3rd Day of Christmas - Theological Virtues

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me three French hens.

The three French hens can symbolize the Theological Virtues: faith, hope and love. Did you know that Paul made a rhyming poem in the famous “Love Chapter”? It is really a fabulous piece of literature, like a Shakespearian sonnet, but it has much more value spiritually.

1 Corinthians 13 - ISV

If I speak in the languages of humans and angels but have no love, I have become a reverberating gong or a clashing cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can understand all secrets and every form of knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains but have no love, I am nothing.  Even if I give away everything that I have and sacrifice myself, but have no love, I gain nothing.

Love is always patient;

    love is always kind;

love is never envious

    or arrogant with pride.

Nor is she conceited,

   and she is never rude;

she never thinks just of herself

    or ever gets annoyed.

She never is resentful;

  is never glad with sin;

she’s always glad to side with truth,

    and pleased that truth will win.

She bears up under everything;

    believes the best in all;

there is no limit to her hope,

    and never will she fall.

Love never fails. 

Now if there are prophecies, they will be done away with. 

If there are languages, they will cease. 

If there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 

For what we know is incomplete and what we prophesy is incomplete.  But when what is complete comes, then what is incomplete will be done away with.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up my childish ways. Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror, but then we will be face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Right now three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

2nd Day of Christmas - Old and New Testaments

 On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me two turtledoves.

The two turtledoves are said to represent the Old and New Testaments.

I grew up thinking that the two testaments were the old and new covenants, and basically, the new covenant (testament) made the old invalid. Because of that thought, I felt that reading the Old Testament was not something I needed to pursue and was just a lot of nice stories to fill in some blanks. Similarly, I had often heard that the God of the Old Testament was an angry God, and the God of the New Testament was a happy God. After much study, I have learned that these concepts were very misguided. The Old Testament is still a valid covenant, and the New Testament is an additional covenant that compliments the Old, and God is the same God in both Testaments. 

The Old Testament gives meaning to the New, and reveals a lot about how intricately God designed his redemption plan. The New Covenant does not make the Old Covenant invalid, the Old still holds, it has just been added to to include Gentiles as well as the Jews.

In order to understand the New Testament writers, we need to have an understanding of the Scriptures they were referencing. So many misunderstandings of New Testament verses can be explained by referencing the Old Testament. Revelation, for instance, references 24 of the 39 books in the Old Testament. Jesus quoted mostly from Deuteronomy and Psalms.

The Old and the New Testaments comprise the entirety of God’s Word, and together they develop a complete narrative that tells us who God is.

References: 

2 Corinthians 3:14 (the veil concealing Messiah is removed, revealing the new covenant)

Romans 10:4 (Messiah is the end goal, arrival, of the law)

Matthew 5:17 (Jesus didn’t abolish the law, but fulfilled it)

Galatians 3:24 (the Law leads us to and teaches us of Jesus)

Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 3:18 (God does not change)

1st Day of Christmas - Jesus

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree.

 O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.

Jesus is the long awaited Messiah, first foretold only three chapters into the Bible. Right after man had sinned, separating him from God, God already had redemption and reconciliation planned. The prophet Isaiah tells how Messiah would be born of a virgin (7:14), that he would have God’s spirit in him (42:1), that he would be rejected by his own people (28:16) and tortured to death (50:6, 53:4-8) and rise again (53:10-11). During his lifetime on earth, Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies that were written a few hundred years before his birth. The odds of any one man fulfilling even 30 prophecies is enormous, let alone over 300.

No credible scholar doubts that Jesus was a real person who lived in Judea. He literally changed the world - even our modern calendar centers on his birth. Where doubt comes in is whether or not he was the Son of God, but even skeptics cannot deny that:

• Jesus was a real person

• Jesus was crucified by the Romans

• The apostles all had experiences they believed to be of the risen Jesus and died for their conviction. 

The important question that faces every human being is: what will you do with Jesus? Will you realize that you are a sinner who needs Jesus to fix your separation from God? Or will your pride keep you relying on your own ability to fix yourself? The only way to get into God’s presence and stay there is by confessing that Jesus is Lord. If you do not confess that Jesus is Lord, you will be separated from God for eternity, and that will be hell.

Links:

Prophecies Jesus Fulfilled

Names of Jesus - Immanuel

Names of Jesus - Jesus

Extra-Biblical Evidence for Jesus

Isaiah 7:14, 11:2, 42:1, 28:16, 50:6, 53:4-8, 53:10-11

12 Days of Christmas

I did not grow up in a liturgical church; I thought the twelve days of Christmas started on December 13. It was many years later - after I had kids - that I learned that the twelve days of Christmas start on Christmas day, and are the countdown to Epiphany - the celebration of when the wise men visited Jesus. I discovered that the liturgical church has a rhythm to the year involving counting down to certain high holy days. Similar to the Hebrew feasts that are a reminder of God’s plan of redeeming love, the “Church Year” is a way of preparing one’s heart for Jesus. In an attempt to separate from Jewish traditions, the liturgical calendar replaced the Jewish feasts with its own high holy days and days of preparation. I find value in the Jewish feasts because the narrative of creation, deliverance, and re-creation is embedded in them. I find different value in the liturgical calendar as it offers us seasons of anticipation and celebration.

Maybe you've seen the viral posts about how the 12 Days of Christmas is a kind of secret catechism for the church. While that has been debunked numerous times, I still find value in it. Just like the Christmas narrative doesn't have Mary riding a donkey or mention an innkeeper or a stable, it is still a fun way to enlarge the story. Over the next twelve days, I am going to expand on the classic Christmas carol and maybe learn a bit about and deepen my faith. Won't you join me?

Links: Church Calendar Seasons of the Church Year Church History for Kids Jewish Feasts and Christian Calendar

Names of Jesus - Messiah

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. Then the angel told them, “Stop being afraid! Listen! I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. Today your Savior, the Lord Messiah, was born in the City of David. Luke 2:9-11

In days of old, when a person was chosen for leadership, oil was poured over their head and they were anointed. Messiah, or Christ in Greek, means "anointed one. Jesus is God's Anointed One. It was understood in the Old Testament that God's anointed ones were holy. The high priests and kings were anointed when they were chosen for their jobs. 

Jesus was anointed three times: early in his ministry an unknown woman (labeled a sinner by those around Jesus) anointed his feet in Simon the Pharisee's house (Luke 7); a few days before the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, Mary, sister of Martha, anointed his feet (John 12); and two days before the Passover, an unknown woman anointed his head, and Jesus said it was for his burial (Matthew 26 and Mark 14). (I find it interesting that Jesus was anointed only by women!) 

Jesus wasn’t just any anointed person, he was THE Anointed One, set apart by God, both king and priest - a role that was only to be given to Messiah, the savior of the world. Unfortunately, Jesus did not look anything like the Messiah the Jews were hoping for. They were so busy looking for their idea of perfection and redemption, that they completely missed GOD’S idea of perfection and redemption.

In this season of looking forward to the arrival of Jesus, let us set aside our ideas of perfection and redemption. God’s ways are far above our own. He often works in ways that we could not have imagined, and most certainly in ways we would not have chosen. But God, in his infinite wisdom, has laid out a way for us. By sending his Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, to redeem us from the bondage of sin and death, he has given us perfection that we could never have dreamed up.