Isaac of Stella on Multiple Possibilities of Meaning in Holy Scripture

“The Wisdom of God truly takes many shapes, even though it is very simple, and although it is uniformly one, it is nonetheless found to be many-sided in many ways …
For this reason it often happens that those who disagree about the same Scriptural passages or who espouse different ideas about things can be in the highest agreement or harmony with the Holy Spirit. This is only provided that there has been a decision made not to disagree with the truth of faith, the building up of charity, and the rooting out of cupidity. Everyone is vigilant about these matters when it comes to Sacred Scripture. Fore everyone involved is in agreement about things one way or another, at one time or another. But there is no room for choice between one Spirit and another. On both sides of the issue, as has been mentioned, there exists a harmonious relationship with truth and charity.” (Isaac of Stella. Cited in Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: Volume 1—The Four Senses of Scripture, p. 81. Emphasis mine.)

I believe that in these two brief paragraphs, 12^th century English theologian, philosopher, and Cistercian monk, Isaac of Stella deftly moves us to a point where we can begin to maneuver between two opposing tensions in understanding the Biblical witness: 1) the move towards an open reading of the Scripture where we read the Bible in concert with others with a critical openness to a plurality of voices and interpretations. This is the move towards Jerome and Origen’s “infinite forest of meaning”. It also is the move where the reader recognizes that Holy Scripture is a living Word that continues to reveal the character, person, and will of God. 2) The move towards a closed reading of Scripture where we narrow our reading towards a point where we can claim to identify what the text meant in its original setting and thus what it means today. In its most charitable, a closed reading simply qualifies Origen and Jerome by simply rejecting heterodox and heretical views. In its most extreme, it allows only one meaning of Scripture and rejects all other interpretations.

First, Isaac affirms what we have already noted: there are multiple interpretations of Scripture. This is obvious enough that it hardly seems worth noting. But Isaac does affirm that there are real differences of opinions. Conflicting opinions are not a semantic game of saying the same thing in different ways: “you say ‘bachelor’, I say ‘unmarried man.’ You say Revelation is like a historical political cartoon obscured by time and I say it’s as an eschatological document outlining the future events.” Make no mistake, the next time you are in a Bible study or are reading two books or hearing two sermons or having a conversation over a coffee and a genuine difference of interpretation arises, it is not likely you’re saying the same things different ways.

Second, Isaac, while recognizing that there are multiple possibilities of meaning, simultaneously recognizes there “can be in the highest agreement or harmony with the Holy Spirit.” It is often assumed that harmony or unity requires total conformity as if we’re grieving the Spirit by reaching different conclusions. Naively, people sometimes point the existence of denominations as proof of the total disunity of the Christian Church as if their mere existence was an affront to God. Similarly, divergent possibilities of meaning seem to negate a Spirit-guided reading of Scripture because if the Spirit is a Spirit of unity and truth how could two people come to opposite opinions? Interestingly, Isaac doesn’t seem particularly troubled by multiple possibilities of meaning as long as the opinions are reached in the Spirit, according to the rule of faith, and with the posture of charity. (Of course, the East/West split notwithstanding, the Church was relatively normalized, at least compared to today.)

Isaac’s qualifications are huge. Much too large to squeeze into one blog post. But they point us in a good direction: one of charity and generosity where the person sitting next to might know as much as you do. Briefly, the rule of the Spirit involves an understanding of Holy Scriptures where the one Holy Spirit legitimately guides two prayerful people into two different possibilities of meaning. Although there are surface differences that cannot be discounted as differences there is a structural unity provided by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The structural unity or foundation is found in a commitment to what Isaac calls “the truth of faith”. Alternately this might be called the rule of faith. In architecture, two buildings might take very different forms with two very different purposes. A hospital is not a house even though they are both buildings were people can sleep, cook, and eat. However, the two buildings are sound when they adhere to fundamental rules of design. Similarly, a Spirit led reading of Scripture that arrives a different interpretation is sound as long as it corresponds to the rule of faith—those things that all Christians at all times hold to be essential and fundamental to the Christian faith.

Multiple Possibilities of Meaning in Holy Scripture

In one of his letters, Church Father Jerome described scripture as “in infinite forest of meanings”. Likewise the towering Origen referred to the vastness of Biblical interpretation as “the exceedingly broad forest of Scripture.”

In the esteem of these two great minds, Scripture defies easy explanation. Instead the world of the Bible is a vast and sprawling forest. It is a world that is rich and lust. It is a world that is full of twists and turns. It is a world that defies simple solutions. It is a world that opens up new discoveries around every bend. It is a world that never exhausts its riches. It is a world of multiple possibilities of meaning.

With the poetic license of a Jerome or an Origen, the infinite forest of multiple possibilities is an alluring prospect. This touches the nerve of the Protestant sola scriptura by identifying the thickness of Scripture. As an infinite forest full of multiple possibilities of meaning, the Bible is alive and active today. It is more than capable of speaking truth and providing direction in the labyrinth of today and tomorrow’s moral quandaries. The faith of late 18th century France, the urban American church of the 21st century, and the rice patty farmers of Southeast Asia all read the same Scripture but with different eyes. Each person or group enters that broad forest and gleans meaning.

Yet, at the same time, I think there is uneasiness in affirming multiple possibilities of meaning. One of the core understandings of Biblical exegesis is thinking of it as a process that seeks to penetrate what the Biblical text meant as it left the pen of the Biblical author (or was edited by his redactor, or arranged by his editor, etc.). This view of exegesis seems to tip our hat to the impossibility of multiple meanings. The task of the interpreter is to come to the correct meaning of the text and correctly convey that text to his or her modern audience.

Is this not the very nature of a commentary? The commentator researches the historical context. He places the book in a literary, grammatical, and canonical setting. She uses all the tools of ancient and modern research to penetrate the old forms of thoughts. He converses with other commentators along the road, voicing his pleasure or disapproval. At the end, she offers her analysis on what the text means.

And what of heterodoxy or heresy? Certainly, we might all agree, the forest of Scripture isn’t infinite. There is a boundary between the lushness of orthodox Biblical meaning and the wasteland of heresy. There are certain interpretations that exclude other interpretations.

Is it possible to have it both ways? Can one, with Origen and Jerome, affirm the possibility of multiple possibilities of meaning and guard against heterodox meanings? Can one read two commentators who come to differing conclusions about the significance of a text and agree with both? Is it possible to attend two churches and hear two sermons on the same text and agree the Word of God has been proclaimed? Is there a via media that simultaneously affirms both the wideness and narrowness of the Biblical world?

I believe there is. I hope to explore this a bit over the next few weeks. As a thought experiment I’m going to look at some authors, past and present, who have attempted this same process.

My hope is that my next blog will look at Irenaeus and Isaac of Stella and the deposit or truth of faith and the place charity plays in interpretation.

A Happy Marriage and a Lonely Death

I have been spending time reading Rafael Yglesias’ novel A Happy Marriage. The novel, loosely based off the author’s own experience of meeting, falling-in-love, and marrying his own wife only to lose her to cancer 30 years later. The novel alternates between the characters Enrique and Margaret’s few weeks of courtship and the last few weeks of her life. Told entirely from the perspective of Enrique, we are given a first hand look into the emotional anguish he experiences as he faces the death of his beloved. In this paragraph, we see the true solitude in facing the death of a loved one:

He could not and did not ask Margaret or his boys for comfort. His father was dead. His mother too old and too self-pitying to be a solace. His in-laws too frightened and too bereft themselves. His half brother, Leo, to anxious and too selfish. His male friends too distant from the realities and too uncomprehending of the experience. Margaret’s best friend, Lily, too preoccupied comforting Margaret and herself. His half sister, Rebecca, who had been present and understanding and so great a help, could spell and reassure him, but she could not provide, no one could provide, what he had forsaken for nearly three years, what cancer had taken from him, and would soon take from him forever: Margaret’s attention.

Thank God I do not understand Enrique’s suffering. How could I? For each person’s suffering is unique is his own way. The best I could offer is my own sufferings.

But more to the point, thank God I have never had to face the loss of Lindsay. I do not think I could cope. It is something I do not wish to face, nor think it particularly helpful or healthy to speculate on what losing her young to a drawn out terminal illness might do to my psychological state.

What strikes me about Enrique’s pain is the solitude he faces. For thirty years Margaret has been his life and he is now facing a life without her, he is alone. Sure, he has children. Sure, he has family. He has friends. But there is no one to enter into his suffering. To know it as their own.

As I’ve read through this book and glimpsed into the mind of a tortured soul, I can’t help but think of Jurgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God. At it’s heart, it is a profound theological reflection on Jesus Christ’s final cry from the cross: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.”

Traditionally, theologians and pastors have interpreted this in a number of ways. Most link it to a doctrine of the atonement similar to that of Anselm’s satisfaction theory where Jesus Christ made restitution on the cross for the sins of humanity. Or closely related is the penal theory where Jesus Christ is punished for the sins of humanity. In both theories there is a transaction between God the Father and God the Son where either Jesus incurs the wrath of God or makes a payment to God.

What Moltmann did was flip the transactional theories on their head and address the cross of Jesus that lead to his death as a death within the life of God. So not only did Jesus Christ suffer and died and experienced the throes of a godforsaken existence, but God the Father suffered in the real loss of his beloved Son. Thus, Moltmann argues, there is mutual suffering within the life of God in the death of Christ. This, of course, would frustrate those whose who deny the passion of God the Father.

But, I ask, what God has something to say to the suffering of Enrique? The God who punishes his beloved Son? The God who pours out his wrath upon the cross? Or is it the God who has foolishly and riskily loved and lost? The God who knows the solitude of death?

The Power of Story: Part 1

If you’ve been playing Buzzword Bingo with the emergent Christian crowd you’re in luck if your score card includes the word “story”. Spend any time at a worship service or in conversation with an emergent, po-mo Christian, it won’t be long before you hear the word. And why not? It doesn’t the baggage associated with older terms used to describe the experience of being a Christian (Christ-follower?) and it’s a versatile word capable of conveying an ample array of meanings.

For starters, it gets used to describe one’s conversion experience. “Once I was lost, but now I’m found…let me tell you my story of how that happened…” For those without a killer conversion experience, it can be used for the ways that God has been at work in their life. “I grew up in household with Christian parents. We went to church every Sunday. Even though it’s been a good life, it’s had its ups and downs. Let me tell you that story…”

Beyond the realm of personal experience, it’s a term that gets used to describe the events narrated in the Bible. This can be narrow. “Let me tell you the story of Abraham…” Or it can be broad, such as the broad meta-narrative that comprises the full scope of the Old and New Testament.

A third area of use is a bit trickier, but it’s broadly theological in context and usually refers to matters of salvation—how and why God saves. Those in the Reformed tradition (i.e. denominations influenced by John Calvin and followers) might describe this in terms of covenant: God’s story is that of binding himself to humanity in such a way that he would be their God and they his people.

A final area of use is where two of the above get liked so that personal experience meets the objective reality of God’s interaction with the world. Perhaps you’ve heard something like this: “…where God’s story and my story meet…” In this use of the word the theological use (story as a catch-all term to describe what God has done for humanity) meets the personal (my life events).

Full disclosure: I’m as guilty as the next for (over?) using this particular word. In the realm of the personal, it is certainly a modernization of the old term “testimony.” Of course, testimony has the strength of testifying about something. More specifically it’s testifying about someone. Ultimately a testimony tells about what God did for us or me. “My story” sounds strangely narcissistic. Still from an evangelistic point of view, the use of story in form and in term is powerful. One hears stories and is shaped by them. Rarely do we hear and story and ask “is that true?” The power of story is in its power to influence. Further, in its purest form, story is testimony or witness. Concerning God, to tell the story of God is to tell the narrative of who God is and how God has shown Himself to be. Often it was the way of Jesus himself: “You want to know what God is like? Here let me tell you a story: ‘there once was a man who went and scattered seed…’”. From our perspective this is still powerful: “What’s God like? Let me tell you about a man from Nazareth who came proclaiming a message…”

It’s also a fair term to use in its Biblical and theological sense. Story is a useful synonym for that which Biblical and Systematic theologians have often termed “salvation history”. As a God who has revealed Himself and acted in History, God has entered into a covenant partnership with the created order. In this partnership God has made himself the God who is for his creation. And this partnership has unfolded over the course of history in such a way that we are justified in calling it a story.

Lastly, we are justified in calling the Biblical narratives stories. For that it is what they are. As a champion of creedal and dogmatic theology, I must not forget that at the center of the Christian witness is the story of a man from Nazareth named Jesus Christ. This is seen most clearly in the gospel narratives that are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Much to the chagrin of so-called source critic fundamentalists that wish desperately to wrench the individual incidents out of their narrative unity in order to discern the historical kernel, the narrative must be read as a whole. While much has and will be gained by trying to discern the historical through source critical means, it seems most natural to read the gospel accounts as a literary whole. While they may have emerged from various sources (what historical narrative hasn’t?). They were compiled in such a way to tell the story of a particular man, in a particular place, at a particular man. And, I might add, to invoke a faith response on the part of the listeners. As a particular man, the man Jesus is a unique, unsubstitutable person.

Thus, I argue, reading the gospels as a unified whole is their most natural reading. Natural does not mean easy however. We need all the help we can get. And this is where the late theologian Hans Frei serves as a most useful guide.

Ivan Karamazov, Jurgen Moltmann, and The Crucified God

Lately, I have been thinking about Ivan Karamazov. As one of the three protagonists of Dostoevsky’s The Brother Karamazov, Ivan, the intellectual, represents humanity’s striving to move beyond God. Ivan envisions a post-religious world dominated by the rationality of human reason. While God may have had his moments, the use-by date of God has long since expired. Ivan asks, “how can one look upon the world and confess faith, love, and admiration of God?” The world has been forsaken by God. The human plight is so abysmal, Ivan had no choice but to reject the God that rejected the world. Of course, the rejection of God left a moral vacuum. A vacuum that left Ivan to opine, “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”

For quite sometime Christians have used this conclusion as an argument against an atheistic morality. The argument goes: With no moral arbiter, there are no moral absolutes. If there are no moral absolutes, everything is relative. If everything is relative, it is impossible to evaluate ethical choices in any meaningful manner. As Ivan put it, “everything is permitted.”

Although atheistic ethicists have fought to counter this argument, there is some truth to it. In a 1946 lecture on Existentialism and Humanism, French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called the aforementioned quote by Ivan Karamazov as the “starting point” of all existentialist thought. There is no determinism in which we can appeal. Nor may we describe a person’s choice with reference to nature. Instead, humans are radically free to do whatever he or she wants. And as a radically free creature, it is only the individual who is ultimately responsible for his or her actions.

In what would bring Dostoevsky sadness, it appears Ivan has won. It does not take much imagination to believe we live in a time and a place where everything is permitted. Looking beyond the random acts of violence that occur ever day, we might point to the radical inequity of resources where some eat and drink wastefully and many more go without basic necessitates. In the United States, our pets are treated better than many people the world over. Let us not forget the increasing polarization of ideologies. One wonders if it is possible to engage constructively in any political dialogue, especially when the final arbiter is me. Add this all up and I can’t help but hear Ivan Karamazov and feel sympathy: how can we honestly look at the world and affirm the existence of God?

In November of 1969, six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered in a university in San Salvador. As they dragged the bodies back into the building they pulled one into an office, bumped a bookcase, and dislodged a book which became drenched in blood. The name of the book: The Crucified God by the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann. When reflecting upon that horrible incident, Moltmann found it reassuring that it was his book that was soaked in an innocent man’s blood. For a profound, rich, and complex book, the thesis is simple: only a crucified God can provide relief, hope, and salvation for a world stained by radical individualism and ceaseless violence. For Moltmann himself, it is the words of the martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Only a suffering God can help.”

Ivan Karamazov sees a world abandoned and forsaken by God. In the world’s godforsakeness, Ivan saw no alternative but to reject the very existence of God and turn to himself.

As a theological work, The Crucified God is an extended meditation on Jesus’ last cry from the cross “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” In the cross of Jesus, the Godhead experiences death. There is a death within God.

There are many explanations for Jesus’ death. In one version, he died as a blasphemer. In another, he died as a political dissident. But in another, Jesus died as the godforsaken. On the cross, Jesus was the true innocent suffering the sins of humanity. And what did he find in his suffering? A God who looked the other way. On the cross, Jesus was utterly abandoned by God the Father and exemplifies a Godforsaken world.

But Jesus’ death upon the cross was more than the death of God who became flesh. The death Jesus died upon the cross was a death “within God”. Within the triune life of God, the Godhead experienced death. In the Trinity, the second person Jesus Christ suffered death and abandonment. Yet, the first person of the Trinity, God the Father experienced the heartbreak and loss of his only beloved and begotten son shamefully murdered upon the cross.

On the cross and within the life of God we fix our eyes on Jesus who suffered and experienced our own Godforsakeness. But on the cross and within the life of God we also encounter the Father who suffered and experience the loss of his only begotten and beloved son. When we approach God in faith, we approach a God who identifies and experiences the heartbreak and suffering of this world. God takes it upon Himself and suffers along with us. In the suffering of God, we have a God who helps and saves and transforms this present age.

Karl Barth - The Word of God & the Word of Man

There are many varied reasons why someone might wish to read Karl Barth’s The Word of God & the Word of Man. For some it might be that because Barth is such a towering figure not just in 20th century theology but in the history of Christian theology as well, it is probably worth taking the time to read at least something he wrote. Or, those who have moved beyond curiosity and actually have a great affinity (or hatred!) to Barth’s work and might be interested in reading this collection of some of his early lectures to better understand Barth’s beginnings. Reading the opening essay “The Righteousness of God” helps the Barth scholar better understand what was happening in say, “The Humanity of God”. As such, The Word of God & the Word of Man serves as a useful Polaroid of the early Barth. Or perhaps the would-be reader was left puzzled by the veritable hand grenade that was Romans. Despite its stature, Romans is by no means an easy read and this collection might serve as a helpful supplement to such a task.

As a pseudo-/wanna-be Barth scholar I must admit that part of my motivation for reading this collection falls in the later variety: where did Barth come from? How did he get from point A to point B? What is it that distinguishes the nebulous “early Barth” from “later Barth”? Ironically, my hunch is that the man himself would laugh at questions such as these. While it is certainly a worthwhile endeavor to understand the work of another person, this should never be the end of the matter. This is even more so considering the subject matter of theology. In theology we use the words of men, to reflect critically upon the Word of God. Yet, in the haste to do so we forget that it is the Word of God that has its proper place as the beginning and end of all theological speak – something that Barth argues in this volume is really an impossibility anyway. Yet, speak we must. So moving forward, might there be another, better reason for reading a collection as this? Something that moves beyond the realm of theological gymnastics and cuts to the center of why we even think theologically?

It is often forgotten that Barth wrote and thought with the Church in mind. Barth began his career as a parish minister. Even his magnum opus Church Dogmatics was written for the Church and specifically with the minister in mind. Yet due to the sheer volume and breadth of Dogmatics, it is easier to push aside that reality and think of Barth as a scholar’s scholar with little mind for what actually happens in the world whether it be in the parish or in the streets. However, with The Word of God & the Word of Man, the reader is forcefully reminded that Barth wrote and thought as a minister of the Word of God with great and terrible call to preach the Word of God whether it is in the pulpit on a Sunday morning or in the great halls of the academy. And as such Barth confronts us here with the Godness of God, the one that is wholly other and yet confronts us in our sinfulness and justifies us freely and thereby heightening the level of confrontation.

Opening essay “The Righteousness of God” makes this very clear. Any attempt to construct our own image of God is a foolish tower of Babel and denies the overwhelming reality of the otherness of God. As Barth writes with such lucidity one cannot help but be lead to a deeper place of, gasp, worship of the true God who confronts us as we are. In the exceptional “The Strange New World of the Bible” the reader is reminded of the nature of the Bible. The Bible is not a history as such. It is not the story of humanity. It is not the history of religion. The Bible is the history of God and must be read as such. It is not concerned with our history but the history of God. The Bible is the bony finger of John – “behold the lamb of God!” Essays “The Need and Promise of Christian Preaching” and “the Word of God and the Task of the Ministry” are just as they sound: a resounding call to the vocation of the Church and a reminder of the impossibility of the task, specifically for the minister. As ministers called to speak truthfully and bear witness to God we stand under the judgment of God. Yet as ministers we bear witness to the mercy of the God who justifies us and frees us for such an impossible task: “As ministers we ought to speak of God. We are human, however, and so cannot speak of God. We ought therefore to recognize both our obligation and our inability and by that very recognition give God the glory” (186).

My hope is that I am suggesting that Barth in general and this work in particular are for more than the academic seeking to tag and classify God. Barth’s program is for the glory of God and the benefit of the Church. What minister, what Christian need to be less confronted with righteousness of God? What minister, what Christian does not need to be reminded of the strange new world of the Bible? What minister has not felt the crushing terror that comes with awesome task of the proclamation of the Word of God? And if one has not felt that terror, they should. And that is precisely what Barth is doing here. When one reads Barth one is confronted and reminded of the true starting point of all Christian thinking: God is God and I am not.

A Biblical Look at the Virgin Birth

In both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicean-Constantinople Creed there is an affirmation of belief in Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity God incarnate, “who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary” (Apostles Creed) or who “was made incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man” (Nicene).

However, of the virgin birth, it bears mentioning that one the two other major ecumenically acknowledged creeds of the era (Chalcedon) also mentions the virgin birth but does not credit the Holy Spirit for conception. Then there is the Athanasian Creed focuses on the triune nature of God and as such is not as interested in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

Yet, all the same the virgin birth has played a major confessional and theological role in Christian history. As confessed by the Apostles and Nicene Creed, the virgin birth is a historical reality putting the birth firmly in concrete history. Just as Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, so too was Jesus born of the Virgin Mary. While the virgin birth clearly stands as a supernatural occurrence, it is still a birth and as such, natural and in and in the realm of history.

But before moving to the theological import of such a confession I wish to look at it from the Biblical Theological perspective by listening to Ben Witherington III.

The Biblical Perspective – From New Testament History - A Narrative Account

First Witherington addresses the charge that the birth narratives from Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 are of a different sort than the other Gospel narratives. That is, they do not come from different sources. Witherington points to the fact that the birth narratives feature a mixture of the mundane and supernatural like the rest of the gospel narratives. Further, he notes that the passion narratives and birth narratives (particularly Matthew) are interlaced with scriptural citations “precisely because these were the portions of the Jesus story that would most need justification and explanation. Early Jews were not looking for a messiah miraculously born a virgin" (emphasis mine, 67).

Second, there are enormous similarities: the betrothed Mary and Joseph, virginal conception, David decent of Joseph, the birth in Bethlehem during Herod’s reign, angelic revelation of Jesus’ name, and Jesus’ upbringing in Nazareth.

Third, there is the issue of Mt. 1:23’s citation of Is. 7:14. The word almah used in Is. 7:14 refers to a young woman of a marriageable age. Although virginity is not technically implied, virginity is implicit. Historically speaking Jews seemed to have believed the prophecy of Is. 7:14 was fulfilled in Hezekiah – the son of Ahaz. For the Jew of the era, to hear “a virgin will conceive and give birth” might mean no more than a women who had previously not had sexual relations did and became pregnant.

Fourth is the charge that the story of Jesus’ birth is a variant on the myths told of the gods of the Greco-Roman world. In those stories the divine being descends to the earth in the guise of a male and mates with a human woman. What Matthew and Luke are suggesting, however, is that Mary’s conception is miraculous in that there was no form of sexual intercourse and no male figure divine or human. Further, the presence of the Holy Spirit is never portrayed as a human figure or assuming human form. It is also noteworthy that no Old Testament character had such a birth nor did any messianic expectation envision such a conception.

This brings us to a fifth point with is more logical than historical. Why would Christians – member of a minority evangelistic group create such a myth? Why open Jesus up to the charge of illegitimacy (see Jn. 8:41; Mk. 6:3)? Further, Christians as early as the second century took the virgin conception as a matter of fact and it is alluded to elsewhere in the New Testament (Rom. 1:3; Gal. 4:4; Phil. 2:7; Jn. 1:13; 6:41-42).

Based upon these five points Witherington believes that it is easier to accept that the Gospel writers were writing history rather than creating theology. In fact, the unexpectedness of the virginal conception accounts for the awkwardness of the writer’s explanation. The messiah being born of a virgin was a surprise even to them and thus had to scramble for justification.

Advent Reflection 2 - The Homelessness of Jesus

“Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Under normal circumstances this time of the year would be spent doing things like picking out a Christmas tree, stringing it with lights and ornaments, and decorating the house for Christmas. This year we’ve done no such thing. Instead we’ve been running around town finding boxes, dropping items of at Goodwill, calling utility companies, movers, packing up boxes, and moving to our new house.

As I was driving through town reflecting on all this, I began to think how little this year felt like Christmas. I wished we could have been out finding the perfect tree. I wished we could have been decorating the house. I wish we could have been making cookies. Alas, that was not possible. I could not depend on the things that normally made the season feel like Christmas. If I couldn’t have those things, what did I have? The answer was surprisingly simple:

Jesus.

Advent is time of preparing. Of waiting. Of hoping. But not for presents. Not for holiday cookies. And not even for time with family and friends. No we wait, we prepare, and we hope for the coming of Christ the King. Without the tree, without the decorations, without the lights, what did I have?

Jesus.

If anything or upheaval marking our life has pushed me to a deeper place of preparation. The life and ministry of Jesus was one marked by homelessness: “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Jesus of Nazareth, God’s own son was a man on the move. His way was the way of obedience to his father in heaven. This purity of heart made Jesus a man on the move. There was no time or place for the trappings of normalcy.

This sense of homelessness marked Jesus’ birth as well. The popular images of Jesus’ birth suggest Mary in the ninth month of her pregnancy riding a donkey during the midnight hour to a closed-down Bethlehem accompanied only by her soon-to-be husband. With no place to sleep, they the lonely couple migrated to a barn where she gave birth to a son and placed him in a manger. Yet this popular account says too much. It’s entirely plausible that Mary and Joseph had been living in Bethlehem for some time before Jesus was born. And although now Joseph had presently resided to the north in Nazareth, it is entirely plausible that Bethlehem was home to some of Joseph’s kin who might have housed the couple.

What is certain is that Bethlehem was not home. Even at birth Jesus had no hole, he had no nest. Jesus was born on the move and continued to move. Eight days later he was in Jerusalem. Soon after that he was whisked away to Egypt, escaping the ruthless and paranoid Herod. It wasn’t until much later that Jesus arrived home in Nazareth. But even then that was only a temporary dwelling as Jesus’ public ministry was dominated by the homeless existence of a public prophet proclaiming the good news of the reign of God.

The birth of Jesus was one marked by great instability, danger, and risk. It is a sign of the loving freedom of the Son of God to descend to earth as a child in a position of vulnerability and dependence. Even at birth God freely gave of himself. He gave his future into the hands of a young mother and father. He gave himself to humanity in great political turmoil and distress. Even in birth and his early life Jesus was acted upon.

While Christmas can mean presents, cookies, and trees there is something deeper. While the holiday traditions hold a great and even meaningful place, we might take the risk of pulling back the husk to reveal the kernel of the advent season announced by the angel to Mary: “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Advent Reflection 1 - The true humanity of Jesus Christ

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. – Hebrews 1:1-4

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” - which means, “God with us.” – Matthew 1:23

In advent we wait. But wait for what? In short, the answer is easy. We wait for the coming of the Christ child. And in Jesus Christ we wait not for who we wish Him to be but who He is in himself, who He has revealed himself to be. We wait for person Jesus Christ, who in full humanity and personhood is still yet one substance with God the Father and God the Spirit. We wait for the coming of God in the form of a human without substituting either his divinity or humanity. In Jesus Christ we are confronted with true humanity and true divinity. In Jesus Christ we see with the eyes of faith what it means to be human and who God has shown himself to be. In Jesus Christ we find a co-mingling of two natures in one person. As the Nicean councils so forcefully put it: Jesus Christ is of one substance with God. God of God. Light of light. Yet to clarify any potential confusion, a century later the Council of Chalcedon clarified: while never forfeiting his divine nature in becoming truly human, in Jesus Christ the two natures rest perfectly and paradoxically in one person without confusion or division.

The danger then as it is now to bifurcate Jesus Christ into one or the other. Rather than approaching Christ through how he has revealed himself to be, we divide Jesus into a man or a God, one or the other.

Keeping with the spirit of Hellenistic philosophy one early challenge to the Christian faith was to deny the sufferings of Jesus Christ. Inconceivable that he could be fully God and fully human, the docetists argued that Jesus Christ only appeared to be human. And since it is inconceivable and impossible for God to suffer, in life and in death Jesus Christ only appeared to suffer as you and I might. For the docetists, Jesus Christ is very God and yet not very human. The Jesus of which Scripture bears witness only appeared to be fully-functioning biological human. Some said the body was like a ghost that only seemed human. Others suggested his body was “spiritual”. What was certain was that although Jesus seemed human, he was not.

A good proof-texting docetist might sight a passage such as Hebrews and ask “how could Jesus Christ, whom Scriptures designate as ‘the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being’ be human?” Clearly, the Hebrew Scriptures make it clear that God is God and we, to put it mildly, are not. How then could this Jesus, the radiance of God’s glory, be human? To the Greek philosopher this was truly inconceivable.

As someone who has not witnessed many debates about Jesus Christ framed in terms of Hellenistic philosophy, I have not met many, if any, docetist evangelists. However, amongst those who profess faith in Jesus Christ there is an acute temptation to deny the true humanity of Jesus Christ. We exalt the divinity of Jesus Christ at the expense of his humanity. We lose sight of human frailties that characterized the man Jesus. We forget that this Jesus Christ is Emmanuel, God with us. And by “with us”, I mean that in every possible manner of the word. In Jesus Christ, God became one of us by becoming human. This was no sleight of hand. There was a birth, a human birth. And through this birth God entered the world in the person of Jesus Christ. This is what Karl Barth calls the mystery and miracle of Christmas. And in this birth, Jesus Christ confronts us not only with the very nature of God above, but confronts us with true humanity. We know what it means to be a person through the incarnational activity of Jesus Christ.

Karl Barth on the 40th Anniversary of his Death

40 years ago today, sometime during the night Karl Barth passed away peacefully in the downstairs of his home. Barth's life and work is monumental and people the world over devote literally their whole life studying it. As such, I would be ill-advised summarizing it in any curt fashion. However, I believe Eberhard Busch's re-telling of Barth's final night serve as a good introduction to the man and his work. From Karl Barth - His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts:

On Monday 9 December he spent the day working on his lecture again (for a forum
of Catholic and Reformed Christians on the theme of 'Setting Out - Being
Converted - Confessing.' ed.) He was still at work in the evening when he
was interrupted by two telephone calls, about nine o'clock. One was from
his godson Ulrich Barth, to whom he quoted a verse from a hymn which spoke
comfortingly about the Christian hope. The other person who wanted to
speak to him so late at night was his friend Eduard Thurneysen, who had remained
faithful to him over sixty years. They talked about the gloomy world
situation. Then Barth said, 'But keep your chin up! Never mind! "He
will reign!"' When the telephone rang he had been writing a few sentences
of the draft for his lecture in which he was saying that in the church it is
always important to listen to the Fathers who have gone before in the
faith. For '"God is not a God of the dead but of the living." In him
they all live' - from the Apostles down to the Fathers of the day before
yesterday and of yesterday. Barth did not go back to the draft which he
had left in the middle of a sentence, but put it aside until the next day.
However, he did not live that long. He died peacefully some time in the
middle of the night. He lay there as though asleep, with his hands gently
folded from his evening prayers. So his wife found him the next morning,
while in the background a record was playing the Mozart with which she had
wanted to waken him.

Above all Barth was a person of prayer. This was a matter of personal piety but more so it is demonstrated in his own theological work, which as we see never ended. Theology is a matter of worship, reflection, and witness. He liberally borrowed from Anselm's famous dictum: fides intelectum - faith seeks to understand. Theology starts with God and how God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit. The theologian responds in faith by testifying to how God who this God is in being, action, and being in action.