Advent - The King on Your Doorstep

The True King arrives

The special child will be born.
    God will give us a son
who will be responsible for leading the people.
His name will be “Wonderful Counselor,
     Powerful God,
     Father Who Lives Forever,
     Prince of Peace.”
His power will continue to grow,
     and there will be peace without end.
This will establish him as the king
     sitting on David’s throne
     ruling his kingdom.
He will rule with goodness and justice
     forever and ever.
The strong love that the Lord All-Powerful has for his people
will make this happen!

Book of the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 9 verses 6-7, (ERV)

Advent, as we observed when we began these reflections four weeks ago, originally meant the arrival of a king. And just as the subjects of Rome long ago would have gone to great lengths to get everything ready for Caesar Augustus, Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of our King, Jesus of Nazareth.

Early tomorrow, while the sky is still dark (if tradition is any guide), the King will finally arrive. Not with a vast entourage of hangers on, not with all the opulent glory of an imperial ruler, but in obscurity and poverty and dirt. It still seems odd to us today, doesn't it? 2000 years have come and gone since Jesus' birth and we are quite familiar with this story. But we still instinctively associate luxury and showiness with importance and true power. When a world leader makes a gesture toward humility we do find it charming, but it would seem strange to us if they lived in a small apartment and ate cup-a-soup (although since I posted an earlier version of this essay one doing just that has turned up).

But the High King of the universe did live humbly from beginning to end, and he did it by choice.

I've come back to this dichotomy repeatedly throughout these little essays because it confronts me with a question: If God is like that when he comes to Earth, then what should I be like? If out of all the possible options he could have chosen he chose this one -- melding with and living among the poor and downtrodden -- then, out of all possible options available today, how should I live?

Tonight, for somewhere around the 2000th time, the High King comes again as a baby in that insect-infested manger, while his poverty-stricken parents and shell-shocked shepherds look on.

What does he want of us this time? Will we respond this year? Will we join his revolution?

*          *          *

Prayer: Our King, let us bow down at your makeshift crib with your poor, intrepid parents and worship you. And then help us to rise up and follow you wheresoever you may lead us. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, we pray. Amen.

Book of Isaiah, chapter 9 verses 6 - 7, Common English Bible

Advent, as we observed when we began these reflections four weeks ago, originally meant the arrival of a king. And just as the subjects of Rome long ago would have gone to great lengths to get everything ready for Caesar Augustus, Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of our King, Jesus of Nazareth.

Early tomorrow, while the sky is still dark (if tradition is any guide), the King will finally arrive. Not with a vast entourage of hangers on, not with all the opulent glory of an imperial ruler, but in obscurity and poverty and dirt. It still seems odd to us today, doesn't it? 2000 years have come and gone since Jesus' birth and we are quite familiar with this story. But we still instinctively associate luxury and showiness with importance and true power. When a world leader makes a gesture toward humility we do find it charming, but it would seem strange to us if they lived in a small apartment and ate cup-a-soup (although since I posted an earlier version of this essay one doing just that has turned up).

But the High King of the universe did live humbly from beginning to end, and he did it by choice.

I've come back to this dichotomy repeatedly throughout these little essays because it confronts me with a question: If God is like that when he comes to Earth, then what should I be like? If out of all the possible options he could have chosen he chose this one -- melding with and living among the poor and downtrodden -- then, out of all possible options available today, how should I live?

Tonight, for somewhere around the 2000th time, the High King comes again as a baby in that insect-infested manger, while his poverty-stricken parents and shell-shocked shepherds look on.

What does he want of us this time? Will we respond this year? Will we join his revolution?

*          *          *

Prayer: Our King, let us bow down at your makeshift crib with your poor, intrepid parents and worship you. And then help us to rise up and follow you wheresoever you may lead us. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, we pray. Amen.

Why Was the Messiah Born in a Manger?

No Room

(I usually repost this article during Advent because the question keeps coming up.)


Everyone is familiar with the fact that Jesus' parents couldn't find a place to stay when they arrived in Bethlehem. But why didn't just stay with relatives? After all, this was supposedly Joseph's hometown.

Luke, who tells this story in the 2nd chapter of his Gospel, does not elaborate. To him the point is that the King of the Universe was born in the most abject of circumstances -- abject to the point that he had to be laid in a feeding trough.

Even if there had been "room for them in the inn," the surroundings would not have been opulent. The "inn" of a small, first century, middle eastern village like Bethlehem would have been a few crude lean-to's for traveling people and animals found on the edge of town. Even those were full, and very old tradition says Mary and Joseph found shelter in a little cave (more like a nook in the rock).

But what about Joseph's relatives? Scholars put forward two possible reasons that they didn't provide shelter for the two travelers that night. Both are conjectures of course and neither is supported by any of the early Christian writers, so you can decide for yourself which seems more likely.

One explanation is that Joseph may not have had any relatives in Bethlehem. He and Mary traveled there because it was the ancestral home of King David, Joseph's ancestor. But it's quite possible that in the 1000 years since David's time his descendants had spread to the four winds. Joseph had, of course. At some point he or his family had chosen to move 90 miles north to tiny Nazareth.

This possibility is made more likely by the fact that, being of royal stock, the family of David was often a target of suspicion by the authorities.  We know for instance that relatives of Jesus were examined at the end of the first century for just this reason.  So  the harder it was for current rulers like Herod and the Romans to locate David's descendents, the better. It may be then that, when Caesar decreed his census, the entire lineage of David found themselves in the same situation as Joseph -- having to find a place to stay in a tiny, overcrowded village where they knew nobody.

Another Alternative
Or... There may well have been some of David's descendants still living in Bethlehem. But imagine it: They must have been completely overwhelmed by the influx of travellers. Bethlehem was a poor, miniscule hamlet at this time, so small that there's no clear archaeological evidence that it even existed (though from documentary evidence it's certain that it did). Several hundred people -- including many with other ancestors besides David -- suddenly descending upon it looking for a temporary place to stay probably created havoc.

Recently a number of scholars (such as C. S. Keene and Ben Witherington III) have pointed out that kataluma (the Greek word translated "inn") actually refers to many different types of lodging places, including whatever kind of guest room Joseph's relatives might have had available. In fact, the recently published Common English Bible translates this famous passage as, "She... laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom," (Gospel of Luke chapter 2, verse 7)

So what Luke may be telling us is that, by the time Joseph and Mary reached Bethlehem, "the guest room in the relatives’ house... would have been filled beyond capacity with all the other relatives who had to journey to Bethlehem for the census."

All they had left to offer the holy family was the stable.

Advent - Joy and Sorrow

The 'Slaughter of the Innocents'
at Bethlehem

After the wise men left, an angel from the Lord came to Joseph in a dream. The angel said, “Get up! Take the child with his mother and escape to Egypt. Herod wants to kill the child and will soon start looking for him. Stay in Egypt until I tell you to come back.”

Herod saw that the wise men had fooled him, and he was very angry. So he gave an order to kill all the baby boys in Bethlehem and the whole area around Bethlehem. Herod had learned from the wise men the time the baby was born. It was now two years from that time. So he said to kill all the boys who were two years old and younger. This gave full meaning to what God said through the prophet Jeremiah:

“A sound was heard in Ramah —
  bitter crying and great sadness.
Rachel cries for her children,
  and she cannot be comforted, because her children are gone.”

Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 verses 13, 16-18, ERV 

____________________________

On the third Sunday of Advent (which was this past Sunday, the 11th) a candle is lit that is traditionally called the Candle of Joy.  This is done to signify the "Joy To The World" that arrived when Jesus was born.  His birth was the climax of a plan to rescue humanity that God had been working since before time began.  Once the King arrived, God's beleaguered children could lift their heads at long last because nothing would ever be the same again.  A new relationship with God would be open, forgiveness would be offered to all, and the power of Evil would be broken once and forever.  There was and is every reason to be joyful, and to this very day joy is one of the hallmarks of Jesus' followers.

But we should note that the Christmas story itself is not an unremitting song of joy.  As our scripture for today tells us, the birth of the infant King, the dawning of this new age, was greeted by blood, senseless violence, and all-consuming greed. Herod the Great was not about to turn his kingdom over to any new Messiah without a fight.  The fact that he discovered this one was just a baby, and then found he would have to kill dozens of other babies to strike at him did not slow the murderous old King down in the least.

A Haunting Song

Matthew calls upon a haunting poem written by the Prophet Jeremiah hundreds of years before to convey the unutterable sadness of this tragedy. In the original prophecy, God himself comforts desolate Rachel and promises that she will see her lost children again.

Scholars commonly point out that this was such routine cruelty for Herod and the number of babies involved so small that the "Slaughter of the Innocents" doesn't show up in any ancient history other than Matthew. From the standpoint of history it was an unimportant, unfortunate event. But the Christian Prophet John, writing 100 years afterward, saw it differently. He tells us in the 12th chapter of The Revelation that this cruel episode was not as just another brutal massacre of peasant children by an insignificant middle eastern client King, but a hideous attack on a cosmic scale. Behind the scenes, he says, as the nation of Israel lay giving birth in the person of their most noble daughter, Evil itself -- mystically depicted as a huge red Dragon -- stood slathering before her, trying for a chance to devour her royal son. Bad as he was, it was not all Herod's idea.

The Advent season is a joyful time and we have every right to light that candle.  But as members of the Christian Movement we are called upon to announce a new King and a new Kingdom that supersedes all the rest. The Great Red Dragon still roams the world trying to devour us as he tried to devour our King. Not everybody appreciates our efforts. We should always keep in mind that there are still places where one can be tortured, imprisoned, and killed simply for following Jesus of Nazareth.  

Rachel still weeps for her children.

*          *          *

Prayer: God of Joy, help us to remember the pain in this world and what you went through to buy us that precious gift of joy.  We pray in Jesus' name. Amen

Advent - The Revolutionary

Jesus and his comrade in arms

Photo credit: Susan WD

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
     For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
     and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
     from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
     he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
     he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
     and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
     and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
     in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
     to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

Gospel of Luke 1.46-55, ERV

________________________

As the birth of the Messiah draws nearer, let's pause for a moment and notice the young peasant girl chosen to be his mother.

According to some historians she may have been as young as 12. Nazareth, where she lived, had only a few hundred inhabitants at the most. Everybody there would know in short order that Mary was unmarried and pregnant -- an enormous stigma in 1st century Galilee, worthy of stoning under Jewish law. In movies and art she is almost always portrayed as calm, serene, perhaps a bit shy and submissive. If we are not careful our cultural assumptions may cause us to take it for granted that she just assented meekly to the Angel Gabriel's request, a mere passive, resigned "bondservant" of the Lord.

But this song of Mary's shows her to be nothing of the sort...

Far from being the plaintive melody of a serene, submissive maiden, this is the battle hymn of a rebel! Quite aware of her "low status" as an unwed, teenage pregnant nobody in grungy little Nazareth she shakes her fist in the faces of the powers that be. "Watch out," she cries, "the true King is coming and he is going to turn things upside down!" The days of the "proud", the "rulers", the "rich" are numbered; the revolution has begun.

Mary meets her cousin Elizabeth

Painting by Claire Joy

Mary knew her Bible. Her song echos the one sung by Hannah, the mother of the Prophet Samuel, also miraculously born a thousand years before. They both sang of a revolution: Samuel's would be one that overturned the oppressive Philistines, who ground his people's faces into the dust. The revolution of Mary's coming child would be one that overturned the cosmic powers of sin and evil -- the powers that oppress and crush all humanity. 

Mary locked arms with Hannah, and with Sarah, and Rachel, and Samson's unnamed mother, and with her own cousin Elizabeth, with all the mothers of miracle babies that made up the the backbone of Israel's history, and sang of the great revolution that they had all been promised and eagerly looked for. Now her own child would finally fulfill that promise.

The early Christian movement never got over this young girl. They groped about for words sufficient to describe it. She was "sordid humanity's solitary boast," as Augustine said. The essence of a Saint is willingness to do what God asks; she was the greatest of all Saints, the church fathers said. Before her messianic son was even conceived and began to do his holy work, this girl firmly planted the flag of The Resistance against the forces of evil and declared in effect, "This is where it stops. This is where God finally finds someone who will do his will whatever it takes, and act as his instrument to turn this whole thing around."

"“Yes, I am a servant of the Lord," Mary proclaimed. "Let this happen to me according to your word." And to Jesus' early followers this one act -- Mary's bold, "Yes!" -- began the process of reversing Eve's "No." She brought the King into the world, gave him his first lessons (somewhat radical ones, no doubt!) and set him on the road to his final victory at Golgotha Hill.

Admittedly, she did not always understand him.  He was not the King anyone expected, after all, nor did he fight his battles as the Messiah was supposed to. But even though she knew that by doing so a sword would pierce her very soul, she followed him right down to the cross and beyond.

No, Mary was far from a passive womb or a meek bystander to the drama of her son's mission. She was a comrade in arms, a fellow revolutionary. She was a worthy mother of the Messiah.

*          *          *

Prayer: Lord of The Revolution, thank you for this young woman whose dauntless courage helped make our faith possible. As the day on which we celebrate the coming of the King draws near, help us to have the courage always to say, "Yes, I am a servant of the Lord; let it happen to me just as you have said." In Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Not a Ghost

God born through a peasant girl. What kind of being did that make Jesus of Nazareth? Here's how the early Christian movement described it.

___________________

The Voice took on flesh and became human and chose to live alongside us. We have seen Him, enveloped in undeniable splendor—the one true Son of the Father—evidenced in the perfect balance of grace and truth.

(Gospel of John 1.14, Voice)

Believe then that this only-begotten Son of God, for our sins, came down from heaven to earth and took upon himself this human nature with the same emotions and urges as we have. He was begotten of the Holy Virgin and the Holy Spirit, and was made human, not seemingly or as a mere show, but for real. And not by passing through the Virgin like a stream, but through her becoming actual flesh. He was actually nursed on milk, and actually ate and drank as we do.  For if the incarnation was a just a ghost, then salvation is a ghost as well.

The Christ had two natures, human in what was visible, but God in what was invisible. As a human, actually eating like us, since He had the same feelings in his body as us, but as God feeding the five thousand from five loaves. As a human actually dying, but as God raising a man [Lazarus] that had been dead four days. Actually sleeping in the ship like a human, and walking upon the waters as God.

Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 313 - 386)
Catecheses number 4 section 9

"...If the incarnation was just a ghost..."

Meditation for a Sunday Morning

" The Word became flesh
    and made his home among us.
We have seen his glory,
    glory like that of a father’s only son,
        full of grace and truth."

(Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 14, Common English Bible)

__________________________

Our guest blogger this morning is Cyril of Jerusalem, an important Christian thinker in the mid-300s, and one of the best early teachers of simple, basic Christianity. Here Cyril speaks on Jesus' "incarnation."

Believe then that this only-begotten Son of God, for our sins, came down from heaven to earth and took upon himself this human nature with the same emotions and urges as we have. He was begotten of the Holy Virgin and the Holy Spirit, and was made human, not seemingly or as a mere show, but for real. And not by passing through the Virgin like a stream, but through her becoming actual flesh. He was actually nursed on milk, and actually ate and drank as we do.  For if the incarnation was a just a ghost, then salvation is a ghost as well.

The Christ had two natures, human in what was visible, but God in what was invisible. As a human, actually eating like us, since He had the same feelings in his body as us, but as God feeding the five thousand from five loaves. As a human actually dying, but as God raising a man [Lazarus] that had been dead four days. Actually sleeping in the ship like a human, and walking upon the waters as God.

Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 313 - 386)
Catecheses number 4 section 9

Why Was the Messiah Born in a Stable?

(I usually repost this article during Advent because the question keeps coming up.)


Everyone is familiar with the fact that Jesus' parents couldn't find a place to stay when they arrived in Bethlehem. But why didn't just stay with relatives? After all, this was supposedly Joseph's hometown.

Luke, who tells this story in the 2nd chapter of his Gospel, does not elaborate. To him the point is that the King of the Universe was born in the most abject of circumstances -- abject to the point that he had to be laid in a feeding trough.

Even if there had been "room for them in the inn," the surroundings would not have been opulent. The "inn" of a small, first century, middle eastern village like Bethlehem would have been a few crude lean-to's for traveling people and animals found on the edge of town. Even those were full, and very old tradition says Mary and Joseph found shelter in a little cave (more like a nook in the rock).

But what about Joseph's relatives? Scholars put forward two possible reasons they didn't provide shelter for the two travelers that night (aside from suggesting Mary and Joseph never went to Bethlehem, which we will deal with elsewhere). Both are conjectures of course and neither is supported by any of the early Christian writers, so you can decide for yourself which seems more likely.

One explanation is that Joseph may not have had any relatives in Bethlehem. He and Mary traveled there because it was the ancestral home of King David, Joseph's ancestor, but it's quite possible that in the 1000 years since David's time his descendants had spread to the four winds. Joseph had, of course. At some point he or his family had chosen to move 90 miles north to tiny Nazareth.

This possibility is made more likely by the fact that, being of royal stock, the family of  David was often a target of suspicion by the authorities.  We know for instance that relatives of Jesus were examined at the end of the first century for just this reason.  So  the harder it was for current rulers like Herod and the Romans to locate David's descendents, the better. It may be then that, when Caesar decreed his census, the entire lineage of David found themselves in the same situation as Joseph -- having to find a place to stay in a tiny, overcrowded village where they knew nobody.

Another Alternative
Or... There may well have been some of David's descendants still living in Bethlehem. But imagine it: They must have been completely overwhelmed by the influx of travellers. Bethlehem was a poor, miniscule hamlet at this time, so small that there's no clear archaeological evidence that it even existed (though from documentary evidence it's certain that it did). Several hundred people -- including many with other ancestors besides David -- suddenly descending upon it looking for a temporary place to stay probably created havoc.

Recently a number of scholars (such as C. S. Keene and Ben Witherington III) have pointed out that kataluma (the Greek word translated "inn") actually refers to many different types of lodging places, including whatever kind of guest room Joseph's relatives might have had available. In fact, the recently published Common English Bible translates this famous passage as, "She... laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom," (Gospel of Luke chapter 2, verse 7)

So what Luke may be telling us is that, by the time Joseph and Mary reached Bethlehem, "the guest room in the relatives’ house... would have been filled beyond capacity with all the other relatives who had to journey to Bethlehem for the census."

All they had left to offer the holy family was the stable.

Three Short Videos: God Makes His Move

One of my core beliefs is that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, but assumed to be trite, familiar, and boring and passed up for shinier things. As a result I'm a sucker for videos like these.

The comfortable, sanitized tale we all know of gentle Jesus in a manger walls us off from the shocking and rather scandalous story it truly is. Some of this site's Advent meditations will try to help us think about the scandal rather than the safe story. These three short videos also attempt to breach that wall by asking, "What if this had happened this month? What if God made his move today?"

No Vacancy

Everyone is familiar with the fact that Jesus' parents couldn't find a place to stay when they arrived in Bethlehem. But why didn't just stay with relatives? After all, this was supposedly Joseph's hometown.

Luke, who tells this story in the 2nd chapter of his Gospel, does not elaborate. To him the point is that the King of the Universe was born in the most abject of circumstances -- abject to the point that he had to be laid in a feeding trough...