Just Whose Idea Was This Snow?

(A word of explanation:


We had planned for most of a year to present a 3-day Live Nativity at a park near our church. We were set up and ready to go when the decision had to be made to cancel because of the weather. The following are some of my thoughts:)

Thoughts on the “Blizzard of ‘09” and the Live Nativity that Wasn’t:
Like many of you, I have been working to process the disappointment of having to cancel two of the three nights of our Live Nativity. (As I write the third night is in jeopardy.) We:

• Made costumes,
• Built sets,
• Set up the Bethlehem village,
• Printed and distributed invitations,
• Bought music and put it on CDs (Not to mention buying a bunch of batteries and a new CD player),
• Prepared bread, fruit, and hot-chocolate, with at least a nod to historic accuracy, to be served in the village whose name means, house of bread. (I had also made known that for the duration of the Live Nativity the candy-canes weren’t candy-canes; they were replicas of David’s shepherd staff.)
• Had guides ready to guide, hosts and hostesses ready to offer hospitality, counselors ready to share the good news, pray with people, and be the touch of Christ to those in need.
• Strung wires, set up lights, hauled in generators, heaters, pottery wheels, chickens, and a goat named Suzie.
• Prayed, had good motives, and served with gladness.

I was really looking forward to reprising my role as the Mayor of Bethlehem, harassing, and being harassed by the Roman Soldiers hanging around town.
So be ye Calvinist, Arminian, or Ignorantite, the question hangs out there like the disco-ball that Larry didn’t find—Why? (Our tech-guy had been trying to locate one of the old mirrored globes for a particularly dazzling effect--and no, he doesn't look like John Travolta.)
OK, let me get the short answer out of the way first. It is both an easy and a hard answer—easy, in that it doesn’t really require a great deal of thought, hard in that after I think about it for quite a while I am still stuck with it—I don’t know. I know I’m supposed to be the answer-man for questions related to God, but without the least flippancy, and after considerable thought—some of it when I tramped around the Life Nativity setup in the knee-deep snow, this morning—I come to the same conclusion: I don’t know.

I do, however, know some answers that I can eliminate:

1. In some great cosmic battle, Satan did not win.
   An answer often given, based on poor theology is that the Devil got his way. As is generally the case with bad theology, there is some Biblical support for this way of thinking. In 1 Thessalonians 2:18 Paul speaks of his intentions of coming to visit the saints at Thessalonica, but explained his failure to appear with these words, “Satan hindered us.” Satan is called the “prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2:2, and the passage makes clear that he is pretty well getting his way among the “sons of disobedience.” That is a point that Satan, himself, makes in Job 1, and God does not dispute it. Yet as is clear from the book of Job, and countless other passages, the devil is only able to rage because God chooses, at this time, to let him have his way. At present the “whole word does lie in the power of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19), but his ultimate defeat is sure, Revelation 19 & 20, and God’s people need not fear him now (James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:8-9). If Satan had a part in this snow storm it was only because God allowed him to.
   
2. God didn’t forget, take a break, or allow a situation to get out of hand.
   The Bible tells us that from the smallest—the sparrow for instance, Matthew 10:29—to the greatest God controls nature. In Exodus God clearly controlled the elements to bring about the deliverance of the Israelites, In Job 38-41 God confronts Job with His control of nature, and in Romans 8 there is the “all things” promise. God used a storm, a hungry fish, a fast growing plant, a lowly warm and a hot wind to get the Prophet Jonah's attention. Read Psalm 139.

Probably if I applied myself, I could come up with more things that I know aren't, but that will do for now.

I also know that sometimes it is God’s plan for His people to fail. At least when we use a human metric for success and at least for a time. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were largely failures. By the standards used to measure many modern ministries, Jesus was a failure. At the end of His three-year ministry there were but a hundred-and-twenty who remained loyal, and this band to use Paul’s description of another place “were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” (1 Corinthians 1:26).
It is clear that as the Lord spoke through Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways . . . as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9) Again I am driven back to my original answer, but now it is now more profound and I give it with more conviction. I don’t know.
I’ll be perfectly honest with you. I don’t like what happened this weekend. I’m struggling with the feeling that one friend of mine badly disappointed some other friends of mine, even though when I think about it, as I am in writing this article, I know that isn’t so.
We prayed that God would allow us to reach out to our community. I’d say that about a thousand invitations to the Live Nativity were distributed. None of those people we invited were able to come, but we were able to let each of them know that we care. As we talk to people in the weeks to come, we are bound to hear—I already have—things like, “What a shame, you folk put all that work into the Live Nativity and weren’t able to do it.” I’d recommend that we honestly acknowledge our disappointment, but then go on to explain that we did it because we love the Lord, and desire to serve Him. From the beginning this has been God’s event, not ours. We don’t know why he chose to snow on it, but we’ll leave that with Him. While I’m on the subject of reaching out: I've already heard stories of how people used the opportunity afforded by an evening off to reach out to neighbors and friends. I suspect that there have been, and will be, other opportunities for outreach because our big event "failed." Let’s be on the lookout.

We are always apt to say, “Why me?” Actually the question ought to be, “Why not me?” In this world of tragedy, a failed Christmas event doesn’t rate very high on the scale of significance. It is obvious, from scripture and observation, that in God’s plan this world, at present, is a place of floods and sickness, and wars, and snowed-out Live Nativities. My late Father-in-law, my pastor in my teen years, used to say about life’s difficulties that they “make us long for heaven.” Indeed.

Lord I long for the day when my worship of you will be unhindered by the fallenness of this world.

We planned and set up this Live Nativity as a recognition of the supreme importance of Jesus Christ’s first coming. The blanket of snow serves to bring about a longing in my heart for Your return, Lord.

“Even so come, Lord Jesus."