Xristos Anesti

Jesus lives, and so shall I.
Death! thy sting is gone forever,
He who deigned for me to die,
Lives, the bands of death to sever.
He shall raise me with the just:
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.


Jesus lives and reigns supreme;
And, His kingdom still remaining;
I shall also be with Him,
Ever living, ever reigning.
God has promised: be it must;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.


Jesus lives, I know full well,
Naught from Him my heart can sever,
Life nor death nor powers of hell,
Joy nor grief, henceforth forever.
None of all His saints is lost;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.


Jesus lives, and death is now
But my entrance into glory.
Courage, then, my soul, for thou
Hast a crown of life before thee;
Thou shalt find thy hopes were just;
Jesus Christ, our hope and trust..

Dangerous Babies

A cooing newborn baby is much less dangerous looking than a man who bursts from a tomb alive after being dead for three days. We "get" babies. Babies are commonplace, and they speak to us of the best that we can be, full of promise and innocence. Dead men who stand up and walk out of graves alive again most certainly upset the normal order of things. Such men threaten to overturn everything. They are dangerous and we really don't like them. Unlike babies, The Resurrected are scary.

Babies, by contrast, seem tame. The problems is that we want to keep the baby as a baby, ignoring the danger inherent within. The baby in the feeding trough may look like any other baby, but it requires a baby of a different kind to become The Resurrected. If we look deeper, we find that the baby is just the beachhead of the Great Invasion. He is not tame at all. He is a dangerous baby. 

This is why Christmas is so much more popular than Easter. It is easier to tame. In trying to tame it, however, we fail to make real sense of the reality of it.

Ricky Bobby in Talledaga Nights merely channeled the zeitgeist when he said:

"Look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I'm sayin' grace. When you say grace, you can say it to Grownup Jesus or Teenage Jesus or Bearded Jesus or whoever you want... I like the baby version the best, you hear me? I win the races and I get the money...Dear Tiny Jesus, in your golden fleece diapers with your tiny, little fat balled up fists..."

As usual, N.T. Wright nails the problem in a recent article from Christianity Today. He explains how the first paragraphs of John's Gospel destroy any chance we might have of removing the sharp edges from the baby Jesus figurine. He urges us to "get real and get johanine" about the Christmas story.

Unless we recognize this strange, dark strand running through the Gospel, we will domesticate John's masterpiece (just as we're always in danger of domesticating Christmas) and think it's only about comfort and joy. In truth, it's also about incomprehension, rejection, darkness, denial, stopped ears, and judgment. Christmas is not about the living God coming to tell us everything's all right. John's Gospel isn't about Jesus speaking the truth and everyone saying "Of course! Why didn't we realize it before?" It is about God shining his clear, bright torch into the darkness of our world, our lives, our hearts, our imaginations—and the darkness not comprehending it. It's about God, God as a little child, speaking words of truth, and nobody knowing what he's talking about.

It is normal for the Dad to hand out cigars at the birth of his child. The family and friends celebrate, but the birth of a baby is hardly news. This baby, however -- this God in an Infant -- this is no ordinary child. Only because of this is the birth worth noting two millenia after the fact.


In God's war on death, the birth of Jesus is only the first move of the ultimate strategy of redemption. It was Operation Incarnation. The birth only sets up the theater of operations for Operation Resurrection, which deals the death stroke to death itself. Revolutionary stuff. Revolutions inevitably involve the breaking of things and the overturning of apple carts. That's what the cooing baby was born to do.

Like I said, dangerous.

But it's a revolution of restoration. His breaking is fixing. His overturning is uprighting. It's no less disruptive, but when you disrupt chaos, what do you get? Peace. When you reverse suffering and sorrow, what are you left with? Joy.

So whenever you look at that baby in the manger, hang on. It may look quiet, but he's a ticking time bomb that will blow everything to heaven.

First Sunday of Advent 2010 - Expectation

Veni, veni Emmanuel!
Captivum solve Israel!
Qui gemit in exilio,
Privatus Dei Filio,
Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel
Nascetur pro te, Israel.

Veni, veni o oriens!
Solare nos adveniens,
Noctis depelle nebulas,
Dirasque noctis tenebras.
Gaude, gaude Emmanuel
Nascetur pro te, Israel.

Veni, veni Adonai!
Qui populo in Sinai
Legem dedisti vertice,
In Maiestate gloriae.
Gaude, gaude Emmanuel
Nascetur pro te Israel.

Hallo-weenie

I'm not a big Halloween guy. It's OK, but I don't get particularly exercised about it either way. I think part of that comes from the fact that growing up, the trick or treat thing was not very practical. I lived in a rural area where the density of housing was pretty thin compared to city or suburban neighborhoods. To really canvas a reasonable number of houses would literally require a few miles of walking on streets without street lights. Now the challenge wasn't that my Mom objected to all this on safety grounds. That wasn't her issue at all. While I do remember one time when I was very little when my Mom drove us around to some houses around town, as I grew older we were pretty much on our own. If we wanted to engage in the Halloween ritual, it was our responsibility to come up with a costume. If we wanted to trick or treat, that was fine, but we were walking. When asking for candy (which I'm not all that crazy about anyways...I've always been much fonder of baked goods) involves that much work, it just becomes less important.

And while the whole satanic scariness sturm und drang that infected the evangelical subculture of the 70's and 80's gave me some thought, I never really got that upset about that angle either. We are pretty far removed from the ancient druids. Whatever spiritual teeth may have existed in the rituals of defunct cults of bygone eras have long ago been pulled, leaving Halloween an ineffectual doddering invalid that can't even manage to gum the demonic candy it is blamed for chewing up and spitting all over our children.

I have a hard time thinking that kids begging for candy while wearing Scooby Doo outfits and princess dresses are really channeling demons. Unless you consider incipient diabetes and insulin hangovers as demonic.

Having said that, I don't care for some of the costumes I'm seeing over the past few years, although mostly on aesthetic grounds. I think dressing up as a movie monster a la Chucky the killer Cabbage Patch Kid, or Jason the Hockey Mask Slicer is kind of lame. I understand that these are the monsters of our time -- I just don't like them. When Dracula and Frankenstein were the dominant monster stories, those were the costumes. Today our monsters are, I think, more monstrous and more monstrously bland for it. To read Dracula, and to read Frankenstein (and to a lesser extent to see the movies) one catches glimpses of deeper aspects of the human condition. These stories show us something about ourselves. Even ghost characters have some kind of mirroring charm. But these latest movie monsters, if they are mirroring our selves or our human plight, it seems to me mostly a dismal and wretched view. These guys aren't really even fun. They are one sided and ultimately banal, in spite of the temporary terror they inspire.

Moreover, they are humorless. Vampire jokes abound, and Frankenstein humor is plentiful. The jokes that arise out of these slasher stories are grim and gritty; to hear them makes me feel like I've just eaten sand.

And as monsters they are purely materialistic, without spiritual dimension. There is no spiritual fear involved. Our older monsters seemed dangerous because in large part the danger they presented went far beyond physical danger. There was something of them that always endangered our souls (even Frankenstein...where the real monster was not the creature, but the Doctor who toyed with God's work by reanimating the dead). Today's slasher monsters are merely gaping pits full of blood and screams and darkness; the terror they induce arises from a soulless view of humanity. All of the terror is fear of physical death - albeit by a variety of creative and dramatic means.

So as you see, all my objections seem pathetic and anemic, a matter of taste rather than of principle.

I guess I'm probably both over simplifying and over-analyzing, but that's what blogs are for. I was inspired to this rant by an article in the NY Times on how schools are systematically de-fanging the celebration of Halloween by attempting to remove any remaining vestiges of fright from the children's costumes. Reading the article, I found myself rooting for both sides of the argument, but also not really caring. I don't see this as a critical front of any kind of culture war and it seems odd the people get so exercised about it either way. Mostly, I think the whole thing is kind of funny, but I can't quite explain why.

BTW - my kids are dressing up as a Peacock, and as Nancy Drew. Those are their own choices, and they are putting together their own costumes. They will be doing the candy begging circuit with some friends as a gang in a van.

Steal This Holiday

Not too long ago, I had a brief exchange with a friend of mine who is one of Jehovah's Witnesses. We are good friends, and will occassionally engage in friendly jabs about what you might call our "differing faith perspectives." I enjoy this sort of thing immensely, taking pains to refer to myself as a "false religionist" with such great relish that the irony of my usage is clear. He likes to ask very short and pointed questions that end in a very self-satisfied smacking of the lips as if he has just scored the ultimate point. Even so, none of this is mean spirited and our relationship is undergirded by a deep affection and respect. 

So at the beginning of last winter he asked a question that was something like, "So, are you  preparing to celebrate the pagan holiday in December?"  Not wanting to lay down for such an obvious ploy, I answered, "What pagan holiday is that?" I had him there, because the JW training does not allow such a teachable moment to pass unused. Being born and raised a JW, the conditioning was too strong for him to just keep playing the game. 

So he launches into a short but pointed explanation of the true pagan origins of the holiday commonly known as Christmas. It seems we christians (false religionists, that is) have been duped all along. We just THINK we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, even though it clearly cannot be his actual birthday. And even if it were, the whole idea is wrong because...well...Jesus just isn't Jehovah. You aren't supposed to worship anyone except Jehovah. 

This, by the way, is completely aside from the whole aversion that JW's carry for celebrating birthdays of any kind.  I have always found this to be a custom just full of comic possibilities. Especially around Christmas. After all, if you WERE going to celebrate ANYONE's birthday, would Jesus' be the one you would pick? But...I digress.

My point in return was simply that my friend clearly did not understand the nature of co-opting cultural markers. Christians are not duped at all. The whole Christmas/Saturnalia/Solstice thing was actually quite intentional. You see, what we actually did was hit the pagans over the head, and outright STEAL their holiday. Then we took it and gave it to Jesus whose day it SHOULD have been all along. It's ok because Jesus redeemed the day and it belongs to Him now. That's how the gospel works, with people, and with everything else. Jesus has this way of taking things that are all bent out of shape and straightening them out. 

Of course, their is an ongoing tension where the gods of the current age are making their attempts to recapture the day. That's a subject for another post.

I've been hearing similar objections arising lately regarding Easter. I have long been in the habit of referring to it as Ressurection Day, just so as to avoid confusion with the whole bunny-eggy thing, and the happy-happy-spring thing - both gods of this age. But I have been hearing some people suggesting that the whole thing is just a thin Christiany veneer laid over a solid pagan core. Well...no. If anything it's just the opposite.

Christianity Todays Christian History magazine posted a decent article addressing this issue recently. Worth a read.

Repent or Give Me Candy!!!!

Doug Wilson over at Blog and Mablog commenting on Halloween and All Saints Day:

…the bottom line for us, is that both of these two days belong to the Christian church, and not to the pagans. And the days have been ours for many centuries, despite certain pagan encroachments of late. We should keep the days, and fight off the encroachments. And so . . .

Here are a few things to do: We are encouraging parishes to hold Reformation Day/All Saints Day parties and gatherings. The mood should be festive and filled with rejoicing — an exhibition of our gratitude for the faithfulness of the martyrs of the early church and the martyrs of the Reformation. This obviously can (and should) include kids dressing up and getting boatloads of candy, but I would strongly urge that no one have their kids dress up as members of the other team — witches, ghosts, devils, imps, or congressmen. We do want to urge a high level of celebration, but we don’t want to take our cues from the surrounding culture. So if you take your kid around to grandma’s house dressed up like a red M & M, or like Theodore Beza, don’t have them say trick or treat the same way some ghost or witch would. Of course, repent or perish or sola fide probably wouldn’t work either. Let’s do this differently, and intelligently, and still have fun. So have them say trick or treat the way a cute M & M would.

What to avoid. We want parish parties, not pious parties. So when neighborhood trick or treaters come to your door, I would encourage you to give them more candy than unbelievers give, as opposed to a glare and/or a tract about the fires of hell. We want to behave during this time in such a way that their celebrations are revealed as far more anemic than ours (not to mention twisted and gross). We do not want our parish parties to be a cheesy alternative, a sort of faux-Halloween. It should be a true All Hallow’s Eve, a true Reformation Day blow-out.

When growing up, my church would try this with some sort of lame “Harvest Celebration.” The problem wasn’t the theme. The problem was that Baptists have no idea how to party as Baptists. I’m guessing that more than a few people in that church knew how to party, just not as Baptists. I recall even back then as a high schooler, while attending a wedding reception, that it just did not seem nearly as much fun as it ought to have. It was held in the church gym and resembled an after church coffee hour more than anything else. It was mostly people standing around, eating cake and talking.  I remember thinking "What is wrong with these people? Is this really all there is? There should be music and dancing and stuff."  Of course, I knew that that sort  of thing was simply not permitted, but it just seemed wrong somehow. If there was any time that it would be right to dance, it would be at a wedding. I must say that some of that Baptistness must have rubbed off, as I have been accused of being someone who could stand to learn to party more. 

I’m not really convinced that the Presbyterians have this figured out either, but more power to them I say. 

Even so, the emphasis point of NOT dressing up as the “other team” is well taken.  I believe in our house the current plans lean toward an Egyptian Princess (a la Cleopatra) and Nancy Drew. I tried to interest them in Joan of Arc, but frankly the armor is hard to come by.

Incarnation between the Lines

Our Christmas Eve service is remarkably simple. It is modeled after the Lessons and Carols so near and dear to our Anglican friends, but way less refined. Lacking the cathedral spaces, robed choirs, and all that stuff, we get along with a small group of readers rotating through the readings, and singing songs chosen to illuminate the theme of the reading. There is usually one or two “special music” numbers, but mostly it is reading and singing. Since the group probably number about 30 people, even the singing was simple.

But it serves. You can’t go wrong in my book just reading the actual words. Sermons, meditations, devotionals…all that is just fine, but put a good reader behind the book and let everyone listen to what’s actually there on the page….it’s hard to beat.

Most of the passages read this evening were not from the gospels. They were taken from the Pentateuch and the Prophets. Only the last 2 or 3 were actually Gospel accounts. The language of the Prophets is hard to play down. Then you come to the accounts of the Arrival and if you really get what He is laying down, it can blow your socks off.

It stood out to me because I’ve been getting a lot of imagery around the baby. First of all, let me say that babies are overrated -- especially when they first come out. They are all wrinkled up and funny colored, and generally feeling ill-treated and crabby. This whole “holy family tableau” thing with the quiet and gentle glow surrounding the wax figures of Mary and Joseph and the Blessed Christ Child – it just ain’t right. Look, I never met Mary, but it’s pretty hard for me to imagine that even she wasn’t pretty close to hysterical for giving birth to her first baby in a STALL! My wife is a pretty strong woman, but I can only imagine the pyrotechnics that would have been involved in that situation, and I wouldn’t blame her one bit. Maybe the medieval stories about no crying and Mary’s magical holy epidural were true, but somehow it rubs my sensibilities the wrong way. I just can’t buy it. (If you want a slightly more humorous take on that, I refer you to the classic short novel “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.”) Life for a refugee family is no piece of cake.

Then there was the whole shepherds watching over their flocks by night scenario. Have you ever seen an angel? Me neither. But why is it, EVERY time one of those guys pops up, the first words out of their mouths are “Don’t be afraid?” I can hazard a guess. It’s probably because they are REALLY, REALLY SCARY.

A friend of mine once posited that Angels probably appeared that night rather like lightning with a voice. Who of us, if a bolt of lightning struck even 50 feet from us wouldn’t have to check our pants afterwards? And then, imagine if the lightning stuck around to have a conversation. Huh. Kind of puts a different perspective on what them shepherds were dealing with.

Angels. Legions of them. Can you imagine what it’s like to have thousands of lightning bolts shouting Good News! At the top of their metaphorical lungs?

And why? Because the Great Miracle, the invasion of creation, and material, and humanity by the Most High God is not something to let pass unremarked, apparently.

When we hear “Peace on Earth” we like think that means “Niceness for Everybody.” This is because of the sops, sentimentalists and schmaltzers who want to take all the rough edges off the story, and go all soft-focus. Reality is too harsh, and any God who would actually get real and dirty this way is too wild. He needs to be tamed. As our Pastor observed this evening it is easy to make nice and feel warm and fuzzy over the baby, but not so easy to get those warm fuzzies over that bloody mess of shredded flesh hanging on the cross. It’s too hard to look at. So the simpering classes only see the baby all clean and dry and happy, and they dray on about how Christmas is about hope, and renewal, and peace winning out over blah blah blah. It is all that, but only because it’s so much more than that.

I suspect (I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for sure) that what those angels really were getting at was something closer to “The War between God and Man is as good as finished!” They were doing a victory dance in the end zone and trash talking the Enemy. “In Your Face!” they shouted to Death, as they spiked the life ball hard in the real Astroturf.

C-Day was the cosmic D-day. As Athanasius said, “the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world.” We think a hydrogen bomb exploding is powerful. Ohmygoodness yes. But this! This! This is HUGE! And we treat it as if it is just a sweet ending to a syrupy story.

The Immaterial comes to town. He enters not as a visitor, but as one who belongs here. He was not tacked on, but became one of it’s creatures. He moved from incorporeal to very corporeal in all it’s implications, while still maintaining all that He was before and without it. It is a great mystery. It is The Great Miracle. I think there is no better name for it than that.

When you really listen, it’s in the text. If you are like me, though, you have to listen to what is really going on here, and not pay too much attention to the overlay that has been placed on it by our overfamiliarity. When I heard it tonight, it pricked me a little. Not like the Angels appearing, but enough to set me going. The rest of the Christmas deal I can take or leave. But that small significant moment is what I live for.

Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.