Cure For The Human Heart

SERIES: Christmas (1 of 3)
Cure For The Human Heart

I love the Christmas story...Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the wise men, shepherds, an inn FULL of people. It’s amazing how many different kinds of people are included in the Christmas story. I’d like to refer to this ancient story this month and look at what we might be able to learn from the different characters.
   
In the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, Linus reads the Christmas story, but there’s one part of the story that he does not read. The part of the Christmas story where Herod the Great, king of Judea killed all male children 2 and under  in and around Bethlehem in a jealous rage because he heard a “king of the Jews” had been born. Not exactly a kid-friendly story, but a great picture of why Jesus came.

When the wise men traveled through Jerusalem asking, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We have seen his star in the east”, that got Herod’s attention. He asked the wise men to tell him when they found the child so that he, too, could “worship the child”. When the wise men never returned, Herod took his best guess and killed all male children within a certain age range and location in order to protect his throne...from a BABY. What a wicked heart.
   
Most of us would say, “My heart is not THAT wicked” and, thankfully, that’s true. But our human hearts don’t naturally do “the right thing”. The Christmas story is about a baby coming to change human hearts. 
   
Max Lucado shares a funny story of how even a pastor’s heart needs a touch from heaven sometimes. He told about a day he was driving and  got cut off by a “punk teen driver and his friend”. At the stop light, he told the teen he should drive more carefully, to which the teen responded with a one finger salute.  At the next light, this pastor told the kid, “Watch that wave” to which the teen replied “Make me”.  The then 60-year old pastor said he herd in his head, “Drive away, Lucado” but instead, he replied to the teen, “Okay, where do you want to go?” Max could not believe the words that just came out of his mouth. The teen then replied, “Let’s settle this at the shopping mall.” True story, the pastor replied, “Are you kidding? There are too many people in a shopping mall. Follow me” and he accelerated out of the intersection. This crazy 60 year old pastor must have scared the teen and friend because they turned off at the next block. Max concludes his story with, “...I can blame my bizarre behavior on only one thing. The punk inside me...The heart of the human problem is the human heart.”
~Story taken from Because of Bethlehem, Max Lucao
   
So when you encounter someone with a messed up heart this week, let Christmas remind you there is hope for the problem of the human heart.

Your service is appreciated,
Pastor Rob

Links to other posts in this series: Christmas- Part 2, Part 3