Christmas traditions and Christmas truths

Last year's December magazine article:

Lying next to me on my desk, waiting to be opened is my pre-Christmas reading for this year – Pope Benedict XVI's book on the Infancy Narratives of Jesus of Nazareth. In this book Pope Benedict goes back to the stories of Jesus' infancy in Matthew and Luke's gospels to re-examine what they say and what they mean for us today. So far, so uncontroversial. Or so you'd think. Some in the media took a different view. A Reuters report pointed out that several attention-grabbing media headlines tried to make it seem as if Pope Benedict was attacking Christmas; headlines such as"Killjoy pope crushes Christmas nativity traditions," "Pope sets out to debunk Christmas myths," "The pope's war on Christmas," and even "Pope bans Christmas."

All of these headlines owe more to journalistic sensationalism than anything that was actually in the book. Pope Benedict, in returning to the gospel accounts themselves, pointed out how some of our ideas about the Christmas story are not supported by the gospels. For example, he says that the gospels do not say that there were any animals present when Jesus was born, and that the angels said “Glory to God in the highest” rather than sang it. Filtered through hyperbole these became the Pope banning nativity cribs and carols, even though in the book Pope Benedict states "No representation of the crib is complete without the ox and the ass" and "Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is actually song" so it is only natural that we “join in their carolling on the Holy Night".

But something else, apart from journalists getting carried away, lies behind these headlines, and that is the challenging of traditions. Christmas is a time full of traditions both old and new, most of which are dearly held, and sometimes these traditions compete. Arguments over whether your have Christmas pudding before or after the Queen's speech, or whether you see all of the family on Christmas Day or none of them, although trivial can take on epic proportions precisely because they are to do with some of our most cherished habits.

In his book Pope Benedict seeks to look beyond the various Christian traditions to the 'gospel truth' of the Christmas story, not to get rid of them but to enhance them by reminding us of the greater truth that lies at the heart of the story. This Christmas, why not pick up a Bible and read the first part of Matthew and Luke's gospels and hear the original story again (or come along to church to hear it!). To use Pope Benedict's words, I pray that the many Christmas traditions, but especially the gospel accounts themselves, will “help you on your path toward and alongside Jesus”. God bless you this Christmas.

Advent Reflections - The Four Last Things: 4. Hell

Easrt window of St Andrew's, Redbourne - "The Opening of the Sixth Seal" (Revelation 6:12-17)

 Finishing our meditations on the four traditional themes of Advent

Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell; this week we're thinking about Hell

Just as we need to rid ourselves of the mental image of heaven being fluffy white clouds and harps, so we need to rid ourselves of the image of hell as sulphurous fires and devils with toasting-forks doing unspeakable things to people forever. However, these images owe more to mediæval imagination than the biblical record. So what does the bible say about hell?

In the bible there are three words that are usually translated 'hell': sheol, Hades and gehenna. Sheol is a Hebrew word that can mean 'grave', 'pit' or the 'realm of the dead' and is quite neutral, but it is also used in a sense more like what we would think of as hell – a place of punishment. Hades likewise can simply mean the underworld or realm of the dead, but is occasionally used in a context that speaks of punishment. Gehenna is the name of a rubbish dump south of Jerusalem where the filth and dead animals from the city were thrown into in a fire that burned constantly. This is used by Jesus as an illustration of what Jerusalem will become like if it doesn't follow him and by extension an illustration of the outcome for everyone who rejects him.

In order to think about hell we need to remind ourselves of what was said previously about judgement. God is perfectly holy and only perfectly holy beings can be in his kingdom, and on this criteria we all fail and no-one deserves to enter his kingdom. However, because Jesus died to take the punishment we deserve, we can be forgiven and we can enter God's kingdom. But we can only be forgiven if we ask for it. God gives us the free will to be able to choose him or reject him and he honours our decision, but if we reject Jesus we also reject the way to salvation. God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4) and he “so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:16-18).

On Judgement Day we will see God face-to-face and we will know his verdict on us, and we will know it to be absolutely just and fair. Those who choose to reject Jesus in this life will have that decision honoured in the next; those who choose to be judged on the basis of how good they are will be judged on that basis and be found wanting; those who choose to accept the forgiveness offered by Jesus and unite themselves with him will be judged as he is and be found acceptable to God.

So what happens to those who reject Jesus? In rejecting Jesus they reject his offer of taking the punishment for their sins, therefore in order that justice may be done, punishment is still required. We know that this justice does not come before death so it must come after death. So the question is, what form will this punishment take? The simple answer is that we don't know for sure. Jesus and other parts of the bible use language to describe it, with fire and torment being common images, but it is not clear whether this language is meant to be literal or symbolic. The 'torment' may not mean physical pain but mental anguish at the realisation of the consequence of rejecting Jesus, as Charles Wesley graphically describes it: “deeply wailing shall the true Messiah see.”

The good news of Christianity about hell is that whatever it is, it is not where we're meant to be. God created us to be with him forever and although because of our sins we spoilt that plan, because of Jesus' death that relationship with God for eternity is possible again. Thinking about the 'Four Last Things' reminds us that our future lies in our hands, Jesus invites us to repent and believe in him. What is your response?

Advent Reflections - The Four Last Things: 3. Heaven

 Continuing our meditations on the four traditional themes of Advent

Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell; this week it's Heaven.

Mention the word 'heaven' to people and probably the first image that will spring to their mind is one of cute angels sitting on fluffy clouds playing harps, or a purely spiritual realm inhabited by ghost-like beings. Ask them again what they imagine heaven to be like for them or their loved ones and you'll probably get a description of them doing their favourite activity. Ask them who'll be there and you'll more than likely get the response “everyone” (except of course Hitler / bin Laden / notorious criminals etc.).

But what does the Bible tell us about what heaven will really be like? The most obvious thing to note about the biblical view of heaven is that it is the dwelling-place or the kingdom of God, although it is not a literal place in the universe because God is also said to be everywhere. The Lord's Prayer says that heaven is a place where God's will is done, and in various places the worship of God by angels around his throne in heaven is spoken of. However, it is surprising to also note that, despite the traditional Christian thought and language, the Bible doesn't talk of heaven as being the place we go to (or should aspire to go to) when we die.

Jesus taught us to pray “your kingdom come: your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) and the second phrase should be seen as an explanation of the first. God's kingdom comes when his will is done. And Jesus wants us to pray for that to happen on earth in the same way as it already is in heaven. He doesn't want us to pray that we would go to heaven so we can be in his kingdom, but that his kingdom would come on earth. In Jesus' first coming the kingdom of God started on earth, but we await his kingdom to come in on earth all its fullness. This is made explicit in Revelation 21, where the vision of the future is a new heaven and a new earth, but that these are now joined: “God's dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3). Our ultimate aim therefore is not heaven but 'heaven-on-renewed-earth.'

It still has those characteristics of being God's dwelling-place, where he is worshipped and his will is done, but it is not a 'spiritual' place but a physical, earthly place. And of course this shouldn't be surprising for us who believe in the resurrection, because the accounts of Jesus' resurrection prove that it was a bodily, physical resurrection not a spiritual resurrection. So we are not resurrected as ghosts or spirits but with physical bodies, and physical bodies need a physical environment. Also, Paul reminds us in Romans that sin doesn't just affect humanity, but it has also affected the created world. Therefore Jesus' death, which won humanity's salvation also won salvation for creation: “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

So if 'heaven-on-renewed-earth” is what we should aspire to, who goes there? As we saw last week, Jesus invites us to “repent and believe the good news” and the future judgement, and therefore the decision about whether we will go there, will be on the basis of whether we've accepted Jesus' invitation or not.

The good news of Christianity about heaven is that it is more wonderful than we commonly think, as it involves the renewal and re-creation of the whole of creation, including our bodies, and the joining of heaven with this renewed earth. The relationship we can have with God now is infinitely enhanced and there will be an intimacy that is beyond our wildest dreams. By accepting Jesus' invitation we become part of God's kingdom here and now, and God promises us that we will be part of his future kingdom-on-renewed-earth.

Advent Reflections - The Four Last Things: 2. Judgement

 Continuing our meditations on the four traditional themes of Advent

- Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell; this week it's Judgement.

Divine judgement often makes us feel very defensive if not angry - “who are you to judge me?” is an unspoken question in our minds. And this is particularly so in a society where any notion of an absolute moral standard is dismissed. Society believes that the morality of an action depends on the situation rather than any concept of rightness or wrongness. Added to which is the relativist idea of something being “right for me” so that what is right for you is not necessarily right for me and you shouldn't impose your 'rightness' on me.

Yet at the same time we cry out for justice. Our world is seemingly full of people who do bad things and get away with them, things like murder, fraud, dishonesty or hurting us in a more personal way, and we want justice for that. The Psalmist wrote “it made me jealous to see proud and evil people and to watch them prosper” and as if to add insult to injury “all goes well for them, and they live in peace. What good did it do me to keep my thoughts pure and refuse to do wrong?” (Psalm 73:3,12-13 CEV). Evil goes unpunished and good goes unrewarded, so we want justice.

But we can't have it both ways, either we want judgement and justice or we don't – we can't ask God to judge other people's sins if we don't also let him judge our own. But whether we like it or not the justice that is clearly missing in this world will happen at the end of time, when Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead.

So the question is, on what basis will he judge us? The common view of Judgement Day is that Jesus will have a set of scales and on one side he'll put all the bad things we've done and on the other he'll put the good things and if the good outweighs the bad we'll be OK. And of course the bad things that 'other people' do, like murder, paedophilia etc., hugely outweigh the little bad things we do!

But that's not the criteria for judgement. Jesus, when talking to the lawyer in Luke 10:25-28, says that you could earn eternal life if you perfectly love God and your neighbour constantly, knowing that “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). Therefore Jesus is saying it's impossible to pass the judgement on the basis of the good things we do because we can never be good enough.

And deep down we know this is true. In the Christianity Explored course we heard the illustration of seeing the whole of our life as a film; every thought, word and deed and all the things we should have thought, said or done. Although there would be many times we were proud of, there would be more times that make us ashamed. Rico Tice, the presenter, said that if we're honest we fail to live up to our own standards, never mind God's! When Jesus comes to judge the world, we all deserve to fail.

The good new of Christianity about judgement is that Jesus, the only perfect human being, died to take the punishment we deserve. He calls us to “repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). 'Repent' means recognising and saying sorry for the things we do wrong (sins) and resolving not to sin in the future, and 'believe' means accepting God’s forgiveness made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross, putting Jesus at the centre of our lives and living in line with his teaching. If we repent and believe, in the words of the hymn: “Because the sinless Saviour died, my sinful soul is counted free, for God the Just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me” ('Before the Throne of God Above' - Words by Charitie L. Bancroft). The consequences of our response to Jesus' invitation to repent and believe are the subject of the next two weeks.

Penguins, Pagans and Real Love

 For me, one of the memorable parts of last year's Christmas was the John Lewis advert; the story of friendship and love with a boy, Sam and his best friend, Monty the penguin. As well as a great story, what made the advert so memorable was the soundtrack, 'Real Love' sung by Tom Odell.

'Real Love' was originally written by John Lennon around 1977 and recorded with overdubs by the three surviving Beatles in 1995. The song is a celebration of true and real love and also a reflection on how life can sometimes be a preparation or almost a kind of dress rehearsal for true love. The lyrics say “Just like little girls and boys, playing with their little toys. Seems like all they really were doing, was waiting for love.”

Advent is the season of preparation for Christmas in terms of getting decorations, food and plans ready but also in the deeper sense of preparing ourselves to celebrate again the great moment when God came to earth to be born as a human, Jesus Christ. One of the ways we do this is to look back at how God prepared his people, the Israelites, for it so we look into the Old Testament for the prophesies about Jesus and also at the people and events that foreshadowed what Jesus would do. For example we look Isaiah's foretelling of a virgin giving birth to a son (Isaiah 7:4), and we also think about the lamb whose blood saved the Israelites from the tenth plague God sent to Egypt at the Passover and how that prefigures Jesus' death which saves us from God's judgement. In our Advent Bible studies this year, we're looking at the Letter to the Hebrews and what it tells us about how the Old Testament prepares us for Jesus.

But God's preparation for the coming of Jesus wasn't limited to the Israelites. It is often said that Christmas and Easter have more to do with Roman or pagan festivals than they do to the story of Jesus, and it is true that the celebration of Christmas and Easter were linked with pre-existing festivals. But far from devaluing the Christian festivals this knowledge enhances them because it shows how God reveals himself through all people's attempts to understand ourselves and the world. Acts 17 recounts how St Paul in Athens used the kernel of truth in the Greek religious practices and thinking to explain the full truth revealed in Jesus.

God uses the world around us, our lives and our thinking to prepare us for understanding Jesus. The kernels of truth found in all religions and philosophies are like playing with toys while waiting for the full and real truth which is found in Jesus. And all our attempts to love other people are pale reflections of the real love that we see when God comes to earth in Jesus. So this Christmas I invite you to discover the greatest gift of all: God's love for you. “Don't need to be alone...don't need to be afraid. It's real love.”