Here is a classic example of what happens when you are of Scandinavian descent and you want to do your genealogy: eventually you will find that you have an Eric Olesson as an ancestor. His father will be called Ole Ericsson. His father is Eric Olesson. And HIS father is Ole Ericsson. And so on, ad infinitum until you want to scream.

But that is not all. After that you find another ancestor named Eric Olesson. Same year birth, same county! Are they the same? You check the father's name....Ole Ericsson. You think at least the children might be different, but look! Ole Ericsson. They must be the same person, right? Well, go check that name in a search  box. Guaranteed you will find that in every generation from the year 846, when the last living Scandinavian with any imagination died, there has been an Ole Ericsson in every county and in every generation. Or an Eric Olesson.

What you really need is a tertiary DNA test. But don't bother. They all share the same genes anyway: even today, Norway has fewer people in it than Chicago. No, my friend, quit here, and leave it up to God, Who invented Scandinavians and especially Norway, for laughs.

This morning, as I often do, I drank my first cup of coffee while surfing my usual morning haunts on the Web. Mail. Facebook. News. Weather. In the course of doing this, I saw a few things that made me knot up inside with anger.

I won't go into exactly what made me angry. But when I sat down to read Scripture, I could feel that anger sitting like a big rock between me and God. It was like Jesus was on the other side of that rock: "Hello? Eleanor? What IS this thing between us? Let's get this out of the way first, so I can see your face, dear!"

Dealing with anger is like dealing with a big rock in your yard. You can let it sit there, because you think it is too big to move, and keep it in your landscape and plant flowers around it to make it look good. Or you can start digging. I dug around the edges, but I confess I haven't rooted the thing out completely. I found out enough to know, however, some things about anger.

One is that anger usually is more about hate than righteousness. One of the things that made me angry had the 'flowers' of righteousness planted around it, but really it was hate. And not only that, but a distrust of how God was handling it: why would He allow it? Don't get me wrong here: wrong is always wrong. But God knows how to use sin and wrong to His advantage. When we see the full picture of how God is not overcome by all the evils of this world, but is actually using them to accomplish His own purposes, we will be full of wonder.

I long for that day!

When Jesus was about to be taken away to be crucified, Peter took out his sword and attacked one of the people who had come to take Jesus. Jesus not only told Peter to put it away, but told him that if he didn't get control of his anger, it would be the undoing of him and anyone else who relied on violence to get their way. Then Jesus healed the injured man, and went peacefully to His death.

I hate lies, I hate violence, I hate when the peaceful and loving words and actions of Jesus and His true followers get twisted into ugly things by those who hate Him. But I can't let my anger over those things keep me from having absolute confidence that my Lord is using those very things to bring about His ultimate glory. I want to be a person of peace. I can't do that until I have dug up these rocks of hate in my life and quit planting flowers around them to make hate look good. Grant me truth in my thinking, dear Jesus, and let me see Your Face always!

^{Matthew 21:18} Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. ¹⁹ Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

Being a minor-order doofus, I've always had a little trouble with this passage. I mean, really-- Jesus curses a tree? Until today, when in making my way through Matthew, I finally got the thing in context. This is one of the reasons I've been simply trying to read straight through the Bible instead of taking it here and there. Context is one of the easiest things to overlook in reading the Scriptures, and reading with context in mind will show a person how amazing the construction of the Scriptures really is.

So, context. What's Jesus doing? He walking along with His disciples. Where's He going? He's going up to Jerusalem. What for? To be crucified. He's told the disciples three times already, what's going to happen in Jerusalem. They stick with Him, probably hoping that it won't happen, but ready to come to His aid if He gets threatened.

Jesus hungered. Remember, unlike any other human before or since, this was a Person with TWO natures: human AND divine. In His human nature, He was in need of food. Jesus makes this a teachable moment. He approaches a fig tree, which can be expected to provide something to eat and satisfy. Nothing on this one, however. Jesus intends this to help explain to the disciples why He is going where He is going to do what He has to do.

The fig tree is a symbol of Israel. God had designed Israel to be the people to which all the world could come and find out how to satisfy their deepest hungers for forgiveness of sin and life eternal:

Genesis 22:17-18 "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸ and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Now, however, Israel was a sham. Like the tree that was its symbol, it had an appearance of being able to satisfy, but there was nothing of worth on it.

Now Jesus in His divine nature and authority, makes His judgement on Israel, and the tree withers. There is no longer a need for any tree with will not bear fruit, and there is no longer any need for the physical nation. No one who goes to Judaism today will find anything that can save him from a hungry Death. There is no sustaining fruit there, so we cannot put trust in it for life.

Our trust must lie with the One who can give us not the imitation of life, but Life itself...and that one was Himself now going to His death to atone for our sin and make that Life possible.

Matt. 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
   for they will be filled.

John 8:32 "...You will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free."

Jesus asked his disciples once, Why are you afraid? (Mark 4:40).

John the Baptist once sat in prison, looking death in the eye. The account tells us how he strove to make sure his life had been worth something, when He sent a message to Jesus. Are you the One to come, or shall we look for another? Rather than asking Jesus to prove He is Messiah, as unbelievers usually do, John asked Jesus something more like "Is there any reason why I should not believe You are God's Messiah?"

In this way, John is trustfully readying Himself to relinquish his life in to God's hands. It is no sin to say to Christ, "I believe; help my unbelief". (Mark 9:17-27) But belief in Jesus Christ can't be mixed up with our wants. We are certainly allowed to ask for anything we want. Hwever, getting or not getting it does not prove the deity of Jesus. Believers accept His claim to be God first, then if we have done that, we can accept His will regarding our wants. John the Baptist shows us that, in the face of death, it was enough for him that Jesus was the One Who was to come. Messiah's will was enough for making peace with that in John's heart.

May God help me to know His sovereignty over my life on this earth, and anticipate with joy His reward in the next.

Over the past few weeks I feel as though I have become a little more aware of a dreadful power I had not heretofore been quite aware of. It is a power that all of us have as human beings, and is almost too powerful for us to be trusted with. It is the power of our words.

Don't stop reading here, please. I'm not writing a Hallmark card. This is serious.

Recently I had a conversation with an Orthodox rabbi. I asked him (since I was interested in a classical Jewish view of the subject) why God attaches such importance to the spoken word. For example, when we make vows, we often do so before witnesses. This makes them more important than regular words. But even so, any words we speak have power.Is it, I asked, because the Scripture says that we are made in the Image of God, and therefore our words carry a power that is reflective of God's power?

Jesus says, (Matthew 12 ³³⁾ “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. ³⁴ You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. ³⁵ A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. ³⁶ But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. ³⁷ For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

The rabbi considered this to be a very interesting idea, and agreed that I might have touched on something important. When God speaks, he said,  He gathers the energy inside of Himself, and expresses it outside of Himself, and it becomes a reality that we experience. Why should not the words of the Image of God have similar power?

And what is the consequence of this?

IN the Scriptures, we are continually warned of our words. We are especially warned about the words we speak to others about God:

Matthew 10  ³² “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. ³³ But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

So, I want to seriously warn all reading this concerning all the words that you speak, but especially the words you speak about Jesus Christ. At this time of year, we consider the historical fact that Jesus came to earth-- the Incarnate God Almighty!-- as a little baby born into a poor family from a backwater of the subjugated nation of Israel. This really did happen in history, and is well-documented. Be warned that He publicly promised that there would be a Day when He would return, in history, and that it would come when we are not expecting it.

Truth is what stands alone, despite what anyone wants to believe about it. Jesus is the Christ Who promises His return. Turn your thoughts to think of His Advent. What do you have to say about Him?

Are you willing to gather up what you have inside you, and express it to the world-- and be judged by it in future?

Your words carry a dreadful power! Consider them well this Advent!