'm talkin' off-the-charts BIG). So my mom didn't think that Hannah grew that much since Labor Day. (I told her that her perspective was a bit skewed from being around Elijah).


My mom got Sarah this t-shirt, which I think is pretty funny...especially with Sarah's mischievous, playful face in this photo.


Paw Paw's presents to the kids were bicycles! What's funny is that Sarah (3 yrs old) is already pretty good at riding it while Christopher (4 1/2 yrs) still needs lots of instruction, prodding, and guidance. Believe me, we TRIED with the tricycle, and he was NOT interested. We are determined to get him interested in riding a bike, though. I'll let you know how things progress.


Look at her go! Yes, that's a Lightning McQueen helmet on her head. They didn't have any girly helmets in her size at Walmart, but she likes McQueen so it works.


While we may boast of Christopher's many talents, large motor skills are not one of them. He certainly got us laughing today while leaving Walmart, however. As we were loading the bikes into the trunk of the car, he declared, "I'm going to be a Mormon when I ride my bike." He was confused by our hysterical laughter because he wasn't intending to be funny. I guess he overheard me say, "Well, there go the Mormons..." as they passed us by on their bikes with their backpacks.


You'd also think that vacation time is the only time my mom gets to sleep. Peace and quiet are not required...all she needs is a couch.

Merry Christmas!

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,

and we have seen his glory,

glory as of the only Son from the Father,

full of grace and truth.”

(John 1:14)

Would somebody please tell me what Christmas is all about?

The following is a talk that Mindy gave earlier today to a gathering from our church. I thought it was great and I want to share it with you all:

Many, if not all of you have seen, “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” on TV at some point in your life. I watched it growing up and I’m enjoying it again as a parent (although I’m a little more alarmed at all of the name-calling that goes on throughout the show!) But if you’ve seen it, you’ll remember that amidst all of the Christmas festivities and cheer, Charlie Brown is depressed. Why is he so down?

He just doesn’t understand what Christmas is all about; he is annoyed by all of the commercialism and focus on presents. He senses that there is a deeper meaning to it all, but it is grossly overshadowed and trivialized by all of the modern practices.

We can relate to this, can’t we? It seems as though “Christmas” begins earlier and earlier each year, and the madness persists and bombards us from Black Friday until Christmas Day. And all of the excitement seems to be over who is getting what for Christmas, and the big celebration inevitably reaches its climax under the tree on Christmas morning. Then after all of the presents are opened, everyone feels the big let-down, emptiness and fatigue from all of the shopping, the office parties, school parties, gift wrapping, family gatherings, traveling, etc. Our culture is very effective in bombarding us with every distraction imaginable until we find ourselves grasping for the real reason why we celebrate this Day in the first place.

And so finally when Charlie Brown comes to the end of his rope, Linus, the young theologian, takes center stage and tells Charlie Brown and everyone listening what Christmas is all about:

“There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, an angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shown round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, “Fear not! For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:8-ff)

Now it warms our heart to hear Linus proclaim these verses of Scripture on national television year after year, but I fear the power and significance of the angel’s proclamation to the shepherds is lost on us because it may be overly familiar.

The angel is essentially saying, “Today in Bethlehem a baby has been born who is your Savior and Messiah…and by the way, this baby is also God Himself!”

God’s people had heard of and had been waiting LONG for the promised Messiah, the One who would save them. So it would have been incredibly exciting to hear that He had finally come! To hear that He came as a baby would have been perplexing, but to then hear that this baby, this Messiah, was God in the flesh, would have blown their minds. It should blow our minds, too.

So instead of glossing over this verse as a nice thing to write on Christmas cards, let’s unpack the punches that are found in this original proclamation of Christ’s arrival.

It should raise questions in our minds like, Why did he come in the first place? Why did he choose to come as a baby? Why did God send Himself, and not another?

The angel says that this baby born is our “Savior.” That, in and of itself, implies that we need saving or rescuing from something. What is it exactly that we need to be saved from? Sin.

When the angel of the Lord appears to Joseph, he tells him that “(Mary) will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

Now, in order to fully appreciate the wonder of Jesus’ birth, we must understand why He came. We cannot and will not grasp the beauty and glory of our salvation if we don’t understand our desperate need for it. We must first understand what we’ve been saved from.

No one can argue over the existence of sin. No one has to teach a child to be selfish or to throw a temper tantrum. My children may learn how to call each other “blockhead!” by watching Charlie Brown, but that’s only because the roots of sin are already in their hearts. If you search every nation, every people group, every economic class, every age, and every heart, you will find sin and its effects. If we as a people know nothing else, we know how to sin. J.C. Ryle once said that he knows of no greater proof of the Genesis account of man’s origin than the power, extent and universality of sin.

So while we may be fully aware of the existence of sin, I think it’s fair to say that we don’t have a clue as to how vile, heinous and offensive it is to God. Sin isn’t just about making bad choices or being a mean person. It has everything to do with offending our perfect, holy and loving Creator and Ruler.

Kris Lundgaard writes in his book, The Enemy Within,
“Few people have come to terms with the law of sin. If more people had, we would hear more complaints of it in prayers, see more struggling against it, and find less of its fruit in the world.” (p.23)

Just as skunks don’t realize how offensive their odor is to others, we are all too content to live amidst the stink of the very thing that separates us from God, who cannot have sin in His holy presence.

So why did Jesus have to come? Couldn’t you just ‘pull yourself up by our bootstraps’ and ‘become a better you’? Why not simply make sure our children get a better education than we did? Can’t we just work harder?

Left to ourselves, we don’t even want to do what pleases the Lord. Sure, we may want to be better people – but it’s usually with the goal of getting people to like us or respect us, getting into a good school, getting a better job, or simply feeling good about ourselves. Left to ourselves, all we think and care about is our self.

Ephesians 2:1 says that we are dead in our sins. We simply cannot save ourselves let alone approach God for salvation.

God knew this. And in His infinite mercy, He moved toward us. There wasn’t a single person in all of human history who could pay the debt we owe to God. So God sent Himself.

How did He do it? Humbly, as a baby. The infinite, eternal and invisible God took on human flesh.

He came down to earth from heaven who is God and Lord of all, and his shelter was a stable, and his cradle was a stall; with the poor and mean, and lowly, lived on earth our Savior holy.
(“Once in Royal David’s City”, C.F. Alexander, 1848)

This is hard to get our minds around. God, who is perfect, holy, righteous, wise, good, and pure…this same God whom we have so grievously offended, took on our flesh. He chose to become like one of us and live among us. He experienced all of the temptations and frailties of human flesh. And yet, He never gave into the temptations. He did not live for himself, as we do. He lived for the perfect will of His Father – God.

So why did He come as a baby? To fulfill every law that we break and obey every command that we ignore…and He did this perfectly from the moment of His birth. Jesus Christ earned God’s favor on our behalf.

But we know that’s not the end of the debt we owed. A price had to be paid – death; the penalty for our sins and offenses against God. Only a perfect person could sufficiently pay for debt that we owe.

How much does God hate sin? Look at the cross. Look at how much our sin cost Him.

How much does God love us? Look at the cross. Look at the manger.

We think of birthdays as a fun, party day on which we get to indulge ourselves with food and presents.

Jesus’ birthday was not a glorious day for Him. Think of how much God the Creator of the universe condescended to take on the flesh of His creatures, to suffer all of the ills of humanity, and then to die for the very people who rebelled against Him.

However, Jesus' birthday, the day that He took on human flesh was a glorious day for us.

God did for us, what we could not do for ourselves. The reason Jesus came in the flesh was to live for us and to die for us. Remember what the angel told the shepherds – “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!”

And the mystery of it all is that He didn’t have to do it. God does not need us. Think of how much easier things would be without us! The incarnation of Christ was an act of self-sacrificing, unconditional love.

So how should we celebrate Christmas? - worship. Remember that without Christmas day, we would still be dead in our sins and without hope in this world. But because of Christmas day…because God moved toward us by taking on human flesh, we have unshakable hope. Therefore, cling to the Savior, who is Christ the Lord! Bask in the love that God has for you in Christ!

How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast beyond all measure; that He would give His only Son, and call a wretch His treasure!
(“How Deep the Father’s love”, Stuart Townend, 1995)

“And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” Linus