Sunday, December 28, 2008
The Real Twelve Days of Christmas
The main problem with me trying to undergo the year of living liturgically is that I have no idea. I discovered a thought-provoking article about the twelve days of Christmas today - http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2004/dec24.html. I don't necessarily agree with all the statements but it's certainly interesting.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
A bit of Christmas fun
Last night at my 'family and family friends' Christmas Eve party, I opened with the Christmas Day Midnight collect and prayer from the Australian Prayer Book and got my four Tay cousins (visiting from Brisbane) to read the four lectionary readings, interspersed with carol singing. Earlier in the day, I had spent some time helping them to pronounce and understand what they were reading - 10 year old Aidan was particularly impressive as he exhorted us to 'renounce ungodliness' and be 'zealous for good works'.
These lectionary readings are well-chosen indeed, and I can imagine a wonderful carols service with selected carols complementing each reading. As it was, we had some incongruous and amusing juxtapositions, like Psalm 96 ("Ascribe to the LORD") followed by "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer". Well, reindeer praise the LORD too, no doubt.
In a less reverential mood, I also thought of three Christian slogans to redeem the vitiated image of Christmas that many people have:
1) Jesus' birth rocked the earth.
2) The baby who rules out maybe.
3) God with us. Worth the fuss.
How are you celebrating Christmas? Can you think of other slogans? =p
These lectionary readings are well-chosen indeed, and I can imagine a wonderful carols service with selected carols complementing each reading. As it was, we had some incongruous and amusing juxtapositions, like Psalm 96 ("Ascribe to the LORD") followed by "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer". Well, reindeer praise the LORD too, no doubt.
In a less reverential mood, I also thought of three Christian slogans to redeem the vitiated image of Christmas that many people have:
1) Jesus' birth rocked the earth.
2) The baby who rules out maybe.
3) God with us. Worth the fuss.
How are you celebrating Christmas? Can you think of other slogans? =p
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Mary the model believer
Across various church traditions, Mary has often been held up as the model believer. Here, when the angel Gabriel reveals to her that God has chosen her to bear the long-awaited Messiah, we catch a glimpse of why this is so. Mary does not put on a show of false humility and declaim her unsuitability for this great role. Nor is she a check-your-brains-at-the-door religious fanatic - she is aware that the situation will look a bit suss and has the temerity to question the angel: How will this be, since I am a virgin? (Read: I may be an uneducated, hitherto unremarkable, young Jewish girl, but even I know how babies are made!)
But when Gabriel informs her that with God all things are possible and cites Elizabeth's pregnancy as contemporary evidence of a similar miracle of the womb, Mary shows humble submission to God even if not all her questions have been answered: I am the servant of the LORD; let it be to me according to your word.
In case it has all been a dream, she goes to check out Elizabeth. Thence issues the Magnificat, in which she praises God and shows that she gets enough about Him to joyfully serve Him in what she does know, not being hung up on what she (still) doesn't (like the how can this be question). I find what Mary does with her questions an encouraging model to follow - ask God, listen to the answer, submit to God's will regardless of whether the answer is fully satisfactory, check out corroborating evidence if relevant, praise God.
But when Gabriel informs her that with God all things are possible and cites Elizabeth's pregnancy as contemporary evidence of a similar miracle of the womb, Mary shows humble submission to God even if not all her questions have been answered: I am the servant of the LORD; let it be to me according to your word.
In case it has all been a dream, she goes to check out Elizabeth. Thence issues the Magnificat, in which she praises God and shows that she gets enough about Him to joyfully serve Him in what she does know, not being hung up on what she (still) doesn't (like the how can this be question). I find what Mary does with her questions an encouraging model to follow - ask God, listen to the answer, submit to God's will regardless of whether the answer is fully satisfactory, check out corroborating evidence if relevant, praise God.
Monday, December 15, 2008
I've got the joy joy joy joy...
When I was a kid, we used to sing that catchy song of few words, "I've got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart (where?), down in my heart (where?), down in my heart. I've got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart (where?), down in my heart to stay." Yesterday at the airport, amidst the tired and resigned passengers in transit, a small girl behind me was piping away with another of those childhood songs, "If you're happy and you know it, [perform some bodily function like clapping your hands]...If you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're happy and you know it [perform abovementioned function]."
This week's lectionary readings all have the theme of joy in them: joy in the prophecies being fulfilled, in God coming near in Jesus, in the way God raises up the lowly and poor and humbles the rich and those who think they are self-sufficient, in the sure hope we have that Jesus will return to make righteousness and peace spring up all over God's earth and in His sanctified, glorified people, us! I am praying that God will make this inexpressible joy in Jesus (1 Pet 1) spring up down in my heart and overflow so that it is manifested by various outward responses like my speech and the way I live, whatever circumstances I find myself in. After all, because of Jesus, we have a joy that goes deep and demands to be shown, a joy that is the ultimate word over sorrow or anxiety or fear. Praise God!
This week's lectionary readings all have the theme of joy in them: joy in the prophecies being fulfilled, in God coming near in Jesus, in the way God raises up the lowly and poor and humbles the rich and those who think they are self-sufficient, in the sure hope we have that Jesus will return to make righteousness and peace spring up all over God's earth and in His sanctified, glorified people, us! I am praying that God will make this inexpressible joy in Jesus (1 Pet 1) spring up down in my heart and overflow so that it is manifested by various outward responses like my speech and the way I live, whatever circumstances I find myself in. After all, because of Jesus, we have a joy that goes deep and demands to be shown, a joy that is the ultimate word over sorrow or anxiety or fear. Praise God!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Origen on Isaiah 40
The stirring prophecy in Isaiah 40 is one reason to long for Jesus' return - to fully straighten out the crooked and to raise and lower as appropriate, to make a way for the LORD to dwell among us. We have partial fulfilment of this prophecy in Jesus' first coming. Origen (183-253), whatever else he got wrong, has some thought-provoking words on this:
Now let us turn to that part of the prophecy which also concerns the coming of Christ and see whether this too has been fulfilled. The text continues: Every crooked way shall be straightened. Each one of us was once crooked; if we are no longer so, it is entirely due to the grace of Christ. Through his coming to our souls all our crooked ways have been straightened out.
If Christ did not come to your soul, of what use would his historical coming in the flesh be to you? Let us pray that each day we may experience his coming and be able to say: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
Jesus my Lord has come, then. He has smoothed out your rough places and changed your disorderly ways into level paths, making in you an even unimpeded road, a road that is absolutely clear, so that God the Father may walk in you and Christ the Lord make his dwelling in you and say: My Father and I will come and make our home in them. [from Origen, Homily on Luke’s Gospel 22, 1-4: SC 67, 300-02]
Sometimes I wonder how much symbolic reading of the Old Testament we can do before we're reading too much into it. After all, isn't Isa 40's emphasis on the making straight of crookedness on a universal (or at least all-God's-people) scale rather than on an individual level? And yet the universal levelling out in preparation for God's glory to be revealed cannot happen universally if it does not happen individually, or can it? Are we promised merely a levelling out 'whether we want it or not' (every knee shall bow, willing and unwilling) or are we promised what Origen reads into it, an individual transformative levelling out? And if Isa 40 does not directly promise the latter, are we still justified in reading that individual transformation into this passage, in the context of the overall revelation of God's plans and promises throughout Scripture? I'd love to hear your thoughts, so do respond!
(By the way, is anyone besides me able to post? I would like you to be able to participate not merely by comments responding to posts, but by initiating posts too...)
Now let us turn to that part of the prophecy which also concerns the coming of Christ and see whether this too has been fulfilled. The text continues: Every crooked way shall be straightened. Each one of us was once crooked; if we are no longer so, it is entirely due to the grace of Christ. Through his coming to our souls all our crooked ways have been straightened out.
If Christ did not come to your soul, of what use would his historical coming in the flesh be to you? Let us pray that each day we may experience his coming and be able to say: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
Jesus my Lord has come, then. He has smoothed out your rough places and changed your disorderly ways into level paths, making in you an even unimpeded road, a road that is absolutely clear, so that God the Father may walk in you and Christ the Lord make his dwelling in you and say: My Father and I will come and make our home in them. [from Origen, Homily on Luke’s Gospel 22, 1-4: SC 67, 300-02]
Sometimes I wonder how much symbolic reading of the Old Testament we can do before we're reading too much into it. After all, isn't Isa 40's emphasis on the making straight of crookedness on a universal (or at least all-God's-people) scale rather than on an individual level? And yet the universal levelling out in preparation for God's glory to be revealed cannot happen universally if it does not happen individually, or can it? Are we promised merely a levelling out 'whether we want it or not' (every knee shall bow, willing and unwilling) or are we promised what Origen reads into it, an individual transformative levelling out? And if Isa 40 does not directly promise the latter, are we still justified in reading that individual transformation into this passage, in the context of the overall revelation of God's plans and promises throughout Scripture? I'd love to hear your thoughts, so do respond!
(By the way, is anyone besides me able to post? I would like you to be able to participate not merely by comments responding to posts, but by initiating posts too...)
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