And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." - Mark 1.17

In Ethics for Christian Ministry, Robert Creech of Truett Seminary observes, "Jesus never had only one disciple." Our teacher called his first apostles in pairs: Simon and Andrew, James and John. The disciples themselves caught on quickly: Jesus finds Philip, who immediately finds Nathaniel. The Christian walk is always personal; the Christian walk is never private.

We live in a world of intense - and false - personalization. Every commercial website or electronic publication invites me to create "my" version of their mass-marketed product. It is sad, but not surprising, that Christians have absorbed this ambient atmosphere of individualism. Rappers and commedians invade the Internet with snappy videos that discourage Christians from seeing the local church as an acceptable - let alone vital - component of living out the faith.

In such a time, we do well to realize that perhaps the most counter-cultural act a Christian can perform is to worship God in the presence of other believers. There's nothing new in this. In his Confessions, Augustine recounts the conversion of Victorinus, who claimed to be a convert but refused to receive baptism. His friend Simplicianus replied, "I will not believe, nor will I rank you among Christians, unless I see you in the church of Christ." Victorinus retorted, "Do walls then make Christians?" Walls, of course, don't, but visible confession does; Victorinus' real fear was losing the good will of his pagan colleagues. C. S. Lewis wrote to a friend who claimed to love Jesus but dislike Sunday services that, "The New Testament does not envisage solitary religion: some kind of regular assembly for worship and instruction is everywhere taken for granted in the Epistles. So we must be regular practising members of the Church."

Sure, the church consistently fails to fulfill her high calling; nothing new there, either. Jesus had a congregation of twelve: one betrayed him, one denied him, three fell asleep during prayer meeting, and nine abandoned him in his hour of need. But Jesus never had only one disciple.

Everyone wants to be a radical believer these days. Well, the term "radical" comes from the Latin word that means "root." At the root of discipleship lies community. Want to do something really radical? Go to church.

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. - Luke 2.7

The Tea Terrace Cafe in London will sell you yourself; well, more like "your selfie;" well, more like, "your selfiecinno." 

Here's how it works: You download the app and shoot 'em a headshot. The barista uploads it while he brews your beverage (hot chocolate is the other option) and the gizmo prints your portrait on the froth using flavorless food coloring. You, of course, then take pictures of the picture of your picture and post and text and share it while the coffee gets too cold to drink. And you're out seven-fifty American on the deal.

In a society that sees itself everywhere, we have to ask if we see Jesus anywhere. We see him in the Bible; we see him in sermons and songs; we see him in artists' renderings. But I sometimes wonder if what really appears is only a sugary-sweet self-reflection in the fading foam of our own minds. 

At this Christmas season, how will I know I have seen Jesus? The classic texts of the nativity offer a couple of ways. First, I've really seen Jesus if I want to worship him. We should avoid back loading a lot of developed theology on the shepherds and wise men; they may have seen the thing as more of a political than a religious action and they certainly didn't have the ghost of a clue about the Second Member of the Holy Trinity. Well, my own worship comes all jumbled with notions of nationalism and diplomacy and basic covering-my-uh-bases. But God has incredibly low standards about that sort of thing and receives my worship as much better than I offer it. If for even a brief hour on Sunday or a brief moment during the week. I see someone else's image in the latte of my life, I've taken a staggering step toward something greater than myself.

Second, I've really seen Jesus if I want to kill him. Herod's in-house seminary professors knew where messiah would be born, but not one of them left town that night. Some might say they stayed home where it was warm; I'd say they stayed home where it was lukewarm. Herod, on the other hand, took the thing seriously enough to attempt infanticide. If Jesus isn't the Savior, then he's a lot of trouble. Even if Jesus is the Savior, he's still a lot of trouble. Herod was the kinda guy who worried a lot about his brand; he put up a lot of buildings and saw that his name went with 'em. He wanted to be the only face in everyone's foam. If I ever really catch on to the full extent to which Jesus will not be an adjunct or instrument to my own plans, I will admit to a desire to ditch him.

In "Talladega Nights," a terrible movie with a surprising number of good lines, the main character, Ricky Bobby, prays to "Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Baby Jesus, in your golden, fleece diapers, with your curled-up, fat, balled-up little fists pawin' at the air." When someone protests that the Christ Child eventually grew up, Ricky snaps, "I like the baby version the best, do you hear me?!" Herod, of course, didn't even like that version, but the point is that we don't get to pick. We don't get to recreate Jesus in our own, fluffy, whipped-up image. 

As Christmas approaches, may God help us to see the true Jesus. And may God help us when we do!

And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

- 1 Kings 8.10-11

The snowball fight at Six Flags over Georgia was cancelled because of snow.

Organizers at the amusement park meant to sponsor a mighty battle involving a thousand patrons using fake snow. Then it snowed. It snowed so hard that it shut down the park. The real thing swamped the imitation.

King Solomon spent serious time and treasure to build the temple in Jerusalem, fulfilling the great dream of his father David. The Jews viewed this edifice as an earthly model of God's true throne room in Heaven. Every action taken in its precincts conformed to the Lord's commandments and conveyed symbolic truth about the true glory of the Almighty. The king assembled a cast of thousands to enact a stunning picture of the heavenly reality.

Then the real God appeared with such power that He drove the surrogates from the scene.

Sunday after Sunday the church gathers to offer analogue adoration which reflects the heavenly court. Some attack the assignment with more resources, some with less: a robed choir lifts soaring music skyward, backed by the serried ranks of a powerful pipe organ - or an upright piano tinkles out a tune as a few dozen voices drone out a hymn; a rockin' band belts out the latest in praise songs, or a terrified teen quavers his way through a tremulous tune; a polished pulpiteer limns God's goodness in choice vocabulary - or a bivocational pastor offers hard-won truth assembled in his few off-hours. These differences don't matter all that much; as the great R. G. Lee once said, when we reach Heaven, all earthly praise will sound like a bumblebee in a fruit jar.

What would happen if God's presence engulfed our practised praise? What if a real blizzard of glory snowed our preparation under? Would we welcome the arrival of all that we sought so diligently to portray, or would we grumble that God's interruption made our hard work meaningless? We should accustom ourselves to the idea. Revelation 15.8 says that even in the true temple in Heaven, when God's glory gets going even the angels must duck and cover.

This Sunday, let's pray that the reality of God utterly outstrips our best efforts and buries us in a blizzard of blessing. Then let's run out of church, eager to shout to everyone we meet the good news about what we've seen.

For more on this story, see Fake Snowball Fight Cancelled because of Real Snow

Touche!

Jesus reached out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. - Matthew 8.3

Leper-touching, of course, was hardly the done thing.

The law forbade it. Common human fastidiousness shrank from it. And Jesus didn’t have to do it; he could heal lepers at a distance - ten at a time if the situation required it. But the Lord was always touching people he shouldn’t have: lepers, dead guys, tax collectors. I do choose.

In these days of inappropriate touching, scientists are big on the benefits of non-sexual physical contact. Reduced stress, a calmer heart rate, lower blood-pressure, even the reduction of the stress hormone cortisol: skin-on-skin contact can accomplish it all, boosting, along the way, working memory and the immune system. It even delivers a hit of oxytocin, the chemical equivalent of easing one’s feet into a pair of comfy slippers. Don’t know what to say to someone in a crisis? Touch communicates more viscerally than words without the risk of saying the wrong thing.  Indeed, cultures that cuddle their children less have higher rates of adult violence.

But we don’t do it much. Not men, anyway; at least, not American men, and this leads to boozing, drugging, hypertension, and what what Dr. Kory Floyd of the University of Arizona calls “skin hunger.” By this avoidance of contact, we turn one another into an entire society of voluntary lepers.

I do choose.

I cannot choose to heal leprosy; I can choose to touch. And that choice might heal a number of less-obvious maladies.

Of course the real miracle here predates Matthew 8. It occurs, instead, in 1.18: She was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Jesus could touch that leper because they both had bodies. But touch is risky: Herod could seek to kill the infant Christ because they both had bodies.

The Advent season takes us back to the time when the entire human race, suffering from “skin hunger,” found itself satisfied by a God with fingerprints. We should follow that example. One of the signal moments in St. Francis’ conversion came when, instead of lobbing a purse full of gold at a passing leper, he dismounted and embraced the man. At this Advent season, let us remember that Christ calls us to get in touch with one another - literally.

I do choose.

For more information, see: "Hug It Out, Man," by Andrew Reiner