Category: Advent
Advent 2011: Fourth Sunday
One week until Christmas. This Sunday my pastor will be finishing the Advent Sermon Series we’ve been doing on the “fulfillment” passages of Matthew 1-2. He should be covering 2.16ff. with a focus on vv. 17-18. In this passage the words of the prophet Jeremiah are found useful for explaining the misery caused by Herod’s decision to slaughter the infants and youngest children of Bethlehem because his paranoid state-of-being would not allow him to live with the thought that a “King” was born in Bethlehem.
Herod was a lunatic. He has his own sons killed because he thought they were a threat to the throne. It is amazing that a man who had power feared everyone and anyone who threatened it, including a small child whom he did not know. There is a quote attributed to Lord Acton which states, “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
As we watch the leaders of this world do their thing it seems apparent that this is true. Democracy has it’s problems, but dictatorships seem to create the largest messes globally. Humans do not tend to make very good kings.
What if God were King? What is God ruled the world instead of humans? What is God ruled through a human?
This is why hope in that small child Jesus is different than hope in any politician or world ruler. Jesus is the one through whom God rules the world. Jesus is the one through whom humanity finds its destiny and purpose. In Jesus humanity meets God and God meets humanity. Only a person like this could avoid Lord Acton’s warning against despot behavior.
So we await the return of our King. Advent is that time of remembering that he visited us once, that he ascended into heaven where he reigns in the authority of God the Father, and that he will return to unite heaven and earth in perfect peace–shalom!
Would Revelation 12 make for a good Advent/Christmas sermon?
A couple days ago I realized that I don’t think I’ve heard anyone preach on Revelation 12 around Advent or Christmas time. This doesn’t mean I wasn’t present for such a sermon, but I don’t remember one, and I’ve been hearing sermons in Christmas for two and a half decades.
Have you ever heard someone preach on Revelation 12 with the woman, the dragon, and the male child? It seems like it would make for a great text for Advent/Christmas!
If you preach with any regularity would you use this text?
Advent 2011: Third Sunday
Yesterday I gave the homily for the Third Sunday of Advent. These are the notes for those present who wanted to access them:
“Out of Egypt: Exile, Exodus, and Jesus”
Hosea 11.1-11
Matthew 2.13-15
Introduction:
Exile is something with which many of us are mostly unfamiliar, but with which many people in the world know all too well.
- Displaced people due to war or famine
- The plight of the immigrant
Exile: “It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home”. –Edward W. Said
Israel‘s history
- Adam and Eve “exiled” from Egypt
- In Genesis 37-50 we find the story of Joseph wherein Abraham’s descendants are exiled because of a famine, but they find relief in Egypt.
- In Exodus 1.8 we read, “A new king arose who did not know Joseph…”
- Egypt as “home” quickly became Egypt as exile again.
- The Hebrews became slaves in Egypt for over four hundred years before Moses was sent to free them.
- At the Exodus they were freed from slavery and they were eventually brought into the land that had been given to Abraham. God established them as a nation, but they forgot God often worshiping pagan deities.
Hosea’s prophecy (read Hosea 11.1-11)
- By the time of Hosea’s prophecy the nation was split into the ten tribes of Israel and two of Judea.
- Hosea prophecies against Israel primarily.
- Israel had become accustom of worshiping deities like Baal. Baal was a word for “lord” or “master” and it was used of a variety of deities in the Ancient Near East.
- Israel calling another god “Baal” when she was married to YHWH God was the equivalent to infidelity in the marriage relationship. Israel was cheating on God with other gods.
- In 11.1-11 Hosea serves as YHWH’s spokesperson reminding Israel of how he delivered them from slavery in Egypt, but how he would let them go back before someday giving them a ‘new Exodus’ of restoration.
- Israel and Judah’s disobedience resulted in exile into Assyria and Babylon.
- Eventually there was a new Exodus from Babylon, but for many things never seemed quite right, something was missing.
- Pagan nations ruled over the Jews—including the Greeks and Romans.
Matthew’s interpretation (read Matthew 2.13-15)
- Context: Herod seeks to kill the baby Jesus, the angel warns Joseph, Joseph takes Mary and Jesus into Egypt until Herod dies.
- Jesus embodies the “return from Egypt”, the end of exile.
- He is “Jesus” = YHWH saves. Immanuel = God with us.
- Our God saves. God saves from slavery and exile. God provides a home, a family, and a land.
Conclusion:
- In Jesus God has enacted the greatest exodus. We have been removed from the exile cause by Satan and we are marching toward the New Jerusalem—New Heavens, New Earth.
- This plight should make us more aware of exile around us. We experience a sort of exile now as we await the Second Advent.
Advent 2011: Second Sunday
Who were the Magi of Matthew 2.1-11?
On the one hand, it is possible that they are literary invention of the Evangelist, but that seems quite extravagant for purely fictional characters. On the other hand, if the Magi were real people from the east they invite a lot of thought.
We have pagans finding Christ through their superstitions. God did not reject them because of their magical worldview. God used it to bring them to Christ.
The Magi are not part of the established people of God, yet they find themselves worshiping God’s Messiah.
The Magi disappear back to their homeland. We have no evidence that they came to know more of Jesus’ story later, yet they are framed positively. They are what some may call “righteous pagans”. They find Christ through another religious worldview, they know him in part only, they worship him and bring gifts, and they are remembered in a saintly way.
I wouldn’t establish a robust soteriology on this story, but it does make me stop before I declare knowledge of who is “in-and-out” of God’s Kingdom. Sometimes I think only the King himself knows. I am comfortable with that.
I am open to the likelihood that God may have more “Magi” in the world who come to the Feast of the Lamb from the east and the west, the north and the south. I’ll happily welcome them to the banquet.
Advent 2011: First Sunday
Fra Filippo Lippi, A Divided Annunciation
This Advent I have the wonderful opportunity of delivering one of the homilies. I will be preaching on the Third Sunday of Advent, December 11th. Pastor Ken Garrett and I will follow the four “fulfillment” type passages in Matthew 1-2: 1.18-24 (v. 23); 2.1-12 (v. 6); 2.13-15 (v. 15b); and 2.16-23 (v. 18). This will provide me with a blogging pattern as well.
I do not think that Isaiah 7.14 was originally about a virgin birth. In context, pagan armies threaten Judah. The prophet goes to King Ahaz and he tells him to ask God for a sign. Ahaz refuses. Isaiah tells Ahaz that God will determine the sign then. Isaiah says that a “young woman”(העלמה) will give birth to a son. By the time this particular young woman gives birth to a son the threat of the pagans will have come and gone. Ahaz will see this and remember that Israel’s God promised deliverance.
Of course, the LXX reads “παρθένος”, which means virgin, but this was not the explicit intent of the original Hebrew author.
What I find fascinating about Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7.14 is there was no need for Messiah to have been born of a virgin in any of the Judaisms with which I am familiar. If so, I am open to being corrected. So I don’t think Matthew felt obligated to make a connection similar to the “birth in Bethlehem” tradition which does seem popular.
For me this leaves two explanations. The first is offered by E.D. Freed in The Stories of Jesus’ Birth wherein “Chapter Two: Matthew’s Women in the Genealogy of Jesus” postulates that Matthew sought to include this tradition as a way to combat claims that Jesus had an illegitimate birth. This may be true and it makes sense of the data. The second is more apologetical in favor of orthodox Christianity: Jesus was actually born of a virgin and this sent Jewish-Christian exegetes scrambling to Torah for something that would foreshadow what Mary claimed to have happened inside of her. While more far fetched (i.e. a less ‘naturalistic’ explanation) that the previous solution, this is the one to which I hold because I confess the virgin birth of Jesus.
As Matthew shapes the story he makes sure his own wording aligns with the “deliverance” motif of Isaiah 7. This is seen in Joseph choosing the name ‘Jesus’ because “he will save his people from their sins”, followed by narratives regarding the harsh rule of Herod in the next chapter. Like the small child in Isaiah 7, so Jesus signifies the deliverance of Israel from pagan powers…though not like they may have expected.
Today, the First Sunday of Advent, we celebrate the coming of the child whose birth signified deliverance from evil. In Jesus we find salvation from the forces of oppression that war against humanity. Jesus’ birth through a virgin functions as a sign from God that a new era is being ushered into the world. God’s Kingdom advances on that of Herod, Caesar, and any other force that stands against the true God.
Keep Chi in Xmas!
Too funny:
The real "war on Christmas"!
(HT: Brian Fulthorp on Facebook)
Wednesdays with Wright: The Virgin Birth
N.T. Wright addresses the “modern” realization that virgin birth cannot happen and the deeper reasons for why so many reject the teaching:
“Let’s get rid of any idea that we now know that virgin births don’t happen because we know about modern genetic science. Actually, people two thousand years ago were not ignorant. As C. S. Lewis once tartly pointed out, the reason Joseph was worried about Mary’s pregnancy was not because he didn’t know where babies came from but because he did.
“It was fascinating, in a classic moment of misreporting a few days ago, that when the Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out that Matthew doesn’t say how many Magi there were people thought he was a heretic, but when he said he really did believe in the virginal conception of Jesus nobody noticed.
“Actually, the strange story of Jesus’ being conceived without a human father is so peculiar, particularly within Judaism, and so obviously open to sneering accusations on the one hand and the charge that the Christians were simply aping the pagans on the other, that it would be very unlikely for someone to invent it so early in the Christian movement as Matthew and Luke. But there’s more to it than just that. The virginal conception speaks powerfully of new creation, something fresh happening within the old world, beyond the reach and dreams of the possibilities we currently know. And if we believe that the God we’re talking about is the creator of the world, who longs to rescue the world from its corruption and decay, then an act of real new creation, anticipating in fact the great moment of Easter itself, might just be what we should expect, however tremblingly, if and when this God decides to act to bring this new creation about. The ordinary means of procreation is one of the ways, deep down, in which we laugh in the face of death. Mary’s conception of Jesus has no need of that manoeuver. ‘In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.’ The real objection to the virginal conception is not primarily scientific. It is deeper than that. It is the notion that a new world really might be starting up within the midst of the old, leaving us with the stark choice of birth or death; leaving us, like the Magi, no longer at ease: leaving us, in other words, as Christmas people faced with the Herods of the world.”
From a sermon titled “Power to Become Children: Isaiah 52.7-10; John 1.1-18″. See the full transcript here.
Some Advent Posts
Happy Winter Solstice! Blogger John Anngeister of Next Theology has a set of advent/Christmas posts that I have enjoyed reading. I want to highlight three here.
(1) Anngeister presents the first set of Empyrean Dialogues. This is a short fictional work that takes places just prior to the Son’s incarnation.
(2) Anngeister highlights the period of Jesus’ birth to his baptism, labelling it “the test of ten-thousand days.” He makes a good point that “Jesus invites us to celebrate with him and in him the obscure but vital humanity he enjoyed with mother and family and friends before he felt called to go out to meet the son of Zechariah.”
(3) Anngeister notes where he agrees and disagrees with the great Karl Barth’s view on Christmas.
Sunday Quote: Cessario on Christ’s Humanity
Romaus Cessario, OP, wrote a treatise on faith and the theological life, which is a life based on faith, hope, and love. These virtues are established in human beings by Christ through grace.1 The foundation of this life is Christ, who exemplified these virtues so perfectly that He demonstrates what true humanity is and ought to be. Christ’s humanity cannot be neglected.
Concerning Christ’s humanity and salvation, Cessario writes:
The humanity of Christ—conjoined to the divine Person of the Word and united with other human beings in virtue of a shared human nature—remains the instrumental cause of God’s saving work: Christ’s humanity is the instrument through which and by means of which God “moves” human beings toward their destiny in union with him.2
It is more common to hear of Christ hailed as God than it is to hear of Christ hailed as human. Without Christ’s humanity, all one has is a transcendent Jesus to whom none can relate. It is because Christ is fully human that Christ relates to us and we to Him. I sometimes wonder if groups that overemphasize Christ’s divinity to the neglect of his humanity hinder a believer’s discipleship. Can one pick up one’s cross and follow the otherworldly Jesus? Hardly. Yet one can pick up the cross and follow a divine Jesus who was completely human as any of us.
The celebration of Advent is not about only about the divine Son, but about the divine Son made human. May the following video remind us that He was exactly like us, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15).
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1. Romanus Cessario, Christian Faith and the Theological Life (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 16.[Back]
2. Ibid., 21.[Back]
You Can Thank the French for Advent!
I thought everyone would like to know the following:
“Advent is not the oldest season in the church. Easter, the Pasch or Passover, is far older, by at least two hundred years. In fact, the earliest mention of a period of preparation for Christmas didn’t exist until 490 in Gaul, what is now modern France.”
Joan Chittister, The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life. 63-63
There you have it. The French invented Advent. You’re welcome.
Advent: A Period of Preparation
Joan Chittister writes,
“Advent is a period of preparation for Christmas but, unlike Lent, it is not a period of penance, It is a period that focuses us on joy. We prepare ourselves to understand the full adult meaning of the feast. We come to realize more each year how great are our blessings, how beautiful is a life lived in concert with the Jesus who came to show us the way. We learn the anticipation, the joy of looking for the second coming of Christ, the joy of living in the surety of even more life in the future.”
The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life. 66.
Amen and amen.
O Christmas Tree! (2010)
Our Christmas Tree (2010)
The Third Sunday of Advent is Here
As we come to the third Sunday of Advent, we are reminded of the joy that comes from the nearing Advent of our Savior.
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you;triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey,on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” (Zechariah 9:9-10)
We are also to look with joy towards Christ’s promise of an eventual second Advent.
“At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.” (Mark 13: 26-27)
Advent is meaningful not only because it looks to a hope fulfilled long ago, but also because it challenges us to look and prepare for the hope of the world to come.
Come Lord Jesus!
Wednesday with Wright: The Child, Jesus
This is an excellent excerpt from a sermon given by N.T. Wright titled “The Government Shall Be Upon His Shoulder” at the Midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve (2008) in Durham (see whole transcript here):
“The story the gospels tell is not whistling in the dark. It’s about this child growing up and starting to put God’s kingdom into operation, close up, wherever he goes. This is what it looks like, he says, when God is running things. The world gets turned the right way up. Watch, in the gospels, as the Wonderful Counsellor goes to work, dealing with individuals but also confronting the systems which had enslaved them, and upsetting the slavemasters. Watch as the Mighty God strides through Galilee feeding the hungry, healing the sick, rescuing people and restoring creation itself. Look on in awe as the Everlasting Father is seen mirrored in the incarnate Son, giving himself totally to his beloved world. And, if you dare in the light of our culture where war, the way of death, is the way of life for so many, watch as Jesus, from his earliest beginnings with a price on his head through to his riding the donkey into Jerusalem, shows what it looks like when the Prince of Peace is on the move. He comes to get God’s kingdom off the ground – or perhaps we should say, precisely on to the ground, the real life of real people. And that involves taking upon himself the full force of the world’s cruel systems, the political and economic enslavement from which we still suffer, so that the power of evil can be broken and something new may take its place. That was true at Jesus’ birth, as it was true at his death. This is what the alternative looks like. Some mock it as if it were irrelevant, but the truth is that it is all too relevant, a rumour of hope that the powers of the world do their best to hush up.”
Advent is about a child whose arrival signified to the powers-that-be a resounding message: “God’s Kingdom is here!”
Christmas Conundrums!
St. Nicholas by Elisabeth Jvanovsky
Christmas is a season full of ethical decisions for a Christian. Do we tell our children the story of Santa Clause? Do we put a tree in our home? Do we participate in the materialistic frenzy of the season by buying gifts for others? A gentleman that I know from San Francisco asked me about my thoughts on these matters, so I thought I’d give a brief response to each:
Do we tell our children the story of Santa Clause?
Personally, I have no intention of telling my children the story of Santa Clause as it is commonly told. Ol’ Saint Nick is based on a real, historical person though. Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra. He was a faithful Christian pastor who was known for his generosity toward the poor. He suffered for the name of Christ under the persecutions of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. To put the cherry on top he was in attendance at the Council of Nicaea where the Arian heresy was defeated.
Now, if you prefer to tell a story about a magic, overweight man who flies a sleigh around the world at night giving gifts to children based on merit, go ahead! I cannot think of a better figure that Nicholas of Myra to use as a display of the generosity that comes when the gospel changes lives! To learn more, go here.
Do you put a Christmas tree in your home?
Yes! I know some misguided people have “seen” a prohibition against Christmas trees in Jeremiah 10.1-10, but let me remind readers of that text that (1) Jeremiah knew nothing of “Christmas tree” and (2) the passage addresses the creation of idols, not hanging cute ornaments on a tree. We must be careful when we quote Scripture like this.
It appears that the Christmas tree has uncertain origins. I have read that people used to cut down the tree and put it in their home as a reminder that life will return in spite of that winter season. If that is the case then I see no harm in that. Another suggestion is that Protestant Germans used it as the “Tree of Life” in the “Garden of Eden” (again, symbolizing life). At the end of the day though it is important to realize that the historical significance is one thing, but the significance you and your family provide the tree is something different.
Some put up a tree because it is tradition and it reminds them of good times with family and friends. Some see it as a reminder of “life” during a winter season. If you see it as an idol and you find yourself bowing before it, well, then that may be a problem, but my assumption is that most people don’t do this!
Do you buy gifts for others?
In recent years my wife and I have been influenced by the “Advent Conspiracy” people which seek to minimize spending-for-the-sake-of-spending and a return to giving gifts of significance.We try not to buy gifts for others out of obligation. The last two years my wife has made home made baked goods and we have asked our families to give funds to particular worthy causes rather than buying us more “stuff”. If they still want to send us something like a card or a small gift, that is welcomed, but we don’t want them to run around worried about what to get us or worried that they will have to charge more to their Visa so that everyone gets something.
It is this type of materialism that ruins the holidays. But is giving itself wrong? Are gifts wrong?
While I do think it is wrong to go into debt in order to purchase things for others out of some sort of holiday obligation this does not mean it is wrong to give gifts. Actually, I think giving gifts is great. What is wrong with being giving? As long as it is done thoughtfully, and within one’s financial means, it is a good thing.
So give, give, give! But don’t go into debt doing it, don’t buy things with no personality and out of obligation, and don’t forget about what Christmas is really about which is Christ’s giving of himself and the Father’s giving of his Son…these things outweigh remote control cars and video games!
