If one expects God (YHWH, in Malachi) or Jesus to return and set matters right, how does one think and behave? If such a person is wise and pious, one will revere God and treat people with respect. One will continue to fulfill one’s duty before God. One will be heavenly-minded and of earthly good.
The Incarnation is not merely about the life of the Second Person of the Trinity in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the lives Jesus touched, directly and indirectly. No, the Incarnation pertains to many theologians have pondered for nearly two thousand years. I make no pretense of being an intellectual peer of St. Irenaeus of Lyons (circa 130-circa 202), author of The Scandal of the Incarnation. I do, however, tell you, O reader, that the Incarnation is also about my life and your life. Is Christ evident in us? Do we draw people to Jesus and make disciples, or do we drive people away from our Lord and Savior?
I can speak and write only for myself, so I do. I have a mixed record. I continue to strive to improve, by grace, however.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 9, 2020 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF HARRIET TUBMAN, U.S. ABOLITIONIST
THE FEAST OF EMANUEL CRONENWETT, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR
THE FEAST OF SAINT FRANCES OF ROME, FOUNDRESS OF THE COLLATINES
THE FEAST OF JOHANN PACHELBEL, GERMAN LUTHERAN ORGANIST AND COMPOSER
THE FEAST OF SAINT SOPHRONIUS OF JERUSALEM, ROMAN CATHOLIC PATRIARCH
Stir up your power, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son.
By his coming give to all the world knowledge of your salvation;
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 19
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Assigned Readings:
Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 126
Romans 8:22-25
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
then we were like those who dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy.
They they said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great thins for us,
and we are glad indeed.
Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like the watercourses of the Negev.
Those who sowed with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go our reaping, carrying the seed,
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.
–Psalm 126, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hope–even that of the well-placed variety–can be difficult to maintain. Periods of exile might be long, fear and uncertainty might be daunting, physical and/or emotional suffering might be terrible, and daring to aspire to a better future might seem foolish. Yet God is faithful and generous, and many unlikely and seemingly unlikely events occur. Samuel L. Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain, commented, fiction, unlike non-fiction, is, according to many people, supposed to make sense. Yet I have noticed that many expect non-fiction to make sense, according to their expectations, and reject reality when it contradicts confirmation bias.
This is a devotion for early in Advent, the time of preparation for the twelve days of Christmas. December should be a time of contemplation, assuming that one observes a spiritual holiday or holidays during the month. (It is a month full of holidays.) I, as a Christian, observe the seasons of Advent and Christmas while wishing others happy holidays in their traditions, for having a firm opinion need not lead to hostility and/or intolerance toward those who are different. I observe Advent so enthusiastically that I wish people a holy Advent until very close to December 25, finally yielding to “Merry Christmas” somewhere around December 23. Then I wish people “Merry Christmas” until January 5. I, without becoming lost in theologically minor details, ponder the central mystery of Christianity, which is that God entered into the human story as one of us. That Jesus was a human being is the first important statement about him. The incarnation is foundational, for, if that assertion is not true, other essential doctrines, such as those related to Good Friday and Easter, fall apart. Other ancient religions proposed their own saviors of the world, but those figures never existed as historical figures. How can a figment of human imaginations save the world?
Was it ever too much to hope that God would become incarnate? No, but it was wonderful. And, since Jesus rose from the dead and conquered death and sin, there is even more hope for us than we would have otherwise. Dare we to live in that hope?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
AUGUST 11, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT GREGORY THAUMATURGUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF NEOCAESAREA; AND SAINT ALEXANDER OF COMANA “THE CHARCOAL BURNER,” ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR AND BISHOP OF COMANA, PONTUS
THE FEAST OF AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI, FOUNDER OF THE POOR CLARES
THE FEAST OF MATTHIAS LOY, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER, EDUCATOR, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR; AND CONRAD HERMANN LOUIS SCHUETTE, GERMAN-AMERICAN LUTHERAN MINISTER, EDUCATOR, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR
One of the great virtues of High Churchmanship is having a well-developed sense of sacred time. So, for example, the church calendars, with their cycles, tell us of salvation history. We focus on one part of the narrative at a time. Much of Protestantism, formed in rebellion against Medieval Roman Catholic excesses and errors, has thrown the proverbial baby out with the equally proverbial bath water, rejecting or minimizing improperly the sacred power of rituals and holy days.
Consider, O reader, the case of Christmas–not in the present tense, but through the late 1800s. Puritans outlawed the celebration of Christmas when they governed England in the 1650s. Their jure divino theology told them that since there was no biblical sanction for keeping Christmas, they ought not to do it–nor should anyone else. On the other hand, the jure divino theology of other Calvinists allowed for keeping Christmas. Jure divino was–and is–a matter of interpretation. Lutherans, Anglicans, and Moravians kept Christmas. Many Methodists on the U.S. frontier tried yet found that drunken revelry disrupted services. Despite this Methodist pro-Christmas opinion, many members of the Free Methodist denomination persisted in anti-Christmas sentiment. The holiday was too Roman Catholic, they said and existed without
the authority of God’s word.
Thus, as the December 19, 1888 issue of Free Methodist concluded,
We attach no holy significance to the day.
–Quoted in Leigh Eric Schmidt, Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), page 180. (The previous quote also comes from that magazine, quoted in the same book.)
Many Baptists also rejected the religious celebration of Christmas. An 1875 issue of Baptist Teacher, a publication for Sunday School educators, contained the following editorial:
We believe in Christmas–not as a holy day but as a holiday and so we join with our juveniles with utmost heartiness of festal celebration….Stripped as it ought to be, of all pretensions of religious sanctity and simply regarded as a social and domestic institution–an occasion of housewarming, and heart-warming and innocent festivity–we welcome its coming with a hearty “All Hail.”
–Quoted in Schmidt, Consumer Rites, pages 179 and 180
Presbyterians, with their Puritan heritage, resisted celebrating Christmas for a long time. In fact, some very strict Presbyterians still refuse to keep Christmas, citing their interpretation of jure divino theology. (I have found some of their writings online.) That attitude was more commonplace in the 1800s. The Presbyterian Church in the United States, the old Southern Presbyterian Church, passed the following resolution at its 1899 General Assembly:
There is no warrant for the observance of Christmas and Easter as holy days, but rather contrary (see Galatians iv.9-11; Colossians ii.16-21), and such observance is contrary to the principles of the Reformed faith, conducive to will-worship, and not in harmony with the simplicity of the gospel in Jesus Christ.
–Page 430 of the Journal of the General Assembly, 1899 (I copied the text of the resolution verbatim from an original copy of the Journal.)
I agree with Leigh Eric Schmidt:
It is not hard to see in this radical Protestant perspective a religious source for the very secularization of the holiday that would eventually be so widely decried. With the often jostling secularism of the Christmas bazaar, Protestant rigorists simply got what they had long wished for–Christmas as one more market day, a profane time or work and trade.
–Consumer Rites, page 180
I affirm the power of rituals and church calendars. And I have no fear of keeping a Roman Catholic holy day and season. Thus I keep Advent (December 1-24) and Christmas (December 25-January 5). I hold off on wishing people
Merry Christmas
often until close to Christmas Eve, for I value the time of preparation. And I have no hostility or mere opposition to wishing anyone
Happy Holidays,
due to the concentrated holiday season in December. This is about succinctness and respect in my mind; I am not a culture warrior.
Yet I cannot help but notice with dismay the increasingly early start of the end-of-year shopping season. More retailers will open earlier on Thanksgiving Day this year. Many stores display Christmas decorations before Halloween. These are examples of worshiping at the high altar of the Almighty Dollar.
I refuse to participate in this. In fact, I have completed my Christmas shopping–such as it was–mostly at thrift stores. One problem with materialism is that it ignores a basic fact: If I acquire an item, I must put it somewhere. But what if I enjoy open space?
I encourage a different approach to the end of the year: drop out quietly (or never opt in) and keep nearly four weeks of Advent and all twelve days of Christmas. I invite you, O reader, to observe these holy seasons and to discover riches and treasures better than anything on sale on Black Friday.
Pax vobiscum!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 25, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SQUANTO, COMPASSIONATE HUMAN BEING
THE FEAST OF JAMES OTIS SARGENT HUNTINGTON, FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF THE HOLY CROSS
–Martin Luther; translated by William James Kirkpatrick
Yesterday I sang in my parish choir’s performance of the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah. We dropped “His yoke is easy and his burden is light,” culminating instead in the Hallelujah Chorus. The concert was glorious and spiritually edifying for many people.
There are still a few days of Advent left. So I encourage you, O reader, to observe them. Then, beginning sometime during the second half of December 24, begin to say
Merry Christmas!
and continue that practice through January 5, the twelfth and last day of Christmas. And I encourage you to remember that our Lord and Savior was born into a violent world, one in which men–some mentally disturbed, others just mean, and still others both mean and mentally disturbed–threatened and took the lives of innocents. Names, circumstances, empires, nation-states, and technology have changed, but the essential reality has remained constant, unfortunately.
The Hallelujah Chorus, quoting the Apocalypse of John, includes these words:
The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.
That is not true yet, obviously. But that fact does not relieve any of us of our responsibilities to respect the Image of God in others and to treat them accordingly. We must not try to evade the duty to be the face and appendages of Christ to those to whom God sends us and those whom God sends to us. We cannot save the world, but we can improve it. May we do so for the glory of God and the benefit of others.
May the peace of Christ, born as a vulnerable baby and executed as a criminal by a brutal imperial government, be with you now and always. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 17, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARIA STEWART, EDUCATOR
THE FEAST OF EGLANTYNE JEBB, FOUNDER OF SAVE THE CHILDREN
THE FEAST OF FRANK MASON NORTH, U.S. METHODIST MINISTER
The Law of Moses contains rituals and commandments. Many of these laws condemn the exploitation of others. To exploit someone economically and/or judicially was a form of idolatry. It still is.
One of the major themes in the Hebrew Bible is that such idolatry led to the destruction of kingdoms, followed by exiles. Yet mercy upon the remnant follows in judgment in the Hebrew Scriptures. The human-divine relationship (God acts lovingly-people reject God–God punishes people–God acts mercifully again) is a recurring cycle.
In Advent, of course, we look forward liturgically to a future season of both divine judgment and mercy (judgment on some as mercy on others) and backward liturgically to a time when God broke into history via the Incarnation. I, having read about what God has done, wonder what God will do next.
Advent receives inadequate attention. The season is certainly not commercial. Indeed, Christmas receives much commercial attention even before Halloween, for retailers need the money from Christmas-related sales to sustain stores through other times of the year. I admit to being of two minds. On one hand I do my rather limited Christmas shopping at thrift stores, so my deeds reveal my creed. Yet I know that many jobs depend on Christmas-related sales, so I want retailers to do well at the end of the year. Nevertheless, I am not very materialistic at heart; the best part of Christmas is intangible. And nobody needs any more dust catchers.
Observing Advent is a positive way of dropping out of the madness that is pre-December 25 commercialism. The four Sundays and other days (December 2-24 in 2012) preceding Christmas Day are a time of spiritual preparation, not unlike Lent, which precedes Easter. Garrison Keillor used the term “Advent Distress Disorder” (ADD) in a monologue last year. Indeed, finding positive news in the midst of apocalyptic tones of Advent readings can prove difficult. Yet the good news remains and the light shines brightest in the darkness.
So, O reader, I invite you to observe a holy Advent. Embrace the confluence of joy and distress, of darkness and light. And give Advent all the time it warrants through December 24. Christmas will arrive on schedule and last for twelve days. But that is another topic….
Pax vobiscum!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 6, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM TEMPLE, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
THE FEAST OF TE WHITI O RONGOMAI, MAORI PROPHET
THE FEAST OF SAINT THEOPHANE VERNARD, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, MISSIONARY, AND MARTYR IN VIETNAM
The threat of judgment runs through Isaiah 14 and 2 Peter 3. Assyria, relabeled Babylon by a subsequent editor, will fall. The text even provides a song of gloating for the exiles to sing on that day. For Assyria/Babylon there will be no remnant.
Judgment will fall one day, 2 Peter 3 tells us. The delay indicates divine patience, an opportunity for salvation. The Day of Judgment was more distant than the author of 2 Peter imagined, for it remains in the future tense. And, as the author of 2 Peter 3 reminds us, God is being patient now. May we not try this patience. Rather, may we seek (and succeed, by grace) to love God fully and our neighbors as yourselves, for that is the summary of the divine law.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 10, 2011 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN ROBERTS, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR
THE FEAST OF KARL BARTH, SWISS REFORMED THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF THOMAS MERTON, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MONK
their consistency is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.
Get up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of great tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
Here is your God!
See, the LORD God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
1 You have been gracious to your land, O LORD,
you have restored the good fortune of Jacob.
2 You have forgiven the iniquity of your people
and blotted out all their sins.
8 I will listen to what the LORD God is saying,
for he is speaking peace to his faithful people
and to those who turn their hearts to him.
9 Truly, his salvation is very near to those fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.
10 Mercy and truth have met together;
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
11 Truth shall spring up from the earth,
and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
12 The LORD will indeed grant prosperity,
and our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness shall go before him,
and peace shall be a pathway for his feet.
2 Peter 3:8-15a (New Revised Standard Version):
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.
Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we waiting for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
Mark 1:1-8 (New Revised Standard Version):
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare the way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness;
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.'”
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed,
The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
The Collect:
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Waiting is hard. I do not refer to pacing and foot-tapping while wondering what is taking somebody so long, although that is difficult. No, I mean purposeful, patient waiting. The conquered and exiled Jews living within the Chaldean/Neo-Babylonian Empire had to wait for the Persian army of Cyrus the Great. These being Advent readings, however, most waiting is for the coming of the Messiah. In the meantime, people near Jerusalem listened to an eccentric ascetic. And, a few decades later, members of a nascent faith called Christianity awaited the return of Jesus, with advice to live at peace with God and each other. Time, the author of 2 Peter writes, works differently for God than for us, so we ought not to become impatient.
Listen to a really good and chanted version of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” The haunting sense of longing will be evident there, as will confidence that Emmanuel will come, and God will indeed be with us in a different way than is true now. Until then, we need to hang on.
This requires stillness. But we cannot be still while rushing and flitting about from shopping trip to shopping trip and Christmas party (office, neighborhood, church group, etc.) to Christmas party. December is a hectic time for many people. Yet this is the time that the Church, in its wisdom, has set aside as Advent, a time of faithful preparation for Christmas.
I write these words in early June 2011, a very hot time in northern Georgia, U.S.A. Slowing down long enough to type the readings and to ponder them, and hopefully to grasp the spirit of them, is a valuable exercise. During this time I have played a variety of YouTube videos of Advent carols in the background, to get into the proper frame of mind. Focusing on these readings has been a great blessing for me this day, and I hope that they are for you, too.
