Looking Ahead...

 December 6, 2020

It began back in October, picked up momentum in November, and is full steam ahead now that December is here. The Christmas season is upon us! Once, it was primarily a celebration of the birth of Jesus, but these days, for most people it has lost its religious significance and has become a celebration of indulgence. Even Christians spend more time and energy thinking of what to by for whom, how much to spend, and how they can afford it. The birth of Jesus is often just tagged onto all the other stuff we have going on. Last year, we were kept busy with school holiday programs, church children’s programs, and perhaps staffing the Salvation Army kettles. The gift of salvation to the world is often an afterthought. 

The Church called this time of year Advent. Instead of looking back to the birth of Jesus, the Lectionary Scriptures looked ahead to his Second Advent to judge the world in righteousness. Instead of frantically searching for just the right gift, it was a time of solemn soul-searching to make the heart ready for when he comes again.

The Creed handles this almost off-handedly. Beginning with a faith statement, “Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary...” the Creed omits details of his birth and the entirety of his childhood. Even his ministry is overlooked as the next phrase begins...

"Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried." The Virgin Birth is a statement of faith. Jesus’ passion, suffering, death, and burial however, are historical statements. History is a funny discipline. Unlike scientific proof which requires that an experiment be reproducible, history is always unique. Whatever happens, happens only once; it is not repeatable. It is however, always open to interpretation, which can be good when it opens our eyes to dimensions of experience we would otherwise miss, such as we learn when we see our national history from the perspective of a Native American. Various interpretations of events can however, distort reality and do us a great disservice, as when Islamic clerics (among others) declare that the Holocaust never happened. Josef Goebbels understood this aspect of history well when he declared that if you tell a lie big enough and often enough, people will believe it. 

There are those who would dispute this part of the Creed, declaring that there is no solid evidence outside the Bible that the man Jesus Christ ever lived. It's not as if evidence is absent; Josephus wrote about him, and there is reference to Jesus in the writings of Tacitus and Suetonius. It's admittedly scant, but no more so than evidence for the existence of Plato, whose writings are preserved in a single early copy dating centuries after his death. Yet no one denies that he lived. It is understandable, after all, no one ever accused Plato of being divine. 

Nevertheless, the historical foundation of our faith is there, and it is important. We don't believe in a philosophical system that is self-sustaining. Our faith is not a self-help  program. We believe God intervened in human history in the person of Jesus Christ, and that this history is important because we have both a past, and a future. If Christianity is divorced from historical fact, our future is in jeopardy. 

Here however, history and faith intersect. Crucifixion, death, and burial were common enough back then, but don't become tenets of faith. Only here do we say, “I believe,” only because this crucifixion, death, and burial have unique meaning. When I see peoples' lives unraveling instead of unfolding, I am grateful that the historically physical death of this man has made a difference in history, and because I believe, in my history, too. This Advent, I look back to where it all began, but I also look forward to the culmination of salvation promised when Jesus Christ comes again.