Stuff I Wish People Would Stop Writing about Christmas

Every year people trot out the same observations about Christmas. It's not so much the observations themselves I object to, but the air of smug intellectual superiority, the "I know something you don't know" attitude. Because we all know all this stuff already. And some of it isn't even true. Here's my list:

1. Jesus wasn't really born on Christmas Day.
That's right, kids. Jesus wasn't really born on December the 25th. Well, duh. Strictly speaking, there is just about a 1/365th chance that Jesus was born on December 25th. I'm not going to go into details, but arguments both for and against a December birth aren't conclusive. Nonetheless, the date wasn't included in the gospels, and there's no reason to suppose that Jesus' birthday would have been remembered and celebrated outside the gospel records. Look, we all understand that December 25 is the day we traditionally celebrate the incarnation. It doesn't have to be accurate. That's not the point.

First they came for Veteran's Day, but I wasn't a veteran.
Then they came for President's Day, but I wasn't a president.
Then they came for Memorial Day, but I had no close relatives to honor.
Then they came for Labor Day, but I wasn't in the labor movement.
And now they're coming for Thanksgiving Day, and the precedent's already been set.

2007 on The Schooley Files

Thought I'd share a few stats about this blog, give some thanks to those who threw traffic my way, and let you know which pages you've made the most popular this year.

According to Google Analytics, I had 6447 visits with 10,625 page views. So if I keep this up for ten years, I'll have had as much traffic as one really bad day on Instapundit. 33.5% were return visitors--thanks for coming back!


Thanks to my top referring sites (not counting search engines):

1. SBC Tomorrow (Peter Lumpkins) Peter's been a good blogging buddy since pretty soon after I got started. Even though he blogs mostly on Southern Baptist issues, we intersect on the issue of Armi uh, nonCalvinism. My promise to Peter this year: I'll stop hassling him about the use of the word, "mystery."
   
   
2. iMonk (Michael Spencer) Michael writes as the always-intriguing Internet Monk. I admire his honesty and courage. He gave me one link this year, applauding me for standing up to John Piper's theology, perhaps not recognizing that I'm in a denomination where it would be more dangerous to stand up for John Piper's theology. At any rate, he gave me a mini-version of an instalanche, and I'm grateful.
   
   
3. Everything That's On My Mind (Red Oaks Assembly of God blog by Pastor Bob Mitton) My pastor, blogging on my church's blog. Bob comments as "Bob2" (long story) and has been a good friend, along with his wife Lori. He got me started--click on "Why this blog?" in the categories section to see how.
   
   
4. Jesus Creed (Scot McKnight) Scot writes the most consistently high-quality blog I've seen. The traffic from this blog comes from my own comments being clicked on, but hey, I appreciate it.
   
   
5. Lone Prairie (Julie R. Neidlinger) Julie has become a new blogging buddy this year. She writes with sometimes painful candor, and our exchange over relationship stuff pulled me back into blogging when I was about ready to call it quits. I'm not sure whether to thank her or to blame her. Maybe both.
   
   


6. A Church in Fort Collins I received some kind comments and emails from Nick Liquori, who was designing his church's website at the time, and chose to link to a few of my posts on divine election. Many thanks.
   
   
7. JollyBlogger (David Wayne) David's a joy to read, despite the fact that we come from largely different perspectives. But he's got a great heart. If I were a Calvinist, I'd be a David Wayne kind of Calvinist. Perhaps someday, God will sovereignly ordain that I become one. Once again, links from my own comments drove the traffic here.
   
   
8. Y Safle (Stephen Kingston) Stephen is a Welsh blogger, and saw my stuff early on. Too bad he has slowed down considerably in recent months. Always an interesting perspective. Might have been the first person to blogroll me.
   
   
9. Word to the Wise (Albino Hayford) Albino's another guy who opposes Calvinism but doesn't like the name "Arminian." Fair enough. He was also kind enough to blogroll me, and has my appreciation.
   
   

Here are the most-viewed pages on The Schooley Files, according to Google Analytics:

1. Johnny Lingo and the Ten-Cow Wife
   By far, this gets more hits than anything else; of course, it's something I didn't write, and I'm probably violating copyright law to have it on my site. But until someone hassles me about it, I still think it's a great parable for how husbands and wives ought to treat each other.
   
   
2. Olson on Piper on God
   What can I say? Controversy sells. This is the one that iMonk linked to.
   
   
3. An Arminian Perspective on Election, God's Foreknowledge, and Free Will
   My attempt to explain how I believe these three elements all work together.
   
   
4. Does Your Theology Honor God?
   A moment of reflection on a correspondence I had with a convinced Calvinist. Sometimes why we believe what we believe is more important than the specifics of the hairs we're splitting. Thanks to Peter for a link to this one.
   
   
5. Divine Election in John 3
   John 3 is typically used by Calvinists to support the position of unconditional election; I think that considered in context, it far better supports election as a divine response to trust in Christ.
   
   
6. Tim Challies on Roger E. Olson's Arminian Theology
   Controversy again.
   
   
7. The New Perspective and Ephesians
   This is one of the posts I'm most proud of. Part of my "New Perspective" series, it's a close examination of one of the key passages in Calvinistic interpretation. The key to understanding Ephesians 1 and 2 is to trace out and identify who are the "you" and who are the "we" and "us" referred to by Paul, and place this in the context of the integration of the Jewish and Gentile branches of the church, which forms the heart of the letter.
   
   
8. Bono and Bill Hybels on RedBlueChristian
   For some reason, people search for this almost every day. I should put the names of famous people in the titles of my posts more often.
   
   
9. So When Did the Wise Men Get There, Anyway?
   Seems to be a holiday favorite. Not bad, considering it doesn't even answer the question.
   
   
10. An Alternative to Calvinism and Arminianism?
    Short answer: there isn't one. For some reason, people always want to "split the difference" between Calvinism and Arminianism--and end up with a moderate Arminian position, even though they're scared of the name.
    
    
11. The Successes and Failures of the Reformation
    This also gets searched for a lot--I'm guessing, by Roman Catholics.
    
    
12. The New Perspective and Romans 9: Introduction
    First of a several-part series dealing with the intricate argument Paul makes regarding election in Romans 9. My contention: if you look at all the Old Testament passages Paul cites, and understand them in context as Paul would have, you cannot come to the Calvinist position on this chapter.
    
    
13. All the Lonely People
    Part of mine and Julie's relationship go-round. "Mr. Darcy" is evidently the "42" of relationship questions.
    
    
14. Why I Am Not a Calvinist (With Apologies to Bertrand Russell) Part 1
    First of a two-parter, in which the intrepid blogger attempts to make a positive case for an Arminian view of election.

Anyway, thanks for reading, thanks for linking, God bless you all. I'll most likely delete it all in the morning.

A Christmas Carol 5

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more.... Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset.... His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

A Christmas Carol 4

`Why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.'

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come appears immediately after Scrooge's visitation from the Ghost of Christmas Present; for the first time, there is not even a token return to Scrooge's bedroom. The Spirit's appearance is obviously intended to be reminiscent of the Grim Reaper, and the typical way of understanding this section is to focus on death itself: Scrooge is going to die, this fact is revealed to him over the course of several visions, it is ultimately brought home to him by his seeing his own tombstone, and he falls into a total repentance due to his terror. The only problem with this interpretation is, it's implausible.

Unlike Tiny Tim, who clearly has a disease from which, presumably, he could recover given proper medical care, there has been no hint in the story that Scrooge is ill in any way. Nor is there any explanation for his death given in the visions that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows him. Scrooge is elderly, and it appears that he simply dies from natural causes and old age. The point is, a change of heart is not going to prevent this from occurring, and nothing in the story suggests that it will. Scrooge is smart; he knows that he is elderly, and the certainty that he will one day die cannot be new to him. So having that fact pointed out by the Spirit cannot possibly have a significant effect on Scrooge. Nonetheless, the visions shown to Scrooge do have that effect. So the point of the visions must be something other than simply the fact that Scrooge will die.

The Spirit first shows Scrooge some seemingly random conversations among businessmen, discussing the death of someone they knew.

`It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,' said the same speaker; `for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?'

`I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,' observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. `But I must be fed, if I make one!'

Another laugh.

`Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,' said the first speaker, `for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye.'

And from another conversation,

`Well,' said the first. `Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?'

`So I am told,' returned the second. `Cold, isn't it?'

The discussions are not merely about the death of someone: they are disinterested discussions. The general mood is indifference.

The Phantom next leads Scrooge to a rundown shop in a bad section of town, in which three people meet to sell some wares to Old Joe, the proprietor. It soon becomes evident that what they are selling they have stolen from the dead man. The items produced by the first two are simply odds and ends, but the last woman produces bed curtains and blankets from the bed on which the dead man was lying, and the shirt that had been put on him for burial.

`Ha, ha!' laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. `This is the end of it, you see. He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!'

And then suddenly the Ghost and Scrooge are in a room alone with a corpse, covered with a sheet.

He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares. They have brought him to a rich end, truly.

He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him.

The Spirit indicates for Scrooge to move the sheet and reveal the face of the dead man, but Scrooge can't. Instead, he begs the Ghost to show him someone who feels emotion at the man's death. The Spirit shows him a conversation between a man and his wife.

`We are quite ruined!'

`No. There is hope yet, Caroline.'

`If he relents,' she said, amazed, `there is. Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened!'

`He is past relenting,' said her husband. `He is dead.'

She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.

"The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure." Scrooge then begs to see "some tenderness connected with a death," and is shown Bob Cratchit's house, in which is being mourned the recent death of Tiny Tim. By contrast to the dark, empty room in which the dead man had lain, the room in which Tiny Tim is lying

was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face.

So Scrooge finds tenderness, but not for the man lying on the bed.

The Spirit finally conveys Scrooge past his place of business and his home, to a churchyard. "It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds." Before even seeing the stone, Scrooge begins to plead with the Ghost. But in all his pleading, Scrooge never once mentions dying, or expresses a wish not to die. What he asks is, "Am I that man who lay upon the bed?"

It is not merely the fear of death that so affects Scrooge: it is the fear of being alone, uncared for, unmourned; that no one will have any emotion other than relief or satisfaction from his death. It is being cut off from all of humanity, and all his wealth having become meaningless. He has finally understood that while he can manipulate and control people through his wealth during his lifetime, only kindness and participation in their lives can gain any reciprocal kindness from them once he dies. He wants, not never to die, but to have been a part of others' lives when he does.

It is worthwhile to look at our own dealings with others. If we hold people at a distance, use them for our own ends, manipulate them to do what we want, ignore them when they're inconvenient, place wealth or personal possessions or accomplishments higher than them, then we have no cause to expect or hope for their kindness to us when we are in need, or past needing anything in this world. Our net worth is not something to be found in bankbooks and ledgers; it is to be found in the place we've made for ourselves in others' hearts. Our accomplishments and accumulations mean nothing if they are not valued by others, and we create value only by investment--investment in the hearts and lives of others.

This insight, by the way, is not merely of temporal value, or related only to people's thoughts and memories of us after we are gone. 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

A Christmas Carol 3

`Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?' asked Scrooge.
`There is. My own.'
`Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?' asked Scrooge.
`To any kindly given. To a poor one most.'
`Why to a poor one most?' asked Scrooge.
`Because it needs it most.'

The Ghost of Christmas Present represents the sheer joy of the holiday. What the Ghost does is relatively simple: he merely shows Scrooge other people who are enjoying Christmas with one another. In some ways, this is the most far-ranging portion of the novella; we are given the impression that the Spirit shows Scrooge a multitude of people and celebrations over a large area. The main point is that people are enjoying themselves together, and there is little relationship between their financial situation and the joy they experience--except for the fact that poverty can endanger the actual lives of those in its clutches, and thus cause grief, opposing joy. But wealth in no way ensures joy; in fact, all the people Scrooge sees are less well-off than he is, and full of much more joy.

But the two main places that the Spirit takes Scrooge are the houses of Bob Cratchit and Scrooge's nephew. At Bob Cratchit's house, Scrooge becomes acquainted with his clerk's family. Bob's wife is "dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence"; his oldest son Master Peter Cratchit is proudly wearing his father's shirt, with a "monstrous shirt collar" playing a prominent role in the day's festivities; Martha and Belinda, the older girls; two smaller Cratchits, a boy and a girl; and Tiny Tim, the youngest son, crippled by an unknown illness. Charges that A Christmas Carol is overly sentimental may derive from Dickens's portrayal of poor characters, and Tiny Tim in particular, as impossibly virtuous. But the description of the joy and pleasure of the Cratchit's feast is wonderful, despite the fact that the foods described are those accessible to a poor family.

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows.

And about the Christmas pudding, "Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing."

The point to be made upon Scrooge is that the Cratchits are altogether unlike his own discontent self:

They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time.

At the house of Scrooge's nephew, Scrooge learns that his own position is not only not shared by others, but can be positively comical to them:

`He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!' cried Scrooge's nephew. `He believed it too!' [...] `He's a comical old fellow,' said Scrooge's nephew, `that's the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.'

`I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,' hinted Scrooge's niece. `At least you always tell me so.'

`What of that, my dear?' said Scrooge's nephew. `His wealth is of no use to him! He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it.'

Scrooge enters in to the singing and the merriment of this party which he had steadfastly refused to attend on Christmas Eve afternoon, even though he is the butt of the Yes and No game. Once he has been persuaded to measure things on a basis other than that of money, he finds a great deal of joy in many things he had disdained for many years.

On two occasions, the Spirit has occasion to repeat Scrooge's words from the beginning of the story. The first is when Scrooge asks whether Tiny Tim will die, and is told that he will not last until the next Christmas: "If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

`Man,' said the Ghost, `if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child.'

And then later, when the Spirit shows Scrooge the two children Ignorance and Want:

`Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.

`Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. `Are there no workhouses?'

I wrote earlier that Scrooge was not merely a miserly, crotchety old man; that he actively enjoyed his own malevolence. Yet even he did not recognize the damning impact of thoughts and attitudes such as his. His cruelty was to dismiss others less fortunate than himself, assuming them to be lazy or otherwise unworthy, and thus suffering justly the consequences of their own decisions. And then he thinks no more of them. But those others have to live out the implications of Scrooge's thoughtlessness. Having been to Bob Cratchit's home, he now cares whether Tiny Tim will live or die; if he had not gone there, Tim would have died without Scrooge having ever known about it. Those are the implications of such thoughtlessness, as Dickens presents it.

I see an attitude growing today: whether the liberal attitude, "You can't tell me what to do with my body," the conservative attitude, "You can't tell me what to do with my money," or the libertarian attitude, which says both. The attitude, at bottom, is this: "I am me, alone; I am not part of anything larger; I owe nothing to anyone apart from myself." This is Scrooge's attitude. And it would be funny, if it weren't so sad.

The gift-giving and get-togethers and festivities at Christmas, hopefully, remind us that we are not merely ourselves, and that we have a responsibility to others. Paul writes in Galatians 2:10, "All they [the Jerusalem apostles] asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." When's the last time you heard an evangelical pastor preach on that verse? We are not alone. If we are salt and light, then we are called to salt and enlighten something other than ourselves. May we enjoy, in our festivities, our connectedness with others, and may we touch lives, as best we can, for their benefit and encouragement.

A Christmas Carol 2

"I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were."
--Belle, to her erstwhile fiance Ebenezer Scrooge

The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge on a journey through various Christmases of his earlier life. The temptation of a 20th or 21st century author would have been to "psychologize" Scrooge, to see what terrible circumstances in his youth had made him into the man he now is. To some degree, this does happen in this section of the novella, but Dickens does more than merely blame Scrooge's demeanor on a bad upbringing. He deals with Scrooge's responses to life experiences.

Scrooge first sees himself as a child, abandoned at a boarding school, unable to return home for Christmas, with only his books for companions. His mother has evidently died, and his father, possibly grieving, refuses to allow him to come home. While young, he populates his time with the imaginary inhabitants of his books; a few years older, he spends his time "walking up and down despairingly." But on the latter occasion, his sister Fan arrives to bring him home, since "Father is so much kinder than he used to be." So although he has had painful experiences, he chooses his response to them, and good things happen as well as bad.

In the next vision, Scrooge sees himself at the warehouse where he had been apprenticed. His boss, Old Fezziwig, puts on a Christmas party for his apprentices, his family, and their servants and neighbors. Dickens describes the party in some detail, and portrays both the younger and older Scrooges entering into the festivities wholeheartedly and praising Fezziwig lavishly. When the Spirit asks why he should be praised so highly for spending only a modest amount, Scrooge responds, "He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil.... The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

The next sequence, however, indicates more than any other the change that makes Scrooge become the man we are introduced to in the beginning of the story. Scrooge is forced to watch as his former fiancee, Belle, breaks off their engagement. Her reasoning is telling:

`Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.'

`What Idol has displaced you?' he rejoined.

`A golden one.'

`This is the even-handed dealing of the world,' he said. `There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth.'

`You fear the world too much,' she answered, gently. `All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you.

Scrooge is afraid of falling back into poverty, so he has focused all his energies into gaining wealth. His "nobler passions" have been displaced by this overriding concern. Belle recognizes that the man he has now become would never have chosen her, "a dowerless girl," to marry. All he cares about is money. He has lost the capacity to value anything else.

The final vision is the only one in which Scrooge's younger self is not present. It functions as an epilogue to the last one. We have already seen where Scrooge's path has taken him; now we see Belle with husband and family. This is the life Scrooge could have had; one which he gave up for what he has now. The time frame is seven years earlier; Marley is lying on his deathbed, and even Belle's husband pities Scrooge, who is "quite alone in the world."

Scrooge gains one major thing in this section of the novella: he relearns the ability to view things from outside his own point of view. He recognizes himself as someone who could be seen as pitiable, not simply as the astute businessman he had regarded himself as before. More importantly, he learns to identify with others. He sees them in the images of his earlier self and in the people who were parts of his life before. His young self alone at the boarding school makes him think of the caroler whom he had frightened away; his sister fan makes him think of his nephew; his regard for Fezziwig makes him think of his own relationship with Bob Cratchit. In each case, he wishes he could have taken a different approach with someone he had met earlier in the day. That ability--to see ourselves in others, and to see ourselves as others see us--could have changed his whole life.

How often do we get stuck in our own heads, seeing only our own point of view? How often do we dismiss others' feelings and concerns, just because they don't fit the template of what we consider important? And in what ways have we changed, slowly, imperceptibly, over time? We focus on something because it seems necessary, because we're afraid of what will happen to us if we don't focus on it. And then it becomes the only way in which we can view life. It's so easy for our "nobler passions" to be replaced. We need consciously, actively, to fight that tendency and keep that from happening.

A Christmas Carol 1

Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.

I've read Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol many times since I was young, I recently had the pleasure of reading it aloud to my family, and my pastor is doing a sermon series on it. Although it contains few references to The First Christmas, and was never intended by Dickens as a vehicle for the gospel, I believe that there is a great deal of truth in it. It's one of the books that I return to repeatedly throughout life.

I've never really liked any of the film adaptations of the story that I've seen. The George C. Scott version I think perhaps best gets at Scrooge's character, but I've always thought that Jack Nicholson would be the best actor to play the role. Scrooge is not merely a miserly, crotchety old man; he's deliberately mean, nasty, and vicious--in Dickens's words, "Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping,scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." He's not just thoughtless and accidentally or unintentionally cruel; he positively delights in his own malevolence.

In the opening section of the book, Scrooge has four encounters as he winds down the workday on Christmas Eve. First his nephew, who angers Scrooge by inviting him to Christmas dinner (and by being genuinely merry and in love, although poor--things that Scrooge once was, himself, we will discover). Two portly gentlemen, taking up a collection for the poor, are met with Scrooge's heartlessness: "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Then a caroler begins singing outside Scrooge's door, only to flee in terror as Scrooge seizes his ruler as if to go after the singer. Finally, Scrooge confronts his clerk, reproaching him for wanting "the whole day" on Christmas, and to be paid for it.

We see here in Scrooge human nature in its worst form. He's not merely miserable himself; he hates happiness in others, as represented by his nephew. He's not merely miserly himself; he hates generosity, and has "an improved opinion of himself" for his sharp rebuke of the portly gentlemen. He's not merely unwilling to enjoy the music of the season; he must violently banish it from his presence. And as wealthy as he is, and as poor as his clerk is, he still considers it a type of theft--"picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December"--to be obliged to give a paid day off. Above all else, Scrooge is resentful--resentful of anyone or anything who makes any sort of claim on him, and anyone or anything who has anything he does not, including simple good cheer.

All of which would merely be funny, if it didn't ring true. Who among us hasn't felt grouchy and irritated at some stupid-looking happy person? Who hasn't wanted, on occasion, to wipe the smile off the face of someone? There is more Scrooge in us than we'd like to admit.

When Scrooge goes home, he is confronted by the ghost of Jacob Marley, his former partner who had died seven years earlier. The device that Dickens uses to represent Marley's sufferings is a chain composed of "cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel." Marley informs Scrooge that the chain he bears was fully as long as Marley's seven years previously, and has grown steadily since then. The sin of Scrooge and Marley was to have nothing but mercenary goals: Scrooge had earlier protested to the portly gentlemen that the welfare of others was not his business--"It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly"; Marley retorts, "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business."

Although not a man of "business" in Scrooge's sense, I am a very private person. Early life experiences of rejection taught me to leave others alone and want to be left alone myself. I am the type to have a few close friends. There's nothing, by itself, wrong with that; not everyone has to be a social butterfly, and one can't have deep friendships with everyone. Nonetheless, if my tendency toward solitude has the effect of isolating me and numbing me from the needs of others, then it's profoundly wrong.

We evangelicals have separated the "social gospel" from the Gospel, and in so doing, have divorced ourselves from a great deal of what Jesus taught, and what the Bible as a whole teaches. Jesus didn't say, "Tell everyone to repeat the Sinner's Prayer"; He did say, "Love your neighbor as yourself" and illustrated that love by the actively helpful actions of the Good Samaritan. He did say, "Do to others as you would have them do to you." He separated the sheep and the goats by the actions they took for the benefit of others. Attending to the Gospel would seem to involve attending to the "social gospel," and historically, it did so. It seems that that has been forgotten in recent decades, though. We identify with the interests of Scrooge--lowering taxes, blaming poverty on laziness--more than the interests of Bob Cratchit.

Perhaps if we emphasized what Jesus did, we'd secure an easier hearing for the Gospel.

Technorati Tags: Charles Dickens, Scrooge, A Christmas Carol, Christmas

What Do You Want for Christmas?

Isn't that a strange question? "What do you want for Christmas?" Not, "What are you giving someone else for Christmas?" or "What are you most thankful for this Christmas?" Or even, "What do you hope your friends and family receive this Christmas?" No. It's, "What do you want for Christmas?" Because, of course, Christmas is all about getting stuff. And not just any stuff. The stuff you want.

It makes sense, I guess, if you're talking about Secular Christmas. But even then, the focus is, or used to be, on gift giving. We've made it about gift receiving. Of course, we're brought up that way and bring up our children that way. We ask them the Insidious Question, without thinking about its implications. We bring them to the Mall Santa for the expressed purpose of him asking them that question. We simply want to know what they would like; we want to get them what would make them happy.

Which would be okay if we sloughed off that attitude as we grew up. But Americans are now in the habit of never growing up. Throughout life, it's, "What do I want?" We hint, we connive, we read the ads and lust after the new toys or gadgets or fashions that are being displayed to whet our appetites. Christmas is an excuse to Get What I Want. It performs the same function as President's Day or Labor Day, only on a grander scale. It's the granddaddy of all marketing tools.

One sees the attitude in its rawest form in the way gifts are received. The disgusted expressions when a gift received is not What I Wanted. Or maybe it's not the right color or the right style. That's why it's so important to have that gift receipt, to preserve the fiction that the recipient does not know and should not care how much the gift cost, but is able to return the gift and so procure what was Really Wanted. I know, I know, sometimes it's a size issue, or duplicate gift issue. Not all returns are Bad Things. But really, where did we ever get the idea that a gift was anything other than a gift? That we shouldn't be appreciative of a gift just because it was given and because there was no obligation to give anything at all?

But of course, that lack of obligation that marks a True Gift is exactly what we don't want at Christmas. At least in our language we've become honest enough to call gifts what they are: exchanges. We don't give gifts, we exchange them. "I'll get you what you Really Want, if you get me what I Really Want, and then we'll both be happy." Until the bill comes.

So it merely makes sense that we end up just getting gift cards. Why bother shopping if the recipients are merely going to return the item and shop for themselves anyway? Perhaps a shopping spree is, in the end, what they Really Want. Eventually, maybe we'll all just cut out the middlepeople and just buy stuff for ourselves at Christmas. It would save everyone a lot of work.

But if you're celebrating Christian Christmas, I don't see how this whole mindset can enter the picture. Christmas is the day on which we celebrate the greatest gift God ever gave to us humans. "What do I want for Christmas? What do you mean? I've already received it--or rather, Him." It's not what we want, but what we have already been given, that we are celebrating. And it's worth celebrating, joyfully celebrating, and by all means, let's give gifts in the process. But let's give them without expectation of return, and let's receive them as gifts--as something unearned, to be enjoyed freely and thankfully. Let's not worry about what we want for Christmas. Let's give what we can and enjoy what we have received, from the gracious hand of our Father, who loves us and gave His Son for us, so we could have life, and life more abundantly.


Technorati Tags: Christmas, gifts, gift exchange, gift giving

Gratitude

It seems to me that the basic Christian mindset is, or ought to be, gratitude. What are we Christians, anyway? What defines us? Isn't it the fact that, completely apart from any merit of our own, we trust in Jesus' sacrifice for our sins? In other words, our only standing before God--the only thing that sets us apart and gives us hope for eternal life--is having received a gift. A gift of infinite value to us and inestimable cost to the Giver. A gift that we could not possibly deserve--a gift that was necessary precisely because we did not deserve it.

What possible response should that engender apart from gratitude? Certainly not the religious, moralistic pride that all-too-often we can exhibit. We forget that we are a community of sinners before we become a community of saints, and that anything good in us is a gracious gift of God.

I think every other aspect of the truly Christian mindset springs from gratitude. Joy, for example. Can a person who is unthankful be truly joyful? I know that in my own life, moments of pure joy are those in which I am the most conscious of having been richly blessed, having received what I did not earn. Or love. The more conscious I am of being a recipient of God's love, unmerited, undeserved, the more easily I can share this love with others, without regard for whether I think they deserve it. It doesn't matter: freely, freely, I have received, which helps me to freely, freely give.

And so, amidst the feasting and football, whatever our circumstances or station in life, lets remember, not Pilgrims and Indians, but God's truly rich blessings on us. And may we all have a most blessed day of Thanksgiving.

Earlier Thanksgiving posts: Don't "Happy Turkey Day" Me! and 40 Things to be Thankful For.


Technorati Tags: Thanksgiving, Gratitude, Christian

Redeeming Halloween

Julie passes on a great post by John Fischer. She said there wasn't an individually permalinked article, but I think I got one here. Anyway, he pretty much articulates what I think about Halloween. Let's let kids have fun, and stop being afraid of a defeated foe.

Check it out.


Technorati Tags: Julie R. Neidlinger, John Fischer, Halloween, Christian, Church

On the Theory of a Wednesday Crucifixion: 4. Final Considerations and Conclusion

This is the last in a series on the theory of a Wednesday crucifixion. We've listed the relevant scriptures, dealt with some logical considerations, and interpreted the relevant texts. Here we deal with some final considerations and wrap it up.

Further Considerations

The foregoing analysis has been restricted to the comparison of various scriptures indicating the time period between Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection. A few notes may be made on the internal difficulties of a Wednesday crucifixion as well.

A. The Hypotheses of Calendrical Disputes

The supposition of a Wednesday crucifixion is usually related to the argument that Jesus used a sectarian calendar of some sort, and thus ate Passover (i.e., the Last Supper) earlier than most of Jerusalem. There is in fact no evidence that Jesus used such a sectarian calendar, and the contemporary evidence we have of the use of such calendars is late and thin. Moreover, eating the Passover required eating a lamb properly sacrificed, and it is impossible that within Jerusalem the temple priests would accommodate a sectarian calendar (Carson, Matthew, 529-30; John, 457; Foster, 599).

B. "Preparation Day"

Several verses, relating to the Last Supper and to Jesus' trial before Pilate and crucifixion, refer to that day as παρασκευήν (Preparation [Day]"), i.e., Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, and John 19:14, 31, and 42. As Carson argues, this term seems to have become a term synonymous with "Friday," and it is not used in first century literature for the day before any other festival, even though that festival may be observed as a "Sabbath." Moreover, reconciling the various references to Preparation Day with one another seems to require it to be used of Friday within Passover Week, as opposed to the day before Passover itself (Matthew, 531-32; John, 603-04, 622; Foster, 599); if this is true, then it follows that Scripture flatly indicates that Jesus died on Friday.

Conclusion

While the theory of a Wednesday crucifixion is an honest attempt to accept literally Jesus' passion prediction in Matthew 12:40, it would seem to be precluded by all of the other statements in the New Testament that have bearing on the time period between the crucifixion and the resurrection, both before and after the Passion. Understood in its cultural context, "three days and three nights" could refer to any portion of three days and nights; thus it is unnecessary to insist on a 72-hour entombment. Matthew and Luke give us the correct understanding of Mark's phrase, "after three days," and the weight of the evidence seems to rest on the understanding of the resurrection "on the third day." Most fatal to the theory is the statement by the disciples on the road to Emmaus that "this is the third day since all this took place" (Luke 24:21); clearly spoken on a Sunday, it requires that Jesus died on a Friday.

_______________

Works Cited

The Bible. New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984. (All scripture references unless otherwise noted.)

------. New American Standard Bible. La Habra, CA: Collins-World, 1973.

Carson, D.A. "Matthew." The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 8. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Regency-Zondervan, 1984. 1-599.

------. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

Foster, Lewis A. "The Chronology of the New Testament." The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 1. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Regency-Zondervan, 1984. 593-607.

Stein, Robert H. The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987.

Technorati Tags: Easter, Good Friday, Wednesday Crucifixion, Wednesday, Friday, Crucifixion, Crucified, Jesus, Jesus Christ

On the Theory of a Wednesday Crucifixion: 3. Interpretation

This is the third in a series on the theory of a Wednesday crucifixion. We've reviewed the relevant scriptures and some logical considerations. Here we come to the interpretation of the scriptures dealt with in the first part.

A. μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας, "after three days."

Aside from the reference to the "sign of Jonah" in Matthew 12:40, there are only three scriptures that seem clearly to imply a literal three days in the tomb. These "after three days" passages are all in the Gospel of Mark, and reflect the "three major passion predictions" found in all three Synoptic Gospels. What is notable about each of these passages in Mark is that they all find parallels in Matthew and Luke, and in these parallel passages the expressions found in Matthew and Luke never retain the meaning "after three days." In all five cases where the time factor is mentioned (Luke omits the temporal reference entirely from the third prediction), the expression is uniformly, "on the third day" (Matt. 16:21, 17:23, 20:19; Luke 9:22, 18:32-33).



On the theory of the priority of Mark (Stein, 45-88; Carson, Matthew, 11-17) Matthew and Luke each "cleaned up" Mark's rather erratic Greek, and this would account for the misleading "after three days" to be altered to "on the third day." On the theory of Matthean priority, Mark altered Matthew's expression while Luke chose to retain it. In any case, the evangelists themselves evidently saw "after three days" and "on the third day" as equivalent expressions. Since Jewish reckoning was inclusive, something happening "on the third day" after something else (the day after the day after the original event) would have been counted as three days later, or "after three days" (Foster, 599; Carson, Matthew, 296).

B. Ambiguous or oblique references

 

1. Jesus' prediction to raise the temple "in three days"

John 2:19 records Jesus' prediction that he would raise the temple "in three days." Verse 21 goes on to explain that "the temple he had spoken of was his body." The phrase "in three days" would seem to be ambiguous, potentially referring either to the "temple" being raised on the third day after it was destroyed, or after three full days; again, Jewish inclusive reckoning would seem to favor the first understanding. But in light of the potential ambiguity, it would be unwise to base a decision on this verse, and still more unwise to base it on the verses which report hostile witnesses repeating Jesus' words (v. 20; Mk. 14:58; Matt. 26:61; 27:40).

2. The guarding of the tomb

One particular case of such "hostile repetition" merits additional note: in Matthew 27:62-64, the chief priests and Pharisees ask for "the tomb to be made secure until the third day," because they remember his claim that "after three days I will rise again." Although we have here a fourth example, and in a different Gospel, of the formulation "after three days," it occurs immediately in context with the formulation "until the third day"; i.e., we seem to have here an explicit equating of the two expressions, "after three days" and "until the third day," which would reconfirm the idea that according to Jewish inclusive reckoning, "after three days" would mean "until the third day," and not "until the fourth day," as it would naturally mean in modern English.



It is possible to argue that "until the third day" would mean the third day from the time they were speaking--i.e., the day "after Preparation," or after the crucifixion. Granted a Wednesday crucifixion and Jewish inclusive reckoning, they would only be asking for a guard until Saturday; one would further have to postulate that by "until the third day," they meant for the guard to remain at the tomb throughout Saturday night (technically, the beginning of Sunday). It would be much more natural to suppose that "after three days" and "until the third day" are intended to be synonymous expressions (as the Matthew-Mark parallels make clear that they are), so that "until the third day" contextually refers to the third day from the crucifixion, not the third day from their conversation. Again, it would be unwise to base a teaching on an ambiguous reference, and especially one that comes from the mouths of Jesus' enemies.

3. Jesus' response to Herod's threats

The ambiguity of the final reference is largely due to the fact that the passage itself is a veiled reference to Christ's passion, and some could argue that it is not a reference at all. In Luke 13:32, included in a response to a threat from Herod, Jesus refers to "today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal." Although there is no explicit mention of the passion, Jesus refers to his death in the following verse, after mentioning again "today and tomorrow and the next day." If anything, this passage would tend to support a Friday crucifixion, but again, no dogmatic conclusions should be drawn.

C. τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, "on the third day."

If the above analyses are correct, only one scripture seems clearly to indicate a full three-day entombment: the "sign of the prophet Jonah" in Matthew 12:40. Against this lone verse must be weighed the preponderance of scriptures that unambiguously indicate that Jesus rose "on the third day." These include at least ten separate scriptures, representing the pens of Matthew and Luke (writing both in Luke and in Acts) and Paul.



Five of the ten--parallels with Mark's passion predictions--have already been discussed. Their value lies in calling into question the implication that could be drawn from Mark that Jesus lay entombed for three full days. Two other references--Acts 10:40 and 1 Corinthians 15:4--also clearly state that Jesus rose on the third day. It is important to note that in every one of these predictions and recollections (except, arguably, 1 Corinthians 15:4), Jesus is represented as rising on the third day after his crucifixion and death, not after his burial. The Thursday-to-Saturday scheme mentioned in section II, even if plausible on its face, would only account for Jesus rising on the third day from his burial, not from his crucifixion and death. Moreover, the three remaining references, all from Luke's post-resurrection account, make it clearly impossible that the Crucifixion occurred on Wednesday.

Luke 24:6-7 and 24:46 assert (from the mouths of an angel and from the resurrected Christ, respectively), that Jesus would rise on the third day. In itself, this is no greater proof than the pre-resurrection predictions. But Luke 24:21 records the disciples on the road to Emmaus telling Jesus (whom they do not yet recognize), "This is the third day [τρίτην ταύτην ἡμέραν] since all this took place." This conversation is clearly located after the morning visits to the empty tomb (vv. 22-24), which undisputedly took place "on the first day of the week" (v. 1). Since "all this" cannot refer to Jesus' entombment, but rather refers to his sentencing to death and crucifixion (v. 20), it is impossible to suppose, on the theory of a Wednesday crucifixion, that Sunday is the "third day since all this took place"; by Jewish reckoning, it would in fact be the fifth. It is simply impossible to construe events clearly taking place on Sunday--the conversation of the disciples with Jesus on the road to Emmaus--as being on "the third day" from events--Jesus being sentenced to death and being crucified--supposed to have occurred on a Wednesday.

D. "Three days and three nights"

In light of the preponderance of scriptures indicating that Jesus rose on the third day, it would seem more reasonable to search for an alternative interpretation of the sole verse that states that Jesus was in the tomb for "three days and three nights" than it would be to insist on literalism for this verse at the expense of having to reinterpret all the others.



In fact, the context of Matthew 12:40 rather clearly indicates the possibility that the time period is not to be taken strictly literally. Jesus is responding to the religious leaders' unbelieving demand for a "sign" by referring to Jonah as a type of his own passion. Quoting Jonah 1:17, Jesus draws the analogy by applying the "three days and three nights" terminology to his own passion, knowing that "in rabbinical thought a day and a night make an õnâh, and a part of an õnâh is as the whole" (Carson, Matthew, 296); i.e., his audience (the Jews) would not have been confused; and we may suppose that Matthew's audience was more familiar with this time reckoning than was Luke's, which may be why Luke chooses another rendering in the parallel passage of Luke 11:29-32. The Old Testament records examples of such reckoning, notably in 2 Chronicles 10:5, 12:

And he said to them, "Return to me again in three days." So the people departed. . . . So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day as the king had directed, saying, "Return to me on the third day." (NASB; similarly RSV KJV NKJV)

Here, not only do Jeroboam and all the people understand Rehoboam to intend for them to return on the third day, when he had said, "in three days," but they even repeat his words back to him, paraphrased as "on the third day." Other similar examples include 1 Sam. 30:12-13 and Esther 4:16, 5:1.



In light of the precedent of such language, it is reasonable to suppose that Jesus' resurrection "on the third day" was close enough for those familiar with Jewish time reckoning to be regarded as a fulfillment of the Jonah typology.



The final installment of this series will deal with a few ancillary issues and wrap it up with a final conclusion.

_______________



Works Cited



The Bible. New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984. (All scripture references unless otherwise noted.)



------. New American Standard Bible. La Habra, CA: Collins-World, 1973.



Carson, D.A. "Matthew." The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 8. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Regency-Zondervan, 1984. 1-599.



------. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.



Foster, Lewis A. "The Chronology of the New Testament." The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 1. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Regency-Zondervan, 1984. 593-607.



Stein, Robert H. The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987.

Technorati Tags: Easter, Good Friday, Wednesday Crucifixion, Friday, Wednesday, Crucifixion, Crucified, Jesus, Jesus Christ

On the Theory of a Wednesday Crucifixion: 2. Logical Considerations

This is the second in a series of posts discussing the theory that Jesus died on a Wednesday, instead of Friday, as has traditionally been held. The first post simply catalogued the various scriptures that have a bearing on the question.



The four expressions used in Scripture to refer to the time period between Jesus' death and his resurrection are "on the third day," "after three days," "in three days," and "three days and three nights." (There are a few more Greek constructions, but they boil down to these four meanings.) It seems clear that (at least on the surface) there is a conflict between these four expressions. If indeed Jesus rose from the dead "on the third day" after his crucifixion, it is impossible that he spent "three days and three nights" in the tomb; conversely, if he did spend "three days and three nights" in the tomb, it would seem necessary that he rose on the fourth day, not the third. While "in three days" could be reasonably accommodated to either scheme, "after three days" would seem to support the idea of three full days and nights in the tomb.



As all parties in this debate are committed to the infallibility of the Word of God,¹ all see the need to reconcile these disparate expressions with one another. The theory of a Wednesday crucifixion is an attempt to deal seriously with the expression, "Three days and three nights" in Matthew 12:40. Those who hold to that theory would tend to take the observance of "Good Friday" as a piece of church tradition that does not adequately reflect the Gospel record, and would generally tend to take defenses of a Friday crucifixion as resulting primarily from a desire to retain that tradition.



The weakness of a Wednesday crucifixion theory would be those scriptures that indicate that Jesus rose "on the third day." It may be argued that Jesus wasn't actually in the tomb until sundown Wednesday--i.e., Thursday, according to Jewish reckoning--and that he could have risen at any point Saturday night, so that from Thursday, Saturday is the "third day." However, this reconstruction involves using two separate calendars--a Jewish one for Wednesday evening, so Jesus can be regarded as being entombed on "Thursday," and a Roman/modern one for Saturday night, so he can be regarded as rising on "Saturday." Without further exegetical proof, this reconstruction is highly suspect on its face: time periods should be measured consistently. Moreover, such a reconstruction, even if tenable, wouldn't allow for the resurrection to be on the third day from Jesus' crucifixion, but rather from his burial; similarly, a "Saturday night" resurrection might be conceivable as on the third day from the burial, but later events on Easter Sunday would inescapably be on the fourth day, no matter how the time periods were reconstructed.



Those who hold to a Friday crucifixion must find some way to reconcile the expressions "after three days" and "three days and three nights" with their conviction that Jesus died on Friday and rose Sunday morning; such a scheme does not allow for a literal "three days and three nights" entombment of Jesus. The strong point in their argument is that a Friday crucifixion seems to make the best sense of the statement that Jesus rose "on the third day."

_______________



Note

¹ For those who do not hold to the verbal, plenary inspiration of scripture, there is no point to harmonizing disparate accounts. They would probably say that different streams of tradition held to different crucifixion dates, or that the originators of those traditions had no interest in the question, and thus were not careful to keep their writings consistent. Therefore, the question only rises to importance for those who do believe in inerrancy (at least on this point).



Next up: Interpretation of the various passages discussed in part 1.



Technorati Tags: Easter, Good Friday, Friday, Wednesday Crucifixion, Crucifixion, Crucified, Jesus, Jesus Christ

On the Theory of a Wednesday Crucifixion: 1. Relevant Scriptures

Just adding a hyperlink to the next post. No new content.

I'm going to begin a series on the theory that Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday, rather than on a Friday. We'll start out surveying the various scriptures that refer in various ways to "three days" or "the third day."



A. One passage that stipulates Jesus' entombment as "Three days and three nights"

Matthew 12:40 "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

B. Passages that state that Jesus will rise μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας, "after three days."

Mark 8:31 "He then began to teach them that the Son of Man . . . must be killed and after three days rise again."

Mark 9:31 "The Son of man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise."

Mark 10:34 "[The Gentiles] will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."

C. Ambiguous or oblique references

John 2:19 "Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.'" (Cf. v. 20; Mk. 14:58; Matt. 26:61; 27:40; all repetitions from hostile witnesses of Jesus' words; a few various Greek constructions, but all meaning "in three days.")

Matthew 27:62-64 "The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 'Sir,' they said, 'We remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day."

Luke13:32-33 "He replied, 'Go tell that fox [Herod], "I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal." In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day--for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!'"

D. Passages that state that Jesus will rise τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, "on the third day."

Matthew 16:21 "From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples . . . that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."

Luke 9:22 "And he said, 'The Son of Man . . . must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."

Matthew 17:23 "[Men] will kill [the Son of Man], and on the third day he will be raised to life."

Luke 18:32-33 "[The Gentiles] will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day [τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ] he will rise again."

Matthew 20:19 "On the third day he will be raised to life."

Luke 24:6-7 "He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.'"

Luke 24:21 "This is the third day [τρίτην ταύτην ἡμέραν] since all this took place."

Luke 24:46 "He told them, 'This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day . . . .'"

Acts 10:40 "God raised him from the dead on the third day . . . ."

1 Corinthians 15:4 " . . . he was raised on the third day [τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ] according to the scriptures."

Next up: the logical issues involved in interpreting these scriptures.



Technorati Tags: Easter, Good Friday, Crucifixion, Crucified, Wednesday, Friday, Jesus, Jesus Christ

The Constructive Curmudgeon on "Fifteen Refusals for 2007"

I don't make New Year's Resolutions, and I've been wondering what to blog on during this week. Douglas Groothuis appears to have beaten me to the punch. This post, "Fifteen Refusals for 2007," is very thought-provoking. I'm pretty sure I can subscribe to at least 13 of them. Check it out.

Christmas and the Search for Significance

You've got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying. With sweat. --Fame

In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.--Andy Warhol

Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super... no one will be. --The Incredibles

You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody. --On the Waterfront

I read recently that over half of bloggers say they blog for themselves, not for an audience. I have a really hard time believing that. You don't need online web space to have a journal; all you need is a blank book and a pen. Or if you'd rather type, a Word file will do. I think that even if we don't care about having a large readership, most of us posting into cyberspace are trying, at some level, to etch our own "Kilroy was here" into the ether. We hope that there is at least one kindred soul out there somewhere who "gets us." We want to "be somebody." Our whole culture is saturated with an irrational fascination with celebrity. Why else would anyone care about the verbal slugfest going on between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump?

Some years ago, a friend recommended the book The Search for Significance to me. It discusses the ubiquitous need we have to be recognized in the eyes of others, and the solution to the dilemma in recognizing God's investing us with worth by creating us in His image and by giving His Son to redeem us. I liked it in many ways, although frankly that insight, by itself, doesn't seem to remove the appetite to "be special" in the eyes of other people.

And it is in this context that I reflect on the birth of our Savior. We tend to discuss the "humble" birth of Jesus in a sort of sweet and sentimental way. We use quaint and obsolete words like "manger" to avoid saying that Jesus was laid in an animals' feeding trough. We talk about Mary and Joseph being "poor," and conceive of that as being modest working class, without dealing with the reality of the struggle for survival that poverty entails. More to the point, we forget about the total obscurity that someone like Jesus would have lived in. The details of "One Solitary Life" are very true: Jesus never wrote a book, never led an army, never traveled more than 300 miles from where he was born. He was, at most, a working-class laborer, the (apparent) son of a working-class laborer, and an itinerant preacher, among an oppressed, conquered people at the outskirts of the Roman Empire. By the standards of the intellectuals of the day, the Jews would have been considered an uncouth, barbaric people. Jesus had a brief popular ministry among them, which ended up getting him into a conflict with some of their religious authorities over some obscure points of their religious dogma. So they trumped up some charges and handed him over to the Governor, who had him executed in order to avoid a riot. He died the death of a criminal, in a humiliating fashion, the Romans' favorite object lesson on What Happens to Those Who Dare Oppose the Empire.

And other than some odd stories his followers began telling a few days after the execution, that was it. God could have sent his Son to the political capital, Rome, or the intellectual centers of Athens or Alexandria. Jesus could have been somebody. He could have been world-famous. Satan offered him just that at one point. But he lived his whole life in virtual obscurity, and if his followers hadn't written about him, no one would know that he had ever existed. It wasn't necessary for him to be known, or liked, or admired, or any of the other things that most of us crave. He came to die for us, and he also set an example for us. "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus," Paul writes to the Philippians (2:5),and goes on to outline Jesus' humility to the point of death and his subsequent exaltation by the Father.

So as we celebrate Jesus' birth and recall the events surrounding the Incarnation, let's recall Jesus' willingness to be one of us--even to the point of being a nobody. Let's take note of all the "nobodies" that cross our paths, and remember that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matt. 25:40).

The Nativity According to Luke

The versions of the nativity given by Matthew and Luke are strikingly different in their details, and we can gain insight from looking at each separately, rather than collapsing them together as we so often do. While Matthew largely gives us the story of Joseph, Luke largely gives us the story of Mary, and if Matthew stresses the regal and prophetic elements of Jesus' birth, Luke stresses the humble and human elements.

Luke starts with a parallel story: the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. John is Jesus' forerunner from his very conception, and each element in John's story is recapitulated and heightened in Jesus' story. John's birth is foretold by an angel to Zechariah, and the angel tells him of the importance of the child's life and ministry. Six months later, Jesus' birth is foretold by the angel Gabriel to Mary, a virgin in the rather low-class town of Nazareth. The angel tells her that she will have a child who will "be called the Son of the Most High" and will be given "the throne of his father David," and his "kingdom will never end" (1:32-33). We have here a stark contrast between what is now and what is prophesied to be in the future.

Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who acknowledges the greater importance of Mary's child. Mary, for her part, gives voice to what we now call the Magnificat: essentially, a psalm of praise to God and a recognition of the great things God will do through her son, in large measure conceived as overturning social and economic inequalities. She voices the longing in the hearts of a downtrodden people, looked down upon by their countrymen in Judea and treated as captives by the Romans.

Luke narrates the birth of John the Baptist, and then turns to the circumstances of Jesus' birth. While Matthew relates the conflict with Herod after the child's birth, Luke relates the unwitting involvement of the Roman Emperor himself in the circumstances of the birth. A census is taken, in which all are required to return to their home towns to register; Joseph, being descended from King David, returns to David's home town of Bethlehem, and Mary comes with him. It is here in Luke that we find that Jesus was born, apparently, in a stable, because a feeding trough was improvised as a crib. Although from a royal line, Joseph and Mary are reduced to giving birth in the lowest possible circumstances.

Luke's Witnesses

In Luke, Jesus' birth is witnessed, not by foreign dignitaries, but by shepherds, who are socially outcast and ritually unclean by virtue of their work, and yet reminiscent of David. The birth is announced to them by angels, the shepherds come to Bethlehem, and there is no doubt that they in fact were there on the night of Jesus' birth, because they saw him in the feeding trough. Unlike the visit from the Magi, these witnesses draw no attention from the earthly authorities, although the shepherds do spread the word of what they have seen and heard.

Joseph and Mary fulfill the Law of Moses by having Jesus dedicated at the Temple and by offering the sacrifice appropriate to the poor. His destiny as savior of his people is attested to by Simeon and Anna--not the priests or temple officials, but elderly righteous people who were there at that time. Luke doesn't relate the flight to Egypt, simply collapsing the narrative down into "they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth" (2:39).

So by contrast to Matthew's narrative of Jesus' birth breaking into and threatening the earthly powers, Luke relates the humble, even humiliating circumstances of Jesus' birth. An underclass of people, waiting at the brink of hopelessness for a savior. The news of his birth, far from having to remain a secret, is spread indiscriminately--because the class of people who know are irrelevant to the powers that be. But there is hope: echoes of David the shepherd-king, raised from obscurity to power, a man after God's own heart.

The Nativity According to Matthew

I began arguing, at the end of When Did the Wise Men Get There, Anyway?, that it might be instructive to reread the separate accounts of the Nativity as the Holy Spirit inspired them--that is, as separate stories, each complete in itself. By suggesting this, I do not mean that the Evangelists invented or altered details in order to fit each one's own version of the events, but they did clearly select events that fit with the portrayal of Jesus that each one was being inspired to write.

In looking at the events of the Nativity in Matthew and Luke, it is startling how little overlap there is, and yet how the stories have so many parallel elements. Both stress the virgin birth. Each one portrays a visitation by an angel announcing the event, but not to the same person. Each one involves visitors to the child, but not the same ones. Each one relates some governmental interference, but not the same level of government. Each one mentions both Nazareth and Bethlehem, but in Matthew the movement is from Bethlehem to Nazareth, and in Luke it is from Nazareth to Bethlehem. We can add up all the details of both stories to get a picture of What Really Happened, but by doing so, we miss the thrust of each individual story.

Matthew's gospel was probably the first one written that presents the story of Jesus' birth. It is startling, when read on its own, how much of our traditional Christmas story does not appear in this narrative. Matthew's focus is on the birth of a King. He begins by presenting the royal lineage of Jesus, tracing His descent through David back to Abraham. We see nothing of the Annunciation to Mary; she is simply "found to be with child by the Holy Spirit" (1:18). Matthew's narrative is largely Joseph's story; it is about how he reacts to Mary's pregnancy, how he is led to marry her, preserve her virginity until Jesus' birth, and protect his family from Herod. Although Joseph was doubtless devastated by the appearance of infidelity on Mary's part, he was still concerned not to disgrace her: his plan to quietly divorce her would have been an act of mercy, not judgment.

But here, God intervenes. An angel comes to Joseph in a dream, and tells him not to "be afraid" to complete the betrothal process and take Mary home as his wife. This would have been a hard command for him to obey, because it would amount to a tacit admission of infidelity: in the eyes of the community, Joseph would be acknowledging that Mary's child was his, and he would share in her disgrace. Nonetheless, he does take her home, in obedience to what the angel has said, trusting that the child is conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that his name is to be Joshua (Hebrew, Yeshua; Greek, Iesous, anglicized as Jesus) because he will save his people from their sins.

Matthew presents the birth of Jesus as the prophesied entrance of the Son of David into history, threatening the powers of this world, gaining the attention of foreign dignitaries, and attested to by the very heavens themselves.This is a child of destiny, an important child, which Matthew underscores by pointing out that the birth of this King is a fulfillment of prophecy, another of Matthew's important themes. Joseph obeys the angel's command to the letter, preserves Mary's virginity until after the birth, and gives the child the name that the angel had decreed.

Matthew places Jesus' birth in "Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod" (2:1). One would not know from Matthew's account that Joseph and Mary had come from some uncouth town in the hills up north; that would not fit with the portrayal that Matthew is giving. Just as in Luke, there are visitors to the child, but what visitors! Magi - exotic wise men "from the east" (probably Media-Persia), who first come to Jerusalem, because where else would one expect to find the heir to the Jewish throne than in the capital city? And they came because the heavens themselves have borne witness to his birth--he has his own star! And these distinguished visitors have come to worship (they themselves probably only mean to pay proper homage and respect to) him.

And so Herod enters into the picture. He is "disturbed," and when Herod is disturbed, the whole city is disturbed (2:3). He was a paranoid tyrant, a puppet of Caesar who had appealed to Rome for the title of "King" and killed anyone whom he imagined threatened his continued rule, including several members of his own family. He finds out from the priests and teachers of the law that Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem (more fulfillment of prophecy) and learns from the Magi when the star had appeared, then sends them on their way, asking them to report to him when they found the child. Although just born, Jesus is already a threat to the established powers of the world.

The star leads the Magi to "the child with his mother Mary" (2:11), and they worship him and give strange and wonderful gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Various symbolic meanings have been attached to these gifts; at the very least, they are costly gifts befitting a royah heir. God sovereignly intervenes again through dreams--to the Magi, letting them know not to return to Herod; and to Joseph, warning him to flee to Egypt, which he does, taking Mary and Jesus by night (and fulfilling more prophecy). Herod has all the boys in Bethlehem two years old and younger killed (yet again fulfilling prophecy).

Once again, an angel appears to Joseph in Egypt, this time telling him to return to "the land of Israel" because Herod has died (2:20). Israel is not usually denoted by that name at this time: it has been carved up into the Roman districts of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee; but Jesus, the King, is returning to his rightful land, and so it is called by its rightful name. In Matthew, it is because Joseph learns that Herod's son is on the throne in Judea that he withdraws to a small town in the relative obscurity of Galilee, the north country of Israel. The place that he chooses (we are not told that he came from there in the first place) once again fulfills prophecy: "He will be called a Nazarene" (2:23).

Matthew presents the birth of Jesus as the prophesied entrance of the Son of David into history, threatening the powers of this world, gaining the attention of foreign dignitaries, and attested to by the very heavens themselves. No sweet, sentimental, humble birth here! This Christmas, let's celebrate the inbreaking of the heavenly powers into the vain rulers of this world.

So When Did the Wise Men Get There, Anyway?

We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts, we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star.

I was told, growing up, that this carol was completely wrong in all its details. We all-too-often make assumptions based on what the Bible does say, and come to conclusions that may be plausible but are not necessarily warranted by the text.There were not (at least, not necessarily) three of them, they were not kings, and they were not, in the modern sense, Oriental (that is, Asian). We get three from the number of gifts that were given; they are called "Magi" in scripture, which to the best of our knowledge were a class of "wise men" from Media-Persia (i.e., northwestern Iran). And although nativity scenes, Christmas pageants, and the movie The Nativity Story place them at the stable on the night of Jesus' birth, they most probably were not there.

I say "most probably," although many would dogmatically proclaim that they definitely weren't there, and that they arrived two full years later. It is that dogmatism that is the subject of my post. Old certainties that prove to be incorrect are often supplanted by new certainties that are also most likely incorrect. We all-too-often make assumptions based on what the Bible does say, and come to conclusions that may be plausible but are not necessarily warranted by the text. One such is the statement that "It took 120 years for Noah to build the Ark." This is nowhere stated in the Genesis account. What is stated is as follows:

1. The LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years" (Gen. 6:3);
2. "God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways" and therefore He gave Noah the instructions on building the Ark (Gen. 6:12-21).
3. "Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth" (Gen. 7:6)

This is literally all the information we have. So if one assumes that the "120 years" in 6:3 refers to the time period between the judgment and the flood (it has also been thought to refer to a maximum life span, aside from extraordinary exceptions, of people born after the flood), and if one assumes that God immediately came to Noah and gave him the instructions, and if one assumes that Noah immediately began working on the ark as soon as he received the instructions, then yes, it took 120 years to build the ark. But that's a lot of assumptions. The most that is really warranted to say is, "It may have taken as much as 120 years for Noah to build the ark." We really don't know anything more than that.

So it is with the Magi's visit to Bethlehem. Here is what we are told in Scripture:

1. The visit of the Magi came "after Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod" (Matt. 2:1; we shouldn't press "after" too strongly; the Greek uses a temporal participle which may mean "after" or "when");
2. "Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared" (Matt. 2:7);
3. "After they had heard the king ... the star ... went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.... On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary ...."(Matt. 2:9-11).
4. Herod "gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi" (Matt 2:16).

It is generally argued, based on the age of the children killed by Herod being linked to when the Magi saw the star, and also based on the fact that Jesus is described as a "child" (i.e., not a baby) and that they appear to be in a "house" by this point, that Jesus was two years old when the Magi arrived.

Once age again, this is based on a series of assumptions. The major one is assuming that the star appeared to the Magi at the same time that Jesus was born; we don't know that. God may well have placed the star ahead of time. The argument also assumes that Herod didn't add in a "cushion" of time when deciding the age of the children to be killed; that the "house" was Joseph's and Mary's house (rather than, for example, the inn, with the stable nearby); and that the word "child" is intended to be distinct from "baby." In fact, Matthew wants to stress the royalty of Jesus, so he minimizes the humble circumstances of Jesus' birth--he would naturally describe Jesus as a "child" rather than as a "baby," and refer to the "house" rather than to the "manger" (i.e., feeding trough) that Luke mentions.

Am I trying to argue that the Magi were at the scene of Jesus' birth after all? No. If we're getting stymied in trying to figure out something, we're probably heading off on a rabbit trail, and missing the main point of what the author wanted us to see.I think it's likely that Joseph and Mary settled in Bethlehem after Jesus' birth, to get away from the stigma of illegitimacy that they would have had in Nazareth. I think that the Magi arrived some time later, although not necessarily two years later. But the key words here are, "I think." I don't know. And whether they want to admit it or not, neither does anyone else.

A little humility is a very good thing when we're about the business of interpreting Scripture. We need to recognize that Scripture doesn't tell us everything we might be curious about, and so there are things that we simply can't know for sure. One thing we can be reasonably sure of, though, is that if the Bible doesn't give us full information on something, it probably isn't crucial for us to know it. If we're getting stymied in trying to figure out something, we're probably heading off on a rabbit trail, and missing the main point of what the author wanted us to see. It might be a good idea, this Christmas season, to forget about what we know of the whole Christmas story, and to read the individual Christmas stories once again, and see the different angles that the Holy Spirit inspired Matthew and Luke to tell us about. Come to think of it, it might not be a bad thing to blog on....