A hymn to Christ at Christmas

A hymn to Christ as God and Savior during this blessed season of Christmas --

You, Christ, are the King of glory,
the eternal Son of the Father.
When you became incarnate to set us free
you humbly accepted the Virgin's womb.
    You overcame the sting of death,
    and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
You are sealed at God's right hand in glory.
We believe that you will come to be our judge.
    Come then, Lord, and help your people,
    bought with the price of your own blood,
    and bring us with your saints
    to glory everlasting.

(From the Canticle of the Holy Trinity, UM Hymnal, 80)

Meditations for the Christmas Season

The awe of the Incarnation was not lost on the early church fathers. Here are a few of the fathers' thoughts on the Incarnation that are useful for meditation during this holy season:

“When seen as a babe and wrapped in swaddling clothes, even when still in the bosom of the Virgin who bore him, he filled all creation as God, and was enthroned with him who begot him.” 

- Cyril of Alexandria (Third Letter to Nestorius).

"For the actual corruption in death has no longer holding ground against men, by reason of the Word, which by his one body has come to dwell among them. And like as when a great king has entered into some large city and taken up his abode in one of the houses there, such city is at all events held worthy of high honor, nor does any enemy or bandit any longer descend upon it and subject it; but, on the contrary, it is thought entitled to all care, because of the king's having been taken up his residence in a single house there; so, too, has it been with the monarch of all. For now that he has come to our realm, and taken up his abode in one body among his peers, henceforth the whole conspiracy of the enemy against mankind is checked, and the corruption of death which before was prevailing against them is done away."

- Athanasius (On the Incarnation)

"For he was made man that we might be made God; and he manifested himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and he endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality."

- Athansius (On the Incarnation)

And finally, the words of John the Baptist upon seeing Jesus --

"Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccatum mundi."

- Evangelium Secundum Iohannem 1:29

"Behold! The lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world."

- Gospel of John, chapter one, verse 29

Christ the Savior is born

Merry Christmas to all. And thanks be to God the Father for the gift of his only begotten Son, who has come to us in our broken world and brought us salvation.

On this blessed day, I want to offer this reflection on the significance of the Incarnation. I think that, amidst all the festivities and fellowship that make up our Christmas celebrations, we should also take time to meditate upon the magnitude of God's incarnation in Jesus Christ. We can have help in doing that from Athanasius of Alexandria, one of my favorite early church fathers who - contra mundum - strove to articulate for the Christian church what it meant that the Son of God was God himself, eternally begotten of the Father and incarnate through the power of the Holy Spirit. I draw on the thoughts of St. Athanasius in my reflection.

These are great mysteries that have been revealed among us. And it is fitting that we meditate on them, as an act of thanksgiving and praise. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.

A Prayer for Christmas Eve

A prayer for Christmas Eve -

O Almighty God,
   by the birth of your holy child Jesus
   you gave us a great light to dawn on our darkness.
Grant that in his light we may see light.
Bestow upon us
   that most excellent Christmas gift of love
      to all people,
   so that the likeness of your Son
      may be formed in us,
   and that we may have the ever brightening hope
      of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

- UM Book of Worship, 277

The Legacy of TRON

The original 1982 movie

So I know it hasn't gotten the best advance reviews, but I can't tell you how excited I am to see Disney's new movie, TRON: Legacy.

For Gen X'ers who verged on science fiction geekdom throughout their childhood years, TRON was one of those classic sci-fi movies from the '80s that made you marvel at the special effects and go to sleep dreaming about being a hero with a light cycle and an electric frisbee.

The TRON arcade joystick

The original TRON from 1982 brought an added bonus: the classic arcade game that allowed kids like me the chance to enter into cyber-combat for 25 cents a pop. I played the TRON game at a local arcade called "Circus Circus"in my hometown of Paragould, Arkansas. TRON was front-and-center when you walked through the door, looking impossibly big to my grade school eyes. The manager even parked a little wooden platform in front of the joystick so shorter kids could see the screen. No telling how many quarters I fed that into that machine.

The latter-day sci-fi sequel is always bound to disappoint on some level. Whether it's Star Wars on the big screen or V on television, the remakes are bound to fail just a little bit - even with better scripts and superior special effects. Without the wonder of a kid in a movie theatre and an oversized box of popcorn, something gets lost. In the late '70s and '80s, who among us worried about George Lucas' choppy dialogue, or the Ambervision sunglasses the visitors wore in the V mini-series? We were all just happy to be there.

But none of that means that the remakes don't have an irresistible appeal. The criticisms I've read about TRON are predictable: The script is thin and the movie tends to rely on special effects to entertain. But you know what? I still think that's worth the price of admission. Now if Santa will just bring me a light cycle, I'll be all set...

Fourth Sunday of Advent

St. Athanasius

A passage on the coming of Jesus Christ from Athanasius of Alexandria:

"For seeing that men, having rejected the contemplation of God, and with their eyes downward, as though sunk in the deep, were seeking about for God in nature and in the world of sense, feigning gods for themselves of mortal men and demons; to this end the loving and general Savior of all, the Word of God, took to himself a body, and as man walked among men and met the senses of men halfway, to the end, I say, that they who think God is corporeal may from what the Lord effects by his body perceive the truth, and through him recognize the Father."

- Athanasius, On the Incarnation

Third Sunday of Advent

"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
   the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;
it shall blossom abundantly
   and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
   the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the LORD,
   the majesty of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands,
   and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who have an anxious heart,
   'Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God
   will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
   He will come and save you.'

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
   and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame man leap like a deer,
   and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
   and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
   and the thirsty ground springs of water;
in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,
   the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

And a highway shall be there,
   and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
the unclean shall not pass over it.
   It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
   even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.
No lion shall be there,
   nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
   but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
   and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
   they shall obtain gladness and joy,
   and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

- Isaiah 35:1-10 (ESV)

How should we "read" John Wesley?

John Wesley (1703-1791)

My new column in the United Methodist Reporter looks at the question of how we should "read" John Wesley in the present day. You can find the column at this link.

In the past, Wesley has been understood in a number of different ways. For a long time in American Methodism, Wesley was often treated as a founding saint, but his actual theology wasn't given much attention. Many contemporary Methodists today see it as only natural that Methodism should be "Wesleyan" in some sense, but that idea has only really gained traction in the past 50 years or so.

My own least favorite way Wesley is sometimes used is for purposes of "proof texting." This happens when someone will quote a Wesley saying they've heard and then use it in the way that short snippets of Bible passages are sometimes quoted -- out of context and as a verbal trump card in an argument. But just as a biblical passage is usually distorted when it is taken out of context, the same thing happens when a theologian is cited by some short quote lifted out of a larger work. In the case of Wesley quotes, it's remarkable how many of them don't actually go back to Wesley himself!

I think a better way to think about both Wesley the person and Wesley's theological writing is as a theological mentor. To be a "Wesleyan," is to be a Christian who sees the teaching and example of John Wesley as informative for how to live the Christian life in the present. It doesn't require that we claim Wesley to be infallible; he certainly wasn't! What it does mean is that we take his actual thought and example in ministry seriously for what they have to offer us. And we do that simply because we see Wesley as a particularly gifted practical theologian who had a keen insight into those things that matter most for the Christian faith.

This idea is not my own. As I mention in my column, it was 20th-century scholar Albert C. Outler who proposed that John Wesley should be seen as a "theological mentor" by contemporary Methodists. That idea has been taken up by Randy L. Maddox, a theologian at Duke Divinity School in a way that, I think, both carries Outler's idea forward and develops it significantly.

Wesley said a great deal in regard to core Christian doctrines that remains directly relevant to Christians of this (or any other) era: The pervasive problem of sin; the necessity of God's grace for a redeemed and restored life; the character of the triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit); the actual way grace works in the process of salvation; the necessity of an active response to the grace given to us (lived out through our discipleship and within the Christian community); the reality of new birth and progressive sanctification; the central importance of the means of grace in the Christian life; and the ecumenical and evangelical calling to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. The list is long! And it is filled with central themes in Wesley's theology that transcend his own historical era and can inform our understanding of the Christian faith today.

But even beyond the bare fact of his written theology, Wesley's own life in ministry and leadership of the Methodist movement provide a pattern for Christians to emulate. As much as anyone I know in the history of the church, he represents an example of someone whose message and whose life were in harmony with one another. He had faults (both in his written theology and in his life), and we should not overlook those. He also strove to practice his faith with total conviction and energy, though, in a way that few have matched before or since. There's something to be said for that.

To understand Wesley as a theological mentor in this way, latter-day Wesleyans can come to a greater understand of the importance of the Christian tradition itself. We don't make this Christianity stuff up anew in each generation. We receive it, as a gift, and we can life as faithful disciples of Jesus only because our forebears have themselves faithfully handed on the good news so that we, too, might receive the gospel of salvation. So we need mentors - always - and John Wesley is as good a one as we're likely to find.

Bishop Scott Jones on Salvation

Bishop Scott J. Jones

Bishop Scott J. Jones has a recent article online that looks at "Teaching the United Methodist Way of Salvation."

I want to recommend Bishop Jones' commentary for reasons I'll mention below. But first, the article can be found at this link.

As odd as it may seem, it is rare in some churches to hear talk of salvation. Preachers focus on the love of God in their sermons, and church members focus on studying the Bible and organizing themselves for good works in the world. Congregations do the hard daily work of discipleship: giving of their tithes, joining together in the worship of God, celebrating the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, visiting the sick, helping men and women join together in marriage, and burying the dead.

All this faithful work makes up central aspects of what it means to live as a faithful Christian. But we don't always integrate what we do with an understanding of exactly what Bishop Jones is pointing us toward in his article: the way of salvation.

I think it is crucially important for us to emphasize that all we do should be in response to the triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - and that this response is what we understand salvation in this life to look like.

Awhile back, I wrote a column in the United Methodist Reporter where I advocated for us to renew our attention to the doctrine of salvation in our churches. Bishop Jones' article is a wonderful primer in that doctrine, and I recommend its reading. After all, we don't gather as the church for just any reason. We do so because we are seeking to respond in faith to Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Bishop Jones writes, "There are people ... living in our communities who need salvation. They need a personal relationship with Christ as Lord and Savior. They need the means of grace found only in the church. They need what our church has to offer."

That's a wonderful statement of the reason God has gathered a church at all. And it also points to the importance of the church's life and mission.

Second Sunday of Advent

A prayer for the second Sunday of Advent:

Ever present God,
   you taught us that the night
      is far spent
      and the day is at hand.
Grant that we
   may ever be
      found watching
      for the coming
      of your Son.
Save us from undue love
   of the world,
   that we may wait
      with patient hope
      for the day of the Lord,
   and so abide in him,
   that when he shall appear,
      we may not be ashamed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

- Book of Worship, 254