30: Christmas

‘The Miraculous Is Essential’: A Conversation About Christmas, God and Faith
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This Is Why Jesus Wept
The Forgotten Radicalism of Jesus Christ First-century Christians weren’t prepared for what a truly inclusive figure he was, and what was true then is still true today....... He shattered barrier after barrier. ....... The encounter with Jesus transformed her life; after it the woman at the well became “the first woman preacher in Christian history,” proclaiming Jesus to be the savior of the world to her community ........ “A Samaritan woman and her community are sought out and welcomed by Jesus. In the process, ancient racial, theological and historical barriers are breached. His message and his community are for all.” ......... Jesus was repeatedly attacked for hanging out with the wrong crowd and recruited his disciples from the lower rungs of society. ....... Jesus was most drawn to the forsaken and despised, the marginalized, those who had stumbled and fallen. He was beloved by them, even as he was targeted and eventually killed by the politically and religiously powerful, who viewed Jesus as a grave threat to their dominance. ......... Jesus sees indelible dignity and inestimable worth in every person, even “the least of these.” If no one else would esteem them, Jesus would. ........ Among the people who best articulated this ethic was Abraham Lincoln, who in a 1858 speech in Lewiston, Ill., in which he explained the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence, said, “Nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows.” ......... We place loyalty to the tribe over compassion and human connection. We view differences as threatening; the result is we become isolated, rigid in our thinking, harsh and unforgiving. .............. The wisest question those of us who are Christians could ask ourselves isn’t why we are so much more humane and enlightened than they were; rather, it is to ask ourselves who the modern outcasts are and whether we’re mistreating them. ....... what ultimately changes people’s lives are relationships rather than rule books, mercy rather than moral demands. ......... Every generation of Christians need to think through how his example applies to the times in which they live. We need our sensibilities to align more with his. Otherwise, we drift into self-righteousness and legalism, even to the point that we corrupt the very institution, the church, which was created to worship him and to love others. .......... understanding people’s stories and struggles requires much more time and effort than condemning them, but it is vastly more rewarding. And the lesson of Christmas and the incarnation, at least for those of us of the Christian faith, is that all of us were once outcasts, broken yet loved, and worth reaching out to and redeeming.

Christmas Turns the World Upside Down What does it mean for God’s power to be “made perfect in weakness”? ........ it was not an entrance characterized by privilege, comfort, public celebration or self-glorification; it was marked instead by lowliness, obscurity, humility, fragility. ......... The circumstances of Jesus’ birth “were calculated to establish his detachment from power and authority in human terms” ......... “Christ was born in a manger to a family for whom there was no room,” Craig Barnes, the president of Princeton Theological Seminary, told me. “He was raised by unremarkable parents in an unremarkable part of the world, conducted a ministry that was missed by most people, died as a criminal on a cross, and his ascension was seen only by a small band of disciples who then led a movement that within three centuries changed the world.” ........... Jesus’ energies and affections were primarily aimed toward social outcasts, the downtrodden and “unclean,” strangers and aliens, prostitutes and the powerless. The people Jesus clashed with and who eventually crucified him were religious authorities and those who wielded political power. The humble will be exalted, Jesus said, and the last shall be first. True greatness is shown through serving others and sacrifice. ........... Most of us know that we often grow in times of weakness rather than strength, when we face hardship rather than experience success. That isn’t always the case; sometimes hardships and suffering simply overwhelm us and no good thing comes from them. .......... Last week, a friend who is a counselor told me of a former colleague of his who, because of chronic pain, was bedridden for two years. That pain she’s now largely free of. He described his former colleague as one the most cheerful and loving people he’s ever met. “She’s a better person” for having gone through her ordeal, he said. The point my friend was making isn’t that suffering is good but that sometimes it can serve a purpose. This is true for people of different faiths and people of no faith. ........... No one has ever said, ‘I was so successful I just had to come to Jesus.’” .......... That’s where peace begins: Surrender, in powerlessness.” ........... Power understood through the prism of Christianity is different from how the world generally understands power. ......... the difference between power over others and the power of connecting with others, which she said requires that there be openness and vulnerability. ........ As I understand the words of Jesus as recorded in II Corinthians, weakness opens us up to a fundamentally new definition of strength — strength that is not coercive, domineering, prideful and self-seeking but rather compassionate, sacrificial, humble and empathetic. God’s power, perfected through our weakness, makes us instruments of mercy, seekers of justice, agents of reconciliation. It helps us see the world in a different way. ......... “Jesus was most frequently out among the people — engaging and paying attention to the realities of ordinary people’s lives and helping them see that in God’s eyes they are extraordinary — and so often these are the people who are viewed as weak in the world. I am learning how to live well from those who hold very little worldly power but who are some of the most content and real people I’ve ever met.”