John Fischer The Catch

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

This is Christmas. This is Emmanuel: God with us. This is the advent – the coming of the Lord. God invading history. The one who invented it coming into it and submitting himself to all his own rules.

The teaching of the New Testament is that now, at this very moment, there is a Man in heaven appearing in the presence of God for us. He is as certainly a man as was Adam or Moses or Paul; he is a man glorified, but his glorification did not dehumanize him. Today he is a real man, of the race of mankind, bearing our lineaments and dimensions, a visible and audible man, whom any other man would recognize instantly as one of us. But more than this, he is the heir of all things, Lord of all lords, head of the church, firstborn of the new creation. He is the way to God, the life of the believer, the hope of Israel, and the high priest of every true worshiper. He holds the keys of death and hell, and stands as advocate and surety for everyone who believes on him in truth. Salvation comes not by accepting the finished work, or deciding for Christ; it comes by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole, living, victorious Lord who, as God and man, fought our fight and won it, accepted our debt as his own and paid it, took our sins and died under them, and rose again to set us free. This is the true Christ; nothing less will do. (from the pen of A. W. Tozer)

Reconciliation is the central theme of God’s history in dealing with the human race. The short of it is: God created human beings in His image and birthed them into a harmonious world. For reasons we can only speculate, He allowed evil to enter into this idyllic world and separate human beings from Himself and each other. This has obviously had disastrous results, but, nonetheless, the rest of the story is the process of reconciling what has been separated.

In Ephesians 1:9 it says, “And he [God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfillment — to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”

That would mean that whenever we work to overcome some difference or repair a breech in a relationship, we are participating in a mystery. To reconcile a relationship is to act according to the mystery of God’s will. Don’t you want to be a part of that?

That means Christians need to be “uniters,” not dividers.

For years, Christians have prided themselves in being dividers – so much so that we have made up reasons to be different from everyone else and called that difference: holiness. Being different is not necessarily holy, especially when the difference consists of erected cultural taboos and behavioral requirements with no real biblical or moral grounding. The walls that exist between Christians and non-Christians today are largely of our own making.

Our bent needs to be on reconciliation – finding what we have in common with others, not creating reasons to separate. If you find yourself judging anyone, stop and focus instead on what you have in common with that person. If the mystery of God’s will is to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ, then we want to be working along with that will, not against it.

And especially at this time of year, think about how God brought everything in heaven and earth together in a baby in a manger. Now that’s a mystery!

Tonight’s teleconference study is all about what I call the fine print of the Christian life:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12)

It’s pretty clear, actually, the way God set this up. First is the underlying principle that God’s power is most clearly seen in our lives when it contrasts the vulnerability of our frail, human (mortal) existence – that which makes us a common, ordinary jar of clay. Then, just to make sure everyone gets that point, he puts that vessel through all sorts of trying experiences in order for the power to be clearly manifested in us. Since the true ministry resides with God and not us, this is the extent He will go to show that power and to separate it from anything we could take credit for like our awesome personality or natural talent or gifting. In other words: expect to be pressed, perplexed, persecuted and punched out if you want to be an effective witness for Christ. See why I call it the fine print?

God can say more through the things that break us down than through the things that make us appear strong, pretty and powerful. True Christianity is not what comes from motivational pump, but from the real stuff that gets pressed out of our lives by the things that threaten us every day.

No passage is truer, more relevant, and more earth shaking than this one. It challenges all our assumptions and undermines all our success-oriented philosophies.

I hope you can join our study tonight as we seek to draw some of this out in practical ways in our lives. [Dial in: 218-237-3840. Access code: 124393. 7 pm Pacific; 10 pm Eastern.]

One of the women at the Isaiah House wanted to know who to thank for her gift. Hers included a card and a note from one of you and she wanted to write back. Unfortunately we have no way of tracking that particular card to its owner; we didn’t provide for that kind of connection. But it does give me the opportunity to thank you all on her behalf.

The important thing is not this connection between the Catch and the Isaiah House that is made with many miles in-between and a certain amount of anonymity built in, but the more intimate connection between you and the “Isaiah House” women in your area, because we all know they are there.

You might be surprised to find out who they are. They may be in your church, in the library, at the supermarket. The important thing for us all to learn here is not how different we are, but how similar.

We need to not be either isolated or insulated and many of us are both. I say this because if it hadn’t been for Marti, I would be, and still am in many ways. Our society and ways of life do not provide for these types of connections. We have to go out and find them, or put ourselves in places where they can be found, or have our eyes opened to find them among us.

Let’s answer that woman who wanted to write the giver of her gift by finding someone similar to her in our own circles. I somehow think she would like that, and as usual in cases like this, we are the ones who stand to benefit the most.

There is nothing quite like the experience of being Santa to 80 displaced women who will most likely not have a Christmas this year other than the one we brought them last week. Their eyes sparkle and dance, and for a split second there is a streak of that childhood wonder as to whether I just might be the real Santa after all, and that I might, in fact, have something special for them. And thanks to you, I did.

Indeed, I had a car-full of gifts for everyone. I drove a little red Mini Cooper (I called it my Santamobile) packed full with gifts right up the driveway and into the patio where they were all gathered in a sort of make-shift outdoor living room complete with a tree we brought in earlier and lit up with decorations. One of the women operates a small library of donated books, and with two bookcases as a backdrop to the tree, it looked almost like home. And then a team of elves helped me distribute your gifts to a chorus of “Thank you, Santa!” that repeated itself over and over as I moved about the area personally greeting everyone.

Home. Something only in a memory, if that. Something they are trying to reclaim. Something that Isaiah House has temporarily become for them. You brought Christmas home to them and we can’t thank you enough for your commitment to this project.

I find myself wanting to say I wish you could have been there, but then I realize you were. You were there in the many gifts you sent to touch the life of someone who would never have expected to receive anything as nice as this.

And I must say that with all that Santa stuff on, it was a strange sensation being aware that people were looking at me as seeing someone else – someone connected to childhood memories of most likely a better day.

It occurs to me that as those who reflect the face of Christ, this should probably not be a new or unusual sensation for us – people looking at us and seeing Him. It’s all in the reflection.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Today’s Catch is a little longer than usual so we hope you will enjoy it. As a basis for this story, Marti has borrowed from her favorite Christmas story about an elf named Torten. In the story, Torten takes it upon himself to provide gifts for those he thinks will not be receiving any due to bad behavior. The analogy is not wasted on the women of Isaiah House who must deal continually with incriminations of bad behavior and failure from outside and from within. And like Torten, elf Marti takes it upon herself to correct this perceived injustice, only to discover something wonderful about the grace of God from a surprise visitor to the party.

Oh, and about being the polar bear… I’m not sure about that except that in the original story the polar bear’s name is Drusus, which sounds a little like doofus, which is what I feel like I am when it comes to giving, and why I am learning so much from this experience with the women of Isaiah House.

So enjoy… and a special thanks to all the Catch elves who helped us fill our sacks full of wonderful surprises for an early Christmas at Isaiah House. Wish you could have been there to see their faces!

Making merry like Christmas
by Marti Fischer

The wastebaskets, all twenty of them, were filled to overflowing. I was assigned to empty them.

“Wait,” said the administrator. “Here is another letter for the wastebaskets,” and he threw it skillfully, so that it landed on top of one the baskets I was holding.

“Dear God,” I read, “I am an unwed mother with a dead-end destiny. Yet, for Christmas I would like a ….” but I couldn’t make out what followed because my eyes were suddenly full of tears.

The other day on my way to the Workshop I caught sight of a single mother who appeared to be going nowhere. She was crying as if to say, “I am working hard but nobody seems to notice. I am so tired!”

I, nevertheless, kept on walking. Yet, I began to wonder, “Am I to blame her for her marital status? Do I see her as a failure? When passing her on the street do I stare at her while judging her silently to myself, ‘Why not just get a job, missy, and provide for your kids?'” I swallowed, blinked, and went on with the work that had been assigned to me.

When the toy whistle blew, we all trooped out into the full-moon night. We were all tired as the Workshop kept late hours the month before Christmas.

“I feel ashamed of admitting I am tired when I think of all the work He does,” said one of us, indicating with her mittened hand through the air to The House. “When it comes down to it,” she continued, “accept for Him, I guess no one in the whole world would take the time to read the millions of letters from all over the world; making note of who are the good people and who are not.”

Leaving her to talk to the others, I turned off the road without saying good night.

I opened the door to my hut and walked into the darkness, groping for a candle, lit it, and set it on the table. Then I stood before the table and looked at the packages that had arrived that day, all wrapped with Christmassy ribbon. And as I took off my red cap, tossed it in the corner, and rolled up my sleeves, I smiled… Nearly there.

A snuffing noise came from behind me. I turned around.

The fat white head of a large polar bear was stuck through the open window, its chin resting on the sill, and its friendly brown eyes twinkling a greeting.

“Hello, John,” I said.

“Hello to you,” the polar bear said.

I turned back to the table, and continued to count the gifts. Then the polar bear moved his head in a little more, snuffled a bit and said, “That’s a pretty package. Who is it for?”

“Oh just for a woman,” I said. “A woman I know.”

“And that gift,” John asked. “Who is that one for? …and the big one? …and the one with shiny paper?”

I thought for a moment, then said:

“Can you keep a secret?”

John thought for a moment, then answered: “I don’t know. I’ve never had one.”

“Well,” I said, “I can’t keep this to myself any longer. John, do you know what happens around Christmas time?”

John’s eyes gleamed happily. “Of course I know that,” he said, his words tumbling over each other. “Everybody knows that. That’s no secret. How the star shines, and the sleigh bells ring, and the reindeer dance, and everyone sings.”

“And you know about the good people?”

“Yes,” said John excitedly.

“It’s a wonderful work. But what about the stockings that aren’t filled?

“What do you mean?” asked John.

“I mean,” I explained, “there is a rule… about good people and those that are not. We don’t make gifts for the not so good people and the sleigh flies right over them without stopping.”

“Oh,” said John. “Well yes, I can see there would have to be a rule. Otherwise…” His eyes grew worried, “Are there many not so good people?”

I thought back to a recent conversation with a troubled woman without a home who was suspicious of almost any kindness shown to her as she defiantly stated, “I have dreams and aspirations, you know. I want to do what is right. I just want someone who will listen. Someone who understands. Doesn’t everyone deserve some respect? I have my dignity and I do not want anyone’s pity. But is it too much to ask for a little more joy and love in my life? Or to ask for a friend? Someone to talk to? I am worth it, aren’t I?”

As a woman without a home, if not driven by her guilt and concern, her daily experiences include discrimination, extreme poverty, and cruelty. People – her family and others closest to her – have betrayed her, rejected her, and left her.  Who is left for her to trust?

“But he loves women – all women.” John was thoughtful and still worried. “He wouldn’t do anything unfair.”

I struck my small brown fist on the table, “I know, John! I know! I’ve tried and tried to find the answer. The only answer I can find is that there must be a rule … a rule he didn’t make … but can’t break.”

“Well, what can you do, then?” asked John.

I got up from my stool, walked to the big chest, and unlocked it. John opened his pink mouth in amazement.

“Gifts!” he exclaimed. “So many beautiful gifts! Who are the gifts from?”

“Angels,” I said.

I took a bottle of perfume from the chest. “This is for a woman. She doesn’t want help from anybody; she just wants somebody to care about her. She is an invisible mother, a homeless women separated from her homeless children, with no known means of reuniting with them.”

I put the perfume back and took out a lavender scented shower gel and body cream set. “This is for a woman who was caught in the economic downturn, lost her home to foreclosure, was laid off, and lacks adequate resources for alternative housing with primary health care not even an option.”

Returning from the closet one more time, I handed the polar bear the most beautiful scarf either of us had ever seen. “And this,” I added proudly, “is from someone who understands pain and suffering and the power of drugs to calm things down and provide a momentary relief from the pain of living.”

“But how are you going to get the gifts to get them?” John inquired.

“I am going to take them to the women with a little help from you,” was my answer.

*****

“Can you fly John?” I asked.

“That’s an easy question,” said the polar bear. “No.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“That’s another easy one. No.”

“Then how do you know you can’t fly?”

John sat down. “That’s a harder question.” He thought, got up, walked around in a slow circle, sat down again, brought one paw up to his mouth, looked up at the sky, shook his head and said, “It stands to reason.”

“Why?” I said. What do you mean it stands to reason? What does it mean to stand to reason? If you have never tried to fly, then I don’t see how you know you can’t fly.”

“I am a polar bear,” said John. “Polar bears don’t fly.”

“That is not to say they can’t fly,” I responded. “I imagine you start by taking your feet off the ground.”

John looked down at his four heavy white feet. He lifted one of them.

“Good!” I said, “That’s the way!”

John lifted another.

“It’s working! You are on the right track, John!”

John lifted a third foot.

“Why you are wonderful! Splendid! Didn’t I tell you?”

“Yes,” said John. “But it gets more difficult from now on.”

“I don’t see why,” I said. “You have already taken three feet off the ground. There’s only one left, isn’t there? And if you can lift three, you can certainly lift one.”

“Well,” said John. “When you put it like that, it does sound easy. I’ll try.”

And while it didn’t stand to reason, he lifted his fourth paw off the ground. Splendid! Now I can deliver these gifts!

*****

“Wait!” I said later while flying over Santa Ana, California. “Whoa! That’s the Isaiah House… the one with the big chimney.”

John dove towards the house and landed gently on the roof. I went down the chimney and joined many an elf to serve a festive dinner. There was so much singing and dancing and making merry like Christmas that I forgot for a moment about John and the packages. Remembering, I scrambled and squeezed up the chimney to see how John was doing.

“Is that you?” John whispered wheezily. “I’m glad you are back. I was beginning to think I was hearing things.”

“Like what? I asked.

“Like sleigh bells,” said John, “…and hoofs.”

“Well!” said a familiar voice. “And just what are you two doing here?

I swallowed and gathered up all of my courage and said, “If it comes to that, Sir, I am wondering just what you are doing here.”

“What would I be doing besides leaving gifts?”

“Gifts?” I said. “Here? In this house? You left them gifts?”

“Certainly,” He said. “Didn’t you?”

“That’s different,” I said. “But… I found their letters in the wastebasket…”

He knocked His hand against His head. “There are no wastebaskets up here.”

I was about to step off the chimney to my little sleigh when I felt a mittened hand press on my arm in a friendly grip, and then a friendly pat on my back.

“Thank everyone for Me who participated this evening,” He said. “It means everything!”

Glowing with happiness, I slipped into our sleigh. “Hey, I mean, pardon me, Sir,” I shouted as we left the roof and soared into the sky. “There is just one question.”

“Yes?”

“There is something I don’t understand!”

“Eh?”

“I always thought there was a rule….”

“There is,” I heard Him say as we flew away. “But Love has never lived by rules since the beginning of time!”

Somebody wanted to know why Marti goes all out for her one-night-a-month responsibility to provide dinner for 60 women at Isaiah House. If I could answer that question, then I would know why my wife is the way she is. But what good would that do? So here I’ll try.

Because she realizes the value of each woman there and wants them treated with the proper respect due.

Because she has come alongside these women and seen herself in them.

Because she has a deep inner fear of being homeless and wants to treat the women of Isaiah House the way she would want to be treated were she in their shoes.

Because an injustice has been done and she wants to see it corrected.

Because she has made lots of new friends.

All that is required is a meal, so why has Marti turned it into dinner and a show? She doesn’t have to do this.

To which I would reply, “Oh yes she does.”

If you had been somehow able to view from outside the bathroom window, the conversation I just had with my wife, (why is it that all meaningful conversations in my house happen in the bathroom or the kitchen?) you would have wondered what that crazy woman was doing bouncing back and forth, hopping first on one foot, then the other, and at twelve midnight no less. What she was trying to do was have me grasp the significance of what she calls “Forgiveness Now!” or if that doesn’t capture it, maybe “You Can’t Outrun Forgiveness” will help.

How do you talk about or illustrate what happens in the ever present now?  Marti’s attempt was to hop from one “now” to the immediate next “now” by going “Ooops” (hop) “Forgiven”… “Ooops” (hop) “Forgiven”… “Ooops” (hop) “Forgiven”… “Ooops” (hop) “Forgiven”…. Etc., etc.. Her point was to get me off contemplation and into action. God’s promises are to be entered into, not studied and analyzed.

The cross to Marti, is not an abstract symbol to be pondered. We don’t take our folding chairs and our notebooks to the cross and wait for further instructions. We step into the life the cross made possible. We live the forgiveness the cross bought for each one of us. We enter the perpetual “now” where forgiveness is a current reality because our sin is ever before us, but here’s the thing: You can’t outrun your forgiveness. You can’t sin fast enough to beat your forgiveness.

So the point of all this is to get moving. Nothing can stop you now.

Our thoughts come today by way of a confession from one of our readers.

Pam writes:

I was in the waiting room of a lab to have blood drawn for an exam. An overweight woman came in a bit unkempt wearing a T-shirt that said something like “God loves you this much” with a graphic of outstretched arms. I was friendly, but see how I note “overweight” and “unkempt”?

Then a woman came in with a small child on her hip, perpendicular – not holding her – without shoes (it’s cold outside), and also with her was a 3-4 year-old carrying a hospital vomit tray. She signed in and immediately got on her phone to someone cussing about the lack of answers her doctor had given her about her son’s sickness. She was loud and it was “f—-ing” this and “g—damning” that. I was appalled and gave her the condescending look. But the lady in the T-shirt started talking in a soothing voice to the irate mom, telling her about a similar situation she’d gone through and how she might check into some other options to help her. The woman hung up and listened to the T-shirted woman and her frustration seemed to subside. I was called in to have my blood drawn feeling like the shallowest person in existence.

The anecdotes to this story are growing exponentially. I wanted to thank you for preparing me to see, though I failed miserably to respond appropriately.

I think Pam is being much too hard on herself. She didn’t fail miserably. She didn’t fail at all, because she saw so clearly what she had done and revealed it openly. This is exactly what walking in the light is all about. You see the truth about what you are doing and you bring it out into the open. As a result, other people can see and be healed. No doubt someone is reading this right now and realizing they did something similar – something they might not have seen had Pam not been walking in the light over this. I have such as distaste for T-shirts like this; I probably would have reacted the same way.

There is also the little fact about a learned lesson that makes for a different reaction next time you are in a similar situation. Hopefully we will all be slower to judge next time.

Well Thanksgiving 2011 is now history and ours included an ensemble of diversity from our new future daughter-in-law’s parents to guests from Isaiah House. We try to do this every year because we are always so enriched by those we invite.

And Marti, being the event coordinator that she is, had menus printed up and a game planned to get everyone involved, which consisted of a picture of a well-known movie under every plate. The game called on each person to recall a line from the movie that would help the rest of us guess it. Like: “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die,” from Princess Bride.

And then there was the poetry from an Isaiah House guest that had us all totally enthralled. One particular poem about a Great Aunt that inspired her in her childhood touched us so deeply we made her read it three more times through the course of the evening – everyone, I’m sure having someone they know in mind who had a similar influence on them.

Such is the value of gathering together and giving thanks. If you can give thinks for it, even the worst thing can be redeemed.