• About

Crossing Paths

~ Intersections can reroute our destinies forever

Crossing Paths

Monthly Archives: December 2016

Saddest Night of the Year

31 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by michael schinker in New Year's Eve

≈ 2 Comments

The evening wouldn’t be proper without hearing the tune Auld Lang Syne, to bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight. Every year I have to look it up because I have forgotten the meaning. Originally a poem penned by Scottish bard and lyricist Robert Burns in 1788, the song’s title may be translated into our modern-day English as “long, long ago,” “days gone by” or “for the sake of old times.” The familiar first four lines pose a rhetorical question:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

Starting in 1929, renowned bandleader Guy Lombardo and his orchestra performed undoubtedly the most recognizable version of the song on New Year’s Eve for decades. Search for it on Spotify. It sounds like a funeral dirge. Maybe because we are in mourning for the end of the year? Putting it to bed for the last time so to speak. For whatever reason, hearing it and thinking about closing yet another annual chapter of my life always makes me more sad than festive.

Don’t get me wrong. In my younger days, I was guilty of my fair share of shameless debauchery in celebrating the evening away into mindless oblivion, with regrettable results. Of course my first resolution the following day was always, “I’ll never do that again.”

So hours before and after the ball drops in Times Square, there will be millions of folks reveling around the world. Lots of merriment and cheer. Truth is, that will probably go out the window or down the toilet tomorrow, when normalcy dawns with an aggressive hangover headache.

I’ve nothing against partying – within legal, healthy physical and emotional limits, of course. But I guess in finally aging into responsible maturity I have found other ways to express a sensinew-years-eve-clockble sense of rowdiness. I’ve no need to blow up leftover Fourth of July M-80s or to fire gunshots into the below-freezing midnight sky. Go ahead. Do it if you have to.

But the wife and I plan to spend the final hours of 2016 in relative comfort in the sanctuary of our home. First we’ll enjoy a home-cooked, medium-rare prime rib and all the fixins dinner. I may even crack open an ice cold can of Sam Adams Winter Lager (Santa left me a 12-pack). Afterwards I will probably spend some time in the easy chair reviewing the year in quiet meditation. Last January, the Lord presented me with a challenge to be more resourceful and deliberate with my time, to make what I do with my life count, and especially to have an encouraging, inspirational impact on other men for the kingdom of God. I will ask Him how I did.

Before the midnight hour though, I will probably doze off and miss the dessert round of a taped episode of the Food Network’s Chopped. When the fireworks go off around the neighborhood, the dog will bark, and the wife and I will wake up to a new year – to be thankful for each other, our health and well being, our family, for old acquaintances never to be forgotten, and joining in with the aged poet, “We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.”

Headline: Baby Boy Born To Save World

24 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by michael schinker in Christmas, Christmas Day, Jesus Christ, Messiah, politics, Prophecy, religion

≈ 3 Comments

For Americans, this has been a year of politics at its worst in campaigning for the highest office in the land. Millions of dollars were spent just to seize a four-year long opportunity to occupy that renowned chair in the White House as Chief Executive of the most powerful country on earth.

This Christmas season then especially as I read again what the prophet Isaiah wrote 600 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, I can’t help but see an obvious contrast between what men – or women – will do for a position of power versus how God operates in expressing His rightful ultimate authority. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6 KJV) Sound familiar? Handel included this verse in perhaps one of the most famous of choruses in his 1741 Messiah oratorio. Chances are you have or will hear it on the radio or at a church service. There are enough theological statements in this scripture to contemplate and write a book or two about, but for today, the phrase that speaks to me concerns the government being on His shoulder. It’s a metaphor of course, a symbolic and very visual representation of a real circumstance yet to be realized.

Think about it. The same shoulder that bore the cross up the bloody road to Calvary will carry the glorious weight of governing the nations of the world, no longer the enterprise of either good or evil men. He will reign in righteousness on the throne of David with a scepter of compassion in one hand and a rod of iron in the other. And so will be fulfilled another messianic prophecy: “He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation nor will they train for war anymore.” (Is. 2:3-4)

But as for now, as it has been for countless centuries, the world remains full of suffering people, especially in the lands of the Bible. The solution to conflict and war will not come from a political party’s agenda, or a UN resolution, or even from the good will of well-intentioned religious men. What we need now more than ever is the Prince of Peace. But His appearance will come at a great expense. It means that the almighty creator of the universe would lay down His divine rights and become like His creation, in the form of a helpless child, born in a hostile land occupied by a brutal Roman Empire; and it ultimately would cost His innocent life as a sacrificed lamb for the sins of the world. There will be a cost required also for his followers: If you want to be my disciples, He said, deny yourself, take up your own cross and then you can follow Me.

In a couple weeks, on the steps of the capitol building in Washington, D.C., a change of administration will take place. Like so many others before him, a president-elect will swear the oath of office and a new perspective on how this United States should be governed will begin to take shape. Sooner or later, though, the long foretold epiphany of the most momentous transition of all time will finally be accomplished. It will be apocalyptic – the commencement of an everlasting government, the kingdom of God in power and glory on earth – so much more ambitious than any human effort to build a novus ordo seclorum, boasted about on our dollar bills; and far outlasting famed Egyptian and Chinese dynasties, it will be forever, not a proposed mere thousand year Reich.

A foreshadowing, a hint of this transition from man’s way back to God’s way has already begun, long ago on that silent and holy night in a little town called Bethlehem, in a stable, in a manger. As Isaiah wrote, a child is given, the Son of God, to save the world, to bring us long sought-after and longed for peace.

This is truly good news! It should be every newspaper’s headline. Or Breaking News on CNN and Fox News. Remember what the angel told the shepherds: “Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11 (KJV) Even Charlie Brown has heard about it! Like Linus said on stage to the Peanuts gang after quoting it, “That’s what Christmas is all about.”

To all my readers, I wish you a Merry Christmas, and express my sincerest hope that during this festive but often stressful season you will find comfort in the message of the herald angel to you personally. As the old carol says,

“God rest you merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day;
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy.”

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow Crossing Paths on WordPress.com

Archives

  • January 2023 (1)
  • December 2022 (1)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (1)
  • June 2019 (1)
  • April 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (2)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • April 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • November 2016 (2)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (1)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (1)
  • December 2015 (2)
  • November 2015 (2)
  • September 2015 (2)
  • May 2015 (2)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (2)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • January 2015 (3)
  • December 2014 (6)
  • November 2014 (1)

Categories

  • 2017 (1)
  • 9/11 (1)
  • All Hallow's Eve (1)
  • Armageddon (1)
  • aspens (1)
  • Aylan (1)
  • Buddhist (2)
  • Celtic Christmas (1)
  • Charles Wesley (2)
  • Christmas (11)
  • Christmas Carol (3)
  • Christmas Day (4)
  • crucifixion (1)
  • December (5)
  • earthquake (1)
  • Easter (2)
  • Election 2016 (1)
  • Everest (1)
  • Flo and Kay Lyman (1)
  • Good Friday (1)
  • Happiness (3)
  • Holidays (2)
  • Holocaust (1)
  • Hurricane Harvey (1)
  • ISIS (1)
  • Israel (1)
  • Jesus Christ (15)
  • John F. Kennedy (1)
  • labels (1)
  • Life and death (9)
  • Mars (1)
  • Memorial Day (1)
  • Messiah (4)
  • miracles (1)
  • Nepal (1)
  • New Year's Eve (1)
  • Obsessions (3)
  • pandemic (1)
  • peonies (1)
  • perceptions (2)
  • poem (8)
  • politics (2)
  • Prophecy (4)
  • Refugees (1)
  • religion (6)
  • rescue (1)
  • resurrection (2)
  • Rocky Mountains (1)
  • savantism (1)
  • Smashing Pumpkins (1)
  • Solstice (1)
  • Spring (2)
  • stars (2)
  • Stonehenge (1)
  • suffering (1)
  • Summer (1)
  • Super Moon (1)
  • terrorism (2)
  • Titanic (1)
  • Tolstoy (1)
  • Ukraine (1)
  • Uncategorized (6)
  • vampires (1)
  • war (3)
  • winter (5)

Community

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 75 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Crossing Paths
    • Join 75 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Crossing Paths
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...