Poetry Corner

Different people I know react to poetry in diverse ways. The Bible has five books which we call “the wisdom literature” which are poetic, though each in various ways. However, the song lyrics and poetic forms are found throughout both major and minor prophets, as well as in the historical books.

In the gospels we have the four examples of song associated with the birth of Jesus, with the Magnificat in Luke’s gospel being the best known.  And we have Paul’s Philippians passage beginning, “Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus…” which many believe had become a hymn of the early church.

Modern Bibles indent poetic sections or typeset them in verse form so that we recognize the change in form, though they do not all agree as to which sections deserve this treatment. Many contemporary writers wish to place Genesis 1 as poetry, while others cringe at what they feel is taking the passage down the road to a more liberal interpretation of the creation story.

How do you react to the poetic passages?  Or contemporary verse?  If you have an ‘artsy’ temperament you probably relate better than those not so inclined.  Either way, poetry can’t be absorbed with speed reading. It requires you to slow down and adopt a more meditative posture; I would argue it also requires more than a single reading.

Today we have two post-season reflections on the incarnation.  The first by Thomas Watson comes by way of Ann Voskamp by way of David Fisher:

”He was poor, that he might make us rich.
He was born of a virgin that we might be born of God.
He took our flesh, that he might give us His Spirit.
He lay in the manger, that we may lie in paradise.
He came down from heaven, that he might bring us to heaven…
that the ancient of days should be born.
that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle….
that he who rules the stars should suck the breast;
that a virgin should conceive;
that Christ should be made of a woman, and of that woman which himself made,
that the branch should bear the vine,
that the mother should be younger than the child she bare,
and the child in the womb bigger than the mother;
that the human nature should not be God, yet one with God

Christ taking flesh is a mystery we shall never fully understand till we come to heaven

If our hearts be not rocks, this love of Christ should affect us .

Behold love that passeth knowledge!”

~Thomas Watson

The second is uncredited from Daniel Jepsen’s blog, and is perhaps his own work.

I have sometimes wondered, dear Christ
Which was the greater sacrifice
Was it the tomb or the womb?

Dark death held you inside
Three days, and nights beside
Imprisoned in the world you had framed

But nine months did You face
There in Mary’s dark place
Growing in the woman you had made

Did You know even then
You were the Savior of men
Or were your thoughts in darkness as well?

And as Your mind came to life
Could you sense of the strife
You would endure on Calvary’s Hill?

I have sometimes wondered, dear Christ
Which was the greater sacrifice
Was it the tomb or the womb?

Joseph’s Role in the Christmas Story

This is one of two articles here today at C201, this from Russell D. Moore’s blog, Moore to the Point where it appeared, for the second time under the title Let’s Stop Ignoring Joseph.  You are strongly encouraged to read it at the source, rather than here.

I played a cow in my first-grade Christmas pageant, and I had more lines than the kid who played Joseph. He was a prop, or so it seemed, for Mary, the plastic doll in the manger, and the rest of us. We were just following the script. There’s rarely much room in the inn of the contemporary Christian imagination for Joseph, especially among conservative Protestants like me. His only role, it seems, is an usher—to get Mary to the stable in Bethlehem in the first place and then to get her back to the Temple in Jerusalem in order to find the wandering 12-year-old Jesus.

But there’s much more to the Joseph figure.

Real Father

When we talk about Joseph at all, we spend most of our time talking about what he was not. We believe (rightly) with the apostles that Jesus was conceived in a virgin’s womb. Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father; not a trace of Joseph’s sperm was involved in the formation of the embryo Christ. No amount of Joseph’s DNA could be found in the dried blood of Jesus peeled from the wood of Golgotha’s cross. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit completely apart from the will or exertion of any man.

That noted, though, we need to be careful that we don’t reduce Joseph simply to a truthful first-century Bill Clinton: “He did not have sexual relations with that woman.” There’s much more to be said. Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father, but he is his real father. In his adoption of Jesus, Joseph is rightly identified by the Spirit speak­ing through the Scriptures as Jesus’ father (Luke 2:41, 48).

Jesus would have said “Abba” first to Joseph. Jesus’ obedience to his father and mother, obedience essential to his law-keeping on our behalf, is directed toward Joseph (Luke 2:51). Jesus does not share Joseph’s bloodline, but he claims him as his father, obeying Joseph perfectly and even following in his voca­tion. When Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, he cites the words of Deuteronomy to counter “the flaming darts of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16). Think about it for a moment—Jesus almost certainly learned those Hebrew Scriptures from Joseph as he listened to him at the woodworking table or stood beside him in the synagogue.

Difficult Deed

Our contemporary cartoonish, two-dimensional picture of Joseph too easily ignores how difficult it was for him to do what he did. Imagine for a minute that one of the teenagers in your church were to stand up behind the pulpit to give her testimony. She’s eight months pregnant and unmarried. After a few minutes of talking about God’s working in her life and about how excited she is to be a mother, she starts talking about how thankful she is that she’s remained sexually pure, kept all the “True Love Waits” commitments she made in her youth group Bible study. You’d immediately conclude that the girl’s either delusional or lying.

When contemporary biblical revisionists scoff at the virgin birth of Jesus and other miracles, they often tell us we’re now beyond such “myths” since we live in a post-Enlightenment, scientifically progressive information age. What such critics miss is the fact that virgin conceptions have always seemed ridiculous. People in first-century Palestine knew how babies were conceived. The implausibility of the whole thing is evident in the biblical text itself. When Mary tells Joseph she is pregnant, his first reaction isn’t a cheery “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” No, he assumes what any of us would conclude was going on, and he sets out to end their betrothal.

But then God enters the scene.

When God speaks in a dream to Joseph about the identity of Jesus, Joseph, like everyone else who follows Christ, recognizes the voice and goes forward (Matt. 1:21-24). Joseph’s adoption and protection of Jesus is simply the outworking of that belief.

Same Faith

In believing God, Joseph probably walked away from his reputation. The wags in his hometown would probably always whisper about how “poor Joseph was hoodwinked by that girl” or how “old Joseph got himself in trouble with that girl.” As the stakes grew higher, Joseph certainly sacrificed his economic security. In first-century Galilee, after all, one doesn’t simply move to Egypt, the way one might today decide to move to New York or London. Joseph surrendered a household economy, a vocation probably built up over generations, handed down to him, one would suppose, by his father.

Again, Joseph was unique in one sense. None of us will ever be called to be father to God. But in another very real sense, Joseph’s faith was exactly the same as ours. The letter of James, for instance, speaks of the definition of faith in this way: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (1:27). James is the one who tells us further that faith is not mere intellectual belief, the faith of demons (2:19), but is instead a faith that works.

James shows us that Abraham’s belief is seen in his offering up Isaac, knowing God would keep his promise and raise him from the dead (2:21-23). We know Rahab has faith not simply because she raises her hand in agreement with the Hebrew spies but because in hiding them from the enemy she is showing she trusts God to save her (2:25). James tells us that genuine faith shelters the orphan.

What gives even more weight to these words is the identity of the human author. This letter is written by James of the Jerusalem church, the brother of our Lord Jesus. How much of this “pure and undefiled religion” did James see first in the life of his own earthly father? Did the image of Joseph linger in James’s mind as he inscribed the words of an orphan-protecting, living faith?

It’s a shame that Joseph is so neglected in our thoughts and affections, even at Christmastime. If we pay attention to him, though, we just might see a model for a new generation of Christians. We might see how to live as the presence of Christ in a culture of death. We might see how to image a protective Father, how to preach a life-affirming gospel, even in a culture captivated by the spirit of Herod.

~ Russell D. Moore

You Can’t Dissect a Miracle

Today’s post is from David Kenney where it appeared today at his blog under the title The Mechanics of a Miracle.

“Just ’cause you understand the mechanics of how something works, doesn’t make it any less of a miracle…”

That was said by a man named Bill Compton. Bill is a civil war veteran, he’s fictional… and he’s a vampire. Yes, he’s actually a character on HBO’s True Blood (no, I have never watched the show, but I heard the quote today and liked it.)

But that quote above made me think a little more about the virgin birth. That’s what we should all be thinking about this week, right?

Matthew 1:18 (CEB) says,

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. When Mary his mother was engaged to Joseph, before they were married, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you want to get “hung up” on the etymology of the virgin birth, go right ahead, but the bible says that Mary became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.

That’s a miracle, right?

A woman who had never had sex… became pregnant just through the power of God.

And the sad thing is, us theologians who claim to understand the “mechanics” of scripture, we “break it all down” into digestible chunks. The bible becomes a system of words and things we “understand.” And from those understandings we develop “doctrine.”

So here is my question…

Do you really want to turn the virgin birth into doctrine? Do you really want to turn the miracle of Christmas into mechanics?

In Luke 1:34 (CEB) Mary asks the angel about the mechanics…

Then Mary said to the angel, “How will this happen since I haven’t had sexual relations with a man?”

and what does the Angel tell her in verse 35?

The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come over you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the one who is to be born will be holy. He will be called God’s Son.”

Does that explanation help? How did it happen?

Answer: it was a miracle.

Think about it this way, whenever a human being is born, someone “new” is created; and we call that a miracle. But when Jesus was born, that baby wasn’t new… but was the oldest living being. A being who had already previously existed before, was born.

And we think we can “fathom” or “understand” the mechanics of that miracle?

The virgin birth is also confirmed by the testimony of Jesus.

John 10:27-30 (CEB)

“My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life. They will never die, and no one will snatch them from my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them from my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Jesus gives testimony that he and God are equals. At this the teachers of his day pick up rocks to stone him. Jesus says, “ I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of those works do you stone me?”

The Jewish opposition answered, “We don’t stone you for a good work but for insulting God. You are human yet you make yourself out to be God.”

Ironically there are many today who wish to make Jesus a “human” again.

Jesus replies, “So how can you say that the one whom the Father has made holy and sent into the world insults God because he said, I am God’s Son?”

Jesus never said he was Joseph’s or Mary’s son. He never called himself a carpenter. No, when Jesus talked about himself, he said his home was in heaven and his Father was the author of the scriptures.

How can you or I claim to understand the mechanics of that? Even the people of Jesus’ day who knew him, lived side by side with him didn’t understand it, his own family didn’t even understand it (Mark 3:21) so how can we say that we do?

We’ve heard the Christmas story a million times, told a million ways from a million pastors – so I am sure the miracle can lose it’s luster, but let’s try to keep it in perspective….

When Jesus slept out under the stars on Christmas morning, he was looking up at a night sky that He made.

The one who calls himself the “ancient of days” was only hours old.

Let us not forget the miracle of Christmas!

* scripture taken from The Common English Bible

~David Kenney

Mary’s Song

The following is from a new edition of a book by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Magnify The Lord, which is based entirely on Luke 1:46-55.  This arrives just in time for Christmas and Advent meditations.

…Why is Mary magnifying the Lord?  Why does her spirit exult in God her Savior? She really surprises us with the answer.  It is not primarily because of what has happened to her.  She does not mention that: it comes in but that is merely an incident in her hymn of praise.  So what is the cause of her adoration, of her praise?  It is because God himself is who and what he is, and because of what he is doing with respect to the world.

Mary’s eye, in other words, is not upon herself. You see how certain parts of the Church have so abused and made an utter travesty of this. Mary is full of humility. She refers to herself as what she is — ‘the low estate of thine handmaiden.’ There is nothing here about the ‘mother of God’ and about ‘the queen of heaven.’ Mary is not thinking about herself. Mary has seen something that makes her forget about herself and this is the ultimate test of a true understanding of what happened when God in the fullness of times ‘sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law’ (Gal. 4:4).

Mary is rejoicing not so much in the fact that she is to be given this great privilege, she has been reminded by Elizabeth of what this is and of how people are going to caller her blessed, and she repeats that, ‘from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.’

But that is not the thing that really moves her. It is what God is doing: this historic event, this climactic action of God himself.  She is humbled and grateful at the thought of the fact that she is to be given a part and a place in this, but it is the thing itself that moves her and makes her sing and worship.

She is filled with a sense of amazement, of worship, adoration, and utter astonishment. She sees the inner meaning of the action. She has a glimpse and a glimmering of understanding of the whole purpose of salvation, what God is doing in bringing forth his Son into the world, even out of her womb.

Now that is the secret of this song. And it is also the secret of the whole Christian position.  What is it that leads to worship and to praise, to exultation, to adoration? And the answer is that it is always the understanding.

The only singing that is of any value in the sight of God is that which is based upon the understanding, the understanding of the truth…

Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Magnify the Lord, pp. 19-20

The “Why” of the Incarnation

A few days ago I was under the impression my wife was doing a single song at the Christmas Eve service coming up on Friday.    Then a few days ago, she informed me we were responsible for the whole service.

Going through some files today, we discovered that a short medley I proposed was something we’d done for Christmas in 2005.   It was built around the worship chorus which perhaps was slightly more popular then than now, but still recognizable…

You came from heaven to earth to show the way
From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay
From the cross to the grave
From the grave to the sky
Lord I lift Your name on high.

The “Why” of Jesus birth is that Jesus was born to die.   There is no particular cause to celebrate a Christmas unless there is an Easter.

Another song in the medley is the first verse of an old hymn,

One day when Heaven was filled with His glory
One day when sin was as dark as could be
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin
Dwelt among men, my redeemer is He

Living He loved me
Dying He saved me
Buried He carried my sins far away
Rising He justified
Freely forever.
One day He’s coming, oh glorious day.

The medley ends with the third verse of And Can It Be…

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace
Emptied Himself of all but love
And bled for Adam’s helpless race.

‘Tis mercy all, immense and free
For, O my God, it found out me.
Amazing love!
How can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me.

This blog post is the reverse of this one a few days ago, which talked about Joy to the World actually being 25% about Christmas and 75% about Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection. There are many verses in other hymns that we don’t think of at Christmas which begin with the birth of Christ, but move us quickly into the “why” of Jesus’ birth.

This is a true saying, and everyone should believe it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–and I was the worst of them all.

I Tim 1:15 (NLT)

Key to Understanding Incarnation: Christ’s Humility

Our Friday feature comes to us from Joshua Hawkins who serves in intercession ministry with International House of Prayer in Kansas City, where it appeared under the title, The Humility of God in the Incarnation.

Perhaps the humility of God in the incarnation is one of the most considered aspects of Advent and Christmas. How could One surrounded by perfection and beauty descend to the lowest place and be born in a filthy animal feeding trough? How could one so highly exalted stoop so low to be the Servant of all?

To rightly understand His humility in becoming a human, we must be informed biblically on where He dwelt and how He was worshiped before He took on flesh. Only with this backdrop are we rightly prepared to experience the potency of His emotions and desires that flooded His heart and caused Him to constrain Himself to the poverty of a human frame forever.

Before creation, the Son was dwelling together with the Father, daily His delight (Proverbs 8:30). He was perpetually adored by all the host of Heaven from the moment of their creation, never ceasing to be recognized for who He was and never ceasing to receive worship. He was the preeminent One, beautiful beyond comparison, so excellent in all His ways. He was one with Yahweh, the LORD. There was no one like Him in all of creation.

In the Incarnation, Jesus descended to the earth from His throne at the height of the heavens, and chose to be born through a young frightened maiden in an obscure town in Israel. Of course the act of the eternal Son of God being born demonstrates spectacular humility. The apostle Paul says that He “made Himself of no reputation” (Philippians 2:7). That Jesus would actually choose to be born instead of simply appearing on the scene in glory is astounding, and speaks of His burning heart of love for fallen humanity. Later on in His life, Jesus spoke of His humility in emptying Himself of reputation and giving everything for love:

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field…Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
(Matthew 13:44-46 NKJV)

Though His humility can be considered in every moment of His life, few things exemplify the humility of Jesus in the Incarnation more than the circumstances surrounding His birth. We know the story well (and perhaps too well that the weight of what happened does not bear down upon us as it should). Mary and Joseph had not yet been married, but were betrothed to each other. Mary went to visit her older relative Elizabeth who was miraculously with child in her old age. After returning to Nazareth months later, she was showing signs of her pregnancy. Can you imagine what Joseph must have been feeling when she saw Mary’s belly? Soon, the news would fill the entire town – Mary had returned and was pregnant. Who was the father of Mary’s child? Was she unfaithful to Joseph during her stay outside of Nazareth? The rumors about her would most certainly be the talk of the town.

Jewish law typically required one to divorce an unfaithful wife, and that any woman found in indecency could be given a certificate of divorce (Deut. 24:1). The penalty was worse for a betrothed virgin – if she was found unfaithful, she would be stoned by the men of her city (Deut. 20:20-21). Joseph had considered the implications of “going public” and not accepting the child in Mary’s womb as his own, but because he was “righteous” (Matthew 1:19) he decided to “put her away quietly”.

The scriptures are silent on the social context in Nazareth before Jesus’ birth, but we can only imagine what it must have been like for the young betrothed couple, bearing the stigma from their friends and loved. Undoubtedly Mary’s reputation in Nazareth was tarnished as she lived under reproach and carried the Creator and Ruler of all in her young womb. It wasn’t until six months later that the couple departed for Bethlehem and Mary delivered her firstborn Son in the abode of sheep, horses, donkeys, and goats. By man’s standards, her first pregnancy was memorable but for all the wrong reasons. Remembering that angel told her she was “highly favored”, what must Mary have been thinking? Through the birth of Jesus, it’s clear that our modern Christian definition of “favor” and “blessing” is completely different from the Lord’s.

The circumstances leading up to our Lord’s birth are scandalous, and the trials did not stop after He was born. Herod had been informed of the sign of a King born in Bethlehem. Fearing political conquest by another King, Herod put to death all of the children in Bethlehem who were two years old and under. Not only did Jesus escape death by the power-hungry sword of Herod and have men seeking after His life from a young age, but He grew up bearing the stigma of a child conceived out of wedlock.

The remarkable aspect of His humility is revealed through these early moments of His life when we realize that Jesus, the Holy One, actually chose these circumstances to be born and raised in. It was not fate, mere chance, or bad luck that hindered the Creator of all from a more “normal” birth. Jesus could have come into the world in a king’s palace under perfect conditions, and He still would have been unspeakably humble to do so when considering who He was and where He came from. But He went lower still.

If every moment of the life of Jesus is revelatory concerning the heart of God, what does this say to us about His humility?

Pondering the life of Jesus as a minutes-old baby to a two-year old toddler has got to be one of the most enthralling things for one to do! Not only does it thrill our hearts with God’s personality, but it beckons us into His likeness. May the Lord grant you grace to behold Him in His humility today and the rest of this Advent and Christmas season.

Joshua Hawkins

Keeping Christmas Priorities

There have been a lot of music videos embedded here, and this one isn’t the latest, or the best-recorded, but it’s one we did ourselves, done out of a desire to share with a wider audience a song I’ve been singing somewhere every Christmas for a rather long number of years.

There’s something about being “home for Christmas;” something about the fact the pace of life slows down for a day or two. No wonder that it’s so difficult for people who are alone on December 25th; being with friends or family seems to define the day.  But it’s also a day for which it is so easy to miss the point.   This video is an attempt on our part keep the historical meaning of Christmas at the forefront.

Most important, I hope you’ll reconnect with the thought that the familiar “birth of Christ” narrative in Luke is the start of much, much longer story. One that continues into eternity.

Canadian readers: Don’t forget you can still contribute to our Salvation Army iKettle. Donations stay with your community. More details here; or go direct to our iKettle.