Merry Christmas (December 25, 2023)

Merry Christmas all!

I woke up with the words from Longfellow's 1863 poem on my mind. I posted three stanzas on Facebook:

I heard the bells on Christmas day,
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet their songs repeat
Of peace on Earth, good will to men

And in despair I bowed my head
"There is no peace on Earth, " I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, good will to men

Then rang the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on Earth, good will to men

This is my wish for the new year. The world is crazy right now, but it could get crazier. Praying that cooler heads prevail in this new year. I keep asking myself what I could do in my world to build peace.

2. I missed my Saturday review. I feel like I've been busier these last couple weeks than at any time in my life. We are rollling out Kingswood Learn. Check it out!

I built the "innards" for several of these: church history with Bud Bence, the brief guides to the Old and New Testaments, theology of the body, JoAnne Lyon's "Saying 'Yes' to the Holy Spirit, Dave Smith's How to Study the Bible, and more. I may have put too much work into them, but I saw it as a service to the church. To me it was important.

3. Nice to have all my children home for Christmas. Angie did have a wee bout of COVID but is coming out of it in time for Christmas day. I have tested negative so far and feel fine. Praying the same for the rest of the family.

4. I'm off to FOLLOW the rest of the week, the every-other-year youth convention of the Wesleyan Church. Hope to see many former students.

Merry Christmas all!

Luke's Story of Jesus' Birth

I was delighted to encounter an article this year (HT: Anthony Le Donne) that suggests the following story line in Luke's birth story. [1]

• Mary becomes pregnant of the Holy Spirit in Nazareth before she and Joseph get married.
• He returns to his family's home in Bethlehem for a census. He takes her with him.
• They get married in Bethlehem--he takes her into his house. 
• Following the normal practice, a small make-shift room, a marital chamber, is added to the family's house, often on the roof as a kind of attic addition. This would perhaps only be big enough for the pregnant Mary and Joseph to sleep in.
• She gives birth in the main room of the house, since there was not room for birth in the "place" (katalyma) of the marital chamber. 
• Many "farm houses" of this sort had a manger, with animals on the lower part of what was effectively a split level (with about a one meter height difference). They lay Jesus in this manager.
• Forty days later, they return to Nazareth.
• Merry Christmas all!

[1] Stephen Carlson's 2010 article from New Testament Studies: "The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem: katalyma in Luke 2:7."

Merry Christmas!

In the middle of spending lots of money and sometimes awkward family gatherings, may we all have a moment to remember that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. A gift given to give us life. A life lived for others, an example for us.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a joyful time of celebration with your families in faith. Celebrate the incarnation in anticipation of the life in anticipation of the death in anticipation of the resurrection in anticipation of the reign!

Clever post on Santa by Candida Moss

Well written in a playful style, How Santa Hurts Christmas.

Have a Blessed Christ-day!

There is something staggering about how this day of immense significance passed by so insignificantly. I don't mean December 25 in the year 1, of course. We don't know the exact date of Jesus' birth. And it is usually dated to more like 4-6BC. I mean rather whatever day it was when Jesus was born.

The wise men of Matthew are perhaps a couple years after Jesus' birth. The day itself Luke celebrates with insignificant shepherds in a trough in a village. It did not make the headlines.

The headlines would have been filled with the Emperor Augustus or King Herod the Great. Was the average Jew looking for a Messiah? Not at all sure. A couple years later there would be a revolutionary named Judas who would try to overthrow the Roman government in Galilee. He would fail miserably.

But he did not claim to be God come to earth. That's not the kind of "anointed one" they were expecting.

More than a century earlier, an anonymous individual we only know as the "Teacher of Righteousness" had protested the installation of Maccabean high priests and the way they ran the temple. He had gone to the desert to form a pure Jewish community that did things the right way. But he had died, and he had never claimed to be God or king in the first place.

The real God came to earth with private fanfare, unnoticed by all but the "unimportant." And it is exactly those, Luke indicates, that Jesus worked to save while he was on earth. With his death, he would make salvation available to all--even the "great," rich, and powerful of the earth, if they will humble themselves.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!  May you have a day like Jesus' birth!  May you have a day when you think of those who are usually overlooked, like shepherds and the women in the birth story.  May you have a day when you believe God can and does still work miracles.  May you have a day when you surrender your authority to God, as the wise men did.

Christmas Reflections

I was listening to a very old Christmas CD the other day and it had "Go Tell It on the Mountain" on it.  One line in the recording explicitly mentioned Jesus being born on December 25.  I suspect most people who would read this know that is not the real date, just the date we celebrate.

This piece in BAR is very interesting (I think I got the link from Allan Bevere).  It suggests that some early Christians before Augustine  started using the dates January 6 and December 25 because they were nine months after suggested dates for Jesus' crucifixion, the assumption being that Jesus was conceived and died on the same date.  It argues that some Christians were already celebrating Christ's birth on Dec. 25 prior to Constantine.

The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are quite different.  They do have a common core.  They both agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and ended up in Nazareth as a child.  They both agree that Mary was a virgin when the Holy Spirit brought about her conception.  That's about it.

Each gospel emphasizes in its presentation the kinds of things we would expect them to, given their emphases elsewhere.  Matthew has overtones of Moses, which fits since Jesus gives the fulfilled understanding of the Law.  As Pharaoh killed Israelite babies, Herod kills the boys of Bethlehem.  Moses came out of Egypt; Jesus comes out of Egypt.  Matthew connects Jesus' birth to the OT.  The Magi remind us that the gospel is for the Gentiles too and that Jesus would become a king.

Luke gives prominence to women in the story of Jesus' birth, as he does elsewhere. Lowly shepherds come, fitting with Luke's emphasis on the poor and lost sheep. The temple features prominently, as it does elsewhere in Luke's presentation.

I suppose that different Christians take different things from Christmas.  For me, Christmas is the incarnation.  It is God coming to earth.  It is the beginning of salvation for the whole world.

For me it is also Jesus being born amid scandal, yet another identification of Jesus with the lost sheep of the world.  Was he ridiculed as a child for being born before his parents were married?  Did his younger brother James think himself a little purer than his older brother?

For Matthew, the birth story revealed that Jesus birth was in continuity with who he came to be in life later.  This was the expectation of ancient biography.  So there were signs he was a king from the start.  Did Luke want to balance this out, if Luke knew Matthew?

Interestingly, the New Testament does not make much of the virginal conception. [PS]  Even Matthew and Luke themselves never mention it again and they give no interpretation to its meaning. It does not seem required for Jesus to be divine, since he is not half man and half God but fully human and fully divine.

So what do you celebrate at Christmas?  I celebrate "the beginning of the gospel" (Mark 1:1), even though Mark is referring to Jesus' baptism.

[PS] We informally refer to the virginal conception as the virgin birth.  Catholics do believe Mary miraculously remained a physical virgin even in birth, as well as that Joseph never had sex with her thereafter.  Most Protestants believe Mary went on to have other children--James, Jude, etc...

Oh Holy Night

Was struck by this verse to Oh Holy Night yesterday:

Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and his gospel is peace
Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name

Christ is the Lord
Oh praise his name forever
His power and glory evermore proclaim
His power and glory evermore proclaim

Merry Christmas all!

Merry Christmas All!

Merry Christmas to anyone milling around the web today!

What I most appreciate about Christmas is not the great significance the day has for us today in retrospect--typified by angelic hosts, rich Magi and jealous kings.  What I appreciate the most is the insignificance of the original day, the sense that God visited little nowhere places like Bethlehem and Nazareth, under the cloud of scandal to a woman who was not married, noticed primarily by shepherd outcasts who happened to be nearby.

Who is there in any place that God does not care about?

Blessed Christ Birth Day!

Christmas to me is about God's Normandy invasion of a world enslaved to sin. It is God taking on flesh to identify fully with humanity and the human condition with the purpose of redeeming it from its enslavement to evil powers and helpless disintegration into self-destruction. It is the beginning of the end, the beginning of the restoration of all things. It is hope. It is joy. It is peace. It is love.

God entered into the world miraculously through a virgin, even though He probably did not have to. He gave a sign of something beyond human comprehension or natural processes. At the same time, the scandalous nature of His entrance expressed solidarity with the sinner, with the powerless, with the weak. Kings should be interested in him, but more than any other it is the lowly that greet his first coming.

His first coming anticipates his second. He came, he lived, he died. He experienced our temptations, weaknesses, and sufferings, yet demonstrated the power of the Spirit that anyone of us can also access today in power over temptation, weakness, and suffering. He died to embody the just end of sin. He rose to show the power of God in mercy. He sat at the right hand of God as God's king and messiah. He will come again to finish the mission to restore God's kingship on earth.

A blessed rememberance of the Christ's birth in these days!

Blessed Christmas!

No one needs a Christmas wish from me today--you shouldn't be on your computers! :-)

But since I blog almost every day, it would be remiss of me not to say something on this high day of Christendom. So I share my favorite Christmas verse (P.S. It works all the other days of the year too).

2 Corinthians 5:19, 20--"That God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not taking into their account their wrongdoings... Be reconciled to God!"

A Blessed Christ-mas to all the world!

Magnificat Monday

No time for commentary, but I thought I might translate Luke 1:26-38, 46-56 this morning.

1:26-27 And in the eighth month [of Elisabeth's pregnancy], the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of the Galilee to which the name was Nazareth, to a virgin who had been betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, from the house of David, and the name of the virgin was Mary.

1:28-29 And when he had come in to her, he said, "Greetings, one who has been graced, the Lord [is] with you." And she was terrified at the word and was debating what sort of greeting this might be.

1:30-31 And the angel said to her, "Do not fear, Mary, for you have found grace before God. And behold, you will be pregant in womb, and you will bear a son, and you will call his name, 'Jesus' ...

1:32-33 "This one will be great and will be called 'Son of the Most High,' and the Lord God will give to him the throne of David his father. And he will rule over the house of Jacob forever and an end of his kingdom will not come."

1:34-35 And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am not 'knowing' a man?" And the angel said to her, "Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also, the holy thing having been born will be called 'Son of God.'

1:36-37 "And, behold, Elisabeth your relative, even she herself has become pregnant in her old age and this boy is eight months from her who was called barren. Because no thing is impossible before God."

1:38 And Mary said, "Behold, the woman servant of the Lord. May it be to me according to your word." And the angel went away from her...

1:46-47 And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has exalted in God my savior.

1:48 "For he looked on the humble state of his female servant, for behold, from now on all generations will bless me.

1:49 "Because the Powerful One made me great, and holy is His name,

1:50 "And His mercy is for generation after generation to those who fear Him.

1:51 "He showed might with His arm, and He scattered the proud in the intent of their heart,

1:52 "He took down rulers from thrones, and He exalted humble ones.

1:53 "He filled the hungry with good things, and He sent the rich away with nothing.

1:54-55 "He helped Israel His servant to remember mercy, just as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever."

1:56 And Mary remained with her [Elisabeth] about three months, and returned to her house.

Merry Christmas!

I won't be posting regularly this week, but wanted to wish everyone in blogland a Merry (or if you're in England a Happy) Christmas!

Here are some quick thoughts on the significance of Christmas:

1. Christmas is God's love for the world.
For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son... Jesus came to earth because God loves us. As Steve deNeff put it, God would have come to earth even if Adam hadn't sinned. He likes to be with us.

2. Christmas is the beginning of our salvation.
... that whoever believes in him will not perish. The Word became flesh and dwelled among us... The law came through Moses. Grace ... came through Jesus Christ.

3. Christmas is the supreme revelation of God.
Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The Bible is God's word in the sense of human words. But Jesus is the Word of God par excellence. Jesus is the supreme revelation of who God is, a revelation that is more powerful and fundamental than human words could represent.

4. Christmas shows God's identification with our pain.
In Luke's gospel especially, Jesus' birth is the embodiment of good news to the poor, the oppressed, those whom evil has tormented in a material way.

5. Christmas models how we are to live together.
Regardless of the original meaning, Christians see in the Philippian hymn a picture of the incarnation: Although Christ existed in the form of God, he did not consider that equality with God something to exploit, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. So we are to live together, not as more and less powerful individuals but as servants who consider others better than yourself.

6. Christmas anticipates the kingdom of God.
In Matthew's gospel especially, Jesus' birth is revealed to be the birth of a king. The wise men give the gifts of a king, and Herod the king fears that his rule is in danger. When Christ returns a second time to earth, he will set the world right.