What Goes Up Must Come Down: the Top Five of 2009

All of the following have enjoyed the heights of success, but unfortunately have now felt the sting of reality. These are empirical proof that "all is vanity and a striving after wind" (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

5-Campaign Wristbands
Whether it be WWJD, Livestrong, or Bono's One bracelets, the popularity of this clever marketing gimmick has mostly passed. It also doesn't help that Lance Armstrong placed second at the Tour de France.

4-Susan Boyle (See this post and this post)
With her breakout performance on "Britain's Got Talent" she was poised for what seemed to be a long and prosperous career. But after finishing second in the show and subsequent nervous breakdown, her future is far from certain. [EDIT- upon further review, Boyle's album has (quietly) sold millions of copies. So her appearance on this list should probably wait a year or two.]

3-The War in Afganistan
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, the Afghan War was the only war worth fighting. But with increased casualties and doubts about President Karzai's credibility, this war is becoming as unpopular as the other one.

2-Barack Obama
His first year as president is far from a complete failure (In one guy's opinion, I think he's done ok). But with an approval rating south of 50%, Obama is nowhere near as popular as when he was elected.

1-Tiger Woods (see this post)
I don't really need to elaborate, do I?

Honorable Mentions: Optimism, Alex Rodriguez, Google Wave, and Andre Agassi.

Top Five from the Past Decade

This has been a powerful and wonderful decade for me. I got married to an unbelievable woman, made lifetime friends at a very unlikely place, saw the resurgence of Alabama football, worked everywhere from political campaigns to banks to churches, and had a movement toward agnosticism arrested by hearing the Gospel in April of 2003. I laughed, cried, and blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, here are my Top 5 lists:

Top 5 Movies Made in the Decade of the Naughts:
1) Black Snake Moan - If there is a more Gospel-centric movie, I would like to see it. Not for the kiddies.
2) Stranger than Fiction - Another powerful movie with Gospel themes.


3) 21 Grams - I have a love/hate relationship with this movie. It sent me into crisis for about a month. I never want to see it again.
4) Into the Wild - I always thought I would like to live alone in the Rockies until I saw this movie. All the love this guy just ignored.
5) The Squid and the Whale - All lot of folks were able to relate to this movie.
Honorable mention: Star Trek, Letters from Iwo Jima, Melinda and Melinda, K-Pax, Waitress, City of God, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Top 5 Movies I First Saw in the Naughts:
1) The Enemy Below - May be my favorite movie of all time.
2) Diary of a Country Priest - Absolutely jarring movie.
3) The Browning Version - Inverse of Goodbye Mr. Chips. Gospel-centric.
4) The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - Ezekiel 36:26
5) Shenandoah - Jimmy Stewart and the death of Pelagianism.


Honorable Mention: Forbidden Planet, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Hiroshima Mon Amour, M, Stardust Memories, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Marnie

Top 5 TV Shows of the Naughts:
1) Mad Men - Best TV show I have ever seen.
2) Battlestar Galactica - Gripping.
3) The Wire - Brilliant.
4) Breaking Bad - No pretense.
5) The Office - How could it be left out?
Honorable Mention: The Sopranos, South Park, Freaks and Geeks, In Treatment, Weeds (until they started getting all political), Friday Night Lights

Top 5 Musicians I Discovered in the Naughts:
1) Fred Eaglesmith - "I think the bottom of the barrel is where the answers are." - Fred


2) Chris Knight - "There's a gift that good Southern writers have, an ability to see beyond the surface of things and connect the landscape in which they live with the raging tempest of the human spirit." - article about Knight
3) Mofro - Soulful swamp boogie
4) Townes Van Zandt - Sick prophet.
5) Blaze Foley - Was shot and killed in the late eighties while trying to defend his elderly friend.

Best Films of the Decade

DZ has been demanding that I produce some kind of end-of-the-decade list for movies. I realized tonight that I had one more day left. So here it is.

First let me say again what a wonderful time the last several years has been for character driven documentaries, stories about people and their struggles and joys and failures, rather than ideas and issues. I posted a list of these a while back along with some thoughts about each. I still feel like these are some of my favorite movies of the decade.

Apart from those documentaries, here are my ten favorite movies of the decade (in no particular order):
You Can Count On Me
Far From Heaven
Brokeback Mountain
Pan's Labyrinth
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Gosford Park
Lives of Others
Children of Men
Junebug
In Bruges

Here are several which (unlike the 10 above) didn't seem to make their way into anybody's lists but mine. They are all smaller indie films and they are all wonderful:
Dirty Filthy Love
Shattered Glass
Thirteen
Adam's Apples
Winter Solstice
Off The Map
Chuck and Buck
The Orphanage and The Devil's Backbone (much like Pan's Labyrinth)
Sleepwalking

Some runners-up to all of the above:
A History of Violence
O brother where art thou?
Songcatcher
High Fidelity
The Squid and the Whale
Unbreakable and Signs
Knocked Up and Superbad
There Will Be Blood
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
No Country For Old Men

And again the documentaries I mentioned at the beginning:
Bigger, Stronger, Faster (2008)
Surfwise (2007)
My Kid Could Paint That (2007)
King of Kong (2007)
Deep Water (2006)
Murderball (2005)
Born Into Brothels (2004)
Capturing The Friedmans (2003)
My Architect (2003)

I haven't included a lot of movies from 2009, partly because I agree with DZ that this hasn't been a particularly good year for them (as opposed to 1999 which was a gold mine). Partly because there are still a number I haven't seen. And partly because the one movie from this year that I am crazy about (THE ROAD) is a movie I only saw two days ago and I am too close to it.

Best wishes to you all and have a great new year at the movies.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas...

In 1170, on the fifth day of Christmas (December 29), four knights from the court of King Henry II burst into Canterbury Cathedral as the Archbishop was on his way to Vespers. Just inside the Cloister door, they murdered Thomas Becket, whose defense of the rights of the Church had angered his onetime friend, the King. Within three years Thomas was canonized, and the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury was set to become one of the most popular destinations for pilgrims from all over Europe.

Appropriately enough, the fifth day of Christmas is memorialized as the Feast day of Thomas Becket.

In his play, "Murder in the Cathedral," T.S. Elliot reconstructed from historical sources the Archbishop's final sermon, preached in the cathedral on Christmas Day. it is a remarkable meditation on the meaning of Christmas, martyrdom, and the true meaning of "peace on earth":

Murder in the Cathedral

T.S. Elliot

The Archbishop preaches in the Cathedral on Christmas Morning.

'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.' The fourteenth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Dear children of God, my sermon this morning will be a very short one. I wish only that you should ponder and meditate the deep meaning and mystery of the masses of Christmas Day. For whenever Mass is said, we re-enact the Passion and Death of Our Lord; and on this Christmas Day we do this in celebration of His Birth.

So that at the same moment we rejoice in his coming for the salvation of men, and offer again to God His Body and Blood in sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. It was in this same night that has just passed, that a multitude of heavenly host appeared before the shepherds at Bethlehem, saying 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men'; at this same time of all the year that we celebrate at once the Birth of Our Lord and His Passion and Death upon the Cross.

Beloved, as the World sees, this is to behave in a strange fashion. For who in the World will both mourn and rejoice at once and for the same reason? for either joy will be overborne by mourning, or mourning will be cast out by joy; so it is only in these our Christian mysteries that we can rejoice and mourn at once for the same reason. But think for a while on the meaning of this word 'peace'. Does it seem strange to you that the angels should have announced Peace, when ceaselessly the world has been stricken with War and the fear of War? Does it seem to you that the angelic voices were mistaken, and that the promise was a disappointment and a cheat?

Reflect now, how Our Lord Himself spoke of Peace. He said to His disciples, 'My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.' Did He mean peace as we think of it: the kingdom of England at peace with its neighbours, the barons at peace with the King, the householder counting over his peaceful gains, the swept hearth, his best wine for a friend at the table, his wife singing to the children?

Those men His disciples knew no such things: they went forth to journey afar, to suffer by land and sea, to know torture, imprisonment, disappointment, to suffer death by martyrdom. What then did He mean? If you ask that, remember then that He said also, 'Not as the world gives, give I unto you.' So then, He gave to His disciples peace, but not peace as the world gives.

Consider also one thing of which you have probably never thought. Not only do we at the feast of Christmas celebrate at once Our Lord's Birth and His Death: but on the next day we celebrate the martyrdom of the first martyr, the blessed Stephen. Is it an accident, do you think, that the day of the first martyr follows immediately the Birth of Christ? By no means. Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and in the Passion of Our Lord; so also, in a smaller figure, we both rejoice and mourn in the death of martyrs. We mourn, for the sins of the world that has martyred them; we rejoice, that another soul is numbered among the Saints in Heaven, for the glory of God and for the salvation of men.

Beloved, we do not think of a martyr simply as a good Christian who has been killed because he is a Christian: for that would be solely to mourn. We do not think of him simply as a good Christian who has been elevated to the company of the Saints: for that would be simply to rejoice, and neither our mourning nor our rejoicing is as the world's is. A Christian martyrdom is no accident. Saints are not made by accident. Still less is a Christian martyrdom the effect of a man's will to become a Saint, as a man by willing and contriving may become a ruler of men. Ambition fortifies the will of man to become ruler over other men: it operates with deception, cajolery, and violence, it is the action of impurity upon impurity.

Not so in Heaven. A martyr, a saint, is always made by the design of God, for His love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. A martyrdom is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in submission to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom.

So thus as on earth the Church mourns and rejoices at once, in a fashion that the world cannot understand; so in Heaven the Saints are most high, having made themselves most low, seeing themselves not as we see them, but in the light of the Godhead from which they draw their being.

I have spoken to you today, dear children of God, of the martyrs of the past, asking you to remember especially our martyr of Canterbury, the blessed Archbishop Elphege; because it is fitting, on Christ's birth day, to remember what is that Peace which He brought; and because, dear children, I do not ever think that I shall preach to you again; and because it is possible that in a short time you may have yet another martyr, and that one perhaps not the last. I would have you keep in your hearts these words that I say, and think of them at another time. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Favorite Movies, Music and TV of 2009 (Plus)

Okay, here goes. I would break the pop culture of 2009 down this way: a pretty good year for music, an alright year for film and a downright incredible year for television.

Five Favorite Films Of 2009*
1. Fantastic Mr Fox
2. District 9
3. In The Loop [warning for profuse-albeit-very-inventive foul language]
4. Coraline
5. Up

Most Underrated: Duplicity
Most Overrated: Inglourious Basterds

*Bear in mind that I haven't seen The Hurt Locker, An Education, A Serious Man, The Road, Dr Parnassus, Big Fan or 2012 yet. So this is definitely more of a favorites list than a "best of". And I am as surprised by the predominance of "family" films as you are...


Twelve Favorite Songs Released in 2009
1. Psalms 40:2 - The Mountain Goats
2. Moment Of Surrender - U2
3. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
4. Dream City - Free Energy
5. All Nights Rest - Trevor Giuliani
6. Someday I'll Be Forgiven For This - Justin Townes Earle
7. 21 Guns - Green Day
8. My Girls - Animal Collective
9. Your Control - Crooked Fingers w/Neko Case
10. Daniel - Bat For Lashes
11. Just The Past - Peter Bjorn and John
12. Young Adult Friction - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart


What I Actually Listened To In 2009
1. HIStory Vol. 2/Blood On The Dance Floor - Michael Jackson
2. Rock Of Ages - The Band [Greatest album title ever? Certainly top 5 greatest live albums.]
3. Day & Age - The Killers
4. Radio City - Big Star
5. Beatles In Mono - The Beatles
6. Singles - New Order
7. Northern Lights - Dawes [came out in 09!]
8. "Breakdown" - GNR
9. Ennismore - Colin Blunstone
10. Everything and anything by Mott The Hoople/Ian Hunter
11. Album - Girls [also 09]
12. Victory For The Comic Muse - The Divine Comedy


That The Golden Age Of Television Showed No Sign Of Slowing Down In 2009 - Nine Supporting Arguments
1. Friday Night Lights - seasons 3&4
2. LOST - season 5
3. Mad Men - season 3
4. Battlestar Galactica - "Daybreak", omitting the final 30 seconds.
5. Big Love - season 3
6. Modern Family - season 1
7. Parks And Recreation - season 2, esp the Andy character
8. Hoarders
9. Curb Your Enthusiasm - "The Reunion, pts 1&2" [warning: extremely crass]

Most Highly Recommended Book: Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder

Favorite DVD By Far: Whit Stillman's The Last Days Of Disco

So there you have it, and I'm sure I've left out a bunch of worthy items. What would you include?!

p.s. The A/V Club has posted a great list of the 32 most anticipated 2010 entertainments. What are they missing? I mean, besides Scorcese's George Harrison documentary...

Nothing Says Christmas like.... Twisted Sister

I love this rendition of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" by 80s hair-metal icons Twisted Sister. Every time I listen to it, I can't help but think of Philippians 2:10-11, "So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

My Seven Favorite (Heretical Crazy-Talk) Videos of 2009

As the year draws to a close and people everywhere begin reflecting on their favorite things from 2009, I'd like to offer you something a little different. During the year I dug up the following videos and filed them away for just such an occasion as this. So here are my top seven picks for "heretical crazy-talk video of the year":


Number 7: Rick Warren on the "Gospel of Doing"...

Pastor Warren explaining to his congregation all of the things they have to "do" if they want to get to heaven:



Number 6: Bill Hybels on "Holy Motivation"...

Pastor Hybels explains how getting angry and then using that anger to fuel a fervor for social justice issues is a biblical concept (who knew!):



Number 5: Megachurch Sermon Trailers--In Search of Relevance...

Ah...smell the moralistic therapeutic deism. Obviously, if getting into heaven is about all this doing that we have to do (as Pastors Warren and Hybels have asserted), then the preacher had better get busy with giving us some practical things to be doing:



Number 4: Benny Hinn on the Trinity...

Is this even real?



Number 3: The Prosperity Gospel...

This is actually an excellent refutation of the Prosperity Gospel, but the examples are too much fun to pass up. This one's packed with more nuts than a Snickers bar!



Number 2: You Were Born For This? (From the Author of "The Prayer of Jabez")...

Of course, if the Prayer of Jabez had actually worked for everyone, we wouldn't need a follow-up book about how to "live a life of predictable miracles":



And for my number 1 Heretical Crazy-Talk Video of 2009, I give you...John Dominic Crossan on the Resurrection!



Doesn't that just warm the heart? (In the unforgettable words of Rod Rosenbladt, "...it doesn't make me so much want to send them a copy of the Bible as it makes me want to send them a copy of Adler's book on how to read a book!")

Happy New Year, Everyone...

The Whole Duty of Man, Part III

"And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:8-12)

I was at a Christmas party this past weekend and found myself in a conversation with a delightful Christian fellow who is working towards a PhD in Philosophy. His chosen subject is the philosophy of beauty and aesthetics. Now, I don't pretend to know anything about that, but the idea certainly sent my mind racing.

For me, beauty conjures up majestic images of mountain ranges, great oceans, forests, and natural wonders. Theologians sometimes use these as proofs for a loving God. Maybe that works for some but, to me, they are monuments to natural indifference (at best) or places hostile to life (at worst). I should know since I've been lost on a mountain in Montana and caught in a riptide in the Gulf of Mexico.

Upon further reflection, I affirm the insight that beauty lies in the thwarting of man's compulsion to assert and define himself (original sin and bondage). Or, more specifically, the cessation of man’s striving. That, and the creation of faith. And, more often than not, this thwarting and creation is ugly to human eyes. When eyes are taken off technically correct dogmas and formulae and set upon the ugliness of the creation of faith, there is nothing

left to do but mourn.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4

This is the difference between a wild-eyed and desperate acquiescence or liberation that comes from death and the interruption in human history that we believed happened two thousand years ago. And we actually believe (as mentioned in Luke 2 above) that This Child arrived in a place and manner that was below human achievement and glory. The glory of God was manifested in a troublesome backwater that had no value in the progressive march to Man’s triumph.

And if this recession, an addiction, or anything else has destroyed what you and everyone else perceives as value; and you find yourself faced with either the Albert Camus/desperate freedom of death or the Luke 2 version, hear these words from Martin Luther:

"If Christ had arrived with trumpets and lain in a cradle of gold, his birth would have been a splendid affair. But it would not be a comfort to me. He was rather to lie in the lap of a poor maiden and be thought of little significance in the eyes of the world. Now I can come to him."

When Dostoevsky Met Dickens

As a brief aside to DB's wonderful "Whole Duty Of Man" series, there was a great piece in this morning's Washington Post entitled "Christmas Carol: Dickens's Gift Keeps On Giving". The whole article is worth your time, but I was especially struck by the final paragraph:

"In his book, [Dickens' biographer Michael] Slater records Fyodor Dostoevsky's report of meeting [Charles] Dickens. The Russian novelist wrote that Dickens, 'told me that all the good simple people in his novels... are what he wanted to have been, and his villains were what he was, or rather what he found in himself.'"

Slater also highly recommends that readers check out Dickens' other Christmas book, The Haunted Man, an endorsement which we strongly second.

The Whole Duty of Man, Part II

“…his only reasonable transaction in that commodity would have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give, and sell it for as much as he could possibly get; it having been clearly ascertained by philosophers that in this is comprised the whole duty of man — not a part of man's duty, but the whole.”
- Charles Dickens from Hard Times

My last post and this one were inspired by the powerful words of Dickens above. Just a lonely portion of a paragraph in a book that no one thinks is his best. And it is a sledgehammer of a thought. Pure death. And death is exactly what I want to talk about in light of this Christmas season.

We left off discussing our uncontrollable need to present ourselves as valuable. When our output is either deemed as worthless or trumped by another's output, so goes our identity. The very definition of who we are dies. It is the inner drive of "justification by works" that most theologians tend to gloss over as they pant after ethics.

Death, it must be said, is quite the liberator. "What would you do if you were to die tomorrow?", is the common question. The implication is that the doer would be free of all constraints. All of a sudden, things get complex. After being condemned for murder and coming to terms with it, the protagonist of The Stranger thinks:

"With death so near, Mother must have felt like someone on the brink of freedom, ready to start life all over again. No one, no one in the world had any right to weep for her. And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe."
- Albert Camus from The Stranger

Tragic words. Death (either the physical, final sense or society's pronouncement of obsolescence) can liberate in many ways. It can be anywhere from going to see Mother for the last time to entering into the narrative of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. It's the great void or the "vanity of vanities". "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose," says Kris Kristofferson.

And this brings us to Christmas. Despite what you see outside and on the television, this holiday brings a profoundly grown-up message. But, since I don't want to short-circuit the insight of Dickens and Camus, it will have to wait for another post.

James Brown: Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

4.5 Links For The Week: Pandoran Pantheism, Tissot's NT, Stanley Fish, Closeted Christians, Films of The Decade

1. Ross Douthat in the NY Times echoed what many have been saying about the "message" of Avatar. For the record, it doesn't make me want to see it any less (ht JS):

It’s fitting that James Cameron’s “Avatar” arrived in theaters at Christmastime. Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction epic is a crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a deeply felt religious message. It’s at once the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and the Gospel According to James.

But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, “Avatar” is Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism — a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.

Pantheism has been Hollywood’s religion of choice for a generation now. It’s the truth that Kevin Costner discovered when he went dancing with wolves. It’s the metaphysic woven through Disney cartoons like “The Lion King” and “Pocahontas.” And it’s the dogma of George Lucas’s Jedi, whose mystical Force “surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.”

2. Next, also from the Times, is the review of the James Tissot exhibit currently being held at The Brooklyn Art Museum, entitled "Jesus Illustrated: Tissot's New Testament". Once the snow melts, that's stop number two!

The close-up of Salome gloating over the weirdly illuminated head of John the Baptist is wonderfully grotesque; the image of Jesus being carried aloft by a shadowy Satan is hair-raising. The scene in which Jesus stands alone before Pilate in an expansive stone room has a terrible pathos. That of Joseph at his workbench, mooning over his pregnant fiancée, is touching. You don’t have to be a devout Christian to get caught up in the story and its sad inevitability.

3. A moving testimonial/editorial about original sin as it relates to giving lectures and giving money, from Stanley Fish over at, yes, The NY Times (ht SMZ). He finishes with the priceless William James quote, "The trail of the human serpent is over everything".

4. Then, at Salon we have "I Am A Closet Christian", which speaks insightfully (albeit somewhat condescendingly) about a phenomenon that many of us have encountered.

4.5. Slate has compiled a guide tracking all the "Best Movies Of The Decade" features that are being published. As we begin to think about our own list, we'd love to hear your picks.

The Muppets And John Denver Sing Silent Night (Auf Deutsch)

And then there's the infamous Smurfs Christmas Special, which features perhaps the lamest carol on record:



And don't forget He-Man and She-Ra!

How Will You Keep Christmas This Year? (Part 5)

Having considered in previous installments of this series why and how Christ came into the world, we now turn our attention to exactly what came into the world on Christmas day, and we turn finally to John’s Gospel. In John 1, we have an account not of the birth of a baby, or the fulfillment of Old Testament messianic prophecy, but of the coming of none other than God himself, and what it meant, and what it means, and how we should to regard it.

This is how John’s Gospel begins, John 1:1-5: 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Now if we’re to understand John’s meaning, we’ve got to understand what he means by the “Word.” This is something that’s unique to John, and it was his attempt to develop a concept that would be equally moving to both Greeks and Jews.

By the time of John's writing the church was no longer just a small Jewish sect. It was primarily a Greek church, because there were infinitely more Greek than Jewish Christians at the time. The Greeks had no concept of a long awaited Messiah, so John had to find a way to reach them and yet reach out to Jewish Christians at the same time. And with a blend of Jewish scripture and Greek philosophy he developed this idea of the Word.

This idea of the Word of God would not have been foreign to Jewish believers, because by the time of Jesus the Law and the Prophets had been translated into Aramaic for people to read and study. These translations were called Targums, and something very interesting came out of them.

The translators of the Targums were working at a time when Israel was under the boot heel of Roman oppression, and so the Jews at this time held a concept of God that regarded him as being primarily transcendent and far away.

But there were references in the original Hebrew to God being actually present at times, such as in Exodus 19:17 there’s a reference to Moses bringing the Israelites out of their camp to meet God. The translators of the Targums couldn't conceive of God being present like this. So every time they encountered it they changed it from, like in this instance, Moses bringing the Israelites out to meet God, to Moses bringing the Israelites out to meet the Word of God. And this subtle change occurred in numerous places in the Targums.

Now on the Greek side of the coin, John needed look no further than the Ephesian philosopher Heraclitus, who around 560 BC had come up with the idea that there was a power at work in the universe that kept everything in order, and that power which controlled things was the Logos, which meant the Word, or the reason of God. The Logos was nothing less than the mind of God controlling the world and everything in it. And this concept of the Logos was still a popular idea among the Greeks at the time of John's writing.

So John in creating this idea of Jesus as being the Logos or Word of God reached out to both Jews and Greeks to tell them that in Jesus Christ this creating, illuminating, controlling, and sustaining mind of God had come to Earth. He was telling them (and us) that men no longer need to guess what God is like: all they have to do is look at Jesus and see the mind of God.

That’s awfully powerful stuff, but I know you're probably wondering, where’s the Christmas part? Well, it's in John 1:14, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Now that pretty much sums up the meaning of Christmas. Let’s look closely at what John is saying. The Word or Logos, the mind of God, became flesh, which in the Greek is sarcs, and it wasn’t a very nice word.

The Greeks would have regarded sarcs as being the very antithesis of Logos. Paul uses this same word in Romans 6 when he describes his “wretched man.” The word sarcs embodied everything weak and human and corruptible. And yet, there it is in John’s own words. The Word became flesh. God himself stooped down to us so that we could understand him and know him for our very own. The meaning of Christmas doesn’t get much clearer than that.

But John didn’t leave his Jewish readers out, either. When he says that the Word dwelt among us, the Greek root for dwelt is skenoo, which means to pitch a tent. Paul uses this same language in 2 Corinthians 5 when he refers to our bodies as earthly tents. So John is saying that the Word of God pitched his tent among us.

The Jewish mind would have been immediately drawn back to the Wilderness and the Tabernacle containing the Ark of the Covenant, the sign and seal of God’s power and promise to his people. And again, the meaning of Christmas doesn’t get much clearer than this: like the Ark of the old covenant, the Word tabernacled with us and became the very embodiment of God’s new covenant, the sign and seal of God’s power and promise to us - to you and me.

And this is the thought I want to leave you with as we approach Christmas: John says of the Word made flesh that he is full of Grace and Truth. People today tend to play a percentages game with that concept. Some regard the Christ as a nice story, thinking it's probably about 90 percent grace but only 10 percent truth. John tells us, though, that the Word made flesh is 100% grace, and he’s 100% truth as well. This isn't just some fairy tale. It is the truth.

And you have got to decide for yourself in light of that truth: how will you keep Christmas this year? How will you regard the Christ? How will you share him with others? What will you teach your children about this day?

Please, whatever you do, remember that behind the wondrous spectacle of shepherds and angels and wise men there was something infinitely important happening which those shepherds, angels and wise men were pointing us to, something that has changed human history forever, something that Hollywood and the shopping malls simply can not and will not ever comprehend.

And it's up to people like you and me to reclaim it, hold fast to it, think about it, and share it. Because Christmas is about so much more than friends, family and fun. It's when we celebrate the incarnate Son himself coming down from heaven just as he was promised to us; coming for us and for our salvation in a way that none of us could have ever dreamed or imagined.

Merry Christmas!

The Maid-Servant At The Inn - Dorothy Parker [rerun]

"It's queer," she said; "I see the light
As plain as I beheld it then,
All silver-like and calm and bright ---
We've not had stars like that again!

"And she was such a gentle thing
To birth a baby in the cold.
The barn was dark and frightening ---
This new one's better than the old.

"I mind my eyes were full of tears,
For I was young, and quick distressed
But she was less than me in years
That held a son against her breast.

"I never saw a sweeter child ---
The little one, the darling one! ---
I mind I told her, when he smiled
You'd know he was his mother's son.

"It's queer that I should see them so ---
The time they came to Bethlehem
Was more than thirty years ago;
I've prayed that all is well with them."

2009 Christmas Playlist (And Presents)

A little on the late side, but nonetheless yule-rific!

1. The Christmas Song - The Raveonettes
2. Just Like Christmas - Low
3. O Holy Night - Duvall
4. Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight) - The Ramones
5. Child's Christmas In Wales - John Cale
6. Christmas Must Be Tonight - The Band
7. Christmas Party - The Walkmen
8. Come On! Let's Boogey To The Elf Dance! - Sufjan Stevens
9. Season's Greetings - Robbers On High Street
10. A Great Big Sled - The Killers
11. A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss) - Glasvegas
12. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love/Phil Spector
13. Someday At Christmas - The Jackson 5
14. The First Noel - Weezer
15. Fairytale of New York - Pilate
16. Christmas Day - The Beach Boys
17. Valley Winter Song - Fountains Of Wayne
18. I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas - Aimee Mann
19. Christmas With Jesus - Josh Rouse
20. Merry Xmas Everybody - Oasis
21. O Come All Ye Faithful - Bob Dylan

In case you missed our 2008 Christmas playlist, which included the alltime greatest version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" (The Harmony Grits), here it is. And while we're at it, the very first post on this blog back in Dec 07 was Christmas music-related.

BONUS TRACKS/XMAS PRESENTS:
1. The outlines for our "Good News For People With Big Problems" talk series (from this past summer) are now available for free download! It represents our initial attempt at a heavily-illustrated introductory course in Christianity: five to six weeks in length and ideal as a Lenten series, or something like that... It's a work in progress, but one of which we're very proud. Thanks to everyone who helped with it (esp SN, KN, DR, AZ, TB & JAZ).

2. Gil Kracke's masterful article on "The Relationship Between The Law And The Gospel To Contemporary Youth Ministry". Speaking as a former youth-minister, the piece is nothing short of a life-saver. The only article of its kind (that I know of), almost the definitive word on the subject.

Top 10 things on my iPod Touch

As the year comes to a close, I'll be the first to kick-off the obligatory 'Top 10' lists with the Top 10 things on my iPod Touch. (Yes, I needed to indicate that it is a 'Touch' simply because other models cannot download apps). They are, in no particular order...

1. Daily Audio Bible (podcast): The host, Brian Hardin, reads through the Bible in a year. Each day contains a passage from the OT, NT, Psalms and Proverbs. His commentary at the end often goes in a different direction than I would, but I'm only interested in the Bible section anyway.

2. New York Times (app): While I use it as a way of remaining culturally literate, I find myself gravitating to the quirky stories more than the front-page news.

3. Words with friends (app): This is essentially Scrabble, but totally addictive.

4. This American Life (podcast): I'm a big fan of Ira Glass, and I find that more than any other source, TAL covers the most poignant human interest stories without lecturing...they are aware that the listeners know how to draw their own conclusions, which I appreciate.

5. Epicurious (app): I'm not the best cook, but this (free) app has helped me improve by leaps and bounds in the past year. I especially enjoy the fact that after I use it to find the meals I want to cook, I can just hit a button and save all the ingredients I'll need to a shopping list. So much easier than using a pen and paper like a caveman. :-)

6. Car Talk (podcast): I'm not a car guy, but on my commute to St. Andrews, these two never fail to keep me thoroughly entertained. Also, they win my award for the most down-to-earth MIT grads ever.

7. Bloomberg (app): I'm kinda into trading stocks, but even if I wasn't, this is the best app (sorry WSJ) for keeping up with the day's business news.

8. Michel Thomas' Mandarin (audio recording): I've tried Rosetta Stone, but this is the most helpful program I've found for learning how to actually speak the language (aside from my wife).

9. Abbey Road (audio recording): 'Nuff said.

10. The New Yorker: Fiction (podcast): Since I studied finance before my life in theology, I didn't have much background (or interest) in modern fiction...I consider this to be remedial education.

There are scads of other wonderful podcasts out there...RTS and Covenant have some great stuff for those interested in theology. Yale also has some good stuff for those who are more inclined to a historical-critical approach to the Bible. And don't forget all the free downloads at Mockingbird! What's on your iPod/MP3 player?

It's A Miserable Life? It's Wonderful Life!

This post comes to us from mockingfriend Ron Flowers:

An interesting article appeared last Christmas in the New York Times entitled, "It's A Wonderful Life? It's A Miserable Life!". It nails certain aspects of that classic movie, but ignores (perhaps purposefully) some of the Gospel-related themes. Two particularly potent examples stuck out to me:

(1) "Now as for that famous alternate-reality sequence: This is supposedly what the town would turn out to be if not for George. I interpret it instead as showing the true characters of these individuals, their venal internal selves stripped bare." . . . Ernie the cabbie's blank face speaks true misery as George enters his taxi."

I agree. But what about Bedford Falls caused the characters to turn out differently? Take the following scene when the Board of the Bailey Business & Loan is meeting after the death of George's father:

"Potter: Peter Bailey was not a business man. That's what killed him. Oh, I don't mean any disrespect to him, God rest his soul. He was a man of high ideals, so-called. But ideas without common sense can ruin this town. Now, you take this loan here to Ernie Bishop . . . you know, that fellow that sits around all day on his brains in his taxi, you know. I happen to know the bank turned down this loan, but he comes here and we're building him a house worth five thousand dollars. Why?

George: Well, I handled that, Mr. Potter. You have all the papers there. His salary, insurance. I can personally vouch for his character."

Under Potter's rules, Ernie the cab driver did not measure up. Potter's bank turned down his loan application. Yet despite his inadequacy, the Bailey Building & Loan granted him a loan so that he could build his first house. The grace and love George Bailey showed him allowed Ernie himself to offer love to others such as George. The blank stare from Pottersville is gone because Bailey loved him despite his failings. The same could be said for Violet and Uncle Billy.

(2) "'It's a Wonderful LIfe' is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife."

Yet Capra favors Bedford Falls over Pottersville. In the movie, before George was to leave for college, George expressed his hopes and dreams to his Father (before his father dies later that night):

Peter Bailey: I suppose you've decided what you want to do when you get out of college.

George: Oh well, you know what I've always talked about . . . build things, design new buildings, plan modern cities, all that stuff I was talking about.

Peter: Still after that first million before you're thirty.

George: No, I'll settle for half of that in cash.

Peter: Of course, it's just a hope, but uh, you wouldn't consider coming back to the Building & Loan, would you?

George: I couldn't. I couldn't face being cooped up for the rest of my life in a shabby little office. . . . Oh, I'm sorry, Pop, I didn't mean it that way, but this business of nickels and dimes and spending all your life trying to figure out how to save three cents on a length of pipe - I'd go crazy. I want to do something big and something important."

Later that night, he describes his plans to Mary:

"George: Mary, I know what I'm going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that. I'm shaking the dust off this crummy little town off my feet and I'm going to see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then I'm coming back here to go to college and see what they know, and then I'm going to build things. I'm going to build air fields. I'm going to build skyscrapers a hundred stories high. I'm going to build bridges a mile long."

Within moments, it becomes evident that George does not have the control over his life he envisioned. Over the years, George's disappointments pile up and his anger culminates in the December 24 tirade the article aptly depicts. George finally prays: "I'm at the end of my rope. Show me the way, God."

This relinquishing of control allows the Holy Spirit (through the angel Clarence trying to get his wings) to demonstrate to him that self-sacrificing love is what is important in life. He recognizes the importance and meaning of the defeats he has had in his life. As a result, when he returns to Bedford Falls from Pottersville, he proclaims:

"I'll bet it's a warrant for my arrest. Isn't it wonderful? I'm going to jail."

The article concludes that "Not only is Pottersville cooler and more fun than Bedford Falls, it also would have had a much, much stronger future." For Capra, the "fun" environment and stronger future did not help Ernie, Violet, or Uncle Billy. For Capra and ultimately for George, Pottersville represents progress in the wrong direction.

Stick Figure Jesus, Psychiatric Evaluations, And The Scandal Of The Cross

In Taunton, Mass, an 8-year-old boy was sent home from school and ordered to take a psychological exam for drawing a stick figure of what seemed to represent Jesus on a cross. Apparently, the boy was asked by his teacher to draw something that reminded him of Christmas. His dad reports that the family had just taken a trip to the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette to see the Christmas lights display and that "when he seen the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross, that's what he drew..."

When I first read this, I was aghast. A school sent a boy home for drawing the likeness of Jesus on a cross?! This is an outrageous affront to religious liberty! Then it set in. The cross has been domesticated in our culture. We wear crosses as jewlery around our necks. But take the contempory equivelent of the cross--say an electric chair--and try using that as a symbol of hope and peace. The cross is a scandal. As Paul said:

"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."

I'm sure that little boy's teacher was expecting him to draw a snowman or a Christmas tree. And while I have no idea if that boy understands the significance of the cross, I'm reminded of the glorious good news and glad that that baby didn't just settle for simply bringing tidings of great joy so we could feel warm and fuzzy once a year. Instead, that helpless baby actually grew up, preached the gospel, fed the poor, healed the sick, raised the dead, befriended sinners, and eventually died on a cross in the most brutal way imaginable to save sinners like you and me.

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
And his favor rests on us because of the cross. Amen.

How Will You Keep Christmas This Year? (Part 4)

Having considered in previous installments of this series why Christ came into the world, we turn our attention now to how he came.

Jesus came in the manner of God’s king, the Messiah, and he came in such a way that his birth, life, death and resurrection fulfilled all that had been foretold of him by the Old Testament prophets. It's simply not possible to overemphasize the importance of the prophetic fulfillments in proving that Jesus is the Christ.

The basis for this method of testing the Messianic claim is biblical. It’s laid down in Isaiah 41, starting with verse 21: 21 "Present your case," says the LORD. "Set forth your arguments," says Jacob's King. 22 "Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, 23 tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods.

So the litmus test for God’s truth is something like this: if you can tell me with certainty who will play in the Super Bowl in 2050, who will win, and who will score each touchdown in each quarter, then when it comes to pass I will believe that you are God.

And so if Jesus is to be God’s king, the Messiah, he’s got to control both the past and the future: the past in making sure that the prophecies are correctly written down, and the future in making sure that the prophecies are fulfilled. So the birth, death and resurrection have got to be controlled in such a a way that they fulfill all prophecy.

Do you know how hard it would have been to hit tiny little Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Christ? The prophecy of this is in Micah 5:2: 2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." For Micah to say it 600 years prior to it happening, and for Jesus to be born there is beyond improbable. But it happened, and as such it fulfilled what was written.

And if you’re the Christ, you have also got to fulfill what was written about your death. A compelling prophecy of this is Psalm 22. Let me just point out a few verses, starting at verse 16: 16 Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. 18 They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

This was written some 1,000 years before Christ came, and long before the Phoenicians and the Romans even conceived of crucifixion. Yet there it is, and as such it was fulfilled. And because of these things, as we read in Isaiah 41:23 we can know with certainty that he is God.

This is where Mathew places the emphasis as he begins his account of Jesus' life. He portrays the birth of Jesus as being the fulfillment of messianic prophecy. Looking at Mathew 1, we find that Mathew begins his account of the coming of Christ with a genealogical record of Jesus’ lineage tying him back to Abraham through David. This was important because prophecies foretold that the Messiah would come from David’s line.

One such prophecy, which specifically names David’s father, Jesse, can be found in Isaiah 11:1: A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -

Then, after having laid out the genealogical evidence, Mathew proceeds to tell an abbreviated tale of the birth with no manger or shepherds. But he does record the visit of an angel to Joseph, telling him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife. And he refers to this event as the fulfilment of another prophecy, in verses 22 and 23: 22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us."

That’s a direct reference to Isaiah 7:14: 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Then, looking at Chapter 2, Mathew goes straight to 1After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea… He skips right over the birth, and instead records in detail the visit of the Magi. So for Mathew, the coming of Jesus wasn't about no room at the inn, a manger and shepherds. It was about God's king, the Messiah, coming into the world.

And as we approach Luke’s gospel account we also find references to Jesus' birth being the fulfillment of messianic prophecy. Luke’s account is the most complete narrative of the Christmas story as we know and celebrate it, and that’s in keeping with Luke’s method as a historian. But there is so much more going on here than just the nativity story.

Luke includes an important little phrase in Luke 1:1, in which he is explaining the purpose of his Gospel. He says that he is writing about the things that have been fulfilled among us. That word “fulfilled” is yet another reference to Jesus being the fulfillment of prophecy.

And what’s interesting about Luke is that he begins his Gospel with a prophetic fulfillment that rips the page dividing the Old and New Testaments right out of the Bible. It’s as if he’s saying there is complete continuity; that in spite of the 400 years dividing the two testaments, God’s picking the story back up exactly where he left off and is moving on.

At the very end of the Old Testament, on the very last page, we find Malachi 4:5-6: 5 "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."

Then turning to Luke 1:17 we read, 17And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Luke is speaking here of John the Baptist.

So not only was Jesus the fulfillment of prophecy, but as we see here, John the Baptist was also predicted and fulfilled. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s right there for the whole world to see, and it's there as Luke says in Luke 1:4, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

And so what we are celebrating when we celebrate Christmas is that God's King, the Messiah, came into the world just as he was promised to us by God. His coming was predicted for us in the Old Testament, and it is proven for us in the historic accounts of the New Testament.

In our next and final installment of this series, we will shift gears yet again and consider what came into the world when Jesus was born, as we look at the coming of Christ as John's "Word made flesh." But to end this installment, I'd simply like to share with you my favorite (contemporary) Christmas song. If you will listen to the lyrics, you will find it has a lot to say about Jesus being the fulfillment of prophecy, why it matters, and how we should regard it. And if I haven't said it thus far, Merry Christmas!