Is Christmas Christian? - Part XVI

Continued from Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV,, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, Part XIII, Part XIV, and PartXV.

Q. 17. But aren't we giving in to paganism when we start talking about the symbolism of the seasons and all that? Isn't this nature worship?

Answer. No. It's not nature worship. And it's not pagan to recognize and utilize the symbolism associated with the seasons of the year.

According to I Timothy 4:4, "Everything that God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer." God has created both us and the rest of his creation responsive to temporal rhythmic patterns (Gen. 1:14). There are certain temporal rhythms of life that are built-in to his creation and into us. Daily: Sun up, Sun Down. Monthly: the cycle of the moon. And yearly: the march of the seasons and the alternating of darkness and light, cold and warmth associated with the movement of the earth and Sun. We ignore these patterns and we suffer the consequences!

The sun governs not only the day, but also the year (Gen. 1:14). The solar cycles are inescapable. Our own rhythms of life are influenced by the progression of the seasons. God has created us enmeshed in the creation. Human psychology is affected by the seasonal changes. For example, studies have indicated a significant increase in crimes of violence during times of a full moon. 17-25% more babies are born during the waxing period of the moon than during its waning. All you have to do is ask any OB nurse.

During the winter, the days are short, the rays of the sun are more slanted, and the weather is cold. In the winter everything dies or at least looks and feels dead--insects, animals, vegetation--the whole world seems to shut down. It affects us too. The relative absence of sunlight and the dominance of darkness make us melancholy or worse. We are psychosomatic beings. In the Spring, everything seems to come back to life--resurrected from the dead, as it were.

All of this is inherent in God's creation. The Bible recognizes this and builds on it. Of course, the pagans pervert it. They worship the sun and moon. They believe that fertility and life is somehow resident in nature. They deify the forces of nature. And if man would just manipulate nature correctly he can also gain life for himself. So you get pagan fertility cults and rites and other perversions.

The Bible does not completely set aside the calendar cycles because pagans pervert the meaning. No, rather, as we have seen, God has placed the Sun, moon, and stars in the firmament to indicate festival seasons (Gen. 1:14).

The Israelite calendar did not attempt to disregard the symbolism and experience of the seasons of the year just because gentile nations perverted them. God placed the major Israelite festivals precisely at points in the year that would correspond to their meaning!

Passover takes place in the Spring because it celebrates the Israelites' resurrection from the death of Egyptian bondage. God gave them new life. And this new life is only possible because of the death and resurrection of the Messiah, typified by the Passover lamb.

Pentecost was held at the beginning of the Summer harvest. Tabernacles was observed during the Autumn harvest to remind the people that the source of their blessings was Christ. God established the seasonal changes when he established the sun and moon as symbols (Gen. 1:14). The Bible indicates the value of arranging the worship of the people of God so that it is keyed into the seasonal changes (Song of Songs 2:10-12; Matt. 24:33-34; John 10:22-23; John 20:15). Recognizing these seasonal cycles and making use of them in the worship of the church is not "nature worship." If that is the case, then God was guilty of leading his people into idolatry when he ordered the feasts of Israel to coincide with the appropriate seasons of the year.

In John 10:22-23 Jesus attends the feast of Hanukkah. During this festival the Jews celebrated the restoration of the temple after the abomination of desecration by Antioches Epiphanes. It was celebrated at the time of the winter solstice; just as the sun begins its annual rising (the nights are longest, the days are shortest, but that all begins to change at this point). It was a feast of lights! Now in Jesus, according to the Gospel of John, the light is dawning and Jesus is the light of the world.

Moreover, it is interesting to note that Hanukkah is nowhere commanded in the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet Jesus attends and explains it in terms of himself. Jesus sets his seal of approval on a feast celebrated during the winter solstice, commemorating the rebuilding of the temple and the beginning of the dawn of new light for the people of Israel.

But, now, we know that Christ himself is the new temple (John 2:19) and his birth was the beginning of God's "tabernacling" with men (John 1:16-18). His work was the prophesied dawn of God's great work of temple building. His birth was the beginning of the dawning of the true light that comes into the world and that gives light to every man. Remember the Star of Bethlehem in the night sky. The early church recognized these truths and turned the Feast of Hanukah into the celebration of the nativity of our Lord, the True Temple.

Therefore, just as the great redemptive events recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures were keyed to the changes in the seasons--Passover in the Spring means life from the dead--so also the church ordered her Scripture readings and prayers so that the life of Christ would be correlated to the symbolic changes evident in the seasons of the year. Easter, for example, is celebrated in the Spring when the entire created order is symbolically restored from death to life.

Consider how this works for Christmas. Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th? Not so much because it has much of anything to do with the date of his actual birth--although as we noted above, the early church suspected a winter birth. Nor is it the case that the church gullibly adopted a pagan Roman holiday, the festival of the Invincible Sun (Dies Natalis Dei Solis Invicti). The early church was not so naïve. The date was picked for symbolic reasons.

The winter solstice occurs around December 25th (solstice from the Latin: sol = sun, and sistere = to stand still). This is the time of the year when the Sun reaches its southern-most extremity (or to put it another way, it is the point on the Sun's ecliptic at which it is the farthest south). The longest night and the shortest day occur at this point and from this day onward the days get longer and the nights get shorter. The darkness of winter begins to give way to the light and warmth of Spring and Summer. This continues until the summer solstice when the other extreme is reached.

What does this have to do with Christmas? Much in every way. Just as death and darkness give way to life and light in the yearly cycle of seasons, so also the death and darkness brought on by sin gives way to the life and light realized in the work of Jesus. Jesus birth is celebrated when the darkness of night has reached its peak, and once he is born the light begins to wax and the darkness wanes. As the hymn reminds us:

Behold a branch is growing
As of loveliest form and grace,
As prophets sung, foreknowing;
It springs from Jesse's race
And bears one little Flower
In midst of coldest winter,
At deepest midnight hour.

The purpose of the church year, therefore, is to redeem the time, to consecrate the various seasons of the year by the word of God and by prayer (worship). This provides the people of God with amble opportunities to give thanks and rejoice in what God has done in Christ and through his saints throughout history. Used in this way it can be a great educational tool to teach the people the Bible (lectionary) and especially the life of Jesus Christ.

We need not fear the Christian calendar. It has great didactic significance. The Christian year is ordered according to the life of Jesus Christ, from his birth to his ascension and pouring out of the Holy Spirit. It reminds us that as Christians we are in Christ. Each year we are reminded that the yearly cycle of our lives finds its true meaning and significance in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It gives us occasion to celebrate the mighty acts of God in the person of Jesus Christ! The Christian year reminds us that we are "in Christ," our time is "in Christ," and our lives are not our own.

This is my last post in this series. Time to stop talking about Christmas and enjoy it!

I'll close with the words of the venerable Reformed theologian Francis Turretin (1623-1687), considered by most to have been one of the finest Reformed theologians in our tradition:

Hence we cannot approve of the rigid judgment of those who charge such churches with idolatry (in which those days are still kept, the names of the saints being retained), since they agree with us in doctrine concerning the worship of God alone and detest the idolatry of the papists (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 104).

Stairway to Heaven

Is Christmas Christian? - Part XV

Continued from Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV,, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, Part XIII, and Part XIV.

Q. 16. But what difference does it really make? Does the church need to have a church year calendar of annual feasts?

Answer. I don't think the church year is absolutely necessary, but it seems almost inescapable, given the fact that God has created us to live through these seasons. During the childhood of humanity, God tutored Israel by providing them with festivals keyed to the changes in the seasons. Since we are deeply affected by the change of seasons, it only seems right that the church make use of the symbolic dimensions of the seasonal changes in conjunction with the life of Christ.

First, the Christian faith takes time seriously. Christ did not rescue us from time, but from sin and death so that we might properly consecrate our lives in time to the Father by the power of the Spirit. We are not saved from time, but in time. Time is reclaimed for man. God takes up our time into his life. The man Jesus Christ is now part of the very life of the Trinity. Unfortunately, the early church Father Athanasius' maxim "God became man so that man might become God" (On the Incarnation) has been misunderstood. It might be more appropriate to say that God became man so that man might become man again. This was Luther's way of putting it.

The Christian faith, therefore, is not a "spiritual religion"—spiritual in the sense of non-material, ethereal—rather, it affirms space, time, body, and matter—everything as the good creation of God--and all of it to be used in his service. Walker Percy in his novel Love in the Ruins gives the church the role of restoring humanity to a proper earthiness. At one point, a major character has the Lord's Supper explained to her by her husband.

"This is my body given for you." The woman, who knows very little about the Faith is shocked: "My God, what do you do in Church?" The husband explains: "What she didn't understand, she being spiritual and seeing religion as spirit, was that it took religion to save me from the spirit world, from orbiting the earth like Lucifer and the Angels, that it took nothing less than union with the humanity of Christ to make me mortal man again and let me inhabit my own flesh and love her in the morning.

Thus, time and history are very important to Christianity, particularly Christian worship. Genuine Christian worship is not disembodied, timeless worship. It is not an attempt to transcend the limitations of our creaturely existence, but an opportunity to consecrate our creaturely existence to God.

Second, since this is true, Christians confess that the way we use our time is a good indicator of what we think is most important. We will always find time for what we think is most important. Our real priorities are revealed in the way we structure our time. Time talks. Time is like money because it reveals where our hearts really are. When we give someone else our time, we give ourselves. "What does this person believe?" we ask. To answer this we might best look at how a person uses his time. If you spend more time on the golf course on Sunday than you do with God's people, you have made a statement about your real commitments. If you spend more time in front of the TV than you do with your children, then we know what really matters to you.

All of this is true for the church as well. The church shows what is most important by the way she keeps time. One way to answer the questions "What do Christians confess? What do they believe? What is important to them?" is to look at how they keep time.

Consider Ephesians 5:15-16, "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time. . ." Do we believe that it is necessary to redeem the present moment and bring it captive to and for Christ? Of course. What about each day? Ought we to redeem the days for Christ? How was that done in the Old Testament? Morning and evening sacrifices and the daily prayers and Scripture readings that developed from the sacrificial liturgy in the synagogues set apart each day. What about each week? There are weekly Sabbaths. What about the months? The Hebrews had monthly assemblies as well. What about the years? God instituted yearly feasts (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles) that were linked to the seasonal changes.

The annual calendar of feasts in Israel (Exodus 23:10ff. Lev. 23) was primarily a theological pedagogy—instruction centered on commemorating the great saving works of Yahweh. The seasons were made to serve a theological purpose in the life of Israel. They were catalysts to cause Israel to remember what Yahweh had done for her. Passover / exodus / new life / Spring (Lev. 23:4-8). Pentecost / Sinai / first fruits (Lev. 23: 15-21). Tabernacles / full harvest (seventh month) / fruitfulness / judgment (Lev. 23:33-43).

Man remains a seasonal, rhythmic creature. That has not changed since the coming of Jesus Christ. If the church does not set up an annual church calendar to mark time, somebody will! And somebody has--the modern secular State.

Redeeming the time for us means reclaiming the time from the tyranny of the modern state. It has only been since the French Revolution that the calendar has been secularized. No longer is it keyed primarily to the great redemptive historical events of Christ's life, death and resurrection. The calendar is well on its way to being de-Christianized and correspondingly politicized

Like the pagan states of the ancient world, modern secular politics has again commandeered time for itself. Political holidays have slowly replaced Christian feasts in our land. Nationalistic holidays (e.g., Fourth of July, Veterans Day, Labor Day, Presidents Day, etc.) that celebrate national heroes are most prominent. This is a contemporary form of Baalism, when the faith is subordinated to national, political interests. Don't be fooled, if Christ's life and Christian saints are not memorialized throughout the year, then others will take their place (Washington's birthday, Martin Luther King day). Our calendars have almost become thoroughly secularized.

People will simply use whatever pagan calendar becomes prominent in culture. Christians that attack Christmas and Easter as pagan holidays, usually go to churches that make a big to-do about New Year's day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and the Fourth of July. The annual cycle in America is truly becoming paganized. The Baalism of nationalism that commemorates the victories of the nation and celebrates all kinds of political "saints" (George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., Christopher Columbus, etc.) is in the process of replacing the festivals of the church commemorating the life and work of Jesus Christ and the triumphs of his Church in history.

Some of these secular holidays may seem rather benign to us, but we our culture is living on the borrowed capital of Christendom. Just remember the French or Bolshevik Revolution, where atheistic, political holidays were forced on the populace. Even today in nations like the Congo, political tyrants deliberately impose political holidays and ban Christian ones in order to claim dominion over all of life.

Robocat

Watch out, Spider Pig, here comes Elvis the Robocat! But I think Robocat's gonna need a few more upgrades before he can protect us from Terminator Pig.

Behold Your God! A Christmas Meditation

When my son was younger we were driving by one of the banks on Watson Road and he cried out, "Look, everyone—open/closed/ open/closed—a pattern!" His Kindergarten teacher had been teaching them to look for patterns in their daily experience. He found a pattern in the alternation of signs above the drive-thru lanes at the bank.

There is a pattern in my preaching on Christmas and Good Friday. Have you noticed? These are really the only two Christian festival days that we observe that don't fall on Sunday. Christmas and Good Friday—the birth and death of our Lord.

Every year on these special occasions I normally make an effort to assist you in reflecting on how these events inform, even transform our understanding of who God is.

Especially on Christmas and Good Friday, in the manger and on the cross, we are given the clearest and yet most challenging disclosures of the nature and character of the Lord of the universe.

This is not a season for mawkish little stories and the like. It ought to be a time for deep, soul-transforming meditation and reflection upon the character and work of our God.

When I studied geology at Mizzou, we could learn just a little about the subsurface geological phenomenon without physically examining the rocks themselves. But what we were really looking for was an outcropping of rock that would reveal to us what was below. The birth and cross of Jesus, if you will, are two major outcroppings of God, who remains largely invisible to us, even though he has in some sense made himself known in creation. In Jesus the invisible God is seen.

Of course, Jesus' entire life was the manifestation of the glory of God, according to the first chapter of John: Jesus is the Word of God, the true and original Image of the Father, the very form of God, and the true and final revelation or manifestation of God by which all of our conceptions of God are to be measured.

I am convinced that every year it is supremely beneficial for Christians to be brought again to the manger and to the foot of the cross and forced to look—Behold, this is your God! No other. What Jesus is, God is. What Jesus does, God does. Here is the meaning of the word "god."

All of the birth narratives rub out noses in this essential fact: this baby is your God. Worship him. This infant is nothing less that "God with us"—Emmanuel. "God among us." Worship him.

Matt. 1:23, ""Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel," which is translated, "God with us."

Matt. 2:11, And when the wise men from the East had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Luke 1:35, "And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God."

Luke 1:76 (Zechariah's Song about his Son, John the Baptizer): ""And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; For you will go before the face of the Lord [Yahweh] to prepare the way for him, (Luke 1:76).

Luke 2:11, (to the shepherds) "For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:11).

John 1:1, 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14).

There you have it. We behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God is most fully God when he is taking on human flesh in order to serve us.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life-- the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us (1 John 1:1-2).

If you insist on learning the meaning of the word "god" from somewhere other than Jesus himself, then your god is a false one. This has always been the temptation for the church. To make over God according to how we think he ought to be.

This is the error of every major heresy in the early church. Most of the heretics meant well. They were concerned to guard a pure conception of God and his nature. This is well illustrated with the arch heretic Arius. The reason why Arius would not say that Jesus was fully God was that he consumed with protecting God's purity from any contact with the material world. He was defending the immutability and impassability of God, as he understood it.

Jesus just had to be something less than fully God! Why? Well, it's not too difficult. He is born an infant! He is in full contact with flesh and material existence. He suffers and dies on a cross. God cannot, God must not be envisioned as submitting to these indignities. God is higher and holier and loftier and therefore above all of this muck.

The Church, by God's grace, did not give into these Greek conceptions of God as surgically removed from his creation. For all of the possible pitfalls, the church confessed what the Scriptures said: Jesus was God. Jesus was born. Mary was the Mother of God (theotokos, literally: "God bearer"), not just the mother of a man. God suffered and died on the cross for us, not merely a man. We cannot explain this. It makes us wince and causes us great intellectual angst, but it is what the Scriptures teach. Here we stand.

Let me address a mistake that continues to be perpetuated and it sounds so right because it is popularly repeated over and over again in apologetics and evangelism books, tracts, and sermons. The mistake is to think that the miracles that Jesus did proves that he was divine. That the clearest, most compelling outcropping of the divinity of Jesus was when he did miraculous works of power. No. Read the Bible carefully. In the Scriptures it is prophets who do these kinds of things.

Moses was not God. He was a mighty prophet. And Moses discovered, too, that the magicians of Egypt could imitate these acts. Jesus himself knew and the author of Acts relates that other people were able to perform exorcisms and various miracles. Similar miracles were done by Elijah and Elisha, but they were not God. Haven't you every thought it odd that the epistles of Paul and Peter and John make no mention of the miracles of Jesus as a proof of his divinity. That whenever they speak of Jesus as God they connect it with his incarnation and self-sacrificial death? As Peter says, "Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him."

But his divine nature and character are unveiled primarily in his humble service to us in his birth, life, suffering, and death. Think of Phil. 2:5-11: "because he existed in the form of God . . . he humbled himself."

The point is that what makes, what proves, if you will, that Jesus is God, is not his works of power and might, but his humble self-sacrifice. His self-effacing love and service for humanity. This is who God is.

The Good News is not that God made some external determination to forgive man, exercised the his divine will, waved a disinterested wand and sprinkled some salvation dust across the human race. What he did was penetrate the very depths of humanity's being and live, to restore the distorted and corrupt condition of man's actual human existence. Genuinely united himself to human, creaturely existence.

God himself bore our infirmities and sins and the whole inheritance of judgment that lay against us--God himself, not merely in some extrinsic, detached wa--but he personally bore all this.

The angels knew where to direct the shepherds. The apostles know where to guide the world to find life—to the heard, seen, touched Word of Life! To Jesus. Listen to the angel when he says, "You shall find him. . ." Where? The angel did not say, you should find him in heaven! The angel did not say you shall find him within you. The angel did not say, you shall find him after much fasting and prayer so that you can transcend the distance between God and man. The angel did not say, you shall find him if you do great works of mercy and love. The angel did not say you shall find him when you philosophically abstract from him all created attributes. The angel said, "Unto you a Savior is born, he is Messiah Yahweh. You shall find him in Bethlehem, lying in a manger."

Listen to the beloved Apostle John. "We proclaim to you the Word of Life" What word of life? John does not say you will discover it within you. He does not give a list of the attributes of divinity and ask you to hold all of these together in order to get your mind around God. He does not say, "You must understand now that God is quite spiritual and cannot have any contact with physical matter." He does not attempt to take us down the path of negation so that we can rise about earthly, material things in order to make mental, purely internal contact with divinity.

No. He links what seems impossible to bring together: "That which was from the beginning" and "what we have seen, heard, and our hands have handled." This is the Word of Life. This is the one "who was with the Father" (v. 2c) and has now appeared.

This little baby is your Creator and Savior. This is the glad tidings to be shouted on the mountain top, according to the prophet Isaiah: "O Zion, You who bring good tidings, Get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, You who bring good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength, Lift it up, be not afraid; Say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" (Isa 40:9).

This limp infant is the Lord of the universe. The speechless child is the Word of God. This is the offense of genuine Christianity. This is also the glory of our faith.

Don't be distracted by the majesty and incomprehensible otherness of God. Consider the pattern of God's work for us in Christ. Consider what this pattern reveals about who God is. Come and watch and listen at the manger. Consider the cross.

In every other way God is terrible and awesome, a consuming fire. Only in the flesh of Christ do we find a merciful God. Only in Jesus Christ do we find the Word of Life, communion with the Father, eternal joy.

HT: Martin Luther!

Is Christmas Christian? - Part XIV

Continued from Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV,, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, and Part XIII.

Q. 15. You have suggested that there is warrant from the Bible for such annual festivals that commemorate the historic acts of God's work of redemption for us. Where?

Answer. God has established the seasonal cycles for the purpose of religious festivals. A careful and literal reading of Genesis 1:14-15 will make this clear.

Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate between day and night, to be signs, to designate religious festivals, and to mark days and years.

The third purpose listed here has to do with "religious festivals [mo‘adim]." The Hebrew word mo‘ed is used consistently throughout the Hebrew Scriptures to refer to religious festivals and feasts (over 200 times). Had he not fallen, Adam would have eventually figured this out. But he fell. When Yahweh redeemed Israel, his first-born son (Exod. 4:22), he gave to his people a festival calendar synchronized with the seasons of the year (Lev. 23).

Now, there is a sense in which the Church in Christ is restored to her Adamic lordship over all of creation, what God intended for humanity in the beginning. She has the right and power to establish festivals and feasts in conjunction with the symbolic dimensions of creation. She sees how God has done so in the Old Testament, when the people of God were children and were put under a schoolmaster to teach them the ABC's (Gal. 3:23-4:1-7). Now with one eye on the details of the old world's annual festivals and the other eye on the world-changing events of the incarnation, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ she exercises her wisdom, according to the biblical principles and patterns established by God, to institute new annual celebrations keyed to these great redemptive events in the life of Christ.

Surely Pastor Rob Rayburn is correct:

Now if you interrogate the Scripture as to whether God's people ought to celebrate the great events of their salvation with special feasts and holidays, the only answer that you will ever get is "YES! BY ALL MEANS, YES!" We are commanded in the Bible to remember the great works of God by which he has redeemed us from sin and death. These great events are to be kept alive in the consciousness of both the individual believer and the church. God taught his people in ancient times that one very important way to do that was the keeping of annual feasts commemorating those events (Sermon, Nov. 28, 1993, Faith Presbyterian Church).

Pastor Rayburn has expanded his argument in his recent sermon Is Christmas Christian?

There's a smidgen of hyperbole in this, but Martin Luther's comments are worth noting:

We therefore have and must have the power and the freedom to observe Easter when we choose; and even if we made Friday into Sunday, or vise versa, it would still be right, as long as it was done unanimously by the rulers and the Christians. Moses is dead and buried by Christ, and days and seasons are not to be lords over Christians, but rather Christians are lords over days and seasons, free to fix them as they will or as seems convenient to them. For Christ made all things free when he abolished Moses. . . We know that we shall attain salvation without Easter and Pentecost, without Friday and Sunday, and we know that we cannot be damned--as St. Paul teaches us--because of Easter, Pentecost, Sunday or Friday (On the Councils and the Church, 1539).

Caroling

Some members of church choir stopped by tonight to sing carols. The snow was heavy and the roads weren't that safe, so everybody didn't get to participate. They came inside for a few songs and then finished outside with one quick "We wish you a merry Christmas."

Click on the picture for a larger image.

Is Christmas Christian? - Part XIII

Continued from Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV,, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, and Part XII.

Q. 14. But don't these annual festivals smack of Old Testament religion?

Answer. Well, is "Old Testament religion" a bad thing? We are, after all, whole-Bible Christians and the Hebrew Scriptures have been given for our instruction (Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:1-11).

As I have said in previous posts, if you are looking for a direct commandment or a law establishing the practice of an annual commemoration of Christ's birth, you won't find it in the Bible. Nevertheless, what we do have is plenty of biblical warrant for the post-Pentecost church's freedom to establish annual festivals to commemorate the great redemptive events accomplished in Christ's birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and the pouring out the Spirit on Pentecost. And is it not conceivable that the annual festivals of Israel might function as wise instruction for the church in the new age?

Unfortunately, this perspective barely gets a hearing in most contemporary Reformed circles. Consider Terry Johnson's otherwise good work on Reformed worship Leading in Worship. He has this advice for those considering the church year: "While the revival of the liturgical calendar has become popular in some circles, we recommend moderation or abstinence for several reasons" (p. 103). Four reasons are given, all of which are very weak.

1. Scripture doesn't warrant the creation of a church year calendar.
2. A calendar of special days deemphasizes the Lord's Day
3. Observing a church year calendar threatens the Reformed tradition of preaching through books of the Bible (lectio continua).
4. The church year has a dubious origin in church history.

Even though I am about to critique Johnson's four arguments against the use of a church year, I do not put him or his arguments in the same category as those that we have been considering thus far in these posts. Johnson advances his arguments with evident hesitation. He is not an anti-Christmas radical. In the end, as we shall see, he recommends a simplified church year calendar!

Johnson's first argument is that

. . . Scripture does not warrant the creation of a "church year," but instead warns against the observing of "days and months and seasons and years" (Gal. 4:10) (Leading in Worship, p. 103).

This first argument proves too much. Galatians 4:10 is quoted as warning Christians against the observance of "days and months and seasons and years." But what does this mean in Paul's argument with the Galatians? As we have seen above in my answer to Question #7, the "days, months, and years" refer to the Jewish festival calendar consisting of weekly, monthly, and annual feasts commanded by Yahweh (Lev. 23).

The Apostle Paul's point is that these festivals have been made obsolete with the coming of Christ. The Christians of Galatia were being seduced by erring Christian missionaries from Jerusalem who taught them that faith in Jesus Christ was not sufficient to be justified before God. Only observing the distinctives of the Torah (circumcision, Sabbaths, feasts days, food laws, etc.) would guarantee their justification.

The problem was not that the Galatians were observing their own special festival days (like Christmas and Easter) not commanded by God, but that they were acting as if the old law was still in force and that Jesus had not yet come to fulfill it. Paul's words must not be taken out of context and made into some sort of abstract prohibition against all extra-biblical celebrations. After all, an abstract prohibition against observing "days and months and seasons and years" would rule out a great deal more than the traditional church year festivals.

Confusion arises with statements like the following: "Our heritage is rightly suspicious of the creation of ceremonies and rituals not authorized in Scripture" (Leading in Worship, p.103). The problem with this is that technically the church year does not introduce new ceremonies or rituals; rather, it organizes and directs our Scripture readings, prayers, hymns, and sermons according to the life of Christ.

As I have said over and over again in this essay, I don't see how a church that celebrates Christmas, remembering Christ's birth by singing, praying, and learning more about this particular event in the life of Christ is introducing new "ceremonies and rituals." Now, there are a few traditional rituals associated with Christmas and Lent, like Advent candles and ashes applied to the foreheads of worshipers; but these need not enter into the discussion at this point, since they are not part of the essence of the celebration of the church year.

Johnson also warns "churches may not mandate or require such [annual observances] without destroying liberty of conscience" (p. 103). The question of liberty of conscience need not enter into the discussion at all. Why? Because members of the church promise to submit to their leaders in the area of worship.

Are pastors guilty of an "abuse of church power" when they regularly choose the hymns for the congregation, select prayers and Scripture readings, and arrange the order of their Sunday services according to their own preaching schedule? This is all that happens in most Presbyterian churches that observe Christmas--select biblical passages are read, seasonal prayers are prayed, and hymns about Jesus' birth are sung.

If the "imposition" of these is a violation of "liberty of conscience," then so is every worship service that is planned by church officers and "forced" on the people. Do church officers pick "themes" for various Sundays? Of course. Does this destroy liberty of conscience? If not, then what's the problem with choosing to highlight the theme of Christ's coming once a year? What's the difference? Do the Scriptures mandate or authorize pastors to force such an order on their congregations? For example, why should the congregation have to submit to worship services where the singing, praying, and Bible readings are correlated to five years of sermons through the book of Romans and yet be free to reject a year of prayers, readings, and songs organized around the life of Christ? I don't see any substantial difference between the two practices.

Johnson's second argument concerns the danger of diminishing the importance of the weekly Lord's Day. "Christian piety is better nurtured in the weekly Sabbath cycle of penitence and celebration than in periodic penitential seasons of Lent and Advent and occasional holy days. Fifty-two holy days is better than a dozen or so" (p. 103). First of all, if it's about counting up the number of feasts, then Johnson needs a refresher course in math. If fifty-two holy days is better than a dozen, then sixty-four is better than fifty-two! Why can't we have both the Lord's Day celebrations and a dozen or so more days?

The real question, however, is must the Lord's Day necessarily be "replaced" or "diminished" by the addition of an annual cycle? Might not the annual cycle support and enrich the foundational weekly cycle of worship? Why must this be an either/or proposition? Why can't we have both?

The third argument against the church year is that it would surely interfere with the Reformed tradition of lectio continua preaching! But, now, surely we must ask the Reformed liturgical question: where is the lectio continua method of preaching and ordering Scripture reading sequences for the Lord's Day services commanded or mandated in Scripture? What happens to the regulative principle of worship when Reformed authors begin to talk about preaching? There is no biblical command that mandates the method of continuous preaching through books of the Bible. Indeed, one might argue that there's more biblical warrant for celebrating annual feasts than there is for the lectio continua method of preaching so popular with Reformed pastors! Bringing Reformed tradition into the argument doesn't really help.

Furthermore, I am compelled to ask why everything the people of God do when they are gathered for worship must revolve around the texts that the preacher has selected for the day? Why must this concern for sequential preaching through books of the Bible be given such a large place in ordering our worship services?

I believe that the traditional method of preaching through books of the Bible is indeed the best method of preaching. I also agree that this is a wonderful tradition in the Reformed churches. But it is just that—a tradition. I see nowhere in Scripture where it is mandated or even exemplified! Furthermore, a moderate observance of the major festivals of the church need not threaten a pastor's regular preaching through books of the Bible. In fact, in my experience breaking in on a preaching series for Christmas often gives the congregation a needed and refreshing break.

Johnson's fourth argument is that "the church year is both of dubious historical origins and contemporary motivation" (p. 103). I think I have already dealt with this objection in my responses to earlier questions on the origin of Christmas.

It is rather telling that notwithstanding all of these arguments against the celebration of church year feasts Johnson recommends following the example

. . . of the Continental Reformed churches in limiting their church year to what has been called the ‘five evangelical feast days': Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. Some might add Trinity Sunday to this list as well. In this way, the high points of the Gospel message would be commemorated in Reformed churches annually along with most of Christendom, without becoming entangled in the full calendar cycle (p. 104).

In the pages that follow this comment Johnson offers five sample services for Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost!

Terminator Pig

For 3 bucks you can buy a Terminator T1000 Pig in Japan. This is the coolest of the cool. Terminator Pig can take down Spider Pig easily.



Unfortunately, Spider Pig has got Terminator Pig beat when it comes to theme music.

Is Christmas Christian? - Part XII

Continued from Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV,, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, and Part XI.

The last two posts have focused on objections made by many Reformed Christians against Christmas. Some conservative Presbyterians use "the regulative principle of worship" and the absence of a biblical commandment to criticize others for celebrating Christmas. The regulative principle of worship is often misunderstood and misapplied in very narrow ways. I have addressed this problem in chapter 16 of my book The Lord's Service. Does Christmas violate the "regulative principle of worship"?

Q. 12. But celebrating Christmas is an imposition on my conscience! I am being forced to worship in ways I don't agree with.

Answer: Oh really? Is it a violation of your Christian liberty to be forced to sit through the reading of Luke 1 and 2 every year? Is your conscience violated when the church compels you to sing with the entire congregation "Joy to the World, the Lord is come" every year on a certain date? Are you being coerced against your will to listen to sermons on the wonder of Jesus' incarnation and pray prayers that implore the Lord to come again and restore his kingdom? What more can I say?

Every church orders her Scripture readings, prayers, and hymns even though there are no explicit instructions on how to do this in God's Word. If our choosing the theme of the incarnation of Christ to order our worship, prayer, and singing is a violation of the regulative principle of worship, then so are all other ways in which pastors and churches choose themes and order their service. The pastor who preaches through the book of Isaiah for seven years and each week picks hymns and prayers appropriate to the sermon's topic is imposing extra-biblical worship on his parishioners.

Q. 13. How can any Reformed pastor justify imposing these man-made annual observances on his congregation?

Answer. Some American Presbyterians who are more comfortable with the Scottish and Puritan traditions have thought that annual church year celebrations are not only extra-biblical, but outright dangerous. One must be careful how the word "Reformed" is used. The designation "Reformed" refers to a much wider tradition than is commonly thought. As I argued in an earlier post, many Reformed communions since the Reformation have used church year calendars with good effect.