Tag Archives: Christmas

Saturday Jess

02 Saturday Jan 2016

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20121115-180317.jpgAs usual, this week we have harrowed some ground we have plowed before. Nothing wrong with that, our forefathers have worked this ground since Christ was on earth. This week we spoke of our conception of hell, and we spoke of new beginnings. Hell has been covered in several articles this week, and what is New Years (and Christmas) about if not new beginnings? 

But the point of talking about hell is to convince people that they really don’t want to go there, however, we each see it. And so it is to help us to our salvation that we speak of the unspeakable.

But we also celebrated Jessica’s return to the lists this week, with some of her best posts ever. I had a few things to say about her on the second anniversary of AATW, which might bear repeating.

I do want to say that one of the upshots of the first couple of comments I made here was the day that I received an email from someone named Jessica Hoff, and it wasn’t terribly long before we were referring to each other as ‘dear friend’ and then in a little while more as ‘dearest friend’. I know many think it rather silly, and if I wandered in today, I probably would as well but, it is quite simply the truth. We really are. We have supported each other through all sorts of things, both with the blogs, and in our real lives as well. […]

And that simple goodness has always shown through in this blog as well, in its intelligence, its candor, its tolerance, and above all in its kindness. All of those things were instilled in all of us by Jessica, and in some measure are reserved to this blog. Most of the contributors here are, in other fora, quite hard-headed, and opinionated indeed.

That’s all still true, maybe even more true, having been tested and not found wanting. Here’s Jess

Salvation and St. Isaac

“Let us not be in doubt, O fellow humanity, concerning the hope of our salvation, seeing that the One who bore sufferings for our sakes is very concerned about our salvation; God’s mercifulness is far more extensive than we can conceive, God’s grace is greater than what we ask for.” [‘The Second Part’, XL, 17]

As we reflect on our sins and the things we have not done that we ought to have done, I find these words of St. Isaac comforting.  Some have held that they amount to him believing in ‘apocatastasis’ or universal salvation. It seems to me that is not right, but that what Isaac knew was that God’s Grace, that same Grace which led His Son to Calvary for us, was so much greater than anything we could conceive. He constantly cautions us against the grave dangers which come from the fact that we have to use our own language and concepts to describe God.

Just because (the terms) wrath, anger, hatred, and the rest are used of the Creator, we should not imagine that He (actually) does anything in anger or hatred or zeal. Many figurative terms are employed in the Scriptures of God, terms which are far removed from His (true) nature. And just as (our) rational nature has (already) become gradually more illuminated and wise in a holy understanding of the mysteries which are hidden in (Scripture’s) discourse about God – that we should not understand everything (literally) as it is written, but rather that we should see, (concealed) inside the bodily exterior of the narratives, the hidden providence and eternal knowledge which guides all – so too we shall in the future come to know and be aware of many things for which our present understanding will be seen as contrary to what it will be then; and the whole ordering of things yonder will undo any precise opinion we possess now in (our) supposition about Truth. For there are many, indeed endless, things which do not even enter our minds here, not even as promises of any kind.’ [‘The Second Part’ XXXIX, 19]

Our terms, concepts and images cannot adequately portray the reality of God, and he knew well our tendency to make God in the image we have of Him, rather than through His self-revelation:

That we should imagine that anger, wrath, jealousy or such like have anything to do with the divine Nature is something utterly abhorrent for us: no one in their right mind, no one who has any understanding (at all) can possibly come to such madness as to think anything of the sort about God. Nor again can we possibly say that He acts thus out of retribution, even though the Scriptures may on the outer surface posit this. Even to think this of God and to suppose that retribution for evil acts is to be found with Him is abominable.

That is not to say that the sheep and the goats will not be separated, but it is to say that only the most obstinate of sinners will find him or herself where they have willed. Christ died for us all – we can all, if we will, reach out and embrace Him. We can all refuse: which will we do?

Saturday Jess

26 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by in Advent, Christmas, Faith

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20121115-180317.jpgWell, I hope you all had either a Happy or a Merry Christmas, and for you wonderful Britons, happy Boxing day! Most of you know, I am on the east coast with my family, as is my custom, and so don’t expect too much of me, I’ll be in and out.

But it was a wonderful advent this year, we had our usual anticipation of the Christ Child, but we also had the unalloyed pleasure of our Chatelaine’s return to us. In fact, those of us, who Jess has kept in touch with, for all those long months, have referred to it as exactly that, an advent. For we were able to watch and see her improvement from week to week, and to offer our encouragement, until our prayers were answered, and her presence and spirit again suffused our blogs, and our hearts. Her recovery started with a miracle, and they have not ceased. As I have said to a few, whatever peace I found in the early months of that recovery came from Our Lady, and many are convinced that it was her intervention that saved her originally as well. Deo Gratias.

It’s the day after Christmas so maybe it’s a good time to reflect on the person most neglected in our remembrance of that first Christmas, who now has manifold duties to carry out. Here’s Jess:

An ordinary Joe: a Christmas reflection

It must have been a hard coming to Bethlehem. At that time of the year the weather there can be cold and inclement; not the time to take a heavily pregnant young woman on a long journey. Whether it was poverty or poor planning, the inn keeper’s stables were better than the open air; but not by much. What a time they had had; what a time was to come. Of the birth itself, the first Christians created legends; but we know nothing save what was needful: the young mother and the baby did well.

Where there had been Mary and Joseph, there was now the Holy Family. The man and the woman were brought into a new configuration by the baby; that is the human condition. No more would Joseph labour only for himself and his betrothed; he was a family man now; for this he had left his father and his mother; the same was true for her.

We are told little of him, Joseph, the almost anonymous protector of the sweet Virgin and her precious Baby. What manner of man was he?  We know more than we think. He was the man to whom these burdensome treasures were consigned. We know they were treasures, but for him, he had the task of bringing up a child not his own; he also had to cope with the consequences of Mary’s pregancy and of her choice. She had chosen this path with the aid of her Immaculate Conception; Joseph did what he did full of the burden of original sin.

He did it. He took that heavily-pregnant girl on the long journey and protected her; he found a place to stay; and he took his little family into exile to escape Herod’s soldiers. He was a quietly capable man. He was no hero in his own eyes; that type of man never is. We can doubt anyone else regarded him as such either; it is always so with that type of man.

Joseph worked with his hands. He was a practical man. He was the man to whom people went if they wanted something doing properly. He was not an educated man, but he was a righteous one. He attended synagogue, paid his dues, and got on with the business of life.

He wasn’t impulsive or vengeful. Even when he thought his young fiancée had betrayed him, the worst he was minded to do was put her away privately; most men would have made a great fuss; some would have had her stoned. Once enlightened by God, Joseph did his duty.

It is typical of Joseph that we do not even know when he died. By the time his son began His Ministry, Joseph had been dead for long enough for Jesus to be known as ‘Mary’s son’. Of Mary, never enough; of Joseph, hardly anything.

But there is enough for us to know that anyone to whom God had entrusted such treasures was himself special. He was special in not being special at all. Americans talk about an ‘ordinary Joe’. That, to all intents and purposes was Mary’s Joseph. And for our celebrity-obsessed age, and for those looking for heroes, Joseph of Nazareth has a message: do the simple things right; be the best you can be; and serve your God in humble obedience – and that is enough – and then more.

The Blessings of the Lord be with us all this Christmas.

Merry Christmas

24 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by in Bible, Christmas, Faith

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Joseph2In the last few days, we’ve talked a bit of St Joseph, and we have commented that we see a lot of him in what we call ‘ordinary Joe’s’. Well, I’m not so sure that they are really very ordinary, because they too are creators, not of life perhaps, but of quality of life. What do they create? Kipling put it like this:

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
   We were melted in the furnace and the pit—
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
   We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
   And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
   We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!


      We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,


      We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,


      We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,


      We can see and hear and count and read and write!




Would you call a friend from half across the world?


   If you’ll let us have his name and town and state,


You shall see and hear your crackling question hurled


   Across the arch of heaven while you wait.


Has he answered? Does he need you at his side?


   You can start this very evening if you choose,


And take the Western Ocean in the stride


   Of seventy thousand horses and some screws!




      The boat-express is waiting your command!


      You will find the Mauretania at the quay,


      Till her captain turns the lever ’neath his hand,


      And the monstrous nine-decked city goes to sea.




Do you wish to make the mountains bare their head


   And lay their new-cut forests at your feet?


Do you want to turn a river in its bed,


   Or plant a barren wilderness with wheat?


Shall we pipe aloft and bring you water down


   From the never-failing cisterns of the snows,


To work the mills and tramways in your town,


   And irrigate your orchards as it flows?




      It is easy! Give us dynamite and drills!


      Watch the iron-shouldered rocks lie down and quake


      As the thirsty desert-level floods and fills,


      And the valley we have dammed becomes a lake.




But remember, please, the Law by which we live,


   We are not built to comprehend a lie,


We can neither love nor pity nor forgive.


   If you make a slip in handling us you die!


We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings—


   Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods!-


Our touch can alter all created things,


   We are everything on earth—except The Gods!




      Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,


      It will vanish and the stars will shine again,


      Because, for all our power and weight and size,


      We are nothing more than children of your brain!










True, isn’t it? We did build that, and more




Tonight back in 1968, the America that I grew up in, and still love, using mainly our brains (and our slide rules) sent the world a message as well. Here it is








Sometimes, it seems as if those days are gone forever, and in a way, I suppose they are. But you know, that America (And the rest of Western Civilization) is still here, plugging away, without much notice or reward, just like Joseph, to protect, comfort and feed our families, and the rest of God’s children as well.




Merry Christmas to all

					


	





	

								
Advent and Commercialization
										

			09
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			Dec 2014
		

	
	

		

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Second Advent Week
Second Advent Week (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


Last Tuesday in his post Advent and Us, Chalcedon made this point.


Advent is a casualty of the secularisation of our society. For many people its arrival seems to have been marked by the urge to worship Mammon; at the garage this morning, paying for the petrol took longer than usual, apparently because so many people were using their debit and credit cards for ‘cyber Monday’. Already the invitations for Christmas parties are here, and the general thrust of the season seems to be towards excess and self-gratification; that may not, of course, be much more than an intensification of business as normal. So how do we retrieve Advent?


He’s correct of course. But there is also this. Advent/Christmas has been sort of a pendulum in our society. When I wrote about Thanksgiving, I was reminded that for the Separatist/Pilgrims Christmas was simply another work day, not celebrated at all. I doubt any of us really want to go back to that either.


The other point to that is that business, at its best is agnostic in regards to religion. It’s purpose is to supply the goods you want at what you consider a fair price. Yes, the owner of a business should have the option of not dealing with anyone he chooses not to. But he must understand that such a course works to his disadvantage as well as those with whom he chooses not to deal. That does not mean it is never justified.


But retail is a very strange business. the way it has developed in the US (and I suspect the UK), it has become a very large friendly dog, in a very small room, and every time it wags its tail it knocks something off the table.


Here we have a business that (if it is lucky) manages to break even in the first eleven months of the year. That means if it is to make a profit at all, it must do so in the last month, and we all know that coincides with Advent/Christmas. Christmas is, of course, a marketer’s dream: The birth of a child (and so a birthday party) combined with the major religious holiday of the dominant religion, in our countries.


And so, if you were in charge of a business like that, what would you do? I think most of us would do exactly as our retailers do, exploit it for all we are worth, after all we have employees to pay, and presumably we’d like to keep them employed for another year.


Yes, much of it is completely tasteless, occasionally degrading, and completely misses our point. And that part of it bothers me as well but, some isn’t.


And never doubt that if they could figure out a way to exploit Ramadan, they would screw that up as completely. Their job is to move product, not be be sympathetic to the religious.


Mostly, I suspect we should take this as still another reminder that while we are in this world, we are not really of this world.


And besides, a fair amount of it is kind of fun, when we put our outrage aside, isn’t it?


And personally I have always believed God has a good sense of humor, He must have, He created us, after all.

					


	





	

								
Christmas – God Promises Kept!
										

			25
			Wednesday
			Dec 2013
		

	
	

		

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The promise of a deliver a Messiah who would reverse the effects of the fall was first made to Eve – Gen. 3:15. This was the first of a multitude of promised made with the purpose of identifying the Messiah when He finally arrived. A useful analogy is to consider them as ‘The Messiah’s Address’.


The postal service narrows down your location and identity reading your address backwards for mail to reach you i.e. country – city – area – street- house – particular occupant.


The identity of the coming Messiah is similarly narrowed down from the more general to a specific individual i.e. male – descendant of Abraham – of Isaac (i.e. Jew not Arab) – of Jacob’s son Judah (one out of 12) – of Jesse – of David – place of birth Bethlehem – place of residence Nazareth – manner, time and facts of death and many more identifying facts are supplied.


At this time of year TV documentaries frequently try to reinterpret Christ and His mission, presenting the rise of the Christian religion over the next few centuries as a response to the failure of the coming of God’s kingdom and Israel’s national deliverance from Roman domination. The Jesus of faith or of Paul is contrasted with the Jesus of history.


However if we simply read the Messiah’s address carefully and follow the apostles identification of Him and of His agenda, that they came to understand we answer these objections.


The principle in Biblical understanding of the first mention of a matter is important and if the Jews at the time of Christ and today’s re-interpreters of Christ were to follow the principle they would see clearly that the deliverance was to be primarily one of universal deliverance from the effects of sin Gen. 3:15, a far more radical prospect than a national or political deliverance.


This concept should then be born in mind when interpreting further prophecies of the Messiah’s coming. In Isaiah 9:7 we read:


“There will be no end to the increase of His government of peace … from then on and for evermore”.


Jesus taught that His government/kingdom must be understood as ‘not of this world’ or its worldly kings and their ways Christ’s mission and its continuation through humble servant disciples entering His kingdom by a new and spiritual birth from above requires no reinterpretation when Christ’s words are taken at face value. At the first Christmas this kingdom was inaugurated and its increase has been never ending.


One commentator on this year’s CNN presentation of Jesus and Christianity stated “Jesus did not come to found a new religion but to establish a kingdom”. I have previously heard the same from several ‘Charismatic Evangelical’ church leaders and embrace it as an important guideline. Another person I know was impressed at the start of his ministry with the thought – “Bill (not his real name) you seek My kingdom and I will build My church”. The kingdom was constantly on Christ’s lips but never once did he mention founding a new religion.


On this site it is generally not Christ or matters of His Kingdom that divide us but interpretations of His church. For the sake of that kingdom John the Baptist decreased, became less visible and is commended for doing so while for some the visibility of the church is oh so important!


The church is no more than the totality of those who should decrease in their own self obsession and importance while displaying the good works, power and wonders of Christ’s ever increasing government/ kingdom, that the Father might be glorified.


As kingdom living and demonstration becomes the priority of those who follow Christ they find themselves united with one another in a living active organism while their various organizational units simply provide the minimum necessary skeleton. It seems illogical to me to advocate ‘small government’ for nations and great bureaucracy and hierarchy for churches.


‘The government is on His shoulders’ and passed to Him at His incarnation. There is a fascinating prophesy of the Messiah’s kingdom/government in Jacob’s blessing of his son Judah.


“THE SCEPTER SHALL NOT DEPART FROM JUDAH, NOR THE RULER’S STAFF FROM BETWEEN HIS FEET, UNTIL SHILOH COMES AND TO HIM SHALL BE THE OBEDIENCE OF THE PEOPLES GEN. 49:10.”


The Jewish sources Targum Jonathan 8/331 and Targum Pseudo Jonathan 2/278 identify Gen. 49:10 & 11 as Messianic prophecies.


According to this scripture and the Jews of the time the suppression of Israel’s national judicial power would take place following the appearance of the Messiah to Israel. The event that the Jews took to mark this was their loss of the supreme judicial power the ‘jus gladii’ i.e. the right to pass the death sentence.


There is some debate in Jewish sources about when this took place as being either: –


a) As one source gives the date as 7AD. or


b) According to Josephus Ant. Book 17 Ch 13, 1.5 it took place in 11 AD. or


b) Talmud, Jerusalem, Sanhedrin, fol. 24 recto – states that it took place “A little more than forty years before the destruction of the temple”


Placing the birth of Jesus at 6BC this would give the age of Jesus, at the time, in each case as 1yr, 5yrs or 24yrs respectively.


The amazing thing is that the Jews knew the implications of this themselves – Talmud, Bab, Sanhedrin, Chap. 4, fol. 37, recto states


“Woe unto us for the scepter has been taken away from Judah and the Messiah has not yet appeared.”  Another Jewish source says that “When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death … they covered their heads with ashes and their bodies with sackcloth” and made the same declaration as above. These facts are referenced in “Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell”.


They Jewish authorities were mistaken the young Messiah was still in preparation in Nazareth and upon His appearance they unknowingly acknowledged Him as Messiah by calling Him Jesus of Nazareth. Here we have another part for Joseph in the events; an angel appears again to Joseph, which resulted in the family residing in Nazareth “So that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘HE SHALL BE CALLED A NAZARENE’ Matt. 2:19 & 23”.


However there is somewhat of a mystery, in any study Bible when the OT is quoted cross references to the OT text are given in the margin and the words quoted may be printed in capitals. In the case of Matt. 2:23 there are no cross references given in any Bible I have checked.


The answer lies in the reference to prophets (plural) and the meaning of the name Nazareth i.e. sprig, shoot or branch. Each of these terms are Messianic titles for the Messiah e.g. “the shoot out of Jesse (King David’s father)” Isaiah 11:1, Jeremiah 23:5, Zechariah 3:8; 6:12-13.


Note in this last text “His name is ‘The Branch’” and how for Jesus His place of birth became His designated name ‘Jesus of Nazareth”. On a trip to Israel our secular Jewish guide, confirmed the meaning of ‘Nazareth’ as we looked around the town and found my discussion with him on this point interesting.


The apostles did not get it wrong because they referenced the prophets as they had been shown and as they were interpreted to them by the resurrected Jesus as He commissioned them to continue His mission John Luke 24:44-48.


There is no cause for re-interpretation from the Gen.3:15 promises to the ‘Great Commission’ the Messiah’s mission has been clear to those whose eyes He has opened.