What was it like on the outskirts of Bethlehem?

Modern living provides numerous luxuries and activities. An endless parade of entertainment, distraction and diversion is at our beck and call. Shopping centers and malls abound, a cadre of restaurants surrounding each. There’s a club meeting one night, the kid’s practice the next and the church’s covered-dish supper the night after that.

Satellite television beams hundreds of crystal clear channels into our living rooms. A few are even worth watching. Movies, music, and information stream from high-speed Internet. A universe of information and entertainment is a mouse click away. Ours is a different world. The changes in the last forty years alone are staggering.

During my childhood, dining out meant a trip to the local café or fish camp. There were few, if any, family steakhouses. And there certainly wasn’t a restaurant in every corner of the mall parking lot. In fact, there wasn’t even a mall.

In the late 1960s the Internet was a military secret. Television stations were few and color sets were uncommon. I watched Neill Armstrong take “one giant leap for mankind” . . . and I watched it in black and white. Our set could tune two VHF channels.

Just as today’s world has surpassed my childhood, so had that time advanced over the previous generations, when television itself was rare or nonexistent. People received their entertainment from the radio voices of Amos and Andy and the Jack Benny Show. Their information came from newspapers, books and magazines. The 20th Century was change, with less than 100 years separating the heyday of the buckboard from the reusable spacecraft.

Now, you may wonder what this walk down nostalgia lane has to do with Bethlehem. Very little, in a direct sense. But it does serve to compare the rapid advancement in our lifestyles with the primitive shepherds’ experience, recorded in Luke’s Gospel, that first Christmas night. The thought came to me as I read the story for the umpteenth time, not that you can read it too often.

Some Bible translations place the shepherds “in the same country”; others say they were “in the fields nearby.” Either way it is evident that they were on the outskirts of Bethlehem, which had nothing in common with modern suburbia. There was no reflection of Bethlehem’s lights against the night sky. There was only a darkness that today’s suburbanite can’t comprehend.

The shepherds may have kindled a small campfire and lit a torch or two. But they wouldn’t have stayed very close to that light. It would have compromised their night vision, making it difficult to spot thieves and predators, which was their purpose for being there. The only prevailing light came from the stars and the moon.

No distant train whistle pierced the silence. No car horns honked and no jets passed overhead. There were no blaring boom boxes, blinding televisions, or ringing cell phones. The only sound was the shepherds’ conversation and the soft bleats from the flocks. They are alone on a dark and silent night.

Without warning a celestial being illuminated the night sky. The angel Gabriel declared the long-awaited Messiah’s arrival to the accompaniment of an angelic chorus. How would those shepherds, unaccustomed to such brilliant displays, have reacted? Luke tells us they were “sore afraid.”

Considering the societal transformations and technological advancements we’ve experienced it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to relate to the lives of those shepherds. We think black and white television is archaic and cell phones are indispensable. It’s unlikely we can appreciate the scene that long ago night on Bethlehem’s hillside pastures.

Feast, my friends, this Christmas Day! Gather by the fire. Unwrap the gifts. Amidst the celebration save a minute to ponder the shepherd’s experience. Our lives are so accustomed to sound, light, and distraction, perhaps we can’t comprehend the powerful, majestic display that long ago night. But we can try.

Pray for Independence on Independence Day

We don’t celebrate the 4th of July on July 4th. We celebrate Independence Day. Our Founding Fathers, having grown weary of their subjected status, tossed the shackles of tyranny and declared independence from the British crown. Ultimately they established a government wherein people are largely independent of both their fellow man and their government.

This presents a quandary for the human spirit. While mankind naturally desires freedom, we are a somewhat dependent creature. Therefore, independence from man and government demands a substitute, a dependence on a higher authority. That authority is our preeminent Creator, as recognized in our glorious founding document, the Declaration of Independence.

Only when our reliance rests on God can we be fully free of mankind’s oppression and government tyranny.

The Founding Fathers certainly didn’t intend to create a Christian theocracy. That idea doesn’t even make sense. Christianity is a personal commitment to faith, a relationship with Christ. Therefore authentic Christianity cannot be spread through force, coercion, or other manipulative method. In fact, any faith or religious practice that can spread in these ways is, at best, weak and meaningless.

There is a difference between America being a Christian theocracy and being a Christian nation. There is no law through which Americans are compelled to become Christian, neither today nor in our infancy. There’s also no law through which Americans are prevented from being Christians, at least not yet.

However, it is true that our nation was founded upon Christian morality by men who received guidance predominantly from the Christian faith. It is, therefore, not only legitimate for Christians to influence our society, it is imperative.

Whenever people, individually or collectively, abandon their dependence on their Heavenly Father they will naturally substitute for that dependency. Government or humanism (man-made morality) is more than ready to fill that void. The liberty we once enjoyed quickly succumbs to the tyranny of man, which usually manifests in larger and more oppressive government.

That doesn’t mean that all government is a substitute for God or that government is altogether unnecessary. Certainly a government of just laws enacted for the purpose of protecting liberty is based on sound doctrine. Rules that expose and restrain the invader and plunderer are essential to liberty. Such rules, ironically, are found throughout the Pentateuch.

Just as human liberties are self-evident, as our Founders knew so well, independence is also self-evident. Somehow we’ve lost sight of that conviction. We’ve shunned our dependence on our Heavenly Father in favor of dependence on man-made institutions, such as government programs in various forms.

We’re unquestionably witnessing the result of our dependence in the decline of the family unit, increased government bureaucracies that usurp the natural role of the charitable church and sundry welfare programs--both personal and corporate. We cannot remain a free people under these circumstances. We can only retain the delusion of freedom, wherein liberty exists in our mind but not in reality.

Isn’t it time we recaptured our Founding Fathers’ visionary spirit? Let’s embrace liberty once more. And let us forever acknowledge the source of our freedom. Liberty is the inalienable desire of the human spirit, engraved eternally on our hearts by the hand of the Heavenly Creator.

Without regard to contemporary historical revisionism, our Founding Fathers recognized God’s hand in freedom’s establishment. They discussed and debated the concept in their parlors, town halls, taverns and yes, even their churches. The voice of liberty should again ring in those churches.

Let liberty be rekindled in dependence on the Sovereign and Almighty God. Celebrate Independence Day with a reverent and prayerful spirit. Let’s show America that God’s people are serious about reclaiming our dwindling birthright.

Visit http://prayforindependenceday.blogspot.com/ and get your church involved.