Glory amid the Messiness: A Christmas Meditation

Glory amid the Messiness

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased." Luke 2:13-14

This passage provokes two questions:

1. Where was God’s glory on that night? Other than the angels themselves, what do we have? Shepherds … childbirth in a barn … God as a tiny creature rather than in the throne room of heaven. We have blood, dirt, and peasants. How glorious is that?

2. Where is the peace? Maybe the night was quiet, but Rome’s pagan army still occupied Israel’s holy land. Herod the psychopath was still king of Judea. We have political oppression, poverty, an inn with no room, Joseph unable to provide anything but a barn for his family, a highly suspicious pregnancy, the pain and messiness and terror of childbirth. What kind of peace are the angels talking about, and where is it to be found?

To answer these questions, we have to ask another pair first: Who is this baby, and what is he up to?

Atonement in the Gospel according to John

Recently I looked through St. John's gospel and found some interesting patterns. In every chapter but the last I could find some description of Jesus as the one who removes the barrier between us and God, a description of that action, and something in the context that connects that action with atonement. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to paste it into the blog in a table, so I put it into a less handy format. Here are the results:


Ch. 1. Title: The Word of God
Atoning Action: became flesh
Connection with atonement: God takes on our flesh, becoming “at one” with us (v. 14)

Title: The Lamb of God
Atoning Action: who takes away the sin of the world
Connection with atonement: Reference to the use of lambs in the Levitical sacrificial system

Ch. 2. (no title; Jesus is a wedding guest)
Atoning Action: turns water of purification to wine
Connection with atonement: Purification (stone waterpots, v. 6) and giving life (wine, v. 10)

Title: Son of the Father
Atoning Action: cleanses the temple
Connection with atonement: "Temple" refers his own body and death (vv. 19-21)

Ch. 3. Title: Son of Man, Son of God
Atoning Action: sent to save the world & give eternal life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life (vv. 16-18, 36)

Ch. 4. Title: The Messiah
Atoning Action: who gives the water of life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life (vv. 14, 25,26)

Title: The Lord
Atoning Action: who gives life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life not mentioned, but giving life is the prerogative of God (vv. 49, 51)

Ch 5. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who works to heal
Connection with atonement: His healing is part of his father’s work, which is the reconciliation of God and man(vv. 8-9, 17)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who obeys the Father and gives life instead of judgment (condemnation) to believers
Connection with atonement: Believers honor the Son and have passed from death to life (vv. 19-24, 27)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who bears witness
Connection with atonement: “That you may be saved” (v. 34)

Ch 6. Title: The Son, The bread of life, the bread of God
Atoning Action: who gives life to the world
Connection with atonement: Resurrection and eternal life (vv. 39-40)

Ch 7. Title: The prophet, Messiah
Atoning Action: who gives living water
Connection with atonement: Reference to life & the Holy Spirit (vv. 38-39)

Ch 8. Title: The light of the world
Atoning Action: who gives the light of life
Connection with atonement: Connection of light with life (v. 12)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who makes free
Connection with atonement: Freedom from the slavery of sin (vv. 31-36)

Ch 9. Title: The light of the world
Atoning Action: who gives sight
Connection with atonement: Judgment (v. 39) and the removal, or not, of sin (v. 41)

Ch 10. Title: The door of the sheep
Atoning Action: who gives salvation and pasture
Connection with atonement: Connection of pasture with salvation (v. 9)

Title: The good shepherd
Atoning Action: who lays down his life for the sheep
Connection with atonement: Gives life by dying (v. 11)

Title: The shepherd
Atoning Action: who knows &calls the sheep
Connection with atonement: Knowing (v. 15) & hearing (v. 16) express union & belonging, esp. with the comparison “even as the Father knows me and I know the Father” and the result, “and I lay down my life for the sheep,” both in v. 15.

Title: The shepherd
Atoning Action: who knows the sheep & they follow
Connection with atonement: Knowing and hearing related to eternal life (vv. 27-29)

Ch 11. Title: The Lord, Christ, Son of God
Atoning Action: who gives life
Connection with atonement: Reference to the resurrection (vv. 24-25, 43-44)

Ch 12. Title: The Son of Man
Atoning Action: who draws all men to himself
Connection with atonement: Connection with “if I be lifted up,” v. 32.

Title: Light
Atoning Action: who delivers believers from darkness
Connection with atonement: Light and belief connected with being converted and healed (v. 40)

Ch 13. Title: The Servant
Atoning Action: who washes us
Connection with atonement: Connection with the OT washings (implicit)

Ch 14. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who prepares a place for us
Connection with atonement: in the Father’s house (v. 2, 3).

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who gives the Spirit
Connection with atonement: to be with us forever (vv. 16-17).

Ch 15. Title: The true vine
Atoning Action: through whom the branches bear fruit
Connection with atonement: These are the branches that the Father prunes (v. 2) and keeps (v. 6).

Ch 16. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who goes to the Father
Connection with atonement: Connection with giving the Holy Spirit (vv. 7 ff.) and the Father’s love for us (vv. 27-28)

Ch 17. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who gives eternal life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life (v. 2)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who manifested God’s name to his disciples
Connection with atonement: and God gave them to him (v. 6).

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who prays on our behalf
Connection with atonement: “Sanctified in truth” (v. 17) means belonging to & union with God (vv. 21, 23).

Ch 18. Title: King of the Jews
Atoning Action: who bears witness to the truth
Connection with atonement: “Hearing” is connected in previous passages with belonging to Jesus

Ch 19. Title: King of the Jews
Atoning Action: crucified
Connection with atonement: References to the Passover (vv. 14, 36) depict Jesus as our Passover lamb; reference to Zechariah 12:10 (v. 37) connects the crucifixion with the coming of "the Spirit of grace and supplication"

Ch 20. Title: The resurrected Son
Atoning Action: grants peace
Connection with atonement: Peace with God (v. 21)

Title: The resurrected Son
Atoning Action: gives the Holy Spirit
Connection with atonement: Union with God (v. 22)

Ch 21.

My Neighbor Totoro - movie review

Because I have greatly enjoyed the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli (see Spirited Away (2001, and Academy Award winner in 2002), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), and others), last night I watched his earlier work, My Neighbor Totoro (1988). It takes place in rural Japan in 1958. A father moves to an old house in the country with his two daughters (roughly 10 and 4 years old). Totoro is a spirit-creature living in the nearby forest. The portrayal of the two girls is witty, charming, and credible, at least to the eyes of a bachelor who has been able to befriend and observe the children of his friends. Look at the Wikipedia article or the plot line at imdb.com for more information about the movie, plot, critical reception, history, etc.

The movie successfully evokes a simplicity of time, place, and culture that contrasts sharply with late 20th to early 21st century America. But it can help us understand the assumptions and values of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Most people in the film don’t have cars, so they get around by foot or bicycle. Some of the roads are paved, but many are not. Not every house has a telephone. Kids ran around unsupervised. The music and graphics produce an atmosphere of peace and stability. The amenities of the house are minimal and rustic. The conveniences include a hand-pumped well just outside the house that needs priming from the stream down the hill. The walls have moving segments and shutters, the better to capture a breeze. The family spends a lot of time cleaning floors and pots and pans and clothes. A neighbor helps with the laundry. They all work hard at daily chores and think nothing of it.

Yes, the film idealizes this lifestyle by leaving out much of the dreariness, lack of opportunity, lack of medicine, and closed-mindedness that often accompanied it. But we technology-laden, globally-minded folk can profit from savoring this portrait of simplicity and asking what it can teach us. Do our techno-toys, our pace of life, and our grasping for more material wealth help us to be more human or do they erode peace and true community? Have our toys become our masters? Are we amusing ourselves to death, to borrow Neil Postman’s title? And, positively, we should evaluate our lives to find God’s kingdom, his glory, and his consequent Shalom.