Same Xmas tree, different angle
Hiding behind the Christmas tree, this is a repeat of our Sunday School class session this morning. Which for publication, so as not to unite the throng of my scandals, I've reworked minimally but nevertheless, for perhaps a tad more ecclesiastically political/theological correctness than we normally honor (which is None) in class.
For Advent this year, I’m sort of trying to make our Sunday School class theme a critical contemplation of the so-called Mystery of Faith that we acclaim together as celebrant and people during Eucharistic Prayer A (there's a version of it in other prayers as well). We are a church that claims our theological foundation is Scripture, Tradition, Reason. Where Reason, by which we mean the Holy Spirit enlightens our reading and understanding of Scripture, requires common sense in the 21st century, that we not check our brains at the door when we enter the church. The acclamation goes like this:
Therefore we proclaim the Mystery of Faith:
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
So, that's the stage for today's class session. Here is a mixture of Propers (in black with some red highlighting) and discussion (which is in blue).
The Collect
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
This Collect (Hatchett p.166) is new to the 1979 BCP. It places responsibility on all of us to prepare for Christ’s Second Coming. The “salvation” the prophets were concerned with was not our Christian idea - - that may have started with Paul?, and developed over the years of the Church’s history, of individual, personal salvation of humans, first (Paul) into the imminent earthly kingdom of God at Jesus’ Return, then (as it developed in the Church) afterlife in heaven instead of hell as salvation - - not individual, personal salvation, but the salvation of the nation of Israel from God’s anger for their sins.
The OT has prescriptions for addressing and resolving sins (some, such as Achan at Ai, are capital offenses against God that imperil all the people if the sin isn’t wiped out). Israel’s corporate sins (cultic and sociological sins that First Isaiah preached against), God chose to punish by bringing in the Babylonians to conquer and carry Judean upper classes away into exile. Now, starting with Isaiah 40 (Second Isaiah) as in the theological cycle that is so vivid in the Book of Judges (creation, sin, judgment, repentance, redemption), in this case, Isaiah 40 below, “salvation” has come in the return home from exile (through God’s messiah (anointed) Cyrus the Persian (Isaiah 45:1).
In Isaiah 40 the prophet (called Second Isaiah) is prophesying assuringly that the sins of the nation (Judea and Jerusalem the Southern Kingdom, the Northern Kingdom has already been obliterated by the Assyrians and the people dispersed) have been satisfied, even double payment, through the agonizing years (586-538 BC) of the Babylonian Exile, and the nation is being restored to God’s favor and to possession of their holy land - - so this (not individuals being “saved” after death) is “salvation” in OT terms.
Incidentally, Babylonian Exile seems not to have been totally oppressive, as many Jews in exile remained in Babylon instead of returning “home” to Jerusalem/Judea; indeed, this is the historic origin of the Jew population in Iraq that today is being so cruelly oppressed and reduced, obliterated, persecuted.
?Might a Christian’s Advent Season perspective on the Collect above and OT reading below be that God has already claimed, and “saved” us in this life, in the First Coming of Christ, and that his Second Coming is spiritually in each person’s heart (arguably perhaps at baptism?); that a bodily Second Coming is unnecessary, would be (theologically and) soteriologically (salvifically) redundant, and in terms of 1st century flat-earth-ness versus 21st century cosmology lacks common sense credibility, so let's claim what scholars call a "realized eschatology"? TW+
Old Testament Isaiah 40:1-11
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
A voice says, “Cry out!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.
Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
See, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.
Our liturgical Response is a portion of Psalm 85, below.
Nothing is certain about Psalm 85. One popular teaching, which fits our liturgical use of it as our response to Isaiah 40, is that it is a later (decades? centuries?) thanksgiving praising the Lord for restoring his people to favor and possession of their promised land after the Babylonian Exile.
Another suggestion has been that it’s an earlier, possibly before the Exile, liturgical/cultic hymn for use in such as liturgy praising God for bringing Israel through troubles, including sin. ??Let’s read it aloud in class, and you make up your own mind.
The first (7) verses are said to have been for the congregation to say or sing together or responsively; verse 8 and following pick up a singular voice, ostensibly a cultic prophet, guiding the congregation in silence as they wait for the Lord’s response, and then the prophet hears the Lord and gives the Lord's words as oracle.
For us, the lectionary framers have set it to use as our response to our Advent reading of Isaiah 40 regardless of its Jewish history and original uses!! TW+
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13c Benedixisti, Domine
1 You have been gracious to your land, O Lord, * you have restored the good fortune of Jacob.
2 You have forgiven the iniquity of your people * and blotted out all their sins.
8 I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, * for he is speaking peace to his faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him.
9 Truly, his salvation is very near to those who fear him, * that his glory may dwell in our land.
10 Mercy and truth have met together; * righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
11 Truth shall spring up from the earth, * and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
12 The Lord will indeed grant prosperity, * and our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness shall go before him, * and peace shall be a pathway for his feet.
The Epistle 2 Peter 3:8-15a
Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.
Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
Second Peter (c.a. 100-140?), whom no competent scholars seem to believe was written by the Apostle Peter. From what I read, many scholars date it in the second quarter of the second century (AD 125-150), for many internal literary reasons including dependency on other NT writings. It's an "occasional" document that defends Christian expectation of the Second Coming against those who scoff at the idea and who apparently have given up on it. ??It is relatively short, and if time is favorable let’s read it aloud in class and discuss it (as we like to do all newly appearing writings when convenient).
My “teaching point” for the document is that while we acknowledge it as canonical holy scripture, a sacred writing for Christians, and so it is incumbent on us who read and discuss it to bring useful lessons out of it for our lives today, we are not bible literalists and/or inerrantists clinging to the patently unreasonable. Though this is among things we generally decline to say (or even are afraid to utter), from the point of view of modern cosmology/astronomy, we know the idea of the heavens being set ablaze with the Second Coming and establishment of a new, godly order, is not a reasonable expectation (unless we take it, as the writer had no idea, out billions of years to when the sun expands and burns the Earth to a crisp). So, it being unreasonable (I won't say ridiculous) for literal understanding (even though that was the writer’s view and intent as a flat-earther two thousand years ago), we may take it metaphorically and search to discern its wisdom and guidance for us today. TW+
The Gospel Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Okay, this is fairly straightforward, John the Baptist preparing the way for the Messiah, Christ. Couple of things here. First, I see no reason to doubt that this is fairly historical, John out baptizing people, and apparently this was a common thing in those days, baptizers out doing their ministry, and the people making a big day of it, entire villages going down to the river site with picnic dinners to enjoy the event, and people getting baptized not unlike people going forward to be saved at a tent revival.
Second, many scholars believe that Jesus got his start as a disciple of John the Baptist, including being baptized by John (maybe Jesus split off independent when John was arrested?). Being baptized by John would to some extent make Jesus seem “subordinate, inferior” to John, which all four gospel evangelists therefore combat in this and later gospel passages. Also, there were some who believed that John the Baptist was the Messiah, the Christ, and this must be refuted.
All this the canonical gospel evangelists combat by having John the Baptist himself explicitly deny that he’s the Messiah and pointing to Jesus instead of to himself.
Interesting that to Mark’s “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”, Matthew and Luke say “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire”. Did M&L get this from Q? What do you make of this? Why fire?
Also interesting. The above text says of John the Baptist, “he ate locusts and wild honey”. There was (is? IDK) an ascetic sect holding John the Baptist up as special, maybe even the Messiah, who objected to the idea of his eating meat (locusts are meat, animals, living beings), who have changed Mark’s NT Greek word ἀκρίδας (ἀκρίς, akris locust), apparently a generally accepted food in many parts of that world then and today, to read ekris or enkris, honey cakes or manna. (See Early Christian Writings online, Gospel of the Ebionites ((c.a. 100-160 AD)) a vegetarian sect). This makes John the Baptist ethically acceptable to them, vegetarians.
Some related bible passages.
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Revised Standard Version
A New Covenant
31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Hebrews 10:15
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First He says:
16“This is the covenant I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord.
I will put My laws in their hearts
and inscribe them on their minds.”
17Then He adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”
18And where these have been forgiven, an offering for sin is no longer needed.
God saying he will be present in our hearts.
The ultimate Advent message is that The Mystery of Faith makes sense and is no mystery at all: Christ has died. Christ is risen. If sin is an issue with you, your sins are forgiven, and sin sacrifice (including the sacrifice of Christ for human sin?, a notion that has been overwhelmingly offensive to many theologians over Christianity's course) is not required and no longer need be a theological premise. Christ will (indeed does) come again, not on clouds of glory at the end of time, but here and now, in this life into the heart of each and every person who accepts him as Lord. Counter to general apprehension, the entire Christian idea is not to be “saved” into some heavenly afterlife, but to get on with your Baptismal Covenant in this life. TW+
2 Peter
Salutation
1 Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
2 May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
The Christian’s Call and Election
3 His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. 5 For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. 8 For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. 10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. 11 For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.
12 Therefore I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you. 13 I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory, 14 since I know that my death will come soon, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15 And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.
Eyewitnesses of Christ’s Glory
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 18 We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.
19 So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
False Prophets and Their Punishment
2 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
4 For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; 6 and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard), 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment 10 —especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority.
Bold and willful, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones, 11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not bring against them a slanderous judgment from the Lord. 12 These people, however, are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed. They slander what they do not understand, and when those creatures are destroyed, they also will be destroyed, 13 suffering the penalty for doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their dissipation while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 They have left the straight road and have gone astray, following the road of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of doing wrong, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved. 18 For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them. 22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb,
“The dog turns back to its own vomit,”
and,
“The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud.”
The Promise of the Lord’s Coming (this section of the document is the writer's real concern and occasion for writing)
3 This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; in them I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you 2 that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles. 3 First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” 5 They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, 6 through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the godless.
8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.
11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? 13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
Final Exhortation and Doxology
14 Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
BTW item re: the word Xmas as above in Xmas tree. We try not to exude ignorance by piously objecting to the abbreviation Xmas. The X is a traditional symbol for Christ, which in the Greek is spelled Xpistos. As in
