A Homework Sigh

I was sitting on the couch, stumbling through the commentary on Luke 1:5-25, and sighing. "That sounds like a homework sigh," my mother said. In some ways, it was. The beginning of Luke is as elusive to me as my assigned readings of Plato or the Qur'an. In college, you never understand one hundred percent of the reading for a class. You are lucky if you understand seventy-five percent. Or maybe I'm just stupid. 
Anyway, I'm sighing about the attention Luke pays to John the Baptist. Christmas is coming! Who gives a flying fish about John? The Son of God is about to be born! It really annoys me when I don't understand something in the Bible. How dare God put something in the Bible I can't figure out? Why don't pastors preach on John the Baptist? I can only remember hearing one sermon on this text, and it was preached by a pastor I don't like very much whom I'm trying to forget. I want to contact every pastor I like and demand a sermon on JBap (as my commentary calls him, rather like a rapper or university president, a la "T-Pain").
Maybe God will help me puzzle through this. If anybody has any ideas on interpreting JBap in Luke, let me know. I'm going to tentatively try now. 
Luke carefully connects Zechariah, JBap's father, to OT history-- he and his wife are "descended from Aaron" and there are echoes and even a few verbatim quotes from OT stories of barren couples receiving children from God. The OT and NT are inseparably intertwined, one story of God and his people, and every instance of God's faithfulness to an individual is really part of a much bigger story. Our rugged American individualism is, in most cases, sin. 
Old Zech and his wife are "upright" in God's sight, even though they don't have a child. The classic theodicy that our troubles are punishment for sin, although certainly sometimes true, fails in this case. It's also important to remember that  God intervenes in their old age, although they probably had been hoping, praying, trying for a baby for a long time. I think God rarely solves our problems the second we ask. In my cynical moments I say it's because God enjoys watching us beg for mercy, but I think in reality there's deeper, disciplinary value to waiting on God, even if God didn't cause the trouble in the first place. 
Anyway, the day Luke introduces us to Zech is a very lucky day. He drew lots and got to burn the afternoon incense, a sacred honor a priest usually received only once in his lifetime. (Again, note how the righteous sage got this honor late in life.) Why does the angel come now, in the Temple? I firmly believe we can encounter God everywhere, not just in the sanctuary. So does Luke; Gabriel comes to Mary at her house. But I've had some special moments with God in empty sanctuaries, so I guess I can see why. 
Brown connects this episode with Gabriel's appearance to the prophet Daniel in Daniel 9-10. He talks about "the seventy weeks of years" and "the desolating sacrilege" in the Temple-- eschatological signs. Because of some linguistic parallels, the fact that Gabriel is specifically mentioned, and the appearance happens in the temple suggests that the seventy weeks of years is in some sense, over. The years of suffering Israel spent waiting for redemption are over, in a way, because JBap, the forerunner of Jesus, is coming. Of course, Christians believe in the "not yet" of eschatology too, as we await Jesus' Second Coming and the birth of the new creation. But a new era of salvation history has come! 
I'm trying to understand JBap's vocation. He's called to be the Elijah (Malachi 3:1) that makes people ready for Jesus. But isn't that the vocation of any pastor/prophet/chaplain/counselor? Or am I egotistically comparing my probable vocation with that of the greatest among those born of women (Luke 7:28)? I pray that if I am a pastor, I will bring lost "sons of Israel to the Lord their God" and "make ready for the Lord a prepared people."
I guess the best I can say is that JBap highlights that God doesn't just dump the sacred in our laps. He prepares us for himself, and the best we can hope for is to be the JBap to others around us, whether they are encountering Jesus for the first time or ten millionth time. Maybe that's why Luke is starting with JBap, and Matthew with the slightly boring genealogy. We need to prepare, we need Lent before Easter, Advent before Christmas, time for our hard, confused hearts to melt before our fiery God. Maybe JBap prepares us for Jesus in Luke's narrative in subtle ways I can't quite grasp. Maybe I need to acknowledge and even celebrate the many ways God stands beyond my understanding.
Zechariah responds with skepticism-- "But how am I to know?" Apparently he hasn't been so impertinent as to lose his chance to father the second Elijah. But he is made deaf and mute. And after Elizabeth conceives her son, she withdraws from  society for five months. Solitude, as long as it has spiritual purpose and a definite end, is healthy. (Unending isolation obviously is not.) But maybe when we encounter the mystery of God, sometimes the proper response is to have some special God-and-me time. I require a lot of solitude, and if I'm particularly cranky, you may want to ask me how much quality alone time I have gotten lately. Zech and Lizzy remind me it's okay to claim that solitude when I need it, and not spend it on Tumblr and Facebook, but on my knees and in my journal and Bible. 
My reflections seem a bit lame. They definitely can't constitute a sermon. If you have any ideas for improvement, please tell me. Now I'm going to go have a snack so my head quits spinning.

Christmas and Tiny Coffins

Every adult American who does not live under a rock knows about the tragedy in Connecticut last week. The sheer brutality is appalling. For twenty-seven families, Christmas will never be the same. But according to Matthew's gospel, slaughter of the holy innocents was part of the very first Christmas. Herod, in his attempt to kill the baby Jesus, has all the boys aged two and younger in Bethlehem slaughtered. I can't imagine the depth of grief a person experiences upon losing a precious child, the searing silence unpunctured by laughter, a Christmas tree with far too few gifts beneath it... God, I'm watching my baby sister play in my room as I type this and getting a lump in my throat imagining what the big sisters in Bethlehem experienced, and what the big sisters of Newton must be going through right now...
I like knowing why something happens, but there really is no answer to why a horror like the Sandy Hook shooting happened. Yet it comforts me to know Matthew does not say God caused that to happen. He quotes a passage from Jeremiah about Rachel weeping for her children, but refrains from saying that the slaughter happened to fulfill that OT passage, like he does with his other OT quotes. Implicitly, the gospel tells us that God did not cause those children to die. I think that should be a comfort. Our God is neither a master puppeteer nor a murderer. Instead, he weeps beside us in our suffering. I don't believe anyone, not even the most distraught, grief-stricken mother, is more upset about Sandy Hook than God is.
I think the slaughter of the holy innocents has an important function in the Christmas story. Even though God's Son has been born, the eternal Word become flesh, bad things will still happen. We cannot pretend that Christmas means the end of our suffering. Only Jesus' second coming can give us that. But in light of Christmas, our suffering should be transformed. Matthew says, "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted, because they are no more," quoting Jeremiah 31:15. But this is in the middle of a long chapter of God's promise to gather the people of Israel and issue a new covenant in which God forgives Israel's sins and writes his law on Israel's hearts. 
Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and establishment of the church is the beginning of the answer to the promises laid out in Jeremiah 35. "He who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd to a flock" (Jer 31:10)-- Jesus shepherds his church by his earthly example and gift of the Holy Spirit. He gathers all his people into one Israel and casts out those who are not the true Israel based, on the basis of accepting or rejecting Jesus, the stone over which many stumble and many others are saved. "The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when the city shall be rebuilt for the LORD... It shall never again be uprooted or overthrown," proclaims Jeremiah. Jesus is returning, and he will build a new earth, and every holy innocent will be resurrected to new life. 
By describing the grief of the mothers in Bethlehem with a verse in this context, Matthew illustrates the way Christmas transforms grief. Because of Christmas, we should grieve in expectation of Jesus' return and establishment of a holy kingdom wherein we will all live together, forever. And we should grieve with the knowledge that in Jesus' saving death and resurrection, he is our shepherd right now. Like Rachel's tears, our tears should be in the context of the kind of hope celebrated in Jeremiah 31. Cry we will, and must, when sad things happen. But because of Christmas, we must not despair.
Now I'd like to move on to another interesting thing in this section of Matthew-- the many parallels to Moses' early life. Jesus and Moses are both in Egypt, both protected from evil powers. There are places where the Greek wording is the same as in the LXX (Greek translation) of Exodus. Thus, Jesus is a prophet like Moses, as was promised. Again, God fulfills his promise. Another fascinating book on the Bible I was reading entitled The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel explains that Moses' early childhood illustrates a biblical tendency to intertwine home and exile, to obscure any simple answer to the question of where the character in question is from. I think this OT tendency paves the way for eschatology. Jesus isn't really from anywhere-- not truly from Bethlehem, nor Egypt nor Nazareth, spending his years of ministry wandering Israel-- but from God. 
I remember meeting the principal of the elementary school where I went to third grade while enrolling in late August with my parents. Unfortunately, he asked, "Where are you from?" I froze, stared at my shoes, and said nothing. Later, my mom told me I could have just said I was born in California, but that didn't seem to cover all my bases. Moses and Jesus would have the same problem. Transiency, rootlessness, a spiritual homelessness...these feelings occasionally tug on the hearts of even the lucky souls who lived their whole life in the same county. These feelings are part of being human on our unredeemed earth. They remind us that we are not home; our home is with God, just like Jesus.
It is said of Jesus, "He shall be a Nazorean." This refers to more than simply Nazareth. A Nazaritie in the OT was a person who was specially dedicated to God from birth, and as a symbol of this commitment could not drink alcohol or get a haircut. Hence Jesus, too, is specially dedicated to God. Matthew helpfully uses a category of reference his Jewish readers knew well yet was still ancient and slightly exotic-- this Nazarite vow-- to highlight Jesus' special relationship to God. That's a lesson that emerges again and again throughout the Bible: the importance of using contemporary idiom to explain eternal truths. It's something the church today would do well to remember (tough for this traditional worship gal!)
But the phrase can also be traced to Isaiah 11:1, "There will come a shoot from the root of Jesse, and from his roots a branch (Heb: Nazir) will blossom." God has kept his promise to send a Davidic Messiah, and Jesus is the most high, beautiful, important result of that tree. There is something deliciously arrogant about what Matthew is saying here. The centuries of Jewish history are just preparing for Jesus, the ultimate branch out of the tree. I pray for the similar, single-minded conclusion that Jesus is the branch in my life, in the life of the church, that we are just the roots setting the stage for him, our crowning glory and best part. 
Well, there was a lot to be said here. If Christmas cannot speak to these deep questions of language and identity, to the profound sorrow of tiny coffins, it is meaningless. But it can, and does, if only like the magi we are willing to seek and find.

We Three Kings?

My head is exploding. The Birth of the Messiah's commentary on the magi's visit to Jesus in Matthew 2:1-12 is fascinating and somewhat troubling. We sing "We Three Kings" reverently but uncritically. The magi are never said to be kings, nor specified to be only three in number, and furthermore the point of the story is that Jesus is the only real king. I do enjoy that hymn, but perhaps popular understanding of the magi has obscured what the gospel is trying to say.

One of the most important pieces of the story is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the town where David was anointed by the prophet Samuel as king. Thus the Micah prophecy is fulfilled. Again, Jesus fulfills the prophecies, the hopes and dreams of every heart. But Jesus is king from his birth; David must wait and wait for God's proper timing for his anointing. 

Throughout Jesus' lifetime there is a dual motif of acceptance/worship and rejection/persecution. Even as an infant, he is not universally loved. There is something comforting about this. If even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is disliked by some, can we really expect anything different? 

Interestingly, it is the priests and Sanhedrin who correctly quote Scripture, that the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem and will shepherd Israel. They know the Bible backwards and forwards. But they miss out on the miracle of Christmas, while the pagans meet the infant Son of God! How tragic! Why? They aren't paying attention. Following God is about way more than just knowing the right answers, reading your Bible and listening to the sermons. It's also about keeping your eyes open to see what God is doing. Christmas asks that we have a real, living faith that is sensitive to God's actions in the world. We have to keep our eyes peeled and our ears on alert, or we just might miss out on Christmas like the priests did. Christmas, Immanuel, comes every day if we are looking.

Furthermore, "You shall shepherd my people Israel," God says of the coming Messiah. Originally, God spoke these words to King David upon his crowning. Matthew says these words are rightly to be applied to Jesus. Thus, Jesus is the only true Shepherd and King. Herod is not the king; the priests are not the shepherd. Christmas demands, then, that we ask ourselves, like the magi did, who the kings of our lives are and dethrone them, prostrating ourselves instead before the Son of God. For American Christians, the "king" is probably not our government, unless we are putting our faith in the government, which unfortunately a minority of Americans do. Instead, our false kings could be career, money, even family. For me sometimes it's good grades or ambition. Similarly, our true Shepherd is Jesus Christ. God does call some people to be pastors, shepherds over the church. But that's always shepherd with a small "s." We can't put our trust in pastors. And pastors can't trust themselves as the ultimate shepherd, because only Jesus can really care for people's souls, and care of the soul ultimately means connecting people to the Great Shepherd. This, too, is a lesson of Christmas.

There is a lot of OT background in the story of the magi. There's a passage in Isaiah 59 that says, "Be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen (like the star in Matthew is said to have risen) upon you... The wealth of the nations will come to you, all those from Sheba will come bringing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the salvation of our Lord." God's promise is faithful. Ultimately, as the magi come to Jesus, as Jesus' advent ultimately incorporates the Gentiles more thoroughly into the people of God than ever before, Israel is ultimately edified. When "outsiders" worship Jesus, the "insiders" gain wealth, the "insiders" hear the word of God's salvation. The church has to remember that. We are no longer the Gentiles. Every person who we don't think belongs in church is a Gentile, and when they worship Jesus we experience salvation in new ways. I pray that the church today just won't be like the priests in the story of the magi and miss out on it all.

But we are not just the Jews in this story. We are also the kings, especially the rich American church. Although my bank account has lately seemed like a leaky faucet, I am ridiculously wealthy and privileged by global standards. I'm a twenty year old female without a bunch of babies. I'm going to graduate from college. I don't go to bed hungry, except when I'm so busy I forget to make it to the dining hall. I must humble myself before the boy-king. I have to admit that my money, good luck, and brains are really nothing compared to the glory of the Son of God. I have to bring the best that I have for him and know that it's nothing, nothing, next to what he did for me the first Christmas, at Cavalry, and every day of my life. 

Similarly, the word "homage" which Matthew uses hearkens back to the royal Psalm 72:10-11, "May the kings of Sheba and Saba bring gifts; may all the kings pay him homage." But the point is that the kings of the earth worship Jesus, and so Jesus is the realest, truest king. There is so much in this story! So much. I guess I'll keep singing, "We Three Kings," while praying that I and the church worship Jesus as King. 

Conceivably

"Conceivably" is a word my father uses a lot to just mean "possibly," so I grew up using it too. It took me a long time to realize that conceiving refers to something more than simple possibility. And yet the infancy narratives are pregnant (pardon the bad pun) with possibility, like a Christmas tree with shiny gifts beneath that you know will be exciting and wonderful, but exactly what they are, you don't yet know. Jesus is always that way; we will never exhaust his possibility, power, or splendor.

I have been reading the commentary on the conception in Matthew's gospel in the Birth of the Messiah book I'm tackling over break. It has some big surprises, parts of which make slightly uncomfortable. For instance, the angel says to Joseph that Mary is "with child through the Holy Spirit." Raymond Brown, the author of this book, explains that this "through" emphasizes Jesus was conceived in a non-sexual way. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit was feminine in Hebrew and neuter in Greek, so there's no hint that the Holy Spirit is a male agent impregnating Mary. Jesus is conceived through the creative action of the Holy Spirit.

Why does this make me uncomfortable? Because Christians are continually, and often rightly, accused of being uncomfortable with sex. (Of course, the Bible does celebrate sex as one of God's good gifts, the Song of Songs being a primary example.) A virginal conception that deliberately avoids sex does not help our bad image in this regard. I guess the answer is that Jesus is fundamentally different from all of humanity. Jesus, although fully human, is not like the rest of us, so he had to be conceived differently. It's not that sex is dirty, but that Jesus is ontologically (philosophy coursework is coming in handy!) other from the rest of humanity. I'm still a bit uncomfortable with the virginal conception. I admit it. I'm hoping reading and reflecting further will help me understand.

The angel goes on to command Joseph to name his son "Jesus," because "he will save his people from their sins." The original meaning of the Hebrew name "Yeshua," the Greek equivalent of which is "Jesus," was "YHWH helps." But popular etymology led people to think it meant "YHWH saves." That's one of many examples of the fact the Bible is not a history or science book. The angel graciously speaks in the idiom of the people to communicate the saving power of Jesus. Just like Matthew uses a genealogy, which would have been important to Jews of his day, his angel uses popular, not linguistically proper, etymology, to convey the good news. So churches and Christians have to find new ways that speak to people today the timeless unchanging gospel.

Here's something else interesting here. Matthew is writing against adoptionist Christology that says Jesus was only Christ, or only God's Son, at the time of the resurrection or baptism by John the Baptist. By including the infancy narrative and the virginal conception, Matthew emphasizes that Jesus was the Son of God during his whole time on earth. Interestingly, there's a grain of truth the adoptionist heresies. Orthodox Christians should affirm that Jesus was uniquely exalted upon his resurrection and ascension into heaven. And the biblical accounts of Jesus' baptism portray, in my view, Jesus accepting his unique vocation of sonship and God the Father affirming that vocation. (Good to know it took Jesus until thirty to discern his vocation! That should comfort those of us who go back and forth on what we think we are called to do. Which reminds me; I don't know if I've ever heard a sermon preached on Jesus' baptism, and I think you could easily wring a good month of sermons out of that story and change hearts in the process. Anyway...) But Matthew says Jesus always was the Son of God. Now, according to Raymond Brown, Matthew and Luke do not espouse preexistence Christology like that of John-- "In the beginning was the Word." They don't deny preexistence; they just don't advance it. I'm not sure I agree completely with Brown given the Jewish conception of deity and certain aspects of Matthew and Luke's gospels. Both implicitly and occasionally explicitly highlight Jesus' divinity. Can a divine being have a beginning? I don't think a Jewish monotheist could say yes. 
But I'm getting off into the weeds. The point is that the biblical authors should be read in dialogue, with each other and with false teaching. The church has to listen to the biblical witnesses together and separately, and apply the timeless gospel to the false teachings of the day. I don't think there are many adoptionists, per se, in our midst today. But there are people who insist on the humanity of Jesus in ways that tread on his divinity. Christmas holds together the paradox of Jesus, son of David, son of God. I'll continue to think about other contemporary issues the Christmas story can address.
Here's another controversy in Matthew, one that conservative Christians and skeptics have woefully misunderstood. He quotes Isaiah 7:14 in reference to Mary and writes in Greek: "The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which means, God with us." Now, the Isaiah passage in Hebrew reads "young woman," not virgin, and does not refer to an extraordinary child at all, let alone a Messiah. The child, conceived and borne quite normally, is supposed to be a sign to Israel to continue hoping in God. That's all. So was Matthew just stupid? Was his copy of the OT messed up? This gets into some complicated textual issues I don't understand about the LXX (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) and Syriac translations.
But the lessons for the church are manifold here. Most importantly, Jesus is the ultimate sign of God's presence and the fulfillment of all prophecies and signs. I could never say it in my public liberal arts college philosophy and religion courses, but I do believe Jesus Christ is the true fulfillment of all these prophecies and religious hopes. Muslims find hope in the sunna of Muhammad, a perfect man to show the way. Sound like Jesus, anyone? Plato thought to agathon, the good, is the highest Form that holds all things together, holy and inscrutable, knowledge of which is salvation. Sound like the Trinity, Which is Love? Of course Jesus is the best fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy, and any prophecy. Jesus is God with us. 
Also, the Greek Matthew uses in his citation of Isaiah 7:14 says en gastri hexei (found to be with child), which is not present in the LXX verse but is a phrase throughout the LXX referring to births of important patriarchs and judges. Jesus is like them, incorporates their greatness, and yet surpasses them. Isaac was not God-with-us in the same way Jesus is, and to the extent that Isaac was great or important or utilized by God, this is only because of Jesus. En gastri hexei-- the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
I have hundreds of pages left to read, so there's plenty left to say about the infancy narratives! I haven't even gotten to questions of historicity yet; I'm definitely talking and thinking about them soon, though. 
More to come! Let's see if I can finish the book by Christmas! 

Peace Out?

Lately I've been thinking about peace. I've been feeling a lack of peace in my life lately. I guess the relentless onslaught of papers and reading assignments and the constant feeling I'm not doing enough-- whatever "enough" is-- have been getting to me. 
In frustration, during the group prayer at my campus ministry worship service, I prayed, "God, give us the peace of Christ, in our hearts and among us." I might have sounded calm, but on the inside I was really challenging God, demanding he give us peace. 
God, make me patient right now! God, I want peace right now! God, give me a Spark Notes spirituality, a whack-em-on-the-counter biscuit bread of life. 
Thanks be to God, who does not give me everything I want. 
Listening to the Truman orchestra play, I felt God's presence in a way I had not felt for a long time. We did not need many words, mostly just my attention. One of the songs was called "Pas de deux," which I thought looked kind of like "Peace of God," although apparently it's some special ballet term. Whatever. My poor French led me to think, together with the Holy Spirit, about what God's peace is as I sat and listened.
And in the music I felt the ebb and flow, the movement, quick terms, devastating falls and heavenly heights... That is where the peace of Christ is.
In the gospel of John, Jesus promises to give his peace to his disciples. When I have felt overwhelmed, depressed, alienated from God, or simply stressed by the stresses of life, I've thrown this promise sarcastically back at God. You promised me peace, didn't you? Then why am I feeling this way? The prayer after worship on Thursday was one of those times. 
Tonight, in God's presence in the performing arts hall, God reminded me Jesus said those words before he was to betrayed and led to the cross. The peace of Jesus, then, is anything but naive and easy. 
It is, I think, the trust to live in the anguish, depression, stress, conflict, whatever that God calls us to. And in that trust, to believe that we can do everything through Christ who strengthens us. That Jesus died to forgive our sin, and the Holy Spirit is bringing good through the bad situations. That we are never alone, never forsaken, will never die. And that God is closer that our own racing hearts. 
That is the peace of Christ.
We are not called to peace out, to naively check out of life and in the name of peace pretend problems do not exist. Instead, we are called to face them, to perhaps suffer with our long-suffering God, with hearts that trust. If we pray for that kind of peace, our prayer is always answered. And that's not my promise, it's Jesus' promise.