The Story

This is Christmas Eve. For the past weeks we have been rehearsing the whole life of Jesus in a series we called The Story. And now to experience it directly, here is perhaps the most famous telling of all, from Luke’s gospel, chapter 2, versus 1-20, from The Message Bible:

About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.
While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.
There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God's angel stood among them and God's glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, "Don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David's town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you're to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger."
At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God's praises:

Glory to God in the heavenly heights,
Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.

As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. "Let's get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us." They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.
Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they'd been told!

His Childhood

This past Sunday marked the third Sunday of Advent and the second message in our Christmas series we have called The Story. This is our attempt to consider the meaning of what is called the incarnation, God’s coming to us in the human life of Jesus. This past Sunday we considered Jesus as The Boy, and took time to reflect on his life between his birth and his full adult manhood, what are often called the silent years of Jesus.

If we consider the Jesus story as a whole, we realize that most of it is hidden from us. Most of what we might like to know about him, even purely for interest sake, is not told us. For instance, we are not told what he looked like. There is, in art history, a kind of common representation of him. But the only thing said in all of Scripture is from Isaiah 53:2, a text which anticipates the coming of the Messiah. It merely says: “There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.” The fact that the gospel writers did not give us a physical description of Jesus might mean that, for them, the way he looked did not in any sense adequately represent the person he really was. That’s something to muse on.

We have only one story about him during these long silent years. The boy Jesus, age twelve, travels to Jerusalem with his family for the Jewish Passover. He surprises his parents by remaining behind, staying in the temple, listening to the teachers of Israel and asking questions. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” he asked them. It was clear that he knew who he was and what his life was about, even at that young age. You can read the story in Luke 2: 41-52. But following this he submitted himself to eighteen more years of silence and ordinariness. We hear nothing from the Son of God until his baptism by John. What can this mean to us?

Whatever these years of silence meant, it was his mother, Mary, who revealed the way. Mary was a contemplative, treasuring all that was happening. Mothers do this; they remember our lives. Mary remembered and saved all the pieces of the story, and then thought about what everything meant. It is very likely that our record of the birth narratives in Luke’s gospel came through Mary’s memory.

The word contemplate is derived from “temple” (the place of divinity); it means to observe things in a special place, especially in the presence of God. To be contemplative means to look at life in the presence of God, or through the eyes of God. It means to pay attention with a God-focused awareness. This is surely the meaning of the hidden years of Jesus. Before he did or said anything public, before his entrance onto the stage of ministry and public teaching, he spent those eighteen long years learning and growing in his knowledge of his Father, the world, and the shape of his mission. Before he acted, he contemplated the meaning of what he would do.

At Christmas, we are drawn to the gospel truth that God became one of us, and one with us. But consider this: that for the larger part of his life, Jesus lived in obscurity and made it sacred. We do not see the hidden life of anyone – just the results. But the life of Jesus reminds us that a hidden life oriented towards God is all-important.

Our Christmas series, The Story, continues this Sunday at Westside King’s Church with a talk entitled “The Man”. See you among the Christmas trees at 9:29 or 11:11 am. And remember that our Christmas Eve services will be held at 3:00, 4:30 and 7:00 pm.

Bob O

A Christmas Thought

This past Sunday marked the second Sunday of Advent. Christmas trees now line our West Hall (Westside King’s Church primary gathering space) and “jingle bells” were actually rung Sunday morning by the smallest ones in our community. For lovers of sentiment and tradition, this is the best of seasons, and I have to admit that I am one of those people. For me, Christmas represents the simplest of human joys, the way we can make meaning by gathering with those we love, clearing time and space to celebrate life. Of course we know that this season carries only the barest connection to the Biblical story which precipitated it. But I like to think of Christmas as something of a cultural achievement: to take the darkest and coldest time of the year (as we experience it in the northern hemisphere) and find a way to focus our attention on the hope of joy and peace is a good in itself. So cheers! And drink the eggnog.

But if I could break away from the festivity for just for a moment – I promise not for long – I would like to consider the animating center of Christmas. In other words, what’s the big idea?

Our text on Sunday was from John’s gospel, chapter 1, which includes these words:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
[John 1:1-5, 14]

This is highly symbolic and poetic language, of course, and it needs to be said that it carries a rich literary background in both Greek philosophy and the Hebrew scriptural tradition. For the Greeks, the logos (translated “word” in this text, but also the root of our “logic”) was the principle of meaning in everything that existed. If someone were to ask why things were meaningful and not absurdly chaotic, the answer would be because there is a logos, a word or reason in the universe. For them, life could have no other explanation. The Greeks would have affirmed that purpose is inherently built in to the universe.

What John does in these opening words to his gospel is unite this classic Greek concept of logos with the biblical language of creation: in the beginning was the logos... through him all things were made. He ties the principle into the Biblical story, and then makes it personal – order and meaning are centered in a person. The logos idea of the Greeks and the creation story of the Hebrews are now met in the story of Jesus. And he is the one from God, who was with God in the beginning, and who is God. We cannot understand the story of Jesus, which John is about to tell, if we miss this. The logos (the meaning and reason of everything) is a person, and that person defines who God is.

The power of these words from John is that, in Jesus, we find a unifying point for the whole human search for meaning. Everything is summed up and focused in him, the logic of the universe, the creator who has made his home with us. To finish my thoughts with a sentimental flourish (I am allowed at this time of year), I want to remind you how the classic carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem says it:

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Our Christmas series, The Story, continues this Sunday at Westside King’s Church with a talk entitled “The Boy”. See you among the Christmas trees at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Comfort

This past Sunday marked the first Sunday of Advent. According to the Christian calendar, we have now moved from ordinary time into holy time. This is a season for heightened spiritual sensitivity, for community, for worship and wonder.

Advent means coming, and in this season we prepare our hearts for the spiritual meaning of God’s coming to us, an event that has already happened in history through the life of Jesus, God in a human body. This coming also remains our future hope, for the second meaning of Advent is our hope in the way God will come to us in the culmination of human history. The story we are part of is a hopeful one.

The truth about Advent is that it is a mixture of glory and suffering. There are those moments when we hope we can see things above and beyond us (angel choirs and heavenly stars), what we might call the wonder of this season. But there are also those moments when we realize the stark incompleteness of our lives, and this despite the amazing gift of God in Jesus. Read the Christmas stories as they are presented in the gospels of Matthew and Luke and see if you can pick out these two seemingly contradictory story lines.

In Luke’s gospel (chapters 1-2), the birth story of Jesus is surrounded by human stories of waiting and fulfillment. Elizabeth and Zechariah (1:5-25) are now granted a child after years of waiting. And the twin stories of Simeon and Anna (2:25-38) show how the deepest heart’s desire can be met, though the wait is long . This thread of “the long wait fulfilled” is woven throughout the way Luke tells the Christmas story.

But the Matthew story is somewhat more complicated. For even though the fulfillment motif is also very prominent, the story ends with the holy family having to flee Herod’s wrath and hide for a time in Egypt. In Mathew’s rendition of the story we see how advent is a “now but not yet” reality: while it is true that the long-promised king has been born, it is also true (for a season) that the evil king continues to rule. Fullness (whatever that means) still awaits a future day. Christmas, the first coming, brings to us what we are waiting for (God’s promised king and kingdom), and yet asks us to live in suspension before God brings these things to completion.

This past weekend at Westside King’s Church we sought to address this “other side of Christmas” by noticing and naming some of the issues that make Christmas less than all we hope for. Loneliness, family dysfunction, and loss were three of the ways we chose to address the struggles of our community. We called this special focus a “comfort service”, and if you participated you will know the emotions that were evoked. But these things, these heartbreaks and losses, are also part of Christmas, the reminder that while God has come to us, there is still more we wait for.

This past week I discovered a Jewish prayer which contains a lot of wisdom I think. It is both hopeful and realistic, and does not diminish the struggle we have in waiting: “O Lord, we know you will help us; but will you help us before you help us?” I think that prayer says a lot. May the joys and comfort of Christmas be yours as we wait for God to complete the story.

Bob-O