Christmas Is Coming!

You are such a good listener, and knowing that makes me wonder what you're hearing about Christmas as it approaches.  I know how excited you are about your Lego Advent Calendar, and about getting to perform with your class at Barnes & Noble. Decorations are appearing everywhere, festivities that began on Halloween will continue into the New Year, and many of us agree that "it's the most wonderful time of the year." That being said, I really don't understand why we celebrate Christmas the way we do.

The first Christmas was a couple of thousand years ago.  There were no photos.  There were not even any books.  There was electricity but no one knew it.  There were about 300 million human beings populating our whole planet (that's about the same number of us who presently live in the United States of America) and communication between them was very limited.  There is no scientific evidence that anything even happened yet people around the world are preparing to celebrate whatever they think Christmas is.

This fact is proof of a different kind.  Something did happen because our world still reverberates with its effects today.  History literally distinguishes between what happened before this phenomenon and what happened after.  What was so unique about this occurrence that it still influences us today?  What happened?

The most honest answer I can give is, something!  Something happened which was significant enough to generate stories about it which continue today.  I know how much you enjoy the game of whispering a message around the dinner table to see what happens to it by the time it reaches the last person.  That pretty much describes the way things were communicated back then.  It's hard to imagine a world where there was no distinction between fact and fiction (at least in the way we think of them today).  It's hard to imagine from our perspective just how special reading and writing were in that time.  Much of what was written in the beginning was considered sacred (ironically, a concept not very well understood in our own time).  The very fact that so many versions, so many interpretations, focus one way or another on this "happening" is historical proof that it did, indeed, occur.  So, the way we find out what actually happened back then is to learn from the stories that were told about it.

It is very hard for us to imagine that something of such significance could happen without there being any record of it.  That's because it's so hard for us to imagine no records at all!  At least not personal records, because it's true that the world was developing various kinds of record keeping which were determined by what different societies and cultures considered significant.  This, I think, may explain how the story of the first Christmas came about.

Jesus is the principal subject of the first Christmas story, but other stories about him were already being retold, with some even being written down.  This helps to explain why the Christmas story was probably written down after Jesus had already died; after word had already spread among a growing number of people who felt that Jesus was extraordinary and had somehow changed their lives for good.  Since Christmas was being inserted at the beginning of this developing story, it needed to deliver a message of just how very special they believed Jesus was from the very beginning.

What we know about Jesus is literally what people have told us.  A central theme of these stories is about the relationship between Jesus and God.  Mix the two together and, voila!, you get religion!  It would be easier to tell the story of Jesus without getting God involved, but that's just not possible.  Once again, in our world where the existence of God is debateable, it is hard for us to imagine a time when it wasn't even questioned.  If you think trying to learn about Jesus is difficult, just wait until you start on God!  At this point, however, let it suffice to say that Jesus believed in God in such a unique way that it changed our world.

A very long time ago, there was an amazingly good man named Jesus.  Jesus never hurt anyone because the only thing he wanted to do was help people.  This was very unusual, and many of us believe that there has been no better human being since.  Jesus said that he wanted to be good and to help others because that's the way God is.  Jesus believed that God is love, the kind of love we feel from our mother and father.  Most importantly, Jesus said that his connection with God was inside him, and that this is true for all of us! Jesus said that once we connect with God and realize how much we are loved, we won't be afraid of anything==even dying!  Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birth and life, and of the good news he shared with all humankind that God is love!

A Very Special Night

Today is known in the Christian tradition as Maundy Thursday. It is also called Holy Thursday. As a rule, Maundy Thursday coincides with the Jewish observance of Passover, and I agree with those who speculate that The Last Supper of Christianity originated with the Seder meal at which Jesus and his disciples sat. At one point in the Seder, the question is asked, "What makes this night different than all others?" Born and raised in the church, I came to see that no question is more germane to the celebration of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. In the Gospel accounts of what is supposed to have happened this night two-thousand years ago, Jesus glorifies God by revealing the power of Love. Jesus was not a warrior. Jesus was not an emperor (although the legalization of Christianity by Constantine in the Fourth Century C.E. effectively turned him into one). Jesus was the incarnation of God's love and revealed to the world its indomitable power. Jesus did not fight. Jesus did not retaliate. Jesus joined his loved ones to celebrate the gift of life and its Creator, to exemplify that our relationship to God is the very sustenance of our lives. Jesus exemplified that communion with God endures all things and cannot be destroyed. That night so long ago was different than any other because Jesus understood that God is love and demonstrated that even death cannot destroy this Truth.

Sunday

Today is the thirty-seventh Sunday of your young life. It appears to me that your understanding of the Sabbath may be quite different than mine was , or even your mother's, when we were growing up. I was born and raised in the Methodist church and consequently understood Sunday to be the holy day which begins each week. Your great grandfather, Earl Hanna, was an outstanding preacher of his day, and weekly attendance at his worship services significantly influenced the development of my worldview. Yes, I am old enough to remember when almost every business but the local pharmacy was closed on Sunday.

I have been reflecting on my Ash Wednesday words to you since I wrote them. That post is filled with ecclesiastical jargon that is, in my humble opinion, on the verge of becoming meaningless in the world you are in the process of making your own. For instance, I'm guessing that few of the "Christians" "observing" "Lent" right now know that Sundays are excluded from the forty day count that is intended to symbolize both the number of years that Moses' followers wandered in the desert and, accordingly, the number of days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. Easter signifies Jesus' resurrection (according to tradition) on the prophesied third day after his crucifixion, which is Sunday. Therefore, the primitive tradition developed that every Sunday should be observed as Easter.

I fall in the camp of those who think that Jesus never intended to start a new church, or a new religion. He was a Jew with a vision for reforming his own faith into one of fidelity to God rather than Humanity. Therefore, he in all likelihood observed Sabbath on the biblical seventh day of creation, Saturday. His life and teachings centered on the imminent reality of God's reign on Earth, but the "Church" eventually tailored that message to its own advantage. This ultimately led to a contradiction between faith and religion which I personally experienced in my fiftieth year. My observance of Sunday these days is far different from what I practiced for the first half-century of my life, and I find myself curiously more empathetic with the process of trying to figure out what this thing we call "life" is all about. This presumes an answer to the question, which does not necessarily mean there is one. I am reasonably confident, however, that through the man known as Jesus the Christ there is revealed an enlightened path of questioning that promises the way to Wholeness.

Ash Wednesday

An extraordinary man would have followed through with posts to his grandson each and every day following his birth. Alas, I am the most common of the ordinary. Your life has been celebrated and cherished by all those whose lives you touch, myself included. I am blessed among all grandfathers to be present at your day to day development, a privilege that was not afforded me even with my own two precious daughters (the eldest being your mother). All this is to say that my undisciplined and sporadic blogging should never be taken as apathy toward you. I thank God for the gift of your life and for my ability to participate in it.

It would be interesting to ever know what you learn of me from others, but such does not seem to fall in the realm of our human reality. It is, therefore, a degree of selfishness which motivates me to tell you my side of the story. Having been curious for as long as I can remember, I would have welcomed more intimate insight into my grandparents' (and parents') worldviews and how they developed. The longer I live, the more I realize just how significant family is to who and what I am.

From my perspective, the most important thing to know about me is that I believe that I have been "called" to proclaim the gospel of Jesus the Christ. At sixty-two, I am profoundly disappointed by the realization that what this means to everyone is so diverse as to be relatively meaningless. This was made crystal clear to me during the time that I was ordained in The United Methodist Church. Each parishioner had a unique understanding of the pastor's role which was loosely held together by the common thread of doctrine. We all believed in God, but such beliefs are so diluted by interpretation as to, again, be meaningless.

This brief introduction will hopefully serve to explain why I have chosen this occasion to contribute more significantly to this venue which I have chosen to record my thoughts to you. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, a tradition leading to Christianity's highest holy day, Easter. It is intended as a time of reflection, meditation and self-denial. I am looking forward to the opportunity to share with you those things that are important to me, and to explain why. I close for now with the profound admonition that serves as the foundation of faith: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.