Christmas Reflections III - Even angels can learn...

There was stuff going on that first Christmas that was normal and ordinary, and then there was the other stuff. The stuff that was neither normal nor ordinary. We sometimes patronise the characters in the Christmas story as primitives who didn’t know what we know. That’s why they could believe promises that clearly were not believable. So writers like Luke concoct stories that we know can’t be true and therefore are at best mythology, rather than history. The problem is, this isn’t what they claim to be doing, and it’s not how it reads. Luke claims that he is setting out to investigate what happened and then compile an orderly account so that we may have "certainty". And his writing seems to be largely like the reporting of ordinary human responses to extraordinary events. 

Take the characters in Luke 1 blogged about previously. You don’t need to know a lot about the finer points of gynaecology, embryology and development biology to know where babies come from, and what is necessary to make them. And Zechariah and Elisabeth on the one hand, and Mary on the other, were pretty clear on both topics. Zechariah is promised a child, something that he’s wanted for years, and promised it by an impeccable source. As discussed previously, he gets himself into hot water by making it clear he is not convinced, no matter where the information comes from. This is a story that  reads like Bible, not Hollywood. Mary receives disconcerting news in a disconcerting way, and she responds with a question, which prompts a very interesting response that I’ll return to. But first, what might seem like a digression.

A couple of thousand years before the events recorded in Luke Ch1, three men appeared out of the heat haze near Abraham’s camp at a place called Mamre (you’ll find the story in Genesis 18; you’ll find Mamre just to the north of Hebron). One of the “men”, it turns out, was God himself; the other two were probably angels. A conversation ensued with Abraham, while his wife Sarah listened in the background. It’s in this conversation that God promises Abraham that Sarah will have a child, even though (spookily like Zechariah and Elisabeth) Abraham and Sarah were well on the elderly side of old. Sarah chuckles at this promise; after all it’s clearly preposterous. Like New Testament characters, Old Testament characters are not stupid; they know about making babies. God’s response is to challenge Sarah’s lack of belief by posing a question – “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”. And, of course, it turns out that delivering on promises about miracle babies if not too hard, because a child, Isaac, duly appears. This is a story Zechariah would have been familiar with, and this is perhaps one reason why Gabriel is fairly sniffy with him when he doesn’t respond appropriately to a similar promise given to him and Elisabeth. Their child would be miraculous but not unique.

Speaking of Gabriel, I’ve always wondered if he was one of the two angels with God at Mamre. He’s not named of course.  If he was there, this makes his response to Mary’s question intriguing. Because while Mary is clearly willing to accept what he tells her, she also has questions, precisely because, like Sarah, she’s knows where babies come from. Famously, Gabriel tells Mary that something entirely unique is going to happen in her to bring about her pregnancy. But he adds something else. This time it is not a question like the one posed to Abraham. It’s a statement: nothing is impossible with God. Had Gabriel been here before? Had he heard a similar promise, observed a human, and sceptical, reaction to it? Did he hear the question that God responded with? He had certainly seen the promise realised. So perhaps he has learned something. With confidence, confidence borne of experience rather than belief, he’s able to reassure Mary. Possibly.  I’m speculating of course.

The rest, as they say, really is history. Maybe angels can observe, listen, watch and learn. Maybe we should learn from them.

Christmas Reflections II – Rug weaving for beginners

I know nothing about weaving patterned rugs. It’s a pity, because this may be a dying art. They don’t seem to be as popular as they used to be. I blame TV makeover shows that constantly recommend neutral shades and the complete absence of strong patterns. Despite my ignorance, even I know that only one side of the rug carries the pattern. The other side, the underside, is often a visual mess; just lots of strands and flecks here and there. Somehow that visual chaos is exactly what is required to produce the pattern that you see on the other side. I wonder if that’s how it appears to a master rug maker? Maybe they can see a pattern even in the underside mess.

Sometimes life appears to be a bit of mess, at least at the scale most of us necessarily perceive it. When I read about the lives of others, I wonder just how much of the big picture, the pattern, people living their lives are aware of. In the first chapter of his account of the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, Luke weaves together the strands of two particular lives, recounting two particular pre-birth narratives. Why the two stories? There’s very definitely weaving going on as Luke cuts from one story to the other and back again. I think that he does this because he wants us to compare and contrast. The main strands of the two narratives concern an older man, and a young girl. One is famously part of the Christmas story (the young girl), the other is one of Christmas’ forgotten characters, Zechariah.

Zechariah is an interesting pick, particularly at this point in his life. He’s a priest, and a fairly faithful one at that. Luke focuses on a particular occasion, which is probably the high point of Zechariah’s priestly career. It has fallen to him to go in to the temple in Jerusalem and burn incense (symbolically to lead the people’s prayers). Once he has finished his task inside, he will emerge out onto the temple steps, lift his arms and bless all the people who are standing outside, waiting. The point is that he will probably only get to do this once in his career. At this point in Israel’s history, there are lots of priests and not that much to do. So this is his big moment. Exciting as this probably was for him, something extraordinary then happens. As he’s carrying out his duties in the enclosed space of the “Holy Place” in the temple, an angel appears. You might think that this is a fairly common occurrence, but in fact it’s not. As discussed previously, it had been centuries since God had spoken to Israel, and even longer since something like an angel appearing had happened. So this was far from what Zechariah was expecting, and in fact Luke tells us it freaked him out. Once he’s calmed down the angel (who we learn later was Gabriel) gives him good news and better news. A baby is going to be born (and this after Zechariah and his wife Elisabeth had probably given up hope of having children), and the baby is going to grow into someone with a special job to do. This is something Zechariah has been hoping for and praying about. But then it goes a bit pear-shaped.

If this were simple romantic fiction, Zechariah would run home, give Elisabeth the good news and everyone would live happily ever after. But precisely because angels suddenly appearing and saying exactly what you want hear is not an everyday occurrence, it’s all a bit hard to take in. And Zechariah basically tells Gabriel this – not a good idea. He basically asks “How can I believe this?”, indiating a fairly basic lack of a willingness to believe what he’s been told. Because of his lack of belief, poor old Z has to spend the next nine months or so not being able to hear or speak, condemned, as it were, to silence. On the one hand this seems a bit harsh. Yet on the other, it’s symbolic that he’s behaved as Israel has all along. Not believing what God consistently said to them had resulted in silence, as God had warned through the prophet Amos (see Amos 8:11: ‘a famine….of hearing the words of the Lord’). That famine was coming to end, and God was going to do something new. Zechariah, and for that matter his son John, were part of that old story. Something new was about to happen.

Of course, poor old Z’s big day is ruined. His encounter with Gabriel is inside the temple. When he emerges after a delay, with all the people looking to him to bless them, he can’t – he’s got no voice. This particular thread in the pattern then just seems to peter out.

Six months later, the same angel turns up in Nazareth, to speak to one of Elisabeth’s cousins, Mary. There’s obviously a number of contrasts to be drawn between Zechariah and Mary. He was male, she was female, at a time and in a culture where this really mattered. He was a mature, public figure who had carved out his place in society. Mary was a teenager, somewhere between childhood and marriage (she was betrothed – a legal status beyond engagement, but less than marriage), probably not particularly well known beyond her own family. Zechariah was given good news about something he had longed for, hoping against hope. Mary was given disturbing news, with big implications for her and her husband to be. But the real contrast is this. While Zechariah reacted in disbelief, Mary took on board what she was told, and made it clear she was ready to accept it, even although she didn’t understand fully what was going on. Not for the first time, expectations are turned on their head. It’s the educated, professional, religious (proud?) bloke who gets it wrong. It’s the straightforward, if inexperienced but humble girl, that gets it right.

Luke continues to weave the threads. There are two songs, and then two births to come. One birth will be a repeat of another promised child born to a couple who were really too old to have children. It will have its miraculous elements; it will be special, but not unique. The other birth will be a miracle from start to finish, biologically inexplicable, and eternally significant. The characters involved understood some things (like how to make babies), and not others (like how to make particular babies). Z learns to trust what his God tells him, and when he responds properly he will be enabled to sing about “..light to those who sit in darkness..”. Mary, well we know what happens to Mary. 

How much of the big picture, the big pattern, did they understand? Probably not much. But we have the benefit of a master weaver revealing what’s going on. Mind you, even then we struggle to see the pattern at times.

Christmas Reflections I – 1619 and all that…..

The year 1619 was a long time ago. Neither you nor I were around. It is well beyond living memory or even folk memory (if there is such a thing). It is a proper subject for historical research. Thanks to that research there are a number of things that have been recorded for us, and that we can be reasonably sure about. Perhaps most notably, in December 1619 the first Africans arrived as slaves in the Virginia colony, marking the start of North American slavery. The United States of America was not even a glint in anyone’s eye, but we all know what that arrival heralded, and how today it continues to have an influence on many lives. In central Europe, the reformation of the previous century was turning ever more political and the seeds of the “thirty years war” were being sown. Scotland and England had the same king by 1619 (James I/VI), the Tudors having given way to the Stuarts. James was happily propounding the theory of divine right to his son (the future Charles I), thus sowing the seeds of the English civil war. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the population in 1619 lived, worked and died in the countryside. London had a population of about 50 000, and the second city in England was Bristol with a population of about half that size. Obviously there were no smartphones (yes – life is still possible without them). There were also no railways and therefore no common time across the country; the main mode of transport involved feet. There was no industry (at least in the way we think of it today), and books were scarce. Formal education was rudimentary or non-existent for many. Probably fewer than 1 in 5 people could do what you are doing right now (ie reading), and fewer than that could write. It is a world so foreign to us that it might as well be another planet.

Imagine you were told that someone had written something in 1619 that had direct relevance to you in 2019, 400 years later. You could be forgiven for being a tad sceptical. Suppose it was a promise that something amazing would happen, although even in their own time, 400 years ago, the fulfilment of the same promise had already been anticipated for a while. After a further 400 years, you can understand why anticipation might turn to scepticism, then disbelief, and then disappear from general consciousness. How could we even be sure of the detail of something said or written 400 years ago?

I assume that by now you are asking what has 1619 got to do with Christmas?

Consider the opening of the Gospel of Luke which deals with a number of events preceding the first Christmas. Those events, which Luke claims are part of an orderly account of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, mark the continuation of, or arguably the restarting of God speaking directly to humanity after a silence of about 400 years. The Old Testament closes with Malachi, one of the “minor prophets” (called that because of their length, not their importance). Malachi wasn’t the last of the OT books to be written, but his is the last of “thus says the Lord” books. At the end of the OT Israel returned from exile much diminished. Jerusalem was re-established, the temple rebuilt and there was a “revival” of sorts. But it all somehow seems very low key; not like the “old days”. Malachi promises that God isn’t finished with either Israel, or the rest of us. A messenger will come to make preparations, and then the “Lord …will suddenly come to his temple”. And then ….. nothing. Hundreds of years of nothing. No messenger, no Lord, nothing.

History of course didn’t stop with Malachi. It wound remorselessly on. Some of it was good; much of it was bad (at least in Israel’s neck of the woods). They were ruled by Persians, they were ruled by Egyptians (or at least the Greek version of Egyptians), they were ruled by Syrians. They rebelled, were oppressed, rebelled again. Then they were incorporated into the Roman empire. All the time, it was as though their God had stopped speaking to them. 400 years of silence. The events recorded in the Old Testament became ever more remote. Abraham, Moses, Joshua and David had formed their history. But they became almost mythical (no doubt there were those who claimed exactly that). The likes of Ezra, Nehemiah, and yes Malachi, gradually shifted from memory, to history to ….legend? Myth? Certainly little more than words in a book. Gradually the book gathered dust. It was translated, reinterpreted, argued over. Did the words in the book matter? Perhaps it all seemed a bit esoteric. The sort of stuff to be left to the academics and scholars, historians and religious professionals. But then, just while everyone was quietly forgetting all that God had said and done through thousands of years of their history, things began to stir again. But quite obscurely at first.

To the average Jewish person around the time of Jesus birth, the promises of Malachi probably seemed as remote and irrelevant as things said in 1619 seem to us. That is, very remote and very irrelevant. So irrelevant in fact, that even quite educated people didn’t know about them. But it turns out that what is recorded in the OT is not myth and legend, and that a promise is a promise. God doesn’t make promises lightly, and once made they are kept. So, after 400 years, Luke records that messengers arrive, announcements are made, prompts and signs are provided. It is true that much of this would be missed by many then and now. But events would begin to unfold that would be hard to miss. Thanks to the likes of Luke (other Gospel accounts are available), who would compile an orderly record, neither those events or their meaning need be lost on us, 2000 years further on. They remain worth reflecting on.