S’MYRRHS

Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar were still feeling awful about having gone to Herod, but the Bonfires and Carols event definitely gave them more peace in their hearts.  They sang “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” and “Silent Night” all while roasting marshmallows and making s’mores.  All was calm and all was bright, until Balthazar dozed off, dropping the myrrh branch that he had been using into the fire.  “Balthazar!” said Melchior, reaching into the fire quickly to snatch the sappy branch.  “A brand plucked from the fire,” (Zechariah 3:1-2) said John Wesley, a tear welling up in his eye.  Then he told them a story about another fire and another branch that his  blessed mother Susannah had “kept and pondered in her heart.”  Balthazar would credit this precious memory with his decision to gift the Christ child the myrrh retrieved from that very branch.

WESLEY’S QUESTION:  How do I spend my spare time?

SCRIPTURE:  When Herod[a] saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became enraged. He sent men[b] to kill all the children in Bethlehem and throughout the surrounding region from the age of two and under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men. (Matthew 2:16-17)

When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.  For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:3-7)

FOOLISH WISDOM:  “One day, the humble roof of the Wesley's caught fire, ignited by irate parishioners on February 9, 1709.  All of the family escaped but six year old John.  He clung to the window frame, afraid to jump.  A neighbor stood on Samuel’s shoulders to reach the boy.  The flaming roof caved in just as John was rescued.  All of the family’s possessions that remained after the fire were a hymn sheet and a page from the family Bible which said, “Sell all thou hast.  Take up thy cross, and follow me.”  “I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of the child,” Susannah Wesley wrote in her journal on the day of the fire.  As John Wesley grew up, his mother used his being “plucked from the burning” to remind him that God saved him for some great work.” (John Cowart, People Whose Faith Got Them into Trouble)