It is Palm Sunday as I write this and we are nearing the end of this year's Lenten season. This week's online version of Christianity Today has an article about fasting, noting that it is currently popular to fast for a cause. This year several groups have advocated fasting to show solidarity with the poor. At other times fasting has been recommended for a variety of reasons, including to use the food money you would have used as an offering for the hungry, or to free up time for prayer by saving the time used for food preparation. The article this week in Christianity Today promotes the idea of fasting in order to gain more self-control and even to shape the desires of our subconscious. As I grew up my friends and neighbors who were Roman Catholic would not eat meat on Friday, which they referred to as a 'fast'.
These seem to generally be good causes. It is good to help the poor, to gain self-control, and so on. Yet, these various approaches to try to explain fasting illustrate how we as a culture have a difficult time relating to the very idea of fasting and how we continue to be confused about it. Today in our Sunday morning Bible study we were looking into the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 where Jesus tells His followers not to fast the way the 'hypocrites' do, who would put ashes on their faces and make a show of it, but rather to look happy and keep it secret from those around you. He said very similar things about prayer and about giving to the poor. The Greek word used there in Matthew which is translated into English as 'fasting' comes from 2 Greek words, 'not' and 'to eat'; it is very much about not eating, not about a general idea of 'giving something up' for a time. Fasting is clearly focused on not eating. Fasting is a different thing than abstaining.
This is not to say that there is no benefit to abstaining. The Jews were to continually abstain from some things like non-kosher foods; they were to periodically abstain from some things, like sexual intimacy during a woman's monthly cycle; they were on special occasions to abstain from some things, like leaven during Passover. These are not fasts; they are abstinence.
The only fast specifically prescribed in the Torah is for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In the description, in both Leviticus 16 and Leviticus 19, it is clear that the purpose is to 'humble yourselves'. The text does not even use the word 'fast', yet the Jews clearly understood it that way. The focus was on humbling themselves before God. This comes up again when fasts are called for by Ezra, by the prophets, and by David for himself (see Ps. 35:13 and Ezra 8:21). Repeatedly in the Old Testament fasts are about one main thing: humbling ourselves in repentance. It is not about 'solidarity'; it is not even about self-control. It is about humbling ourselves.
As time went on this got muddled. After the Babylonian captivity, there were fasts to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and other things. By Jesus time, the devout were fasting twice every week. Long before this, in Isaiah's time it was clear that they had begun to miss the point. (See Isaiah 58:3-5). Jesus displeasure with fasting in His day sounds rather like Isaiah.
Abstinence still had its own place, though. Again, repeatedly in the Old Testament we see the reason for abstinence as being related to purity. So they 'purified' their houses from leaven before Passover; they did not eat 'unclean' animals; women would 'purify' themselves after their monthly cycle; and so on. The focus of abstinence was on purity, and the focus of fasting was on humbling ourselves before God.
The article calling for fasting to show 'solidarity with the poor' shows that the muddled thinking continues. I do not object at all to caring for the poor. I also think our culture could stand a great deal more self-control, as learned by abstinence. I just don't think that is the point in fasting. As I contemplate the arrival of Easter next week, I need to focus more on repentance than on 'solidarity'.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Money and forgiving
We have been studying the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew for several weeks in our Sunday morning Bible study at church, and that great sermon has a lot to say about both our personal piety and morality, and also about social justice. I have also been reading Timothy Keller's book Generous Justice, in part because of our study of Matthew. In the midst of this, we had our annual missions conference.
As part of the missions conference we had a missionary from Calcutta as guest teacher in our class one Sunday morning and he talked about the ministry there that tries to help young women who have been sold into prostitution. Some of them are sold by their parents when they are around 10 years old. Some get into debt and are without income and try to get some money to get out of debt, but the moneylenders can charge 10% per month (120% per annum) interest. The whole situation is so desperate as to be almost unbelievable, and yet it reminded me that the world they inhabit is not so different from the world Jesus' lived in (and probably closer to mine than I like to think about). These women have no skills, cannot read or write, and have no hope of getting out of debt. Once they are forced into prostitution most never find a way out. Many commit suicide.
As we heard about this we were about to discuss the part of the Lord's prayer that says 'forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors'. Some translations say 'transgressions' instead of 'debts'. It turns out, per F.F. Bruce in The Hard Sayings of Jesus that in Aramaic, which Jesus normally used in daily life, it is the same word for either 'debts' or 'transgressions'. But in Matthew 18, F. F. Bruce points out, Jesus also talks about forgiving one who 'sins' against you (Matt 18:21ff) by giving an example about money.
So it struck me that for these poor women in India who are forced into prostitution, what they needed to escape from prostitution in many cases was to have money debts forgiven. If they heard Jesus talking about 'forgive us our debts', what would they hear?
If someone was owed money by one of these poor women, and decided that if she could not repay at 120% annual interest then she should be sold into prostitution, would the Lord forgive a person like that? Until hearing from that missionary I would not have even thought about the Lord's prayer that way. I would have automatically assumed that the Lord's prayer was only talking about 'transgressions' or 'sins' of personal moral failure, not about things like forgiving a money debt. But in some cases, like these women, forgiveness of a money debt is vital to moving out of a life of moral sin as well.
So, it struck me that our attitude about money affects not only our giving, but also affects our forgiving. If we will not forgive a money debt to keep someone out of prostitution, will we forgive a moral debt? I doubt it. In any case, listening to the missionary gave me a new viewpoint on what it means to 'forgive our debts'.
As part of the missions conference we had a missionary from Calcutta as guest teacher in our class one Sunday morning and he talked about the ministry there that tries to help young women who have been sold into prostitution. Some of them are sold by their parents when they are around 10 years old. Some get into debt and are without income and try to get some money to get out of debt, but the moneylenders can charge 10% per month (120% per annum) interest. The whole situation is so desperate as to be almost unbelievable, and yet it reminded me that the world they inhabit is not so different from the world Jesus' lived in (and probably closer to mine than I like to think about). These women have no skills, cannot read or write, and have no hope of getting out of debt. Once they are forced into prostitution most never find a way out. Many commit suicide.
As we heard about this we were about to discuss the part of the Lord's prayer that says 'forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors'. Some translations say 'transgressions' instead of 'debts'. It turns out, per F.F. Bruce in The Hard Sayings of Jesus that in Aramaic, which Jesus normally used in daily life, it is the same word for either 'debts' or 'transgressions'. But in Matthew 18, F. F. Bruce points out, Jesus also talks about forgiving one who 'sins' against you (Matt 18:21ff) by giving an example about money.
So it struck me that for these poor women in India who are forced into prostitution, what they needed to escape from prostitution in many cases was to have money debts forgiven. If they heard Jesus talking about 'forgive us our debts', what would they hear?
If someone was owed money by one of these poor women, and decided that if she could not repay at 120% annual interest then she should be sold into prostitution, would the Lord forgive a person like that? Until hearing from that missionary I would not have even thought about the Lord's prayer that way. I would have automatically assumed that the Lord's prayer was only talking about 'transgressions' or 'sins' of personal moral failure, not about things like forgiving a money debt. But in some cases, like these women, forgiveness of a money debt is vital to moving out of a life of moral sin as well.
So, it struck me that our attitude about money affects not only our giving, but also affects our forgiving. If we will not forgive a money debt to keep someone out of prostitution, will we forgive a moral debt? I doubt it. In any case, listening to the missionary gave me a new viewpoint on what it means to 'forgive our debts'.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Christian Singleness
It is clear that the concept of marriage in American culture is confused and broken from a Christian perspective. The acceptance of homosexual marriage, the high frequency of births out of wedlock, and the high divorce rate all speak to that brokenness, but those are merely the symptoms that show the underlying disease of having no concept of what marriage is. As Pope John Paul II pointed out in his theology of the body, marriage carries the image of God to reflect the communion of the Trinity in the communion of male/female together, and to reflect God's creativity in our procreation. The male and female bodies themselves bear witness to this purpose and the body itself has a 'spousal' meaning in its very design. As the pope put it, 'the definitive creation of man consists in the creation of the unity of two beings' as male and female. As a result, according to Genesis 1-3 and re-iterated by Jesus in Matthew 5 and 19, marriage can only be between male and female and 'man' (Hebrew 'adam) is in some sense incomplete when either male or female is alone. Timothy Keller and his wife Kathy raise this point as well in their book The Meaning of Marriage in which they ask how can long term singleness be a good condition if males and females are in some ways incomplete alone?
In their book, the Kellers point out some ways in which our current culture of singleness is broken. Many have lived through their parents' divorce and so have a certain fear of a failed marriage for themselves; many see marriage as primarily a way to gain personal gratification (sexual or emotional) instead of lifelong love, care, and devotion and they see other ways to that gratification outside of marriage now; many have an overly idealized concept of finding the perfect 'soul mate' and will never 'settle' for anyone who doesn't live up to their impossible, imagined ideal; others are insistent that they should never have to change (or grow) and must be 'accepted as they are' and can't bear the thought of having to accomodate some else's disagreements with their habits. All of these are based on the idea that marriage exists to make them happy rather than to live out God's image and be shaped into closer conformity to that image (sanctification). It seems to me that any single person who remains single for any of these reasons is in fact incomplete and is failing to live out God's image.
The Kellers also point out that, perhaps for the first time, our culture no longer has a culturally supported pathway for singles to meet and marry. We have no arranged marriages; we have no formal courtship culture; the 'dating' culture of my youth (which had many problems of its own) has died away. There basically is no established cultural pathway to support the finding of a marriage partner now.
Is it possible for choosing singleness to be in conformance with God's image and Word? Yes, but only under certain circumstances. The pope points out in his theology of the body that Jesus speaks to this in Matthew 19 in saying that 'there are eunuchs by nature, eunuchs by the will of man, and eunuchs for the kingdom of God'. That is, some are single for the purpose of total devotion to God's work, as Jesus himself was. Paul says some similar things in I Corinthians. But this is legitimate only under certain circumstances and for a small minority, says the pope, which include that it is voluntary, fully and joyfully embraced, is done as a gift of self to God just as in marriage both give themselves as a gift, is for the kingdom (not for personal autonomy), and bears spiritual fruit from the single vocation (rather than children). Most singles today, including Christian singles, would not meet these criteria. In particular, a great many would prefer to be married but find themselves in a single culture that seems to have no cultural pathway to marriage and lots of fears and overly-idealized criteria for marriage. They are not 'eunuchs for the kingdom'; they are just stuck. These have not chosen singleness but are just stuck with it. For those who are stuck, certainly they can still be God's servants and continue to seek Him. Their unchosen singleness is not dishonorable or a prevention of obeying God. They will need to break out of cultural norms to find suitable ways to get to know potential spouses since our culture has abandoned making it a priority to have established pathways toward marriage. But the fact that they desire marriage is evidence that it really is something of an incompleteness.
So, it seems to me that our culture is broken in regard to both marriage and singleness. Many single Christians who are avoiding marriage as a result of fears, unrealistic idealism, or idolatrous individualism seem to me to be out of God's will. Marriage will always be an act that requires faith; now it also requires more initiative and creativity than in the past since our culture is not very supportive.
In their book, the Kellers point out some ways in which our current culture of singleness is broken. Many have lived through their parents' divorce and so have a certain fear of a failed marriage for themselves; many see marriage as primarily a way to gain personal gratification (sexual or emotional) instead of lifelong love, care, and devotion and they see other ways to that gratification outside of marriage now; many have an overly idealized concept of finding the perfect 'soul mate' and will never 'settle' for anyone who doesn't live up to their impossible, imagined ideal; others are insistent that they should never have to change (or grow) and must be 'accepted as they are' and can't bear the thought of having to accomodate some else's disagreements with their habits. All of these are based on the idea that marriage exists to make them happy rather than to live out God's image and be shaped into closer conformity to that image (sanctification). It seems to me that any single person who remains single for any of these reasons is in fact incomplete and is failing to live out God's image.
The Kellers also point out that, perhaps for the first time, our culture no longer has a culturally supported pathway for singles to meet and marry. We have no arranged marriages; we have no formal courtship culture; the 'dating' culture of my youth (which had many problems of its own) has died away. There basically is no established cultural pathway to support the finding of a marriage partner now.
Is it possible for choosing singleness to be in conformance with God's image and Word? Yes, but only under certain circumstances. The pope points out in his theology of the body that Jesus speaks to this in Matthew 19 in saying that 'there are eunuchs by nature, eunuchs by the will of man, and eunuchs for the kingdom of God'. That is, some are single for the purpose of total devotion to God's work, as Jesus himself was. Paul says some similar things in I Corinthians. But this is legitimate only under certain circumstances and for a small minority, says the pope, which include that it is voluntary, fully and joyfully embraced, is done as a gift of self to God just as in marriage both give themselves as a gift, is for the kingdom (not for personal autonomy), and bears spiritual fruit from the single vocation (rather than children). Most singles today, including Christian singles, would not meet these criteria. In particular, a great many would prefer to be married but find themselves in a single culture that seems to have no cultural pathway to marriage and lots of fears and overly-idealized criteria for marriage. They are not 'eunuchs for the kingdom'; they are just stuck. These have not chosen singleness but are just stuck with it. For those who are stuck, certainly they can still be God's servants and continue to seek Him. Their unchosen singleness is not dishonorable or a prevention of obeying God. They will need to break out of cultural norms to find suitable ways to get to know potential spouses since our culture has abandoned making it a priority to have established pathways toward marriage. But the fact that they desire marriage is evidence that it really is something of an incompleteness.
So, it seems to me that our culture is broken in regard to both marriage and singleness. Many single Christians who are avoiding marriage as a result of fears, unrealistic idealism, or idolatrous individualism seem to me to be out of God's will. Marriage will always be an act that requires faith; now it also requires more initiative and creativity than in the past since our culture is not very supportive.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
More on the theology of the body
As I mentioned last time, the body of 'man' ('adam', or mankind) itself bears witness to its meaning by being both male and female. As Pope John Paul II pointed out, man bears the image of God not only in his humanity but also in the communion of persons as lived out in marriage. Marriage, then, has the purpose of making visible the image of God, both in the communion of love between husband and wife and in the natural creativity, bearing children, that flows from that communion.
This then is how the body 'speaks' to us. As there is an inherent meaning in our body, there is also a 'language' that speaks to us. When lived out in the image of God, it speaks truth. When lived out in rebellion to God, it speaks lies. In that way adultery and fornication attack the image of God. In his reflections on this, the Pope noted that for the husband/wife bond to live out God's image it must be done in accord with what was taught in Genesis and re-iterated by Jesus: 'for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh'..This involved the complete gift of self to another, irrevocably. It is not a complete gift if it is given to many others. That does not constitute 'cleaving' to the one. It is also permanent and irrevocable. Anything less is not a complete gift of self. Therefore the Bible says, 'what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.' God intends monogamy for life. Polygamy, adultery, and fornication all desecrate marriage, and in so doing desecrate the image of God in man. Homosexuality also desecrates God's image since it denies the meaning of the body as male and female and renders impossible the pro-creativity that reflects God.
Both heterosexual sin and homosexual sin share a propensity to ignore the meaning of the body by reducing the object of desire into an object. It is not possible to seek to live out God's image in our bodies, to make a complete gift of self, and to make the sanctification of our spouse as our goal and also to view them as an object for our own gratification. To live out the meaning of the body demands a high view of the integrity and value of the person to whom we make the gift of self. It also demands a high view of how the body itself was created as male and female. Sexual sin, both of the heterosexual and homosexual variety, degrades this meaning, which the pope calls 'the spousal meaning of the body'. You cannot live out God's image by using persons as objects.
This is one of the reasons that I refer to pornography as a lie. It treats people as objects, which is itself a lie even if they consent to such use. It also denies the very meaning of the body which can only be fulfilled in the monogamous, irrevocable gift of self within marriage, thereby telling another lie.
In their book The Meaning of Marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller raise this question: 'How can we claim that long term singleness is a good condition in light of the previous chapter's argument that males and females are in some ways incomplete without the other?" Good question, in light of the meaning of the body. We shall talk about that next time.
This then is how the body 'speaks' to us. As there is an inherent meaning in our body, there is also a 'language' that speaks to us. When lived out in the image of God, it speaks truth. When lived out in rebellion to God, it speaks lies. In that way adultery and fornication attack the image of God. In his reflections on this, the Pope noted that for the husband/wife bond to live out God's image it must be done in accord with what was taught in Genesis and re-iterated by Jesus: 'for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh'..This involved the complete gift of self to another, irrevocably. It is not a complete gift if it is given to many others. That does not constitute 'cleaving' to the one. It is also permanent and irrevocable. Anything less is not a complete gift of self. Therefore the Bible says, 'what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.' God intends monogamy for life. Polygamy, adultery, and fornication all desecrate marriage, and in so doing desecrate the image of God in man. Homosexuality also desecrates God's image since it denies the meaning of the body as male and female and renders impossible the pro-creativity that reflects God.
Both heterosexual sin and homosexual sin share a propensity to ignore the meaning of the body by reducing the object of desire into an object. It is not possible to seek to live out God's image in our bodies, to make a complete gift of self, and to make the sanctification of our spouse as our goal and also to view them as an object for our own gratification. To live out the meaning of the body demands a high view of the integrity and value of the person to whom we make the gift of self. It also demands a high view of how the body itself was created as male and female. Sexual sin, both of the heterosexual and homosexual variety, degrades this meaning, which the pope calls 'the spousal meaning of the body'. You cannot live out God's image by using persons as objects.
This is one of the reasons that I refer to pornography as a lie. It treats people as objects, which is itself a lie even if they consent to such use. It also denies the very meaning of the body which can only be fulfilled in the monogamous, irrevocable gift of self within marriage, thereby telling another lie.
In their book The Meaning of Marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller raise this question: 'How can we claim that long term singleness is a good condition in light of the previous chapter's argument that males and females are in some ways incomplete without the other?" Good question, in light of the meaning of the body. We shall talk about that next time.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The meaning of our body
At Christmas I mentioned how the incarnation of Christ connects biology with theology, and gives witness to the fact that our bodies were created to bear the image of God. Christ is Himself the ultimate example of how He uses the body to make visible what is invisible, the spiritual and divine.
I have been reading lately in Pope John Paul II's transcribed talks about what he called the 'theology of the body'. In that teaching he goes back to Genesis based on Jesus teaching about marriage. Jesus also goes back to Genesis (see Matthew 19). In Genesis 1:26 it says that God created man (Hebrew 'adam) in his image, male ('is) and female ('issa). That is, the complete man was the combination of male and female. One of them alone was incomplete. The pope concludes that man carries the image of God not just in his humanity but also in the communion of persons in the union of male and female. Just as there is an intimate communion in the Trinity, so is there to be intimate communion in man by the union of male and female. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is naturally creative, resulting in man, so is the union in marriage to be naturally pro-creative, resulting in children. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is expressed in the giving of self, as Christ showed in giving Himself, so marriage is intended to bear God's image by the gift of self to each other. He concludes that this meaning of communion is carried to us not only by the Word, but by the body itself. As Adam recognized when he first saw Eve in chapter 2 of Genesis, he immediately recognized that she was intended to complete him. This message was clear from the body itself. So the pope concludes that the body itself has a meaning, and that meaning he calls 'spousal', 'the spousal meaning of the body'. This also supports the very Biblical notion that we are a communion of body/soul, we are not just souls that happen to have a body temporarily. Just as Christ in His resurrected body shows how the body will be integral to our being in eternity, our bodies are integral to what it means to be persons, and integral to living out God's image on earth.
So then this means that marriage has a clear meaning. That meaning is not to make us happy, to give us companionship, or to provide self-actualization. Those are all aimed at individuals and the freedom and fulfillment of individuals, making self-actualization of the individual the highest good. This instead means that marriage is intended as a way to live out the image of God. The pope goes on to point out that it is possible to do this without marriage, as Jesus did, but that is not the norm. The norm is for marriage to be a way to live out, in the body, the complete/full image of God. And the work of marriage is sanctification.
I think he is right. In our focus on falling in love and happiness in marriage we have turned it into a self-centered thing rather than a self-giving thing. Jesus taught that to save your life you must lose it. Where should we look to learn what it looks like to give yourself away on a daily basis? We should grow up learning that in the home, observing it in marriage. If we hope to teach our failing culture the true meaning of marriage, we must re-learn it in the church first.
I have been reading lately in Pope John Paul II's transcribed talks about what he called the 'theology of the body'. In that teaching he goes back to Genesis based on Jesus teaching about marriage. Jesus also goes back to Genesis (see Matthew 19). In Genesis 1:26 it says that God created man (Hebrew 'adam) in his image, male ('is) and female ('issa). That is, the complete man was the combination of male and female. One of them alone was incomplete. The pope concludes that man carries the image of God not just in his humanity but also in the communion of persons in the union of male and female. Just as there is an intimate communion in the Trinity, so is there to be intimate communion in man by the union of male and female. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is naturally creative, resulting in man, so is the union in marriage to be naturally pro-creative, resulting in children. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is expressed in the giving of self, as Christ showed in giving Himself, so marriage is intended to bear God's image by the gift of self to each other. He concludes that this meaning of communion is carried to us not only by the Word, but by the body itself. As Adam recognized when he first saw Eve in chapter 2 of Genesis, he immediately recognized that she was intended to complete him. This message was clear from the body itself. So the pope concludes that the body itself has a meaning, and that meaning he calls 'spousal', 'the spousal meaning of the body'. This also supports the very Biblical notion that we are a communion of body/soul, we are not just souls that happen to have a body temporarily. Just as Christ in His resurrected body shows how the body will be integral to our being in eternity, our bodies are integral to what it means to be persons, and integral to living out God's image on earth.
So then this means that marriage has a clear meaning. That meaning is not to make us happy, to give us companionship, or to provide self-actualization. Those are all aimed at individuals and the freedom and fulfillment of individuals, making self-actualization of the individual the highest good. This instead means that marriage is intended as a way to live out the image of God. The pope goes on to point out that it is possible to do this without marriage, as Jesus did, but that is not the norm. The norm is for marriage to be a way to live out, in the body, the complete/full image of God. And the work of marriage is sanctification.
I think he is right. In our focus on falling in love and happiness in marriage we have turned it into a self-centered thing rather than a self-giving thing. Jesus taught that to save your life you must lose it. Where should we look to learn what it looks like to give yourself away on a daily basis? We should grow up learning that in the home, observing it in marriage. If we hope to teach our failing culture the true meaning of marriage, we must re-learn it in the church first.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Christmas: When Biology Meets Theology
It is Christmas, a time to remember the incarnation of Christ, when God came among us and demonstrated before our eyes to what good use these bodies we have could be put.
Pope John Paul II in his teaching on the theology of the body pointed out that it is in the incarnation of Christ that biology is taken up into theology, where the study of God includes the flesh. In our age, the current of popular opinion has been to continuously degrade the significance of our bodily existence. Our culture treats human existence as little more than an evolutionary accident, unborn children as little more than 'blob of flesh', and the body as a toy to play with for our own self-centered pleasure. It was this culture that the Pope hoped both to confront and to teach. On the first Christmas, as Christ entered a world dominated by a Roman empire both pagan and corrupt, it was not much different. His coming both confronted and taught the world, both in that time and ours, that He created these bodies of ours for better things, to reflect God's image in the world.
The apostle writes that He was 'the express image' of the Father. In his incarnation, we get to know God in a different way than in any other modes. The humility He expressed in taking on flesh to die on our behalf is in itself enormously humbling. The fact of the infinite taking on not just the finite but the form of a helpless babe is beyond my comprehension.
It is a somewhat academic question to ask, 'Which is the greatest miracle?' Yet to me the incarnation of Christ stands out. For the infinite Creator to take on flesh is as incomprehensible as the Trinity itself. It also makes possible the rest of his mission to redeem us, and confers upon our fleshly existence a dignity beyond what we could have imagined.
His Advent has shown us who He is, and also shown us who we are to be like.
Pope John Paul II in his teaching on the theology of the body pointed out that it is in the incarnation of Christ that biology is taken up into theology, where the study of God includes the flesh. In our age, the current of popular opinion has been to continuously degrade the significance of our bodily existence. Our culture treats human existence as little more than an evolutionary accident, unborn children as little more than 'blob of flesh', and the body as a toy to play with for our own self-centered pleasure. It was this culture that the Pope hoped both to confront and to teach. On the first Christmas, as Christ entered a world dominated by a Roman empire both pagan and corrupt, it was not much different. His coming both confronted and taught the world, both in that time and ours, that He created these bodies of ours for better things, to reflect God's image in the world.
The apostle writes that He was 'the express image' of the Father. In his incarnation, we get to know God in a different way than in any other modes. The humility He expressed in taking on flesh to die on our behalf is in itself enormously humbling. The fact of the infinite taking on not just the finite but the form of a helpless babe is beyond my comprehension.
It is a somewhat academic question to ask, 'Which is the greatest miracle?' Yet to me the incarnation of Christ stands out. For the infinite Creator to take on flesh is as incomprehensible as the Trinity itself. It also makes possible the rest of his mission to redeem us, and confers upon our fleshly existence a dignity beyond what we could have imagined.
His Advent has shown us who He is, and also shown us who we are to be like.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Special before birth
The prelude to the Christmas story in Luke chronicles the birth of John the Baptist. John, like Jesus, was announced to his parents in advance of his conception by the archangel Gabriel, and was given his name at that time as well. This made him one of a very few in the Bible who would be named before birth. Ishmael, Isaac, Solomon, Josiah, Maher-shalalhashbaz are agreed upon by most students of the Old Testament. Some say Moses, but that is not explicit in the text; some also say the emperor Cyrus, but that is a prophesy and not a naming event. Then in the New Testament we have John the Baptist and Jesus. Since name giving was a very important ceremony, a time in which the father essentially claimed the child as being his, this was a very special thing.
Even more special, though, was the fact that John is stated to have been filled with the Spirit before birth. (Luke 1:15). He also 'leaped for joy' in the womb when his mother heard the voice of Mary as she came to visit John's mother while carrying Jesus before his birth.
Several commentators have pointed out that this filling of the Spirit before birth is not something that happens to a 'blob of flesh', or an organ. It is a strong argument that the Scripture considers the unborn child a person, with the distinctive characteristics needed to be filled with the Spirit of God as a separate person from his mother. Our pastor brought this out in his sermon last week about John, and it does seem to me to support the dignity of the unborn child in a very unique way.
As we celebrate Christmas and the birth of the Christ child, it seems a good time to think about the dignity of every child, even before they are born.
Even more special, though, was the fact that John is stated to have been filled with the Spirit before birth. (Luke 1:15). He also 'leaped for joy' in the womb when his mother heard the voice of Mary as she came to visit John's mother while carrying Jesus before his birth.
Several commentators have pointed out that this filling of the Spirit before birth is not something that happens to a 'blob of flesh', or an organ. It is a strong argument that the Scripture considers the unborn child a person, with the distinctive characteristics needed to be filled with the Spirit of God as a separate person from his mother. Our pastor brought this out in his sermon last week about John, and it does seem to me to support the dignity of the unborn child in a very unique way.
As we celebrate Christmas and the birth of the Christ child, it seems a good time to think about the dignity of every child, even before they are born.
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