A Christmas Oratio | SL 1.3 (Dec 2019)
In this newsletter
- On Short Days and Thanksgiving
- Consider Sir Gawain
- Our favorite overlooked Christmas movie
- What does Proverbs 8 have to do with Christmas?
- Pray with us
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On Short Days and Thanksgiving
A few weeks back, Meghan drew out the words "Give thanks to the LORD for he is good" on a half sheet of paper with some of Rue's crayons and stuck it on the mirror that is in our dinning room. This little sheet proclaims a daily reminder over us that the LORD is indeed good and we have much to be thankful for.
Winter sunrise over the River Wear
We have felt a bit harried and hemmed in recently. The days are short. According to the weather app on my phone, the sun peeked over the horizon at 8:15 this morning and will sink at 3:40, and yet two weeks remain till the solstice. We'll loose 30 more minutes. Meghan and Willa fought off a persistent case of thrush which stuck around like an unwelcome guest for over a month. This guest also gave us our first real culture shock—we don't quite understand how to navigate the National Health Service. As a government service rather than a business they seem to operate with a scarcity mentality—if nothing is seriously wrong you ought to just carry on. Meghan went to the doctor at least three times but they didn't take it very seriously. They prescribed just a quarter dose of the medicine a trusted RN in the states suggested Meghan take and they seemed incredulous when we pointed out that our guest had not cleared out. As Americans we struggle to understand why we cannot just buy the drugs we want if we are willing to pay for them—especially in a developed country. It didn't end up being all that serious, but it just wouldn't go away. Perhaps this kind only comes out through prayer.
On a winter walk this morning—the light is beautiful.
At the same time we give thanks for the NHS. A five-minute walk gets us to our local GP with the pharmacy just across the street. Incredible midwives still make house calls, which is not only charming but convenient and reassuring. Willa's birth in the hospital cost us nothing as does all the care for the girls. Despite the thrush, Willa eats and grows steadily and is a picture of health. We remain deeply thankful for the pace of life and the opportunity to focus on my studies for the moment, which seems about all we can manage under the circumstances. We celebrated expat Thanksgiving with four other PhD families last week. Their guidance and understanding these first few months gives us yet another reason to be grateful.
Rue turned two on Thursday! We celebrated at our local craft-beer bottle shop with Dan and Megan York, their son Ephraim (Rue's new best friend), and our adopted uni girls, Anna, Maisie, and Ashley.
Finally, we are deeply thankful for you all. After some months of flux, I crunched all the numbers a few weeks back and you have provided everything we need to move forward with our teaching for Training Leaders International and with the PhD. Because of your incredible generosity our ministry is fully funded and we are well provided for. We remain deeply committed to global theological education and you are the engine driving that vision. I would not be able to take this time to focus on my training if so many of you didn't believe that it will bring value for the global church. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
Work & Ministry Happenings
- Been doing a lot of teaching at Durham: undergrad seminars on the Shema (Deut 6:4–5), Judges 19, and Jonah as well as teaching on Proverbs for a seminary class at Cranmer Hall.
- Still plugging away at my PhD thesis. I've set a goal and a plan to finish my word-by-word commentary on Proverbs 30 by Christmas/New Year's. This has been dragging on! So far I'm on track. Please pray for that.
- We've "adopted" three uni (i.e., college) girls through a program at our church—they are super sweet and we've enjoyed getting to know them so far. Hopefully we can be a blessing and benefit to them as they navigate this challenging season of life.
- Got a couple other projects in the hopper that I look forward to sharing with you all soon...
Consider Sir Gawain
In honor of the Christmas season, I'd like to recommend a read and a watch.
Last year a few friends and I got together on a lark to read through Sir Gawain and the Green Knight out loud in one sitting. Fortified with drinks and snacks, we huddled in my basement and read the epic Middle English romance over four or five hours (in a modernized translation, of course, with plenty of stops for banter and analysis). Now, I had read it before, but it really came to life in this context and I was deeply impressed by the themes of chivalry, honor and shame, chastity, Christian virtue, repentance and forgiveness, and the beauty and terror of the untamed wild. I cannot recommend it enough.
The only surviving Medieval manuscript of Sir Gawain, images from The British Library, who hold the manuscript.
If you've never really heard of it before, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a narrative poem from the high Middle Ages (1400s). Here's some scene-setting lines for flavor:
Lines 37–40
It was Christmas at Camelot—King Arthur's court,
where the great and the good of the land had gathered,
all the righteous lords of the ranks of the Round Table
quite properly carousing and reveling in pleasure.
While all the knights are enjoying their Christmas feast, in rides a superhuman knight, all in green from horse to hair, from shirt to skin. In the midst of the festivities he drops a challenge which threatens the honor of the round table. Holding up a great green axe he swears to stand stock still and allow some brave knight one swing, if one year later that knight will come to his castle, the Green Chapel, and receive one swing in return. If it sounds like a trap, it is. But Sir Gawain volunteers to risk his neck and protect the honor of his lord's table. The plot is off from there.
Illustration of the Green Knight's challenge from the original manuscript
The poem is one of the treasures of English language and literature. Written in alliterative lines with a clever "bob and wheel" rhyming quatrain at the end, the language itself reads at a romp, especially out loud. I recommend Simon Armitage's lively and vivid modern translation—I think he captures the aura and he honors the poetic style of the original. J. R. R. Tolkien also did a wonderful translation—it was one of his favorite poems—but his is a bit more lofty.
Illustration of Sir Gawain's great trial of chastity and loyalty from the original manuscript
Gawain endures many trials, from harrowing journeys across the wilds of England to tests of loyalty and chastity that nearly destroy him. In the end he triumphs, yet perhaps he has cheated? He is celebrated as a hero, but he feels within his own heart that he has failed. Ultimately, the narrative ends up being about the honor of bearing shame, and about the power of confession and forgiveness. It is a rich and complex morality tale that takes its Medieval Christian faith extremely seriously.
I hope to make it an annual read.
Go deeper with Gawain:
- Digital literature guru and novelist, Robin Sloan will be reading all of Sir Gawain in a livestream on his website on New Year's day! WHAT AN AMAZING THING TO DO IN 2020. Tune in here at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. GMT.
- Read poet-translator Simon Armitage's introduction to the poem here.
- Read about the Middle English language here.
- Can you tell I really enjoy this stuff?
Our Favorite Overlooked Christmas Movie
Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien in Meet me in St. Louis
Meghan has said from the moment I met her that Meet Me in St. Louis is one of her favorite films and it only took her a few years to win me over. Funny thing is, when I mention the movie to people they have rarely heard of it. It might just be the best classic Christmas movie you've never watched?
Released in 1944 the story unfolds in 1903 St. Louis during the run-up to the famous 1904 World's Fair. The plot follows the Smith family, especially the two eldest daughters, Rose and Esther, as they are coming of age and attempting to navigate romances and the future. When their father announces that his firm is sending him to New York for business it means this will be the last Christmas in their beloved St. Louis. The girls' hopes and dreams are thrown into a tailspin. The film is directed by Vincente Minnelli, one of the masters of Hollywood's golden age. (He went on to marry Judy Garland after this shoot, but that did not ultimately go well.) It is a treasure of Americana everything, charming, funny, and sincere to boot.
Most iconically, Meet me in St. Louis is the origin of the song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I'll admit, the song always seemed a little hollow and sentimental to me, but when you hear Judy Garland sing it, within the story of the film, its a real heart-melter and everything falls into place.
So, have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Wisdom Incarnate: A Christmas Oratio
From the most straight-forward way of thinking about things, Proverbs doesn't have much to do with Christmas. But at the same time certain central doctrines in Christianity—loci communes, or "common places" to use Philipp Melanchthon's term—serve as cross-roads for all the teachings of Scripture. The doctrine of Christ's incarnation—the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ, which we celebrate with the great festival of Christmas—is one of these common places.
We shouldn't be surprised, then, that although Proverbs 8 is all about Wisdom, for two millennia the Church has been reading "Wisdom" and hearing "Jesus." After all, in 1 Cor 1:22–24 the Apostle Paul writes, "22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.**" To the Church Fathers this verse doesn't just license but even demands that everything in Scripture that refers to wisdom must be read as if it were talking about Jesus Christ. Enter one of the most significant theological debates in all of Church history, which centered on this text:
Prov 8:22–29 (NIV)
22 “The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works,
before his deeds of old;
23 I was formed long ages ago,
at the very beginning, when the world came to be.
24 When there were no watery depths, I was given birth,
when there were no springs overflowing with water;
25 before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
26 before he made the world or its fields
or any of the dust of the earth.
27 I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
28 when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
29 when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
30 Then I was constantly at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
31 rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.
"The Council of Niceae, which debated Proverbs 8 among other things, depicted in a Byzantine fresco in the Basilica of St. Nicholas in modern Demre, Turkey" (Image and caption from britanica.com)
Woman Wisdom is speaking in these verses (see Prov 8:3–4). But who is Woman Wisdom? That's the question. On the level of the poetry, Woman Wisdom is a literary device, the personification of one of God's attributes so that we can hear her voice and learn her story. Wisdom is an attribute of God in which human beings can share—she is wisdom incarnate. The poet evokes a primal birth metaphor here. The verbs draw it out: brought forth (v. 22), formed (v. 23), given birth (vv. 24–25). The poet describes Wisdom's "birth" to make one fundamental point—Wisdom precedes creation. Absolutely everything that is made was made under her watchful eye. She was there "day by day" watching creation unfold (Prov 8:30; Gen 1:5). Within the context of Proverbs this means that we must trust Wisdom intimately because she understands how the world works, indeed, she understands how we work within the world better than we do (Prov 8:12–21).
Now, this very birth metaphor, beautiful as it is, creates a theological challenge. The New Testament tells us that Jesus is Wisdom, and yet here we see Wisdom "created," "acquired," or "brought forth." The precise nuance of the verb is beside the point, as Arius (perhaps the most notorious heretic in Church history) argued, if the Son was "brought forth" then there was time when he was not and this means he must be fundamentally different from God. A "created" Christ is a creature of a lower order than eternal God because he was "brought forth" before creation.
The Church Father, Gregory of Nyssa, solves this problem by making some brilliant theological connections. First, he grants a point to Arius and his followers—alright, Gregory concedes, Jesus/Wisdom was created, but what does that mean and when did that take place? Gregory then pushes on the poetic language of Proverbs 8 to show that if Arius takes everything in the passage at face-value in a wooden and literalistic way then it becomes absurd and falls apart completely. In other words, Arius is choosing to treat v. 22 woodenly but not applying the same logic across the whole passage. Finally, Gregory shows that Arius's reading would contradict other crucial texts. For example, John 1:3 says, "Through him [the Word/Christ] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." Colossians 1:16 forcefully makes the same point. Does "all things" include Wisdom/Christ? How can Christ create himself?
Ancient photo of Gregory of Nyssa
In place of this faulty and heretical reading, Gregory suggests that the creation in Proverbs 8:22 refers to Christ's incarnation, his birth of a woman for the sake of our salvation. Gregory argues that because Jesus is fully God and fully man, statements about Jesus can refer either to his divinity or to his humanity. Moreover, Gregory reasons, it is absurd to think of God—the only wise God, perfect in all his attributes—acquiring the virtue of wisdom as if there was a time when God was unwise. The very wisdom of the world is nothing if not the wisdom that comes from God and that he put in it. Reading the Greek text of Proverbs, Gregory draws a line from Prov 8:22 to John 14:6 and argues that "the beginning of his works" should be understood to refer to Jesus as "the way, the truth, and the life" (the Greek text uses the same word in both verses). Which is all to say that the beginning in Proverbs 8 is best understood as the beginning of our salvation initiated in the incarnation. As Gregory develops it, the subsequent events of creation correspond to other aspects of our redemption. Thus Gregory sees the same theological moment in both Prov 8:22 and John 1:14: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
In short, Gregory works out the theology of this passage by connecting Prov 8:22 to Jesus Christ in his humanity. The whole process of creation becomes an analogy for our redemption and the birth of Wisdom becomes the birth of baby Jesus as a human being to redeem humanity.
So what on earth can all this heady theological reflection mean for you at Christmas time? Get up from this screen and consider whatever Christmas treats or decorations are probably already strewn around your home—a fir tree probably has been chopped down, propped up, and decorated in a conspicuous place in your living room. As you look at that fir, know that Wisdom incarnate, the LORD himself, rejoiced as each of its boughs and needles were traced out before the dawn of time. Now consider the faces of your loved ones as you all gather throughout the season to carry on the simple traditions that define this time of year. As you look in their faces, know that Wisdom incarnate, the LORD himself, rejoiced as they were formed ligament and limb in the womb and brought forth into this world. Now enter the church. Lift your voice in the hymns and carols, listen as the Scriptures are read, light a candle and take part in the annual rituals. As you lift up your eyes, know that Wisdom incarnate, the LORD himself, walked into this world that He Himself made through the womb of a woman to make us wise unto salvation (2 Tim 3:15).
Christmas is nothing if not a feast. There is no better way to enjoy the incarnation of Wisdom in Christ than to rejoice with Him in His creation. So, this Christmas, give thanks for the Wisdom of God made flesh that we, in our flesh, might be made wise. Feast and sing day by day. Rejoice in his presence, rejoice in his whole world, and delight in all mankind.
Wisdom will save the world.
LORD, may we know you in your Wisdom and through you may we know your creation as you delight in it. May our feasting this year never be empty or shallow or focused on created things, but rather rooted in Wisdom, rejoicing in what Wisdom rejoices in and celebrating what Wisdom celebrates. Focus our rejoicing on you in your Wisdom.
Pray With Us
- Pray that we would stay well this winter in a foreign land, mainly for Willa's sake.
- Pray that I could finish my word-by-word commentary on Proverbs 30 by Christmas/New Year's and be on to the next phase of the project.
- Pray for joy and energy in these short days with a new baby, toddler, etc..
- Pray that the LORD would show Meghan and I how we might do ministry now, where we are, rather than constantly feeling like it comes later or overseas.
- Give thanks with us for all the ways that the LORD is caring for us in this season. Praise God.
- Give thanks for our LORD, Wisdom incarnate, born under the law to redeem those under the law.
A Winter's afternoon on the Bailey, the street that my office is on in Durham's old town
NOTES
- I was helped immensely in understanding Gregory of Nyssa's argument by Susan Ticciati, "Proverbs 8:22 and the Arian Controversy," pages 179–90 in Reading Proverbs Intertextually, edited by Katherine Dell and Will Kynes (Edingburgh: T&T Clark, 2019).
- Sir Gawain quote and translation from Simon Armitage, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007).