Christmas Miracle

World War I (1914-1918) was the first war to see the full fury of industrialism unleashed on a large scale. Over eight and a half million combatants died and twenty-one million were wounded. By Christmas 1914 hope for a speedy resolution to hostilities had faded and the grim reality of trench warfare had set in. Bogged down in ankle-deep mud, troops on both sides were cold, war weary, and shell shocked. Despite the dehumanizing conditions of combat, a miracle took place on the Western Front during that first Christmas of that Great War. Stanley Weintraub describes what happened in his book Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce:

The Germans set trees on trench parapets and lit the candles. Then, they began singing carols, and though their language was unfamiliar to their enemies, the tunes were not. After a few trees were shot at, the British became more curious than belligerent and crawled forward to watch and listen. After a while, they began to sing.

By Christmas morning, the “no man’s land” between the trenches was filled with fraternizing soldiers, sharing rations and gifts, singing and (more solemnly) burying their dead between the lines. Soon they were even playing soccer, mostly with improvised balls.

Although the truce lasted only a few days (commanders on both sides threatened courts-martial for those who refused to resume fighting), it remains a powerful testimony to the potential for peace, inspired by the Prince of Peace. Near the end of his book, Weintraub reflects on the meaning of those strange and wonderful events nearly a century ago:

A celebration of the human spirit, the Christmas True remains a moving manifestation of the absurdities of war. A very minor Scottish poet of Great War vintage, Frederick Niven, may have got it right in his “A Carol from Flanders,” which closed,

O ye who read this truthful rime

     From Flanders, kneel and say:

God speed the time when every day

     Shall be as Christmas Day.

The Wonder of It All

A few nights ago my twelve-year-old son Mark went to a planetarium. His eyes glowed as he watched the stars dance across the simulated night sky. When he got home I asked him whether he thought the show was any good. “It wasn’t good,” he said, pausing for a moment. “It was spectacular!” His response reminded me how important it is to have a sense of childlike wonder at the world around us. Only we don’t have to visit a planetarium for that.

Every cloudless night God puts on an amazing show outdoors while we sit comfortably indoors, watching TV. It doesn’t have to be that way. King David took time to look up and it filled him with awe. He even sang about it: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Ps. 8:3-4). But the psalmist-king was not the only one to experience a sense of wonder. I just finished reading Brennan Manning’s book The Ragamuffin Gospel. In it he writes,

Our world is saturated with grace, and the lurking presence of God is revealed not only in spirit but in matter—in a deer leaping across a meadow, in the flight of an eagle, in fire and water, in a rainbow after a summer storm, in a gentle doe streaking through a forest, in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, in a child licking a chocolate ice cream cone, in a woman with windblown hair. God intended for us to discover His loving presence in the world around us.

 As we rush through our busy lives checking off things we have to do, let’s not forget to stop, look, and listen to the wonders around us.

Sainthood

Stefano Maderno, The Martyrdom of St. Cecilia (1599), Church of St. Cecilia, Trastevere, Rome.

Here’s one of the most profound things I’ve read lately. Although we Baptists have a different definition of “saint,” this is too good not to share with you:

“The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else. It gives them a clarity of compassion that can find good in the most terrible criminals. It delivers them from the burden of judging others, condemning other men. It teaches them to bring the good out of others by compassion, mercy and pardon. A man becomes a saint not by conviction that he is better than sinners but by the realization that he is one of them, and that all together need the mercy of God!” (Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation)

Getting Ready

Today is the beginning of Advent and the start of a new church year. “Advent” (from the Latin adventus, “coming”) is the season prior to Christmas when many Christians prepare for the coming of Jesus. It looks backward to the Incarnation and forward to the Second Coming—twin Christological certainties separated by the here and now, the in-between-ness, when things are far less sure. In the Gospel reading for today, Mark 13:24-37, Jesus gives his followers their marching orders for the interim. “Watch!” he said. Before we consider what and how we are to watch, a little background is needed.

One day Jesus and his disciples left the temple and made their way up the Mount of Olives. Looking back they could see the majestic structure, its white limestone gleaming in the midday the sun. It must have been an impressive sight. One of the disciples said, “Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” (Mark 13:1). I’m sure it was a shock when Jesus replied: “Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone left upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (v. 2).

Like the disciples we are often impressed by big buildings—those soaring structures dedicated to the worship of God—like the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, or the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, CA, or even the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel  (above), which I can see framed in the window of my bedroom where I am writing this. Churches spend enormous sums of money on their buildings. When I lived in Southern California, the Los Angeles Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels was completed at a cost of $250 million. First Baptist Dallas plans to spend $115 to rebuild their downtown sanctuary. These might be symptoms of what Howard Snyder calls tongue-in-cheek an “edifice complex”—the institutional church’s over-emphasis on buildings.  

There’s nothing wrong with having nice architecture, and a sense of sacred space can enhance worship. But Christian worship must be centered on Jesus Christ, not any physical structure. Jesus signaled as much when he told the disciples not to gawk at the temple but to watch for his return. I wrote about his apocalyptic imagery in a previous post, but here I want to focus on what Jesus meant by his admonition to watch. In the biblical text, watching is the opposite of sleeping, but it’s more than merely waiting passively for the Second Coming.

Being watchful doesn’t mean taking an obsessive interest in End Times prophecy or worse, trying to predict Christ’s return. The Bible says explicitly “no one knows the day or hour” (Mark 13:32). In fact, Jesus said even he didn’t know when he was coming again, only his Father in heaven. A parallel passage in 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us what it means to watch for the coming of the Lord. Jesus’ return “comes as a thief in the night” (v. 2), though Christians are not caught off guard (v. 4). Sleep, night, and drunkenness are the experiences of those who will be surprised by Jesus’ Second Advent, just as alertness, light, and sobriety characterize those who are watching for the Lord’s return. Moreover, Christians are protected by faith, hope, and salvation (v. 8). Thus armed, we are to comfort, edify, and be at peace with our fellow Christians (vv. 11, 13). Further, we are to “warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men” (v. 14) and not “render evil for evil” but do good to all (v. 15). There’s also advice on our inner activity: “Rejoice” (v. 16), “Pray without ceasing” (v. 17), “Don’t quench the Spirit” (v. 18). Thus, watching is more than mere waiting.

There’s plenty for us to do while we anticipate the Lord’s return. The question is, Are we so busy getting ready for Christmas that we’re not taking time to get ready for Christ?

What I’m Thankful For

On this Thanksgiving Day I am thankful for many things, but one of the things I appreciate most might surprise you. It’s death. Yes, I’m thankful for death. Most people don’t want to die. Even those of us who believe in heaven aren’t wanting to go there anytime soon. The Bible explains death as a consequence of sin.  God told Adam and Eve, “The day you eat of the fruit, you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). They ate. But they didn’t die. At least not right away. So I don’t think death was just a punishment for sin as much as it was God’s greatest act of mercy.

Just imagine what this life would be like if it never came to an end. For starters, there would be nothing to look forward to and no sense of urgency; nothing motivating us to get things done “while there’s still time.” Our bodies would grow old and chronic illness would set in. Pain would constantly gnaw at us like a hungry dog gnaws a bone. There would be no release. No end to our misery. No final rest for the weary. The blind would continue to stumble through life, bumping into unseen obstacles. The lame would go on dragging heavy limbs. The deaf would never hear birds sing or a baby coo. There would be no ultimate healing. No crossing the river. No reunion with loved ones. There would be no reckoning. No final judgment.  No settling of accounts. All of the old injustices would remain. Wrongs would never be made right. Hurts would never be healed. Even in those cases where lives are cut tragically short, we can only guess what trials and tribulations the victims were spared by an untimely death.

Eleven days ago my mother-in-law Amy Phillips died after losing a long and sometimes painful battle with breast cancer. I’m glad she was finally able to die, even though she will be deeply missed by her family and friends who now mourn her loss. At the end of her life Amy longed “to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). It wasn’t a death wish, but an expression of hope in Christ and his promises. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). Like my mother-in-law, I believe that promise with all my heart. But even if I didn’t believe in an afterlife or didn’t know what lies beyond death’s door, I’d still be thankful for death. Compared with the alternative, it’s a blessing.

Glass Houses

In my last post I compared modernism and postmodernism. This past week an important example of modernist architecture has been in the news: the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, CA. Televangelist Robert Schuller’s once thriving megachurch is now in bankruptcy, and the Archdiocese of Orange County has agreed to buy the property for $57.5M in order to make the Crystal Cathedral into a Catholic cathedral. In addition to the sleek glass structure, the property includes the original drive-in church building designed by the Austrian-American architect Richard Neutra, who along with others defined California Modernism in the mid 20th century. (One of the few East Coast examples of Neutra’s work is Mellon Hall on the St. John’s College campus here in Annapolis, right across the street from the Naval Academy where I teach.)

A strange footnote to the story of the Crystal Cathedral’s demise was the announcement earlier this year that choir members would have to sign a covenant which included an anti-gay statement. (You can read a news story about the policy here.) Although it did not specifically forbid gays from singing in the choir, the statement certainly would make them feel unwelcome. The policy is ironic because the towering glass sanctuary where the choir sings was designed by the famous architect Philip Johnson who was an openly homosexual man. The now retired founding pastor Robert Schuller denounced the anti-gay covenant approved by his daughter and current senior pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman. To the younger Schuller I say, those who preach in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

(Post)Modernism

Quick, name a famous architect. If you’re like most people, Frank Lloyd Wright is the first name that comes to mind, and for good reason. The American architect designed his structures to be both livable and in tune with their native habitats. Many of his buildings are iconic, like Fallingwater (above) and the Guggenheim Museum. Much of modern architecture is not as organic and spiritual as Wright’s work. In its heyday modernism expressed the spirit of the space age with its optimism, precision, symmetry, and clean lines. “Form follows function” was the mantra of the movement. By the time I was growing up in the 1970s many modern buildings hardly seemed modern at all. They looked dated, cliché, and sterile. Take, for example, the county courthouse in Salem, Oregon (below). The best word I can think of to describe the building is “soulless.”

Postmodernism, on the other hand, has a soul—indeed, sometimes too much soul. It’s asymmetrical, dissonant, and witty. Some of it—the kind I like least—looks quirky, deformed, and kitsch.

 

Dancing House, Prague Czech Republic, Architect Vlado Milunić

St. Coletta School, Washington, DC, Architect Michael Graves

Perhaps the most famous American architect associated with postmodernism is Frank Gehry. He designed the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA., one of the most striking and in my opinion aesthetically pleasing buildings.

 

Speaking of Disney, one of the best contrasts between modern and postmodern styles are two hotels at Disney World in Orlando: the Contemporary and the Swan and Dolphin respectively (below). When it comes to these two styles it’s not hard for me to decide between the function of the former and the fun of the latter. I prefer fun, especially if I’m on vacation (though there is something really cool about a monorail speeding through your hotel).

Of course, modernism and postmodernism are not only styles of architecture; they are expressions of two very different philosophical outlooks, which have affected everything in society, even religion. Modernism conceived a scientific approach to faith and even gave birth to new rational religions, most of them now thankfully extinct. It taught us to examine the Bible objectively and scientifically and see God not as fickle and humanlike but transcendent and unchanging. Based on Aristotelian logic, it forced us to choose between scripture and science, making us either fundamentalists or modernists.

Postmodernism is creating new ways of looking at faith. It’s still too early to tell where it will lead, but there are definitely emerging trends. Postmodernist religion is less dogmatic and more pluralistic. It’s less concerned with propositional truth and more interested in lived experience. Openness and dialogue are replacing apologetics and confrontational evangelism. Postmodernism allows believers to embrace plural truths; science and scripture can both be true in different ways. God’s emotions and changes of heart in the Bible do not have to be explained away as figures of speech. Like its architectural counterpart, postmodern theology can be colorful, witty, and fun. It can also appear confused, twisted, and irreverent.

For some people, postmodernism is dangerous heresy. For others, it’s liberation from the straightjacket of modernism. If forced to choose between the two, I choose . . . both . . . and neither.

Dunghill of the Reformation

Dirk Willems rescues his pursuer.  Engraving by Jan Luiken in the book The Bloody Theatre or Martyrs’ Mirror, Dutch edition.

Today is Reformation Sunday because tomorrow, October 31, marks the anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting of his 95 Theses, the symbolic beginning of the Protestant movement. Instead of Reformation Day perhaps we should call it Reformations Day, because the Reformation was not a single event or unified movement. There were many varieties of religious reform in sixteenth-century Europe, which can be categorized under three broad headings: Protestant or “Magisterial” Reformation, Catholic Reformation, and Radical Reformation. The Anabaptists are the best  known group of the Radical Reformation.  Modern Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites all descend from sixteenth-century Anabaptists.

Anabaptist historian Werner O. Packull told me he once heard a renowned scholar call the Anabaptists the “dunghill of the Reformation.” I won’t mention the name of the man who said that because he’s now deceased, but I will say that he is famous for analyzing Martin Luther’s scatalogical language. With all this potty talk, it’s good to remember just how squeaky clean the lives of some of the early Anabaptists were. Take Dirk Willems, for example.

In 1569, Dutch Anabaptist Dirk Willems landed in prison for his rejection of infant baptism. Catholics and Protestants alike feared the Anabaptists’ vision of a voluntary church of true believers would cause social unrest. Willems escaped from jail using a rope made from knotted rags. Seeing him flee, a guard ran after him and followed Willems across a frozen canal, but the ice was thin and the pursuer fell through into the freezing water. Hearing his cries, Willems turned back and rescued the drowning man. The guard wanted to let Willems go, but at the mayor’s insistance he recaptured the man who had saved his life. Willems was then burned at the stake for heresy near his hometown of Asperen, Holland on May 16, 1569.

The Anabaptists’ greatest contribution to the Reformation was their emphasis on discipleship. Being a Christian means getting your life right with God, not just your theology. Judging by example of Anabaptists like Dirk Willems, those on the “dunghill of the Reformation” were a sweet fragrance to God (2 Cor. 2:15).

Seeing Canaan

Luca Signorelli, Testament and Death of Moses (ca. 1482), oil on panel, 21.6 x 48 cm, Vatican City, Sistine Chapel, Rome

Most of us don’t like thinking about death, especially our own. If we do, we imagine ourselves surrounded by family and friends. Dying alone is a depressing thought. Moses died alone. Not even Joshua was there, only God. At the end of our lives, we want to be able to review our accomplishments with a feeling of satisfaction. Moses, instead of looking back on his achievements, surveyed from Mt. Pisgah’s heights the Promised Land he would never set foot in. We imagine people visiting our graves, laying flowers, saying kind things about us when we’re gone. The final resting place of the great Hebrew lawgiver is known only to God.

Tradition ascribes the authorship of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) to Moses. In German these books are called “First Moses,” “Second Moses,” and so on. But certain passages could not have been written by the great lawgiver. For example, our passage for Sunday, Deuteronomy 34:1-12, records Moses’ death and could therefore not have been written by him. While many of the laws probably date back to Moses much of the narrative was written later, perhaps as late as the sixth century BCE. Still, questions of date and authorship are not nearly as important as the meaning of the text.

It isn’t quite clear why Moses wasn’t allowed to enter Canaan. We’re told that he “broke faith” with God at Mirebah and did not revere God in the eyes of the people (Numbers 20:10-13, Deuteronomy 32:51).  That sounds more serious than the mere fact that Moses got angry and hit a rock. Elizabeth Achtemeier says that although this reason is obscure there’s another biblical explanation: “Moses takes the sins of the people upon himself and dies outside of the promised land in order that Israel may enter into it (Deuteronomy 1:37; 3:26; 4:21).” In so doing, he becomes a type of Christ.

Although Moses was kept out of the Promised Land, he was allowed to see it. There’s an emphasis on “eyes” and “seeing” in this passage. Despite his advanced years, Moses still has 20/20 eyesight (Deuteronomy 24:7). There’s something supernatural about his vision. He was able to survey “the whole land,” a physical impossibility even from his lofty vantage point. In a sense he can also see the future, as God tells Moses that the Israelites will inherit the land. In addition to seeing, knowing is another important theme. No one knows where Moses is buried, but God knew Moses “face to face” (v. 10).

In the New Testament book of Hebrews, Canaan becomes a metaphor for heaven, the ultimate Promised Land, a place of Sabbath rest (4:1-11). Jesus, whose Hebrew name was Joshua, leads believers into their promised rest. Truly, One greater than Moses is here.

A Scary God?

Rembrandt van Rijn. Moses Smashing the Tables of the Law. 1659. Oil on canvas. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany.

The Ten Commandments are so familiar to most of us Christians that we are hardly surprised by them. That’s at least partially because they come pre-packaged, neatly arranged and numbered for consumer use. There’s even a Catholic and Lutheran numbering system that obscures that pesky command not to make idols, lest someone ask embarrassing questions about crucifixes and other religious images. But read the Decalogue in context and it’s anything but routine. There’s some controversial stuff in there.

Exodus 20:3-17 contains the Ten Commandments proper, but the other verses in the chapter are just as important, if not more so. My reaction when reading the passage as a whole is not ho-hum, but astonishment. Immediately after the last command we read, “And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off” (18). This scary God is so different from the loving Heavenly Father Jesus taught us about that some, like Marcion in the second century, have even suggested they are two different gods, one angry, the other loving. If they are not two gods, How do we explain the Janus-like character of the Holy One? Does God have multiple personalities? Did he mellow out over the centuries between Sinai and the Cross?

I’m not sure I have a good answer to these questions, but I think at least part of the answer comes in the opening of the chapter. Introducing this highly memorable summary of the law, God says, “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex. 20:2). Just as the Ten Commandments are a summary of the Mosaic Law, this verse is a summary of Hebrew theology—who God is and what He’s done for his people. It recalls the passage where Moses asked what name he should tell the Israelites when asked who sent him, and God replied, “I am that I am” (Ex. 3:14). It’s a maddeningly elusive title for the Divine Being. His name Yahweh, translated LORD with all capital letters, means “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” Trying to pin down this God is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

Although this Hebrew God’s identity is somewhat mysterious, his deeds are crystal clear. He’s the one who brought the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. What follows is not a law code. There are no punishments listed. It’s a set of ethical principles suited to people who are now free. Freedom is not the same as libertinism. Free people have to act a certain way to maintain their liberty, and God’s people must behave as God commands or risk removing themselves from his covenant people. God made his covenant with all Israelites, but he puts ethical demands on every Israelite. The thees and thous of the King James Bible, though archaic, are more precise than the yous and yours of modern translations. The pronouns thee and thou are singular. “Thou” is used to address the individual, not the group. Each believer stands before God and is accountable to keep God’s ethical demands. What are those demands?

Using the Jewish and (non-Lutheran) Protestant numbering, the Decalogue can be divided roughly in half: the first four laws govern our relationship with God, the last six our relationship with others. Which are the hardest to keep? For moderns, probably one of the latter ones such as no coveting, lying, or adultery. For ancient Hebrews the first two were the hardest: no other gods and no idols. Even while Moses was receiving the tablets with the law written by the finger of God, the people were making and worshiping an idol, the golden calf.

Polytheism was the dominant religion in the ancient world. Monotheism, the belief in only one God, was a hard sell. The Hebrews had been living in Egypt, surrounded by polytheism for centuries. Following this singular God into the wilderness was an experiment, and some were already growing weary of it. They longed for gods they could see. They hungered for familiar surroundings and home cooking. Some even wondered aloud whether this scary God who drowned Pharaoh’s army had brought them out to the desert just to kill them.

Yahweh was not like the Egyptain gods. He was jealous and demanded sole worship, much like god of Akhenaten’s failed experiment in Egyptian monotheism. He would forgive many things, but like a jealous spouse, God would not forgive infidelity. The first two commandments address this problem. Worshiping other gods was Israel’s original sin. For centuries they struggled to remain faithful to this demanding God, who wanted an exclusive relationship. Only after the Babylonian Captivity in the 6th century BCE did the Israelites no longer commit spiritual adultery. When the law was first given, the Hebrew people were religiously conflicted even while their spiritual leaders were laying the foundations of a monotheistic tradition which has grown to the point where it now claims the allegiance of the majority of people in the world today.

So why was the Hebrew God so fearful and harsh? Maybe that’s what the Hebrews needed at the time to set the on the right (monotheistic) path early in their religious development. Proverbs says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (9:10). It’s the beginning, the starting point, not the end. Fear can be instructive as with young children, who sometimes need swift and stern (but non-abusive) discipline to learn important lessons. When toddlers reach up to touch a hot stove, we don’t reason with them. We slap the child’s hand and say in a stern voice, “No! Dangerous!” The child cries, but it learns not to reach for a hot stove. When a teenager does something similar, as when my kids play with a lit candle at the dinner table, what do we do? We probably don’t slap their hands. We explain why it’s not smart: they may get a nasty burn or knock the candle over and start a fire. We appear kind and reasonable to them now, whereas we seemed harsh and angry when they were little. I’m not sure whether this explanation helps you, but it’s one way to understand the difference between the God of Old Testament and the God of the New.

Because we experience God as a loving, self-sacrificing parent, that doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want, live however we want. Christians live under a new covenant in which the ethical demands are even stricter than under the old covenant. Jesus said as much in his Sermon on the Mount: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire” (Matt. 5:21-22). God has not become a permissive parent, who lets us get away with whatever we want. Because we are in a covenantal relationship with God, we are expected to live better lives now than what was expected of the Israelites.

In fact, the new standard is perfection, and like the Ten Commandments it is rooted in the nature of God: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). “That’s impossible!” you say. “No one can live up to that standard!” I imagine that’s just how the Hebrews felt when they first heard the words of the Ten Commandments.