Down in the dumps? You’re not alone

When you turn your life, heart, and soul over to Jesus Christ as your Savior, you may think you are going to live a happy ever after life, like in a fairy tale.  But it isn’t like that. Christians have the same problems as the world has, but Christians have Jesus, their Rock and their Good Shepherd to lean on and cry out to in their times of need and times of despair.  The world does not, for they love the darkness rather than coming to the Light.

In the Bible, you will find people turning to God in their depression and despair.  Job is one example.  Satan took just about everything away from Job.  Job had a right to be angry and sorrowful.  He lamented the fact that he had even been born.  Yet Job turned to God to vent his anger and sorrow.  He knew who his Helper was.

Hannah was sorrowful because she could not get pregnant.  So she went to the temple and poured out her sorrow to the Lord.  Hannah’s sorrow was so profound that Eli, the priest, couldn’t understand what she was saying to the Lord.  Yet Hannah knew that the Lord would comfort her and heal her.

David, the great man of God, also suffered from great sadness.  Most of David’s sorrows were of his own doing – he sinned by sleeping with Bathsheba, he had rebellious sons because he didn’t discipline them correctly, and at times, he didn’t trust God to deliver him from the hand of Saul.  Yet, like Job, David took his sorrows to the Lord and confessed his sins.  In the book of Psalms, we find David’s lamentations and we can relate to his sorrows. 

Even Jesus was sad.  He was half-human, after all, so He has all the emotions that we have.  He cried when Lazarus died, even though He knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.  He wept over Jerusalem, even though the people had hailed Him as Messiah and four days later, demanded that He be crucified.   In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wept so hard, it was like great drops of blood fell because His human side didn’t want to die a horrific death on the Cross. 

You are not alone, my fellow Christian.  I too have been sorrowful, for reasons I don’t wish to go into detail about here. You may have noticed that I have not written many posts on this blog in the last two years and my sadness and sorrow is why.  There is a line in Psalm 56:8 where David says, “You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?”  God’s bottle of my tears must be as big as the Atlantic Ocean.  I have done more than my share of crying and despairing.  But I too have turned to God as my Comforter. 

We can look forward to the day when there will be no more pain and no more suffering.  In Revelation 21:4, it says: "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

God will comfort you from your sorrows too, if only you will turn to Him.  He is always available when you need to pour out your sorrows.  But sometimes, the pain and despair are so deep that you feel the only way to be free from your sadness and despair is to end your life. My friend (for if you are reading this, I count you as my friend), that is when you need to cling to Jesus all the more.  But if you are in deep despair and need a human to talk to, visit with your pastor and he will give you godly counsel; or, if he’s not available, call the Suicide Prevention Hotline at (800) 273-8255 or go to the website.

Thank you as always for reading.   

Diane

Reflections on the three wise men

Today is January 6, which is also known as the church holiday of Epiphany.  Epiphany, which occurs on the church calendar 12 days after Christmas, marks the visit of the three wise men to worship Jesus and present gifts to Him.  The Gospel of Matthew is the only gospel that contains the wise men’s story. It can be found in Matthew 2:1-12. 

Matthew states that the wise men were from the East.  He is not specific about the country that the wise men came from.  It was not important which country they were from, only the area of the world that they were from, to show that they were not Jewish. 

 How did the Gentile wise men know about the Star and that it would lead them to the King of the Jews?  Some of the Jews did not return to Israel from Persia after the Babylonian exile. The Jews may have told the wise men of the Persians about the coming of the Messiah.  They may have pointed out Numbers 24:7, which states: “There shall a Star come out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel,” along with other Old Testament Scriptures about the Messiah.  This information would have been passed down by the Persian wise men over the centuries until the Star of Bethlehem finally appeared, fulfilling the Messianic prophecies.

The Persian Jews must not have told the wise men where the King of the Jews was to be born, however, so the wise men went to Herod, the Roman leader in Jerusalem. The wise men must have thought that since Herod was the ruler of the Jews, he would know where the King of the Jews was to be born. Herod didn’t know the answer to their question, so he asked the priests and the scribes if they knew where the King of the Jews was to be born.  They told him in Micah 5:2, it stated that the King of the Jews was to be born in Bethlehem.  Herod told the wise men and they left to find Jesus.

Most people set up their Nativity scenes with the three wise men near the manger.  This is wrong, however, because Jesus was not a baby when the wise men visited Him.  Matthew refers to Jesus as a young Child – if He had been an infant when the wise men paid their visit, Matthew would have referred to Jesus as the Baby Jesus.  Herod also refers to Jesus as a young Child, according to the time he determined from the wise men. Matthew also states that Mary and Jesus were living in a house, which meant they had left the stable.  Interestingly, Joseph is not mentioned in the story of the wise men – perhaps he was out of the house when the wise men came to call.

Even if the wise men had seen the Star of Bethlehem on the night of Jesus’ birth, it would have taken them a while to travel by camel and/or by foot to Bethlehem, perhaps up to 2 years, depending on what part of the east they lived in.  There were no interstate freeways and modern forms of transportation to get the wise men to Bethlehem sooner. Since they were important wise men, they may have had a large entourage to attend to their needs.  This would make the travel time even longer since there were more people traveling in the group.  The song “We Three Kings” states that the wise men were from the Orient.  It would probably take more than 2 years to get to Bethlehem from the Orient since the designation “the Orient” usually refers to China and Japan.  

After the wise men went home by another way and Herod realized he had been tricked, he ordered the deaths of all boy children under the age of 2 according to the time that the wise men had told him they had first seen the Star. This is another indication that Jesus was around 2 years old when the wise men visited. 

Legend has it that there were three wise men because of the three gifts that were presented to Jesus.  However, Matthew does not state for certain that there were only three wise men, and indeed, there could have been more than three wise men in the entourage, but only three of them presented the gifts. 

The wise men have been given names over the years and even been promoted to kings, but Matthew does not call them by name nor does he call them kings.  Matthew does not say that the three wise men introduced themselves by name to Mary either. 

More important than the background of the givers were the gifts themselves and the meanings of the gifts.  Gold was very valuable and it was given to a king as a tribute.  Jesus is not only the King of the Jews, He is the King of Kings.  Myrrh was a bitter perfume used for medicine and anointing oil. Myrrh was offered to Jesus on the Cross, and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus’s body in a mixture of myrrh and aloe after He was taken down from the Cross.  Frankincense was a symbol of holiness and righteousness and was used as incense in the Temple.  It represents Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross, as frankincense was burned with the sacrifices on the showbread altar in the Temple.  

I am going to try and write more this year.  I apologize for not posting very often.  Thanks as always for reading and see you next time!

Diane