The Birth of Jesus

The book of Luke tells us that the angel of God said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” And so she became pregnant with the baby Jesus.

Soon after that, Mary went to spend several months with her relative Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah, who lived in the hill country, some distance away. The angel had also told Mary that Elizabeth was six months pregnant; beyond the child-bearing age, Elizabeth had been unable to conceive until then.

As soon as Mary greeted Elizabeth, the baby in her womb, she said, “leaped for joy.” This baby, from the womb, recognized the Christ child in Mary’s womb. He was to be John the Baptist, who would prepare the way for the Messiah. The Holy Spirit within him saw the Christ and communicated joy to his spirit.

My friend and Sunday school teacher, whose name happens to be Mary, said this reaction of the unborn baby John to the unborn baby Jesus is a picture of what happens when we accept Christ. The Holy Spirit comes inside us to give us the mind of Christ so that we can discern truth. And so the Holy Spirit in us recognizes Jesus and causes our spirits to leap with joy.

On the previous Sunday morning, a man in our class said he wasn’t so sure all that was possible. In human terms, it is not possible.

Do I believe God can do anything—that he is omnipotent? If my answer is “yes,” then how can I question a pregnancy that happened without human intercourse? How can I question the pregnancy of an old, barren woman? How can I question one unborn baby’s reaction to another unborn baby?

Luke 1:37 says, “For nothing is impossible with God.”

The picture comes from this site: www.dst-corp.com/james/PaintingsOfJesus/NoJS.ht and it is entitled "His Name Shall Be Called Wonderful." The artist is Simon Dewey.


This is a re-print of this entry, from 2007. The picture is different.

The Birth of Jesus

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/birth-of-jesus.html

Thursday Thirteen: Anne Rice--Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

I just finished reading Anne Rice’s latest book, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. Here are thirteen things I’d like to say now.

1. Anne Rice used to write exclusively about vampires and such things as demons and devils.

2. I can’t write with knowledge about those earlier books because I’ve never read any of them. I have been aware of her reputation as a “vampire” writer, and I have avoided those books on purpose. But I have plenty to say about Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt.

3. It was a little ironic to read the list of books written “also by Anne Rice”—things like Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Mummy . . . –and then to consider this title, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt . I have to admit that I was a little skeptical about it.

4. This is an amazing book. It is a first-person narrative about Jesus, as the title says. It covers about a year in his life as a child, when his large family comes back to Nazareth to live after being in Egypt for the first seven years of his life.

5. In the “Introduction to the Paperback Edition,” Rice says, in part, that her story assumes that God “became human in the person of Jesus Christ and ‘dwelt among us.’ The magnificent mystery of the Incarnation is accepted and affirmed as fact.”

6. She says in the introduction that she used scripture to re-create the “emotions and powers of the Child Jesus.” In the author’s notes at the end of the book, she says that for a number of the incidents in the book, she used legends as set forth in the Apocrypha, stories and visions familiar to people for centuries.

7. The story seems very realistic as it presents the mind of the young Jesus. In the story, he is puzzled because he has miraculous powers—for example, the power to make living birds from clay, to heal sick people, to stop rain. He tries not to do these things, in obedience to Joseph and Mary, who discourage such acts. They don’t want to explain any of his beginnings to him until he is old enough to understand

8. We really have no early record in the Gospels of what Jesus was like as a child. I have wondered if he knew all along who he was or if he became aware of it gradually, and how that might have happened. To me, Rice’s interpretation makes sense; I believe that Jesus’ childhood could have been the way she portrays it. Some people would worry that her presentation of Jesus might be blasphemous, but she does it in a humble, loving, spiritual way.

9. The book won Beliefnet’s award for Best Spiritual Book of the Year—2005.

10. Just as amazing as the story itself is Rice’s story in the author’s notes of how she came back to faith. She grew up in the Catholic Church but she fell away from belief at the age of eighteen. She and her husband Stan Rice were avowed atheists for about thirty years.

11. She wrote that her first novel was a reflection of her misery and guilt “in being cut off from God and from salvation; . . . being lost in a world without light” (323). She said, “After that, I wrote many novels without my being aware that they reflected my quest for meaning in a world without God” (323).

12. She read countless scholarly books in preparation for writing about the life of Jesus, including both skeptical and faith-based approaches to the New Testament, history, and philosophy. She read a number of works by N. T. Wright; she said “. . .his generosity in embracing the skeptics and commenting on their arguments is an inspiration. His faith is immense, and his knowledge vast” (335).

13. She fell in love with Jesus. She said she offers this book to Christians of all persuasions “in the hope that my embrace of more conservative doctrines will have some coherence for them in the here and now of the book” (337). She offers it “to scholars in the hope that they will perhaps enjoy seeing the evidence of the research that’s gone into it . . .” (338). She hopes that people who don’t know Jesus Christ “will see him in some form” in the book. And finally, she offers it to her faithful readers “in the hope that Jesus will be as real to you as any other character I’ve ever launched into the world we share” because in truth, Jesus is “the ultimate supernatural hero” (338).

Rice said in a Christianity Today interview: "This book means more to me than anything I've ever done. I'm not offering agnostic explanations. He is real. He worked miracles. He is the Son of God! And there is so much more to write."

It’s a wonderful story—read it! Here’s a link to her web site.

Thursday Thirteen: Anne Rice--Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/12/thursday-thirteen-anne-rice-christ-lord.html

The Season of Advent

This is the season of Advent—the four Sundays preceding Christmas. “Advent” means “coming” or “coming into being or use.” It refers, in this case, of course, to the advent of the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Of course, most people know that Jesus was not really born on Christmas day. The actual date of his birth cannot be established with any certainty. In a Google search, we can find numerous explanations, like the very good one linked here, of why his birth came to be celebrated on December 25.

In the early years of the Christian church, the date of his birth was considered to be insignificant; the important time was his death and resurrection. Now, we celebrate it in December probably because, as the New Life web site tells us, “In Rome December 25 was made popular by Pope Liberius in 354 and became the rule in the West in 435 when the first ‘Christ mass’ was officiated by Pope Sixtus III. This coincided with the date of a celebration by the Romans to their primary god, the Sun, and to Mithras, a popular Persian sun god supposedly born on the same day.”

At any rate, here we are in the sixth year of the 21st century, preparing for Christmas, the season of hope and love. Two things happened this weekend that have touched my heart with Christmas spirit.

Yesterday, I ran into a friend of mine whom I’ll call “Cora”—that’s not really her name. I heard a few weeks ago that she has been diagnosed with bone cancer, and I’ve been in a state of denial about it. She is one of the world’s best people. She was in the grocery store, getting ready to feed 35 family members next weekend. So yesterday, in the canned goods aisle, I asked her if it is true.

Cora said, “Well, yes, and no.” I felt tears welling up in my eyes. She explained that tests show she has the cells in her blood, but it has not caused any symptoms. As she told me about possible treatments and outcomes, I began to cry—I couldn’t help it, right there in the grocery store.

Cora comforted me. She said, “We know that everything is in God’s hands.” I agreed with her, through my tears. She said, “There might be some pain and yucky stuff on the way, but then—just to be with God—that couldn’t be bad!” I agreed, still crying.

Then, this morning in church, my young friend “Crystal” and her four-year-old daughter “Eva” lit the second Advent candle; they were both wearing red sweaters. Crystal helped Eva light it, and then Crystal read a piece about opening our hearts to Christ. As Crystal read, she held Eva’s hand. Eva leaned lightly against Crystal’s arm and gazed up at her the whole time she read, her blonde curls falling back. She smiled while she listened, and her blue eyes told how she adores her mother. Her father died of cancer during this past year. Crystal has been strong and cheerful, as she has been both father and mother for Eva.

It is a time of hope, light, love, giving—because of Jesus, whose date of birth we don’t really know. I feel the glow of Advent.

The Season of Advent

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/12/season-of-advent.html