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.

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.

A Blessed Thanksgiving

At Thanksgiving we pause to give thanks for the many blessings we have as well as feasting to enjoy those blessings. This makes it a good time to think about what it means to be ‘blessed’. We have recently been studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 on Sunday mornings, which begins with some unusual ‘blessings’: we are said to be blessed if we are poor in spirit, or meek, or merciful, or if we mourn, or are pure in heart.   These are not the kinds of blessings we are usually giving thanks for.  We say we are blessed when we are prosperous, have a good job, have good health, and have well behaved children.  Certainly those are things we desire but they are focused on our own comfort more than our character or ministry to others.

Some translations of the Bible replace the word ‘blessed’ with ‘happy’.   I think this misses the point completely. The passage is not about being happy. It is about having the right kind of character and about spiritual well-being. While the Greek word used in the text can be translated ‘happy’, Jesus was Jewish and the idea of ‘blessed’ is not a Greek idea: it is a Jewish concept. ‘Baruch’ is the Hebrew term that goes with the idea, and it is the start of many Jewish prayers and appears hundreds of times in the Old Testament. Jesus is talking about an old Jewish idea, baruch, and that is the idea we must understand in order to understand the Sermon on the Mount.  Matthew is simply seeking to translate that Jewish concept into Greek.

The Jewish people were the ‘elect’ and that was a great blessing. They were blessed. Yet, that very blessing made them accountable in a special way and also led to suffering. Similarly, when Mary took Jesus to the temple for His dedication, she was blessed by Simeon (see Luke 2). That blessing involves Simeon praising God for having lived to see the Messiah but also the blessing he gives includes telling Mary that ‘a sword shall pierce your own soul also’.  The blessing included suffering. This is a different idea from ‘happy’.  Using ‘happy’ in the Beatitudes instead of ‘blessed’ strikes me as a case of what C.S. Lewis called ‘verbicide’: killing the meaning in the word.

The Biblical idea of blessing has to do with being put in a special position, a position of special favor but also special responsibility. The eldest son typically received a special blessing from the father before the father died to pass on the inheritance, but with that blessing came responsibility to care for the extended family. At this Thanksgiving, it is easy for us in America to focus on our material well-being due to the economic difficulties,  though our spiritual health is suspect.  As a nation, we have special responsibilities to use our blessings for good and not just for our comfort.  Let us be thankful for the opportunity to do good with the abundance God has given.

Jobs versus jobs

The celebration of Steve Jobs continues, and today's USA Today had yet another opinion piece on his greatness. As with many prior articles that have appeared in various publications since his death, this one once again quotes from the Stanford graduation speech he gave a few years ago, which is excerpted here:

• "The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it," he told students at Stanford in a commencement speech in 2005."
• "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. … Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Today's article attributed this insight to his Buddhism and the manner in which Buddhism views death. Since he seems to have embraced Buddhism, it no doubt impacted his view of the world and of life. I do have some issues with this point of view, however.

First,  Jobs' take on this is very modern, if not post-modern. He assumes that to do meaningful work requires loving that work. Unfortunately, for most of history the vast majority of people have had very little choice in their work. Constraints of education, poverty, tyrants, war, and culture have pushed most people into their work, most often just to provide the basic necessities of food and shelter. Jobs' philosophy reflects our very spoiled and privileged time and location in history, and when taken to its logical conclusion it would say that most work is not meaningful and that most people lived meaningless lives. That is quite opposite to what Christianity implies, which is that all work (assuming it is ethical and honest) can be done as an offering to God with inherent value and meaning, and all lives have inherent meaning.  If circumstances consign us to menial labor, that job can still be offered to God and provide satisfaction in doing it well. (see Eccles.2:24-25). Having choice is a great privilege and luxury, but it is not what determines meaning.

Second, Jobs' philosophy is quite counter to Christ's teaching that 'to find your life you must lose it'. Jobs' emphasis seems to be on looking inside yourself to focus on what pleases you, to find what provides 'self-fulfillment'. Christ, on the other hand, taught that we must look to God and please Him, and then whatever we do will be meaningful. The one is very self-centered, the other very God-centered.

The fundamental difference, to me, seems to be why we work: do we work to please and fulfill ourselves, or do we work to glorify God? To work in order to glorify God is certainly not to 'waste your life', as Jobs said, but it is very much like 'living someone else's life', though the 'someone else' is really the 'Someone Else'.

The Death of the Pied Piper

Steve Jobs has died. The outpouring of grief at his passing reminds me of when Princess Diana died. At this point I really should not be surprised at the cult of celebrity in our world. The current trial of Michael Jackson's personal physician has put another celebrity life into the news every day, and whenever a famous celebrity dies, such as when Liz Taylor died a few months ago, it seems to me that the media attention far exceeds the newsworthiness of the event. Despite this ongoing attention to celebrities, I still find myself at times surprised at the seemingly religious adoration that a few of them receive when they die. Princess Diana was one of those, and so is Jobs.

I found little in Jobs to admire. Clearly he was successful in business. He was also ruthless, angry, compulsively driven, and notorious for cheating his partner Wozniak in the early days. The success of the products from Apple since 2000 is unquestionable, but before his second stint at Apple the story was mostly about what might have been had he not been so stubborn, which allowed Windows(r) to dominate the 90's. He did seem to learn from his early mistakes the second time around, which resulted in much greater business success. His success as a human being seems much more in question to me.
Christianity Today recently observed in an article titled 'The Gospel of Steve Jobs' that he did preach a certain gospel. (here is a link to that article: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/januaryweb-only/gospelstevejobs.html ) His gospel is best summed up in his Stanford graduation address of a few years ago, which is quoted in the article and has been quoted endlessly in the news media the past few days. That gospel is to live your own life, don't be 'trapped by dogma',  be your own god. It is a purely secular gospel, as Christianity Today points out, and is all about self-fulfillment. In a culture that preaches that we should be our own god, even the secular long for someone to put on a pedestal for adoration.

Don't get me wrong: I take no joy at his passing. I like my iPhone, too. I just marvel at how much our culture longs for someone to idolize, and how very vividly that shows up at the death of a celebrity who has some sort of 'gospel' that he promotes. Even when his personal character is such that you would never want your children to grow up to be like him.

One Flesh

"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. "So says Genesis in 1:26-28 about the creation of mankind. It is an interesting text in that it says God created man (singular) by creating both male and female, obviously not singular. Yet this is consistent with the later passage in Gen. 2:24 that they would be 'one flesh'. In other words, it takes both male and female to make one 'man'.  This, we are told in the 1:26-28 passage is at least part of what is meant by being made 'in the image of God'.

We had special services at our church yesterday on the topic of marriage. Last week was also related to this in addressing the idea of homosexual marriage. In the sermon last week it was pointed out that marriage does not exist primarily to make us happy. While happiness is generally a good thing, it is not the highest good. Marriage exists primarily to make us more like Christ. It also is an institution in which we live out the image of God, by which we demonstrate something about what it means to be created in God's image.  It often yields happiness, but not always. Happiness is not it's primary object. As Christians, we see God as Trinity and therefore in an intimate and loving relationship among the Trinity, who are One. Marriage gives us a limited image of that union in marriage and the family, and gives us reason to look forward to that fuller union with Christ in heaven, as Paul describes the union of Christ and the Church. In marriage we learn to imitate Christ in putting at least one other (our spouse) ahead of ourselves, and usually more than just one other when children are born into the marriage. So to be more like Christ, and to live out the image of God in this world seem to me to be the primary goals for marriage. Both of those involve the idea of completeness.

Our culture, including in the church, generally doesn't view it that way, though. Most folks seem to think that the purpose of marriage is to make them happy. For some, it is to obtain financial security. For some, to obtain companionship. But it seems to me that all of these are self-centered, are subsets of 'happy', and none capture the essence of the Genesis passage about how it requires 2 to make 1. I think the gist of that is that the purpose of marriage is to make us complete. Male and female are both incomplete, and require each other to make one 'man' or 'one flesh'. Completeness is also our ultimate goal in Christ (see Col. 2:10), and Christian marriage moves us in that direction. Paul also points out that singleness that pursues a life more devoted to Christ can also move us in that direction of Christ-likeness, though marriage is the norm for most people.

If we as Christians proclaim the purpose of  marriage to be the pursuit of happiness, financial security, companionship,  or sexual fulfillment, and all of these are common, then our marriages are not different from non-Christians or from gays. But gay marriage cannot offer the completeness for which male and female were created as one male/female complementary union; nor can it share the image of God that requires the male/female combination that includes procreation as an image of God's creation. I think by focusing on happiness we have, within the Church, undermined marriage.

I read last week that the average age of marriage has increased still more since the current recession began, up to about 29 now. The same article said something like 40% of those 25-35 have not married. I must admit some concern about marriage in our culture, especially in the Church. Marriage seems to be less compelling for men and women yet more compelling to homosexuals. I wonder if part of that is because we have lost the vision of its purpose being completeness and  have replaced it with the idea that marriage is just one way among many to pursue happiness.

The Cathedral of Liberty

We just returned from Washington, D.C., and I am always struck by the national symbols in our capital city. Having been there several times before, on this visit we went to visit things we had not visited in prior trips, including the World War 2 memorial, the Native American museum, and the National Portrait Gallery. The WW2 memorial visit caused me to reflect not only on the service of so many of our countrymen in that vast conflict  but especially of my dad who served in Europe from Normandy to Berlin, earning 5 battle stars and a Purple Heart along the way. The Native American museum has some interesting exhibits on the 3rd floor but overall was disappointing in its exhibits. I had hoped for more about key leaders of the various tribes and what they did to contribute to who the tribes are today. The National Portrait Gallery was spectacular and will be worth another visit. All of the U.S. Presidents have portraits on display along with many other notable Americans from throughout our history.

The layout of the National Mall again reminded me of a cathedral, which I am sure was intended. Consider this photo from Wikipedia showing the 1901 McMillan plan for the Mall:

If it were not labeled 'The Mall', you might think it was the floor plan of a cathedral. Notice that the reflecting pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial was intended to be in the shape of a cross, though it was not finally built that way. The entire design is also in the shape of a cross, just like a cathedral.  As in other cathedrals, as a nation we go there to honor and mourn our dead, to reflect on things that are true, to give thanks for the liberty we have. As I have pondered the words of Lincoln's second inaugural address, carved into the wall of the Lincoln Memorial, I have been moved to tears as he reflected on God's judgement of our nation for the evil of slavery. On this trip I had to wonder what additional judgements may come from our current pursuit of the slavery that results from the idolatry of self-actualization and the autonomous self which has resulted in widespread abortion, pornography, homosexuality, and greed.

The Mall always make me think of a cathedral. We don't hear much about its resemblance to a cathedral nowadays, but I think it was intended that way, as a sort of cathedral of liberty. It reminds me of our blessings, the sacrifice it took to obtain those blessings, and the needed repentance to maintain them in an honorable way.