Advent – proof of the truth of Christianity

 

 

I posted on the social media platform Facebook a statement along the lines of the title of this essay, hoping it would stimulate some interest, which it did. Understandably, the statement called for some explanation, which I now offer.

 

When I was a child, growing up in a rather conservatively religious setting, I don’t recall hearing the word ‘advent.’ At least not in reference to a specific season, namely the four weeks leading up to Christmas, which is how we know it now. I probably first got acquainted with the term for the season when we moved to the city where one was exposed to more varieties of Christianity, including the broader Mennonite church, which was my background. I became acquainted somewhere along the line with Advent being part of what is referred to as the Church Calendar. 

 

Advent refers to the arrival or the beginning of something. The Christmas Advent season is the time of anticipation of the celebration of the birth of Christ. According to Wikipedia, this Advent appears to have begun in the 5^th century, long after the birth of Jesus. 

 

Actually, in the Judeao-Christian traditions, one can speak of three seasons of advent. To begin with, Judaism, at least in its more orthodox forms, is in a season of advent of the coming of the Messiah. This is a state that has lasted at least 2,500 – 2,800 years. That takes us back to the time of the exile of Israel and then Judah, the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of the Jews in what had been Canaan, and subsequently became known as Palestine. This is when Jewish prophets really began to put forward the vision of the coming of the Messiah who would liberate the Children of Israel, restore them to their homeland in Canaan and to their former glory under kings such as David and his son Solomon. Those were the glory days, when the kingdoms, still united, were at their zenith.

 

Secondly, we have the pre-Christmas season of Advent, which we have already described briefly. If the above date is correct, this has been celebrated for about 1500 years. It is really an anticipation of a commemoration of a past event though, not a real event still to come. For Christians, this past event was the actual coming of the Messiah of which the Jewish prophets spoke, although Judaism staunchly refuses to accept this.

 

Thirdly, in Christianity we have what is sometimes referred to as the Second Advent. This is the anticipation of the promised return of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. It is sometimes referred to as his Second Coming. This is another millennial time of waiting, also approaching 2,000 years.

 

There have been skeptics of the veracity of Christianity’s claims since this faith began. Most who really give the religion serious attention will acknowledge that there was this Jesus who was a great moral teacher. Others, interestingly often lawyers, who are experts at uncovering facts, but also some philosophers, concede when they really dig into things, that Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee of Palestine also did miracles and was who he claimed to be – God become man, that he was indeed killed on a Roman cross, but was resurrected to life and then returned to where he came from, generally described as ‘heaven.’. Others, such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Marx and Freud, dismiss all religions as creations of the human imagination to serve a certain purpose, perhaps provide some semblance of reasonably satisfactory answers to life’s questions, or a means of control of the masses. 

 

However, these thinkers and writers have all died and Christianity is still here, actually coming out of the period of Christendom, which began in the 5^th century CE, when the Roman Emperor Constantine took control of the Church. This lead to a harmful church-state union, which in some quarters, especially since a pivotal reform movement some 500 years ago now already, is now rejected, resulting in a renewed and revitalized Way that more closely resembles the Church prior to Constantine.

 

Christian ‘believers’ will testify that the chief reason for their affirmation of this faith is their experience of meeting this risen Christ through his Spirit, which is given them upon their belief. However, many also provide many other more objective (?) proofs of the truth of Christianity. In the statement which led to this writing I stated that advent is one of these proofs. I say this simply because, in the face of all that has been thrown against Christianity, or Judaism for that matter, what is historically more persistent than the tenacious belief in advent. Who promulgates a so-far unfulfilled hope for 2000 years, and which sees no sign of stopping? If there was nothing to Christianity, these beliefs, among others, would have long ago been abandoned, and all we would have been left with is a moral corpus of teachings, exemplified by the life of their founding teacher, like Confucianism or Buddhism. However, the Judeo-Christian religion, and to some extent Islam, remain grounded in a history that looks forward to a conclusion. Advent has never been given up on. That seems to prove something to me.

CHRISTMAS MEDITATION 2014

After 8 years as a member of Peace Mennonite Church her ein Richmond, BC, Canada, I was called on to give the Christmas Morning Meditation in our pastor's absence at the time. I thought I would share what I was given with a wider audience:

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For the rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong

And so happy Christmas

For black and for white

For yellow and red ones

Let's stop all the fight

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

Anyone know who wrote that?

Yes, John Lennon, one of the Beatles. The one who said once he thought he was more popular than Jesus. Well, John died some time ago but Jesus is still alive.

So, this is Christmas. Some of us might be saying that with a somewhat resigned tone of voice by now, perhaps even wearily. We have been bombarded by commercial propaganda since - when? - Halloween? We have been hearing Christmas music everywhere for a long time too. No wonder we may be feeling tired. Many of us have attended Christmas parties, Christmas concerts and the annual family gatherings, not to mention all the time and work involved in preparation for Christmas – shopping for gifts, putting up lights, finding and decorating trees, baking, cooking, sending invitations and greetings. Small wonder we might be tired, if not near exhaustion.

So, this is Christmas? This celebration that comes around every year on December 25?  Most of us probably know Christmas did not really begin with the birth of Christ. It wasn't until four hundred years later that The Church established this December 25^th “Christ Mass” as the commemoration of the birth of Jesus. It has probably not even been 100 years since Christmas has taken on the form, in its entirety, as we know it now, sacred and secular.

So, why do we celebrate Christmas? This is probably easy for us to answer and you might even be thinking, Why are you asking it? We know that it is a celebration of the coming of Christ to this earth as a child. It is a celebration of the Incarnation - God coming to earth in the flesh as fully human and God at the same time. To be sure, this is a concept some of us still struggle with, perhaps reflecting on it with renewed interest at this time of year.

Yes, there is still too much about this Christmas celebration now that is secular. Sometimes we talk despairingly about the commercialization of Christmas. We hear slogans in protest like, "Put Christ back into Christmas!" We know there can be no Christmas without Christ, but for far too many around the world, that is the case.

We may even be afraid that there is an orchestrated effort to take Christ out of Christmas. Many schools no longer have Christmas concerts, which used to be a highlight of the school year when many of us were young. We  learned our simple lines when we were younger; more elaborate parts when we were older. We practiced the songs that we sang and played in choirs and otherwise. We may have even gotten new clothes for the season.

Public institutions now refer to this holiday as "a winter break", or "the holiday season." That just shows how confused and forgetful, even ignorant some have become. Holiday originally meant holy day.

Other anti-Christmas campaigners want to refer to Xmas. If we look back back to when Greek was more commonly known, we Christians have the last laugh about that. Nowadays, X has many meanings, usually referring to something extreme or censored, such as X-rated movies and X-rated songs. But before all that, before X symbolized the unknown in mathematics, X was an abbreviation for Xristos, the Greek word for Messiah. I still don't advocate that Xmas is a suitable word for us to use, but once we understand that history, there is nothing really wrong with it. The problem is though, that if we forget the older meaning of X, if we just say Xmas, in an effort to abbreviate things, the efforts of the anti-Christs might not have been in vain.

However, the world is not all off-track when it comes to Christmas, which is about celebrating the birth of a baby who came to earth to fully experience, and show us how to experience, the loving relationships our loving God created us for. In the study of human development in the last 30 years or so, scientists have learned from their observations of babies and toddlers, that what is required for our normal and optimal development, the healthy growth of our brain, our ability to function as healthy individuals, even our existence, is a good relationship with a caring and loving figure. Surprise! Isn't that what God was revealing to us all along? Isn't that what Christmas is finally all about? God created us to live in relationship with Him, one another and our world. He created us to live in community. This was revealed from the Beginning. But after our ancestors wrecked God’s original plans, as described in the book of Genesis, God tried to show us how to live by giving us The Law. We know from Jesus' teachings and the writings of Paul that didn't work. So, God decided the only way to show us how to live was to come down and do it in person. A law can reach our mind, but only a loving relationship can reach our heart. Indeed, God had promised in the prophets that he would bring about a time when His Law would be written on our hearts.

There is another thing that we can learn from the science of human development that relates to Christmas. It takes a lot of repetition to create the right kind of brain pathways to make us into healthy and well-adapted individuals. We need a lot of routine and rhythm in our lives to give us stability and security.  Isn't that like celebrating Christmas year after year?

We do not have it in Scripture that God commanded us to celebrate Christmas. However, I believe the Holy Spirit gave The Church the idea of celebrating Christmas. I don't think this celebration would have taken hold as it has and lasted this long if God was not accepting of it. Who knows better than God who created us, including these brains of ours, that doing something like this regularly might just be good for us?

Now we know that Jesus has left this earth for a period of time to fulfill God's mysterious purposes. But that does not mean that it again becomes difficult for us to have a relationship with God. He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us fully, brain and heart, if we believe in him and what he did. The Holy Spirit maintains that loving relationship. The Holy Spirit writes on our hearts.

This brings us to another aspect of Christmas. Just as when we celebrate communion, we must remember that we are not only looking back to Jesus' first coming. We are not only in Advent for 4 weeks before Christmas to prepare to celebrate Christ’s first coming. Advent, like communion, is also a time to look forward to Jesus' 2nd coming. Christians believe that will be the time when all will celebrate in the great Wedding Feast of Christ and His Bride, the Church. Indeed, both Jewish and Christian teachings talk about The Great Feast of the Future, when the Messiah will return to Earth and establish His reign.

So, in spite of the secular, materialism, the commercialization, who should be more joyous about Christmas than we Christians? There are some who say that they believe in God but who do not celebrate Christmas because they think God never ordained it because it’s not in the Bible. However, I think they have it wrong. We know God loves feasts. The Old Testament laws include feasts that God commanded his people to keep and celebrate. Pastor Tim has emphasized in so many of his messages how Jesus regularly attended feasts when he was on earth. The first recorded miracle is of Jesus making better wine for a wedding feast. In fact, many of his parables include stories about wonderful feasts. Until Christ’s return though, we have to make do with feasts, like Christmas, or our Community Meal, that, wonderful as they may be, are but a shadow of the Great Feast that awaits.

Let us, as some of us will have read in the church’s monthly devotional, Rejoice, last week, prepare together to see Jesus, not get so caught up in our other preparations, like the innkeeper, that we have no room, time or energy to receive Christ at Christmas.

We do have to be prepared, we must stop and think, if we want to say with hope, joy, peace & love that Christmas has come. How many of us, to be truthful, have found ourselves saying with excitement and enthusiasm that Christmas has come! How many of us dance with joy that Christmas is here? We were reminded of that the Sunday before last when we lit the Advent Candle of Joy and Pastor Tim told us about how he had been inspired by the joy of a child. Indeed, then that same child danced in front of us while the choir sang. Can we still be inspired and excited by the child that was born at Bethlehem? That's the question I leave you with today.