I saw a strange sign burning in the heavens
One winter night
O, tidings of comfort and joy
When the world was dark and the sky was awash
With pale moonlight
I saw a dragon, a maiden, and a baby boy
O, a dragon, a maiden, and a baby boy
She was clothed with the sun and the moon
And the silver starlight
In her labor pains lifted up her cry
She gave birth to a heavenly child
That cold winter night
But the dragon lay in wait for the baby boy
O the dragon lay in wait for the baby boy
But God rest ye, all ye merry Christian friends
Hear the heavens ringing out with joy
The earth resounds with praise that will never end
For the dragon was trampled by the baby boy
O the dragon was trampled by the baby boy
The dragon lashed with his tail and his teeth
To swallow the child
A third of the stars fell from the sky
The maiden fled through the darkness of the night
Off into to the wild
And the angles came to rescue her baby boy
O the angels came to rescue her baby boy
Then I saw a war break out in the heavens
All across the night sky
The dragon come to kill and to destroy
The host of heaven came out to meet him
And they raised the battle cry
And they cast him down with the love of the baby boy
O they cast him down with the love of the baby boy
So: God rest ye, all ye merry Christian friends
Hear the heavens ringing out with joy
The earth resounds with praise that will never end
For the dragon was trampled by the baby boy
O the dragon was trampled by the baby boy
Now have come the salvation and the power of our God
The accuser of his children is cast down
We have triumphed over him
By the truth and the blood of a lamb
So rejoice! You heavenlies rejoice!
The Messiah is that Maiden’s Baby Boy
O Messiah is that Maiden’s Baby Boy
Now the dragon still is seeking to devour the maiden
In the wilderness
But she was given eagles wings with which to fly
Cause the dragon is defeated but the battle still is raging
For hope and peace
And the love of that glorious baby Boy
So: God rest ye, all ye merry Christian friends
Hear the heavens ringing out with joy
The earth resounds with praise that will never end
For the dragon was trampled by the baby boy
And the dragon is trampled by that baby boy
And the dragon will be trampled by that baby boy
The Dragon, the Maiden and the Baby Boy, a song
Little Lamb of God, a song
Whose is this little head
Sweet intruding stranger?
Whose is this little head, lying on the straw
Let me make some room for you
Here at our humble manger
You’re welcome here, you’re welcome here
O perfect lamb of God
Did you come to save me too?
Little Lord of all creation?
Cause I’ve been waiting too
For the dawn of your salvation
With an aching in my bleating heart I worship you
As you lie there in my place, little Lamb of God
Whose is this little king
Sleeping in our stable
Who are you, little one
Wrapped in swaddling cloth?
Let me lend some warmth to you
While you're here and I am able
Cause soon the time will come for you
To be the lamb of God
Did you come to save me too?
Little Lord of all creation?
Cause I’ve been waiting too
For the dawn of your salvation
With an aching in my bleating heart I worship you
As you lie there in my place, little Lamb of God
Did you come to save me too?
Little Lord of all creation?
Cause I’ve been waiting too
For the dawn of your salvation
With an aching in my bleating heart I worship you
As you lie there in my place, little Lamb of God
Christ Child Lullaby, a song
Little tiny newborn hands so tiny and pure
Reaching for your mother’s face clutching at her hair
One day they will clutch the cross and bear it to the hill
Reach out to embrace the nails,
Let them pierce that perfect palm
O, little tiny newborn hands born to do the Father’s will
Little perfect newborn feet so gentle and warm
Kicking on your mother’s knee, swaddled safe from harm
One day they will walk the waves and make them calm and still
And stand in that forsaken place
And let them pierce that holy heel
O little perfect newborn feet, born to do the Father’s will
You were born to live, born to die
Three days later you would leap on high
O little hands of God, born to beckon me
Rest now on your mother’s knee
Rest now on your mother’s knee
Little wrinkled newborn brow crowned with a wisp of hair
Cradled in your mother’s arms, quiet and fair
One day you will sweat forth blood and bear a crown of thorns
Twisted out of sin and shame,
to break and mock your holy name
O little wrinkled newborn brow, born to bear our sin alone
Little crying newborn eyes, so dark and so deep
Seeking for your mother’s breast for comfort and sleep
One day they will see the grave and weep on that morn
Weep for our helpless,
Weep in your love for us
O little crying newborn eyes, born to bear our sin alone
You were born to live, born to die
Three days later you would leap on high
O little hands of God, born to beckon me
Rest now on your mother’s knee
Rest now on your mother’s knee
The Song Became a Child, a song
The song became a child
And the child became a prince
Welcomed to the world by angels and ruffians
The prince became a pauper
And he wore a crown of straw
While his mother rocked her Maker in her arms
His daddy was a carpenter
And he taught him how to build
Apprenticing the little boy who created wood
His brothers were his followers
And sinners were his friends
The Pauper who held heaven in his hands
So lift! Lift up your hearts tonight
The ox and the lamb sing lullabies
And join, Join in the Song tonight!
While angels harmonize
The pauper ruled a kingdom
Where only love was king
And everywhere the child went the song would sing
He sang it from the manger
Till a cross became his throne
The little child who was the Maker’s song
So lift! Lift up your hearts tonight
The ox and the lamb sing lullabies
And join, Join in the Song tonight!
While angels harmonize
Jesus, name above all names
Beautiful saviour, glorious Lord!
Emmanuel, God is with us
Blessed Redeemer, Living Word
So lift! Lift up your hearts tonight
The ox and the lamb sing lullabies
And join, Join in the Song tonight!
While angels harmonize
Peace on Earth, a song
God has called a truce between Creator and Creation
God is making peace with his war weary world
So lay down your arms and lift up the celebration
And come adore the child,
Come adore the child
Come adore the child who is Christ the Lord
For Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth, good will!
For Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth, good will!
You don't have to be afraid or filled with trepidation
Behold I bring good news for all this hurting world
So come out of your fears and join the celebration
And come adore the child,
Come adore the child
Come adore the child who is Christ the Lord
For Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth, good will!
For Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth, good will!
My Heart's Magnificat, a song
The God who rescues the poor in his mercy
Became poor for us
Born to the scandal of a virgin birth
The God who fathers the fatherless
The God who lifts up the lowly
Became the lowest of all
The God who was everywhere, always there
Has become our Emmanuel
Chorus:
So this is the cry of my heart’s Magnificat
Cause who in the world could ever imagine that
That the light of the world would become blood and bone
When the Maker of All made a stable his home
As a beautiful baby the Holy Spirit begat
So be glorified, be glorified,
Be glorified in my heart’s Magnificat
Verse 2:
The God who binds up the broken hearted
Took on a heart that could bleed
Born in the body of a helpless baby
The God who meets our every need
The God who fills up the Heavens
Had nowhere to lay his head
He was made like us in every way
So that we might be made like him
Bridge:
I am the servant of the Lord,
May it be to me as you have spoken
I am the servant of the Lord,
I choose what you have already chosen
I am the servant of the Lord,
To do with me as you will
From now until you come again,
I'll be praising you still
"Cause this is the cry of my heart’s Magnificat
And who in the world could ever imagine that
That the light of the world would become blood and bone
When the Maker of all made a stable his home
As a beautiful baby the Holy Spirit begat
So be glorified, be glorified,
Be glorified in my heart’s Magnificat
He Shall Be Called, a Song
When Messiah comes, when Messiah comes
All the wolves will lie down with the lamb
Every eye shall see, every tongue shout it out
The glory of the great I AM!
And He shall be called, wonderful counselor
And King of kings he shall be called
And he will beat all our swords to ploughshares
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God
When Messiah comes, when Messiah comes
We won’t train for war ever anymore
And all the world shall see the goodness of his love
And they will walk in the light of the Lord
And He shall be called, wonderful counselor
And King of kings he shall be called
And he will beat all our swords to ploughshares
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God
For to us a child is given
O to us a Son is born
Like the dawn on the horizon
In the early hours of morn
And the people in the darkness
See his light is on the rise
With a kingdom on his shoulders
And God’s mercy in his eyes
He shall be called, wonderful counselor
And King of kings he shall be called
And he will beat all our swords to ploughshares
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God
Our Prince of peace, Almighty God
Christ Child Lullaby, a song
Little perfect newborn handsso tiny and pure
Reaching for your mother’ s face,
clutching at her hair
One day they will clutch the cross
and bear it to the hill
Reach out to embrace the nails
Let them pierce that perfect palm
O little tiny newborn hands,
born to do the father’ s will
Little perfect newborn feet
so gentle and warm
Kicking on your mother’ s knee,
swaddled safe from harm
One day they will walk the waves
and make them calm and still
And stand in that forsaken place
And let them pierce that holy hand
O little tiny newborn feet, born to do the father’ s will
You were born to live, born to die
Three days later your would leap up on high
O little hands of God, born to beckon me
Rest now on your mother’ s knee, rest now on your mother’ s knee
Little wrinkled newborn brow crowned with a wisp of hair
Cradled in your mother’ s arms, quiet and fair
One day they will sweat forth blood and bear a crown of thorns
Twisted out of sin and shame
To break and mock your holy name
O little wrinkled newborn brow, born to bear our sin alone
Little crying newborn eyes so dark and so deep
Seeking for your mother’ s breast for comfort and sleep
One day they will see the grave and weep on that morn
Weep for our helplessness
Weep in your love for us
O little crying newborn eyes, born to bear our sin alone
You were born to live, born to die
Three days later you would leap up on high
O little eyes of God, born to seek for me
Sleep now on your mother’ s knee, Sleep now on your mother’ s knee
The Thursday Review: Hark the (Other) Herald
first published June 9, 2010
Each of the four gospel writers put something different on the lips of the crowds as Jesus rode his triumphant donkey into Jerusalem the week before Passover. For Matthew, it was a reference to his Davidic pedigree. With a hosanna. For Mark, it was a reference more broadly to the coming "Kingdom of our father David." With a hosanna. For John it was a reference to Jesus as simply "the king of Israel." With a hosanna. (And yet not so simply, inasmuch as for John, Yahweh himself is the only true King of Israel).
But for Luke there was no "hosanna." Instead, the crowd shouted: "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord." And then they added: "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest."
Now if I were a stout harmonizer, I'd want to throw in one of Matthew's Davidic references or one of Mark's Hosannas here for good measure. But because I'm not anymore, something jumped out at me when I read Luke 19:38 the other day that I can't get out of my mind.
"Peace in heaven and glory in the highest" cheered the crowds; and I wonder: did they know they were echoing the very words of the angelic host that heralded Christ's birth so many chapters (and some 33 years) earlier, when he was wrapped in swaddling clothes and a celestial choir declared "Glory to God in the highest / and on the earth peace ... "? Whether they heard the echoes or not, Luke doesn't seem to want us to miss them: in the original Greek, the parallels are quite striking. 2:19 reads "Glory in the highest to God, and on earth peace..." while 19:38 echoes back: "in heaven peace and glory in the highest" (almost as though they were open and close brackets respectively to the gospel narrative that has brought us to this point.)
But this is more than just a clever literary device. With its subtle echo of those of herald angels who sang glory to the newborn king back in 2:19, Luke's account of the Triumphal Entry here actually teaches us what it means to sing "God and sinners reconciled" in the fullest sense. Because as the God-Man, Jesus Christ always acts both as God before man, on God's side, and as man before God, on our side. Or as Paul put it, there is only one mediator between God and man; the man Christ Jesus.
So, when God-come-in-the-flesh was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, God made peace with humans-- in Jesus, the fully divine Messiah. Thus heavenly heralds filled the skies declaring peace on earth. But as the mediator between God and humanity, Jesus not only reconciles God to sinners, he also reconciles sinners to God. So when the true King of God's people rode humbly into the city of God's people to be enthroned as God's Prince of Peace, man made peace with God-- in Jesus, the fully human Messiah. Thus earthly heralds declared peace in heaven.
Jesus has reconciled heaven to earth; and he has reconciled earth to heaven. And in Jesus, and through faith in Jesus, we are invited to become ambassadors of that reconciliation in the fullest sense: declaring with radiant angels and dusty disciples alike that Jesus Christ has made perfect peace between Creator and creation.
The Thursday Review: On Winning the War on Christmas
first published January 7, 2011
I've been thinking a lot this year about the War on Christmas. Apparently a secular campaign has been raging for almost a decade now against religious traditions that Christians hold dear (like greeting one another with a decisive "Merry Christ-mas" (while wassailing, of course, with figgy puddings and jingling sleigh bells among the leaves so green)). As a way of describing the increasing secularization of the winter holiday season, conservative American media personalities like Bill O'Riley and Peter Brimelow first popularized the the term "War on Christmas" around the turn of the new millennium. I'm always the last to know. Until recently, I had been living like a Yule-tide Switzerland, blissfully neutral to the whole conflict, but the war on Christmas became a specially poignant issue to me this year, in part because it kept coming up on the blogs I was reading through Christmas (see especially here).
Tactics in the War on Christmas include: infiltration of our traditional password protocol by replacing "Merry Christmas" with the insidiously innocuous "Happy Holidays," trade embargoes on traditional carols in schools, and guerrilla attacks on creches in public places.
But these things aren't especially why "The War on Christmas" was on my mind this Holiday (read: Christmas) Season. It's a parallel issue that I've been wrestling with-- and this one seriously wrestling with-- the gross commercialization of Christmas.
I'm not sure if it was because a) I watched the (very flawed) film What Would Jesus Buy at the start of Advent this year, or if it's because b) I'm still working through some issues about what it means to be a pastor at Christmas time, or if it's because c) the commercialization of Christmas really has gotten grosser than ever... but it sure seemed like answer "c" to me this year. My wrestling has to do with this question: Do we really honour Christ's name best by associating it so closely with this frenzied celebration of stuff? Like I prayed in a prayer at church one Sunday morning: it seems almost silly for us to say: Jesus is the Reason for the Season. The one who came to give us divine simplicity, pure generosity and holy rest; is he the reason for all of this hectic buying and getting and rushing around?
I don't have easy answers to these questions, except to confess that they were heavier on my heart this year than ever before. At its heaviest, the question hit me like this: Do we crucify Christ every Christmas, when we throw ourselves a hedonistic winter bacchanalia, and then justify it by glossing it with his name?
And the moment that question hit me, I thought of the War on Christmas.
And I thought: how like the God of the Crucified Jesus would it be, if he won the War on Christmas by losing it absolutely and altogether? Because if we really did reach a time when Christ's name was no longer associated with the market economy's year end projections-- if there really did come a day when the last vestiges of its Christian trappings were stripped away from the fundamentally pagan celebration of consumption that happens every December-- if the Holiday Season really did banish the Christ from the party we once held in his honour, for good--
Well: what freedom to really celebrate the "Reason for the Season" might we discover then, stepping glorious out of the empty tomb of all our "Merry Christmases"?
And Fit Us for Heaven, a Christmas Homily
I have one very vivid memory of when our first child was born that still comes back to me once in a while. We were like, three or four months into our first gig as new parents, and I was rocking my new son in the rocking chair, at something like 3:32 in the morning and this very clear, very vivid thought ran through my mind.
I am never going to sleep again.
Really: I’d like to say something all spiritual about being a new dad and all, but ... well ... those of you who are new parents, or have been new parents at some point or other, I’m sure you can back me up on this. You reach this stage where it’s been so long since you had a full 8 hours that you almost forget that sleeping through the night is something that normal human beings do.
I can actually still remember the first time our son slept through the night. Now, when I say, “slept through the night,” I mean, he slept from 12:17 am to 5:36 am (and the fact that we counted those 5 hours and 19 minutes of sleep as a full night just goes to show how desperate we were). I had fallen asleep on the couch and our son was on my chest, and it was so out of the ordinary that I actually woke up with a start, thinking something was wrong.
I was thinking about those early days as a new Dad last week, in particular, as I heard some kids singing (for what must have been the thousandth time) I heard someone singing that old Christmas Carol, Away in a Manger.
You’ve probably never heard it before. So let me catch you up to speed. It goes, Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lays down his sweet head. So far so good. The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes. But Little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.
And this is the point where the needle scratches on the record player with a resounding: errrch. Little Lord Jesus no crying he makes. Really?
I mean: I don’t want to sound like I’m grinching all over your Christmas morning or anything—and I realize that I’m on sacred ground here, critiquing a Sunday School classic like Away in a Manger, but, well, why would we think that the little Lord Jesus—waking up in the middle of night because some lowing cattle disturbed his sleep—why would we assume that he wouldn’t, in that moment, make a bit of fuss about it?
I have told you about my early days as a new dad, haven’t I? I mean, back in those days it took far less than some lowing cattle to get my baby boy to start crying in the middle of the night. Any fully human baby—and again, those of you who are new parents, you can back me up on this—any fully human baby would.
Why would we expect less from the little Lord Jesus?
Unless—well—unless we didn’t really believe it the way the writer of the Book of Hebrews believed it, that “since we have flesh and blood, he too shared in our humanity, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil...” and that “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every way.” He shared, he had to share, fully in our humanity, in order to be our saviour.
I don’t want to put coal in the stockings of the songwriters who first penned Away in a Manger, or anything, but I do think that if the writer of the Book of Hebrews were here, whatever else he’d do, he’d remind them that, listen: Our redemption required a fully human Saviour.
The fact that the Little Lord Jesus cried in his crib, just like any human baby might have is, actually, it’s good news for us, this morning. Because what it means—that little fully human baby cry coming from that manger—what it means is that in Christ, God has entered into our humanity, fully and completely and lovingly and redemptively. I mean: everything and anything that’s true about being a human being, listen: in Jesus Christ, God has taken it onto himself.
There is nothing about being a human being that he has not staked his claim on. Your health, your physical body, your relationships, your love life, your appetites, your distractibility when it comes to spiritual things, your short attention span when it comes prayer, your regrets about the past, your fears about the future, your temptations to live for self instead of living for God. You name it. If it is something about “being human,” listen: in the Little Lord Jesus, God has entered into it. He knows it and understands it and is able to redeem it and transform it and save it.
Your redemption required, the writer of Hebrews says, it required a fully human saviour, and because that’s what it took to save us, that’s what God did for us in the person of Jesus Christ.
The ancient Christians, incidentally, they got this. They realized that you couldn’t take away the Lord Jesus’ humanity and still have the Saviour we needed. One theologian, a guy named Gregory of Nazianzus put it like this: What has not been assumed—that is to say—any part of our humanity that God has not taken onto himself in Jesus Christ—what has not been assumed, has not been redeemed.
And the point was, because God assumed all of our humanity—took it all to himself in Jesus Christ—all of our humanity can and will be redeemed in Jesus Christ. Your thought life, your emotional life, your flesh and blood, the way you age and grow old, the very fact of death itself. Listen: All of it is redeemable in Jesus Christ.
Can I encourage you with that Good News this morning? As we worship him and celebrate his birth today, can we take comfort and courage from the fact that there is no corner of our lives that he does not want to put his healing hand on it and transform it for the glory of God?
Well: I started with a Christmas Carol, maybe I could end with one, too. Because there’s a little boy at the FreeWay, a little fellow about 6 or so. And one day his mom said to me: you’ll never guess, Pastor Dale: we were driving the other day and that song Mary’s Boy Child Jesus Christ was on the radio, you know the one: And man shall live forever more, because of Christmas Day!
And my little boy (said this mom), he piped up and said, mom that’s not true, it’s not because of Christmas Day that we live forever. It’s because of Easter Day!
You see, we start training our theologians very young at the FreeWay. And he was absolutely right—it’s because of Easter Day—the death and resurrection of Jesus—that’s why those who have trusted in Jesus Christ can and will live forever more.
But—and I don’t want to pit Bonney M against Away in a Manger this morning, but, but: if the writer of Hebrews were here, I think he would have told our 6-year-old theologian: yes, of course it’s cause of Easter. But here’s the thing: it’s only because our human life and God’s divine live—our fully humanity and God’s full divinity—it’s only because they came together, perfectly together, in the person of Jesus—it’s only, that is to say, it’s only because of what happened on Christmas Day, that Easter Day could be the offer of salvation that it is.
“He too shared in their humanity,” is how he puts it, “so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every way.”
Followers of Jesus, your redemption required a fully human saviour. And let’s celebrate it this morning that that’s exactly what God did for us, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Joining the Triumph of the Skies, a devotional thought
'Tis the season, I guess.
I've been thinking, especially, about the opening chapters of Hebrews, which has more biblical data on the angels concentrated in one place, than pretty much any other passage in the Bible. It's kind of ironic, in a way, because the real point it's trying to make is that, as the un-created, incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ is superior in every way to the angels. But in proving how much-more-awesomer Jesus is than any angel, the book of Hebrews happens also to say some fascinating things about angels themselves: that they exist primarily to worship God (just like us-- verse 1:6), that they are God's "ministers of fire" (1:7), that they are ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation (1:14), and that "for a little while" God made humans lower than the angels, though, presumably, we won't always be so (see 1 Corinthians 6:3 on this one).
Except for this most wonderful time of the year, when cutsie cherubim and dove-winged seraphim lurk amid the lyrics of the seasonal shopping mall muzak wafting over us as we rush about, we moderns don't really think about angels too much. The Scriptures, however, take them quite seriously and treat them quite respectfully (more often than not, a biblical encounter with an angelic being leaves you flat on your face in fear...). (Not just the Scriptures, either; last summer I read a book called "Lifted by Angels" (Joel Miller) which laid out the Early Church's very earnest, very sober conviction that angels do indeed walk among us.)
All this is to say that I'm praying this last week of Advent, that God would keep me mindful of the fact that there is more going on in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in my philosophy, and even as I keep my eyes fixed firmly on Jesus, who is, of course, far superior than any creature in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, angelic or otherwise (I was listening, author of Hebrews...) even as I keep my gaze on him, may he remind me that his chariots of fire are indeed encamped around every hill and valley I walk through.
Best. Birth. Ever. A devotional thought
The fancy theological word for this, of course, is incarnation. What hits you when you let it, is that for the writer of the Hebrews, Jesus' Incarnation was an essential part of our salvation. The incarnation was not just a "means to the cross" where the "real" salvation happened. Jesus' incarnation was, in itself, part of God's great saving act. Jesus became a "partaker" of our human nature (2.14), so that we might become "partakers" of his heavenly nature (3:1, and 3:14... the same word, "partaker" is used there to describe our union with Jesus).
Like one of the ancient theologians put it, "He became like us, so that we might become like him".
This is deep stuff, of course, but not so deep after all. Because by the end of the discussion, the writer of Hebrews has gotten intensely practical. Because Jesus was made like us in every way (2:17), even to the point of being tempted like us in every way (4:15), he is now able to help us when we are tempted (2:18). One of the rubber-meets-the-road implications of the incarnation is that God knows what it is you're going through today... literally, he knows what it is you're going through ... because whatever it is, in the Incarnation of his son Jesus, he himself has gone through it. If the writer of Hebrews can be trusted, there is no corner of your life before God that Jesus himself hasn't taken on himself and lived through perfectly, to the point where he is now able to reach back, or down, or out, or whatever spatial metaphor you want to use, to reach after you, and draw you through it to himself.
May God will give us all both strength and peace in that knowledge this Christmas.
Great Paradox, a song
I did not originally write this as a Christmas song, per se, but it occurs to me that the lyrics are about as fitting this time a year as anything I've written. I'm posting it today simply as the next track in my song-by-song tour of my latest recording project, "Accidentals," but seasonally, as a musical meditation for advent, it works too. Happy listening.
O great paradox, how I marvel
How I wonder at the mystery of your love
Emptied of your glory
You brought your glory down to us
How marvel, how I wonder, how I marvel at your love
You are prophet and the word
Humble servant and the Lord
Holy God and his perfect sacrifice
Both the shepherd and the lamb
Son of God and son of man
Both the resurrection, and the life
O great paradox, how I marvel
How I wonder at the mystery of your love
Emptied of your glory
You brought your glory down to us
How marvel, how I wonder, how I marvel at your love
You are water turned to wine
Both the firstfruit and the vine
Living rock, become the living bread
You’re the greatest made the least
Both our offering and priest
And you gave your life as ransom for the dead
O great paradox, how I marvel
How I wonder at the mystery of your love
Emptied of your glory
You brought your glory down to us
How marvel, how I wonder, how I marvel at your love
And like a circle, whose centre is everywhere
Whose edge is infinity, whose radius is love
You sustain the universe, and yet you died for me
O beautiful contradiction, that made my sin your victory
How I marvel at your love.
O great paradox, how I marvel
How I wonder at the mystery of your love
Emptied of your glory
You brought your glory down to us
How marvel, how I wonder, how I marvel at your love
Tidings of Comfort and Joy, a devotional thought
As someone who has had some very dark struggles in the past with joy's polar opposite, it occurs to me here that the arrival of Jesus on the scene--whatever the particular scene may be--is an occasion for, and a source of, deep down joy. Not frivolity, or flippancy, or humor even, but biblical joy: an overflowing contentment in him, that bubbles up in self-abandonment (v. 38), rich fellowship (v. 40), heart-songs (v. 46) and maybe even the odd dance or two (v. 41).
At the risk of sounding like Scrooge, let me point out the irony here, that so many of us experience the weeks leading up to Christmas as a series of frantic Black Fridays, one after the other. Syrupy Christmas Muzak and Seasonal Sentimentality puts a ruthless finger on the raw nerve of what we don't have, who we're not with, our unfulfilled longings for the perfect Christmas that no one's ever had, and we find ourselves, if not joyless, certainly too exhausted to be joyful.
At the risk of sounding like a naive Tiny Tim, let me also offer a Christmas wish. May this advent season be a Luke Chapter 1 kind of advent, where we experience a deeper filling with the Holy Spirit (there's a lot of that going on in Chapter 1, too-- v. 15, v. 35, v. 41, v. 67) and in Him, the contented Joy that is ever attendant on the coming of the Messiah.
House of Bread, a Christmas Poem
O little humble House of Bread
how still we see thee
rise--
where once they buried
long ago his father's father's father's
father's one true love,
whose ancient tears his coming will
unwittingly awake--
(Rachel, weeping, because her innocents are no more)
O little simple house of bread:
in whose heart of mystery
is born today
the Christ child's hidden presence:
stolen away by dreams and night
and brought back to us the same--
(that out of Egypt Rachel's innocents might find their way back home)
O little broken house of bread,
soaked that day, and now today,
in wine-red blood
(that she, at last, might find God's solace for her tears)--
at your table we discover it again:
the hopes and fears of all the years
are truly met in thee
tonight.
A (Belated) Christmas Homily
This is a Christmas reflection I shared at our Christmas Eve communion service the other night. I hope it's edifying and helpful today, as you clean up the wrappings and box up the left-overs of the night before. Christmas blessings, everyone.
***
It’s actually just a quirk of history that we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25, of all the days of the year. I don’t want to sound like I’m spilling the beans about Santa Claus to a bunch of first graders or anything, but the fact is: no one knows for sure when Jesus was officially born. There are competing theories for the exact birthday, but most historians agree that December 25 is actually an unlikely candidate.
The quirk of history that made this day the big day was back in 336 AD, when a guy named Pope Julius I decreed that December 25th should be the official feast day for the birth of Christ. He wrote it with a big red sharpie marker on the church’s calendar, and it’s been there ever since. (At this point, most historians note that December 25th is close to the winter solstice (on December 21), and that back in 336 AD, the Romans already had a tradition of feasting and celebration around the winter solstice—a party in the dead of winter known as the “Saturnalia.” So it’s likely Mr. Julius I was just co-opting a pagan thing and sort of sanctifying it—redeeming it—for our Lord Jesus Christ.)
Most historians also note that they didn’t really have sharpie markers back in 336 AD.
But be that as it may, I don’t think it’s an accident that we celebrate the birth of Jesus in December, in the dead of winter, so close to the longest night—the darkest day—the coldest season—of the year. It’s a quirk of history, to be sure, but it’s no accident.
Because in some ways, “the winter” is actually a pretty good metaphor for thinking about what Jesus came into the world to save us from: winter—coldness—the cold. It’s a pretty good way of describing what the birth of Jesus was supposed to change for us. I mean: if I told you that Jesus came to warm what had grown spiritually cold in our world, you’d get it, wouldn’t you?
Because we use this language all the time. If I told you that things had “grown cold” between me and a good friend, you’d know what I meant. If someone told you that her lover—her husband—her son—was giving her the “cold shoulder,” you’d get the point. If someone told you that his family or his circle of friends had left him “out in the cold,” you’d know how isolated and betrayed he felt.
When Jesus warns us that in the last days the “increase of wickedness” will cause the love of many to “grow cold” you know he’s talking about something very serious and very dark, there. That’s “dead of winter” kind of talk.
Although, to be honest, the Bible doesn’t use “winter” language to describe this kind of thing too often—that line from Jesus I just mentioned is the only place I can think of. But that’s because just the Bible wasn’t written in Canada—where next to Hockey, waxing poetical about the cold is our national pastime.
If the Bible were written in Canada, and it wanted to talk, let’s say: about the way human sin makes a mess of relationships and alienates us from each other and makes authentic human interaction difficult and strained, it would probably point to that husband giving that wife the cold shoulder, or that kid whose family was keeping him out in the cold or that friendship that had grown cold. And it would say: sin sucks the warmth out of life like that. Worse than a winter wind on the prairies.
Or let’s say it wanted to explain how sin had made us God’s enemies and he was after reconciliation with us, it would probably say something like: our hearts had grown cold towards God.
And if it wanted to describe life without God, life turned away from God, life alienated from God. It would probably (if it were written in Canada, anyways), it would probably talk about it in terms of a spiritual winter—you know: the bitter cold on the longest night of the year, where it hurts to breathe it in and it hangs like a cloud in front of your eyes, and you just can’t feel anymore?
Or maybe it would simply remind us of how Jesus said it: in the last days, he said, the love of many to “grow cold.”
So I don’t think it’s an accident that we commemorate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ here, in the cold of winter, like this. Because, whatever else this birth is about, it is about God entering (if I can put it this way) entering the spiritual winter of our lives. To save us. From the spiritual cold-shoulders (so to speak), from being left out in the cold (if you follow me), from the bitter cold of life without God.
There’s an old, old Christmas Prophecy written half a millennium before the First Noel, where one of God’s ancient prophets says it like this: But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.
(Of course, I can’t resist pointing out that most of us do indeed frolic like "well-fed" calves on Christmas Day.) But more to the point: this Christmas Prophecy said that when the Messiah comes, it will be like the Sunrise of Spring, after a long, cold winter. The sun will rise for us, it said: with healing in its rays and warmth for what had grown cold and life for what had gone dead.
One of the old Chrismas Carols picks up on this image. You may have sung it before. It goes: “Hail the heaven born prince of peace. Hail the Sun of Righetousness. Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.” Does that ring any holiday bells for you?
So this is Christmas.
And this week—as we celebrate the birth of the one who entered into the spiritual winter of our lives like this, I suppose it would be altogether fitting to dwell on this question for a moment: What has grown spiritually cold in your life lately?—this Christmas season?—this year?
In your life with God, what’s cooled off? In your life with God’s people, what’s grown cold? In your relationships, in your devotional life, in your heart, in your soul, what is at risk of frost bite?
What do you need the Sun of Righteousness to warm for you?
Because it’s no accident that we’re celebrating the birth of Jesus here, in heart of winter. Because God’s promise to us is this: if we will invite him in to those places of “spiritual winter” in our lives, we will experience the life-giving warmth of the love of God; for us a Spring Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.
May God warm us like that, each one of us.
Merry Christmas from terra incognita
Merry Christmas everybody. I hope everyone's Christmas Eve celebrations went swimmingly and I hope the expression "swimmingly" means "awesome!"
Every year at the FreeWay I try to do a special recording of music as a Christmas present to our church family. Last year it was my record "bridges" (see sidebar); this year I went back through some old songs I'd written over the years and did some brand new arrangements and recordings of them. I call the CD "echoes." This is both a reference to the fact that the songs themselves are "echoes" of my songwriting past, but also to the fact that there are musical "echoes" of hymns, songs or poems sprinkled throughout the album. Listen closely and you'll hear them.
Anyways, if I didn't get a chance to give you a copy of the CD in person, I've posted a link below. You can click on it to "unwrap" the present. Happy listening. Happy Christmas. Happy New Year. And I'll blog with again soon.
Some Palm Sunday Re-runs
What with it being Holy Week and all, I thought it would be fitting to re-post the following two posts I did las year about the fascinating connections between Christmas and Palm Sunday. Enjoy (or re-enjoy, as the case may be).
But for Luke there was no "hosanna." Instead, the crowd shouted: "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord." And then they added: "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest."
Now if I were a stout harmonizer, I'd want to throw in one of Matthew's Davidic references or one of Mark's Hosannas here for good measure. But because I'm not anymore, something jumped out at me when I read Luke 19:38 the other day that I can't get out of my mind.
"Peace in heaven and glory in the highest" cheered the crowds; and I wonder: did they know they were echoing the very words of the angelic host that heralded Christ's birth so many chapters (and some 33 years) earlier, when he was wrapped in swaddling clothes and a celestial choir declared "Glory to God in the highest / and on the earth peace ... "? Whether they heard the echoes or not, Luke doesn't seem to want us to miss them: in the original Greek, the parallels are quite striking. 2:19 reads "Glory in the highest to God, and on earth peace..." while 19:38 echoes back: "in heaven peace and glory in the highest" (almost as though they were open and close brackets respectively to the gospel narrative that has brought us to this point.)
But this is more than just a clever literary device. With its subtle echo of those of herald angels who sang glory to the newborn king back in 2:19, Luke's account of the Triumphal Entry here actually teaches us what it means to sing "God and sinners reconciled" in the fullest sense. Because as the God-Man, Jesus Christ always acts both as God before man, on God's side, and as man before God, on our side. Or as Paul put it, there is only one mediator between God and man; the man Christ Jesus.
So, when God-come-in-the-flesh was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, God made peace with humans-- in Jesus, the fully divine Messiah. Thus heavenly heralds filled the skies declaring peace on earth. But as the mediator between God and humanity, Jesus not only reconciles God to sinners, he also reconciles sinners to God. So when the true King of God's people rode humbly into the city of God's people to be enthroned as God's Prince of Peace, man made peace with God-- in Jesus, the fully human Messiah. Thus earthly heralds declared peace in heaven.
Jesus has reconciled heaven to earth; and he has reconciled earth to heaven. And in Jesus, and through faith in Jesus, we are invited to become ambassadors of that reconciliation in the fullest sense: declaring with radiant angels and dusty disciples alike that Jesus Christ has made perfect peace between Creator and creation.
Trimupal Entries and the True Meaning of Christmas
A while ago I shared some observations on the connections in Luke's Gospel between the nativity narrative and the triumphal entry. Namely: when Jesus is born, angels sing peace on earth and glory in the highest; and later when Jesus rides triumphant into Jerusalem, the disciples echo this back, shouting peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
Luke's not the only one to draw parallels between Christ's birth and his Triumphant Entry. In Matthew's narrative, three magi enter Jerusalem asking about the one born "King of the Jews," and all Jerusalem (Herod included) is "disturbed" at the query (2:3). No wonder they trembled, inasmuch as "King of the Jews" is the exact title Rome had given Herod himself back in 40 BC. This child's birth is as direct a challenge to the powers that be as Jerusalem could imagine.
But, curiously, when Jesus rides his revolutionary donkey into Jerusalem, in open defiance of those powers that be, Matthew notes how all of Jerusalem was "shaken" at the sight (21:10). Like Luke, Matthew seems intent on having the nativity narrative echo hauntingly in the background of this momentous occasion: when he was born, he stirred up the city's complacency; when he rode, thirty three years later, through the gates as its rightful and perfect king, he shook that complacency to its foundations.
I call this curious because I know that if I were to point to an event that fulfilled the "meaning" of Christ's birth, I'd point intuitively and directly to the cross; and yet these inspired narrators of Jesus' story point, instead, and specifically, to the Triumphal Entry. And I can't help but wonder why (admitting, at the same time, that the Triumphal Entry only has meaning because of the way the cross and resurrection turned the very notion of "triumph" on its head).
But maybe Matthew's point here is that the "true meaning" of this child's birth, in part, lies in the way God issues His Messianic challenge, through him, to the status quo-- to Sadducean elitism, to Herodian despotism, to Pharisaical legalism, to Roman hegemony. So when he rides a gentle donkey into the City of the Great King, as the ultimate revelation of God's challenge to the status quo, nothing could be more fitting than to remember how he once squirmed helpless on the knee of his shamed mother in the humble city of David, while foreigners and outsiders hailed him as Lord and "the status quo" worried to hear him named.
And I'm left wondering: what would it look like if we had a "Triumphal Entry" Christmas this year? What might it mean for us if we let Christmas shake our complacency to its foundations and let Mary's Boy Child Jesus Christ, in his coming, issue God's direct challenge to our status quo-- our spiritual elitisms, our unacknowledged despotisms, our self-righteous legalisms, our unseen hegemonies-- where ever they might be?
On Christmas and the Crucifixion, a reflection for Epiphany
Those of you who follow the Christian calendar with even mild interest may know that yesterday was the feast day of Epiphany (and those of you who, like me, have spent a bit of your life around people of Ukrainian heritage, will know that this morning marks the start of Ukrainian Christmas).
I'll refer you to Sunday's sermon for some more extended thoughts on the spiritual significance of the Day of Epiphany, but now that the Birth and Appearance of Our Lord has been celebrated in every room of that venerable house called Christendom, I thought I'd offer this epiphany of my own for reflection, which I had a few weeks ago in the depths (and on the heights) of Christmas business.
***
I've been thinking a lot this year about the War on Christmas. Apparently a secular campaign has been raging for almost a decade now against religious traditions that Christians hold dear (like greeting one another with a decisive "Merry Christ-mas" (while wassailing, of course, with figgy puddings and jingling sleigh bells among the leaves so green)). As a way of describing the increasing secularization of the winter holiday season, conservative American media personalities like Bill O'Riley and Peter Brimelow first popularized the the term "War on Christmas" around the turn of the new millennium. I'm always the last to know. Until recently, I had been living like a Yule-tide Switzerland, blissfully neutral to the whole conflict, but the war on Christmas became a specially poignant issue to me this year, in part because it kept coming up on the blogs I was reading through Christmas (see especially here).
Tactics in the War on Christmas include: infiltration of our traditional password protocol by replacing "Merry Christmas" with the insidiously innocuous "Happy Holidays," trade embargoes on traditional carols in schools, and guerrilla attacks on creches in public places.
But these things aren't especially why "The War on Christmas" was on my mind this Holiday (read: Christmas) Season. It's a parallel issue that I've been wrestling with-- and this one seriously wrestling with-- the gross commercialization of Christmas.
I'm not sure if it was because a) I watched the (very flawed) film What Would Jesus Buy at the start of Advent this year, or if it's because b) I'm still working through some issues about what it means to be a pastor at Christmas time, or if it's because c) the commercialization of Christmas really has gotten grosser than ever... but it sure seemed like answer "c" to me this year. My wrestling has to do with this question: Do we really honour Christ's name best by associating it so closely with this frenzied celebration of stuff? Like I prayed in a prayer at church one Sunday morning: it seems almost silly for us to say: Jesus is the Reason for the Season. The one who came to give us divine simplicity, pure generosity and holy rest; is he the reason for all of this hectic buying and getting and rushing around?
I don't have easy answers to these questions, except to confess that they were heavier on my heart this year than ever before. At its heaviest, the question hit me like this: Do we crucify Christ every Christmas, when we throw ourselves a hedonistic winter bacchanalia, and then justify it by glossing it with his name?
And the moment that question hit me, I thought of the War on Christmas.
And I thought: how like the God of the Crucified Jesus would it be, if he won the War on Christmas by losing it absolutely and altogether? Because if we really did reach a time when Christ's name was no longer associated with the market economy's year end projections-- if there really did come a day when the last vestiges of its Christian trappings were stripped away from the fundamentally pagan celebration of consumption that happens every December-- if the Holiday Season really did banish the Christ from the party we once held in his honour, for good--
Well: what freedom to really celebrate the "Reason for the Season" might we discover then, stepping glorious out of the empty tomb of all our "Merry Christmases"?