Community and Christmas

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What is the meaning of Christmas? That was the question that NBC's Community asked last week in an incredibly creative stop motion animation episode that left me laughing. The episode was full of hat tips to great Christmas specials of the past and a few nice shots at the Christian faith. Shots at Christianity in a Christmas special? Yes. Are you offended? The shots that they took weren't the kinds that you might expect.  The most crushing one came from Shirley, whose character is an outspoken Christian. She said, "I am a modern day Christian, I have learned sensitivity and so I say Happy Holidays not wanting anyone else's religion to feel inferior to mine." I laughed. Then, I cried. Not really. But, I have been thinking about this for the last few days. Christmas has lost something in the post-modern malaise of mutual worldview affirmations. Then I remembered last Friday, my son sang in a "Holiday Concert" at his school.  They sang Happy Hannukah, Mud Slide, and Up on the Housetop. Silent Night was played on the piano, no singing. Something manifestly changed. A hush came over the crowded cafeteria. You could have heard a pin drop. Christmas, the moment when God split time one passover many years ago and entered into history. Even today with all of our sensitivity and complacency humanity still becomes silent before the reality that took place when God moved into the neighborhood. Everyone in that cafeteria experienced something different in that moment than all that had come before. That moment was thick with the holy. I wish I could sit down with Abed and over a peppermint mocha just talk about the meaning of Christmas. Maybe I can, maybe there are people all around me looking for the real meaning if I would just open my eyes to see and have ears to hear.

The Paradox

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When you find out that most if not all of your preconceptions are misconceptions it leaves you reeling.  The first time I woke up in Israel I struggled to believe all that I was seeing.  I felt as though I had stepped foot out of the Matrix and into "The Real". There was nothing that was what I expected.  Not a single thing. We boarded our bus and met Yaniv, our guide and soon to be our good friend. He took us to Caesarea by the Sea.  It was a confusing time as we left Tel Aviv and arrived at a place that was over 2,000 years old.  This is the kind of confusion that leaves you scratching your head and unsure of what you are seeing. It turns out that Israel is a place of paradox.  You never can quite get your mind around it. It is a living and breathing postmodern experience.  What is new is old and what is oldest is often times new. The ruins of Caesarea were like nothing that I had ever experienced.  They were almost unreal.  I felt like I had stepped into one of those coffee table books that you find at your great aunt's house and you start looking at because you can't touch anything else. Only here you could touch. Smell. See. Experience. It was a round the winter of 1996 that I began to truly study the Scriptures with tenacity.  I was particularly drawn to the person and writings of Paul.  He was almost a mystical figure to me. Until now. I stood in the very place Paul did when he left for his journey to Rome.  I saw the place where he was held prisoner prior to leaving. Paul has now become a very real person for me. He became very real in a place that is a living paradox of new and old.

Wednesdays are Wright: Narrative, Story, History

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As I continue to work through The New Testament and the People of God by N.T. Wright, I was struck by this statement: "history...is rather the meaningful narrative of events and intentions.(82)"  Wright is arguing that history is not simply the subjective interpretation of events and ideas.  It is however, connected to a reality outside itself and is a process by which those events are placed within a grander meta-narrative.  He argues against the postmodern emphasis and focus on the centrality of the reader that disconnects texts from their historical setting.

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