How December 25 Became Christmas

BAS has presented a timely article for the Christmas season. As such, I intend to make several

observations throughout its structure as a help to its excellent content. - r.e. slater

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, "The Numeration (Census) of the People of Bethlehem" (1566)

A blanket of snow covers the little town of Bethlehem, in Pieter Bruegel’s oil painting from 1566. Although Jesus’ birth is celebrated every year on December 25, Luke and the other gospel writers offer no hint about the specific time of year he was born. Scala/Art Resource, NYOn December 25, Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Joyful carols, special liturgies, brightly wrapped gifts, festive foods—these all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? How did December 25 come to be associated with Jesus’ birthday?

How December 25 Became Christmas

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/

Andrew McGowan
August 12, 2014

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in

December 2012. It has been updated.—Ed.

The Bible First. Then Tradition.

The Bible offers few clues: Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospels or Acts; the date is not given, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season; in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled. Yet most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.

The extrabiblical evidence from the first and second century is equally spare: There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time.1 As far as we can tell, Christmas was not celebrated at all at this point.

This stands in sharp contrast to the very early traditions surrounding Jesus’ last days. Each of the Four Gospels provides detailed information about the time of Jesus’ death. According to John, Jesus is crucified just as the Passover lambs are being sacrificed. This would have occurred on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan, just before the Jewish holiday began at sundown (considered the beginning of the 15th day because in the Hebrew calendar, days begin at sundown). In Matthew, Mark and Luke, however, the Last Supper is held after sundown, on the beginning of the 15th. Jesus is crucified the next morning—still, the 15th.a

Easter, a much earlier development than Christmas, was simply the gradual Christian reinterpretation of Passover in terms of Jesus’ Passion. Its observance could even be implied in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 5:7–8: “Our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the festival…”); it was certainly a distinctively Christian feast by the mid-second century C.E., when the apocryphal text known as the Epistle to the Apostles has Jesus instruct his disciples to “make commemoration of [his] death, that is, the Passover.”

Jesus’ ministry, miracles, Passion and Resurrection were often of most interest to first- and early-second-century C.E. Christian writers. But over time, Jesus’ origins would become of increasing concern. We can begin to see this shift already in the New Testament. The earliest writings—Paul and Mark—make no mention of Jesus’ birth. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke provide well-known but quite different accounts of the event—although neither specifies a date. In the second century C.E., further details of Jesus’ birth and childhood are related in apocryphal writings such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Proto-Gospel of James.b These texts provide everything from the names of Jesus’ grandparents to the details of his education—but not the date of his birth.

Finally, in about 200 C.E., a Christian teacher in Egypt makes reference to the date Jesus was born. According to Clement of Alexandria, several different days had been proposed by various Christian groups. Surprising as it may seem, Clement doesn’t mention December 25 at all. Clement writes: “There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord’s birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus, and in the 25th day of [the Egyptian month] Pachon [May 20 in our calendar] … And treating of His Passion, with very great accuracy, some say that it took place in the 16th year of Tiberius, on the 25th of Phamenoth [March 21]; and others on the 25th of Pharmuthi [April 21] and others say that on the 19th of Pharmuthi [April 15] the Savior suffered. Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21].”2

*Of note, these very early claims are all spring dates - r.e. slater

Clearly there was great uncertainty, but also a considerable amount of interest, in dating Jesus’ birth in the late second century. By the fourth century, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized—and now also celebrated—as Jesus’ birthday: December 25 in the western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor). The modern Armenian church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6; for most Christians, however, December 25 would prevail, while January 6 eventually came to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The period between became the holiday season later known as the 12 days of Christmas.

* December 25 (Western | Roman tradition) through to January 6 (Eastern | Ottoman tradition) = "the 12 days of Christmas" - r.e. slater

The earliest mention of December 25 as Jesus’ birthday comes from a mid-fourth-century Roman almanac that lists the death dates of various Christian bishops and martyrs. The first date listed, December 25, is marked: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae: “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea.”3 In about 400 C.E., Augustine of Hippo mentions a local dissident Christian group, the Donatists, who apparently kept Christmas festivals on December 25, but refused to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, regarding it as an innovation. Since the Donatist group only emerged during the persecution under Diocletian in 312 C.E. and then remained stubbornly attached to the practices of that moment in time, they seem to represent an older North African Christian tradition.

In the East, January 6 was at first not associated with the magi alone, but with the Christmas story as a whole.

Why December 25 and January 6?

So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in mid-winter. But how had they settled on the dates December 25 and January 6?

There are two theories today: one extremely popular, the other less often heard outside scholarly circles (though far more ancient).4

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.

Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.

It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts. A marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi states that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday.5 In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars spurred on by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea.6 They claimed that because the early Christians didn’t know when Jesus was born, they simply assimilated the pagan solstice festival for their own purposes, claiming it as the time of the Messiah’s birth and celebrating it accordingly.

More recent studies have shown that many of the holiday’s modern trappings do reflect pagan customs borrowed much later, as Christianity expanded into northern and western Europe. The Christmas tree, for example, has been linked with late medieval druidic practices. This has only encouraged modern audiences to assume that the date, too, must be pagan.

There are problems with this popular theory, however, as many scholars recognize. Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character.

Granted, Christian belief and practice were not formed in isolation. Many early elements of Christian worship—including eucharistic meals, meals honoring martyrs and much early Christian funerary art—would have been quite comprehensible to pagan observers. Yet, in the first few centuries C.E., the persecuted Christian minority was greatly concerned with distancing itself from the larger, public pagan religious observances, such as sacrifices, games and holidays. This was still true as late as the violent persecutions of the Christians conducted by the Roman emperor Diocletian between 303 and 312 C.E.

*An observation if I may. The Christian message must always be accessible, recognizable, and relevant. Christian traditions have built upon this idea of communicating itself to the pagan world in as many ways as possible without diluting either its message or its holy character. To deem one date more sacred than another is splitting theological hairs. The main idea is communicating Christ and His salvation to a pagan world met with disbelief, superstitious practices, and humanism. - r.e. slater

This would change only after Constantine converted to Christianity. From the mid-fourth century on, we do find Christians deliberately adapting and Christianizing pagan festivals. A famous proponent of this practice was Pope Gregory the Great, who, in a letter written in 601 C.E. to a Christian missionary in Britain, recommended that local pagan temples not be destroyed but be converted into churches, and that pagan festivals be celebrated as feasts of Christian martyrs. At this late point, Christmas may well have acquired some pagan trappings. But we don’t have evidence of Christians adopting pagan festivals in the third century, at which point dates for Christmas were established. Thus, it seems unlikely that the date was simply selected to correspond with pagan solar festivals.

The December 25 feast seems to have existed before 312—before Constantine and his conversion, at least. As we have seen, the Donatist Christians in North Africa seem to have known it from before that time. Furthermore, in the mid- to late fourth century, church leaders in the eastern Empire concerned themselves not with introducing a celebration of Jesus’ birthday, but with the addition of the December date to their traditional celebration on January 6.7

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. This view was first suggested to the modern world by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and fully developed by American Thomas Talley in more recent years.8 But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth.

Master Bertram’s 14th-century Annunciation

Master Bertram’s 14th-century Annunciation

The baby Jesus flies down from heaven on the back of a cross, in this detail from Master Bertram’s 14th-century Annunciation scene. Jesus’ conception carried with it the promise of salvation through his death. It may be no coincidence, then, that the early church celebrated Jesus’ conception and death on the same calendar day: March 25, exactly nine months before December 25. Kunsthalle, Hamburg/Bridgeman Art Library, NY

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Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d

*Thus, Jesus' conception is linked to his death as the Passover Lamb of God (the Jewish 14th day of Nissan which is March 25). And then a forwards dating of his birth is therefore correlated to the date of December 25th exactly nine months later. - r.e. slater

This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states:

“Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the

month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of

his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”11

Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice [sic, the shortest day of the year - r.e. slater].

[The Church Father] Augustine, too, was familiar with this association. In On the Trinity (c. 399–419) he writes: “For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”12

The Olympiad Dial

The Ancient Greek Macedonian Calendar. Note the month of April = Nisan
to correlate with "aremisios", the moon of April.

In the East, too, the dates of Jesus’ conception and death were linked. But instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the easterners used the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar—April 6 to us. April 6 is, of course, exactly nine months before January 6—the eastern date for Christmas. In the East, too, we have evidence that April was associated with Jesus’ conception and crucifixion. Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis writes that on April 6, “The lamb was shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin, he who took away and takes away in perpetual sacrifice the sins of the world.”13Even today, the Armenian Church celebrates the Annunciation in early April (on the 7th, not the 6th) and Christmas on January 6.e

Thus, we have Christians in two parts of the world calculating Jesus’ birth on the basis that his death and conception took place on the same day (March 25 or April 6) and coming up with two close but different results (December 25 and January 6).

---

Connecting Jesus’ conception and death in this way will certainly seem odd to modern readers, but it reflects ancient and medieval understandings of the whole of salvation being bound up together. One of the most poignant expressions of this belief is found in Christian art. In numerous paintings of the angel’s Annunciation to Mary—the moment of Jesus’ conception—the baby Jesus is shown gliding down from heaven on or with a small cross (see photo above of detail from Master Bertram’s Annunciation scene); a visual reminder that the conception brings the promise of salvation through Jesus’ death.

The notion that creation and redemption should occur at the same time of year is also reflected in ancient Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud preserves a dispute between two early-second-century C.E. rabbis who share this view, but disagree on the date: Rabbi Eliezer states: “In Nisan the world was created; in Nisan the Patriarchs were born; on Passover Isaac was born … and in Nisan they [our ancestors] will be redeemed in time to come.” (The other rabbi, Joshua, dates these same events to the following month, Tishri.)14 Thus, the dates of Christmas and Epiphany may well have resulted from Christian theological reflection on such chronologies: Jesus would have been conceived on the same date he died, and born nine months later.15

In the end we are left with a question: How did December 25 become Christmas? We cannot be entirely sure. Elements of the festival that developed from the fourth century until modern times may well derive from pagan traditions. Yet the actual date might really derive more from Judaism—from Jesus’ death at Passover, and from the rabbinic notion that great things might be expected, again and again, at the same time of the year—than from paganism. Then again, in this notion of cycles and the return of God’s redemption, we may perhaps also be touching upon something that the pagan Romans who celebrated Sol Invictus, and many other peoples since, would have understood and claimed for their own, too.16

*In essence, God is reflected in His world both through Christian observation and pagan ceremony. His presence is both a mystery and reality that we struggle to more clearly see as we can through our cultures and historical beliefs - however pagan or however Christian. The paradox of God's "eternal consciousness" imbues this very world we inhabit and strive to recognize in our humanity. For those pagans who had no words of Christ, still He was there. And for the church, Christ is there more intimately by His prophets and apostles and very divine self. - r.e. slater

“How December 25 Became Christmas” by Andrew McGowan originally appeared in Bible Review, December 2002.

Notes

1. Origen, Homily on Leviticus 8.

2. Clement, Stromateis 1.21.145. In addition, Christians in Clement’s native Egypt seem to have known a commemoration of Jesus’ baptism—sometimes understood as the moment of his divine choice, and hence as an alternate “incarnation” story—on the same date (Stromateis 1.21.146). See further on this point Thomas J. Talley, Origins of the Liturgical Year, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 118–120, drawing on Roland H. Bainton, “Basilidian Chronology and New Testament Interpretation,”Journal of Biblical Literature 42 (1923), pp. 81–134; and now especially Gabriele Winkler, “The Appearance of the Light at the Baptism of Jesus and the Origins of the Feast of the Epiphany,” in Maxwell Johnson, ed., Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 291–347.

3. The Philocalian Calendar.

4. Scholars of liturgical history in the English-speaking world are particularly skeptical of the “solstice” connection; see Susan K. Roll, “The Origins of Christmas: The State of the Question,” in Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 273–290, especially pp. 289–290.

5. A gloss on a manuscript of Dionysius Bar Salibi, d. 1171; see Talley, Origins, pp. 101–102.

6. Prominent among these was Paul Ernst Jablonski; on the history of scholarship, see especially Roll, “The Origins of Christmas,” pp. 277–283.

7. For example, Gregory of Nazianzen, Oratio 38; John Chrysostom, In Diem Natalem.

8. Louis Duchesne, Origines du culte Chrétien, 5th ed. (Paris: Thorin et Fontemoing, 1925), pp. 275–279; and Talley, Origins.

9. Tertullian, Adversus Iudaeos 8.

10. There are other relevant texts for this element of argument, including Hippolytus and the (pseudo-Cyprianic) De pascha computus; see Talley, Origins, pp. 86, 90–91.

11. De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri iesu christi et iohannis baptistae.

12. Augustine, Sermon 202.

13. Epiphanius is quoted in Talley, Origins, p. 98.

14. b. Rosh Hashanah 10b–11a.

15. Talley, Origins, pp. 81–82.

16. On the two theories as false alternatives, see Roll, “Origins of Christmas.”

a. See Jonathan Klawans, “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?” BR 17:05.

b. See the following BR articles: David R. Cartlidge, “The Christian Apocrypha: Preserved in Art,” BR13:03; Ronald F. Hock, “The Favored One,” BR 17:03; and Charles W. Hedrick, “The 34 Gospels,” BR18:03.

c. For more on dating the year of Jesus’ birth, see Leonara Neville, “Fixing the Millennium,” AO 03:01.

d. The ancients were familiar with the 9-month gestation period based on the observance of women’s menstrual cycles, pregnancies and miscarriages.

e. In the West (and eventually everywhere), the Easter celebration was later shifted from the actual day to the following Sunday. The insistence of the eastern Christians in keeping Easter on the actual 14th day caused a major debate within the church, with the easterners sometimes referred to as the Quartodecimans, or “Fourteenthers.”

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Formerly Warden and President of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and now President and Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School, Andrew McGowan’s work on early Christianity includes God in Early Christian Thought (Brill, 2009) and Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford, 1999).

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Interested in learning about the birth of Jesus? Learn more about the history of Christmas and the date of Jesus’ birth in the free eBook The First Christmas: The Story of Jesus’ Birth in History and Tradition.

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Learn about the magi in art and literature in “Witnessing the Divine” by Robin M. Jensen, originally published in Bible Review and now available for free in Bible History Daily.

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In the five-part documentary An Archaeological Search for Jesus, Hershel Shanks travels from Galilee to Jerusalem in search of the first century world in which Jesus lived. Visit Nazareth, Sepphoris, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Qumran and other landmarks as Shanks interviews eminent archaeologists and New Testament scholars about the sites associated with Jesus and other gospel figures.

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Was Joseph Jesus’ biological father? If not, who was Jesus’ biological father? Andrew Lincoln examines what early Christians thought about conception and explains how views about this subject have changed over time.

Dispensing the Ghosts in Our Lives

Mazes of the Heart

Have you ever heard the phrase,

"The better something is the worst it is?"

Here is a phrase that promises something wonderful, full of delight, satisfying, but when it comes to whatever that something is it is quite unlike our hopes and expectations.

Why is that?

The doors of our perception always seems open to the search for an inner peace built of the crystal cathedrals to all kinds of things holding promises that would give to us an inner peace and sanctuary.

But these things are not what they at first appear to be. They become something else. Something that might further entrap or disappoint us. Snares that become even more difficult to be freed from. A web of entanglement leading to further strands of lies and deceits we tell ourselves.

These are the ghosts, specters, and ghouls of our lives. The promises of heaven we hope to find which hold anything but heaven within.

There is another saying,

"The more someone believes that something will bring wholeness or completeness

to one's life, the more we flee away from ourselves where only real wholeness

or completeness may occur."

Ultimately, the key to heaven is held within us. Not within something "out there" away from us that we must obtain. Work towards. Pay money for. Or earn by acts of contrition and penitance. But within. Not dissimilar to the movie, The Da Vinci Code, as the actors race from place to place looking for The Holy Grail not realizing the very thing itself was the thing present with them all the time.

The Da Vinci Code - Official Trailer 1 [2006] [720p HD]

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Here's another saying,

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."

Leading us to ask the question, "What is knowledge? What is truth?"

A simple definition would go like this,

"Knowledge is something that is known.
Truth is something that is true."

But is knowledge truth? Or can the knowledge we hold actually not be true of the truth we have thought was true knowledge?

Or, asked differently, is the truth that we believe is true actually a true truth? Or is it something else that really isn't true but gives to us an appearance to being true?

Psychologically, knowledge of truth usually brings to the surface of our lives what's already there within us. About ourselves that we already know or do not wish to know.

And yet, truth is that something that will act to change us either in healthy ways or unhealthy ways.

The Ghosts of Our Lives.

The symptoms to the problems of our lives which we hold deep within often betrays the "presence of an absence" to the real underlying problem within us that troubles us, moves us, or motivates us towards earthly expressions in character, presence, and action.

The symptom is the something that is there but not there. It is hidden from us. Or, absence from our sense of ourselves which perhaps others may more clearly see than we ourselves.

They are absent items that are present within us behaving as "felt ghosts" or "poltergeists" held deep within the machinery or our lives.

Usually my ghosts are not your ghosts. But both ghosts are the ghosts which hold repressed thoughts and feelings of personal spooks and specters which haunt us everyday of our lives. Which can disrupt us without transforming us. But, if they are allowed to be resurrected in our lives might bring the very transformation that we need.

Not the things we think we need. Nor bring to us the crystal cathedrals that are so shiny and pretty. No, these are the betrayers to the symptoms held deep within us. The personal knowledge of ourselves which we refuse to be resurrected to the truths of our being.

Hiding Ourselves in Plain Sight

We think of these things as reconfiguring structures that hide from us the true knowledge of the truth about us. They don't necessarily say what they mean to us but become expressed in a variety of personal ways that define us as us. And yet, buried deep within is the very thing that truly needs expression which we hold at bay allowing only glimpses of it without becoming fully displayed.

We don't say what we mean by saying what we cannot express. Words and actions become the metaphors of our lives. They are the political and psychological structures within us holding us hostage to its makeup. The stuff which frightens us when too boldly expressed. That we don't know what to do with when we see it. And then push it down again from our vision less it disrupts us.

Poetically, we wish to unhide that which is hidden. To bring to the surface what's not being said. To allow the evidence of ourselves to actually reveal what is actually there rather than not there.

But again, here is a place of real disillusionment. There are truths that can reform and allow for transformation. And there are truths that may bring us death when refusing its transformation.

In a sense, we wish to "name what refuses to be named" which brings us next to the idea of "crisis."

A Crisis of Being

A crisis is something that when brought up can rupture us with the result of bringing new life or a deeper death. It may be a crisis of relationship, as it often is. Relationships that are messy and requiring a crisis if they are to find a reformation between ourselves and others.

Here's another saying,

Some relationships need to be buried while others need resurrection.

Transformation cannot begin without some kind of action on our part.

These vulnerable places of transformation may be handled either directly, or indirectly. Sometimes one method of handling transformation is more successful than another method.

That is, we might work at transforming relationships by being "directly indirect" or "indirectly direct." We see this often in music, comedy, and art. They can push at an idea directly or indirectly to get us to acknowledge the something that's there but hidden. Something we do not wish to see.

Too, the idea of time comes up. How hard do we pursue a transformative-something into our lives without losing its objectives of personal insurrection? This is a God thing. At times the backwards look can be helpful. At other times the present and forward look. But pushed too far (or not far enough) holds us back from real transformation.

There is then presence of a Spirit-filled patience. To be content with ourselves and yet always discontent with the presence of non-transformation. To allow crisis within our being and yet to not expect that any one crisis may be enough for complete resurrection. To be patient with both ourselves and with God praying always for divine leading and wisdom.

The Value of Time and Living

Overall, its takes a lifetime of transformative experiences to bring us to the knowledge of the truth  of who we are and what we are seeking. Or perhaps never saw nor understood. Or saw but never wanted it present in our lives till now.

New knowledge can be radical. But it can also be defeating when radically present within us. Carried within ourselves without ever realizing that the key, or answer, to redemption was there all the time.

Not out there in this thing or that. But within. This is the kinds of stuff Jesus spoke to. That renewal began and ended within us through His Father. And that our journey was in all the in between stuff that would aid us in our journeys towards redemption, renewal, and transformation.

Allowing both the Good and the Bad

As such, do we let that foul mix of gruel residing within us remain within like a witch's brew? Hidden, as it were, to become infected and ulcerous?

Or, by the power of the Holy Spirit, let what was once repressed become confessed and healed and transformed?

To abandon the inner decorum of the lies and deceits that dresses up our lives without displaying itself. Remaining hidden on the edges of our lives without ever quite becoming visible to us while-all-the-while we think we are embracing truths about ourselves that are not true truths. But symptoms of truths still lying deeper. More hidden. Ugly, hurtful, death-like.

And yet, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit of God who can remove this stubbornly unyielding goo of our inner lives to death so that God's perilous life of light and healing become truly resurrected to the dead zones of our heart and soul and being.

No Guarantees

Certainly there is no guarantee of results by following the proverbial truths of life,

"Live well. Be wise. Create healing and wholeness

with tact, truth, and forgiveness."

In fact, these truths may actually hide ourselves from ourselves through acts of good works.

Not that they shouldn't be done. But what are the motivators to these good works? What are they hiding to us that we need to see more clearly? How often have you heard of ministers of God failing big time when finally their inner selves become exposed to themselves and their congregations?

Too often.

And why?

Because these good people with good intentions were hiding from themselves the very truths that needed clarity.

The heart can be a deceitful thing and oftentimes it is we ourselves who are the people that need transformation and resurrection. Not the other guy.

Making Choices

So then, by living a "good life" of expectations and good works we might expect three results:

Life still goes bad.

Life becomes better.

Or, we might begin a journey of discussion with ourselves and with others that may be self-revealing. Healing. Transformative.

It is this later that gives us hope.

To no longer repress the poltergeists within but to express the Holy Ghost within.

To become a new man or woman who is redeemed and remade by the Spirit of God within by living life by God's merciful healing and transformative experiences.

However hard. However painful.

But to allow His Spirit to sweep us as clean as He can given the restrictions of our unwilling heart and soul.

Living a truer life based upon a surer knowledge promising a truer something that is better. A something within us we know as the love of God given to us by Christ our Savior who binds up His broken people at all times, stages, and circumstances of their life both within and without.

Here's one last quote,

Learn to love. Both yourself and others.

And love the Lord your God, the Lover of your soul.

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all

your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind';

and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" - Luke 10.27 (NIV)

R.E. Slater

October 31, 2014

based upon a sermon by Peter Rollins

at Mars Hill in Grandville, Michigan on October 19, 2014

Below is the link to Peter's discussion: "The Truth Will Set You Free"

http://marshill.org/teaching/2014/10/19/the-truth-will-set-you-free/





The Da Vinci Code - Chevaliers de Sangreal
[Audio Soundtrack]

What Is and Isn't the "Lake of Fire" in Revelation?

The Lake of Fire. Or is it?

Is the Lake of Fire Torture? Josh Butler

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/10/10/is-the-lake-of-fire-torture-josh-butler/

by Scot McKnight

Oct 10, 2014

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IS THE LAKE OF FIRE TORTURE? by Josh Butler, author of the just-out and excellent book, The Skeletons in God’s Closet.

Joshua Ryan Butler is author of the new book, The Skeletons in God’s Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, the Hope of Holy War(Thomas Nelson), and a pastor at Imago Dei Community (Portland, OR).

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Book Description

Is God a sadistic torturer? Coldhearted judge? Genocidal maniac? Unfortunately, our popular caricatures often make him out to be.

There are some questions no Christian wants to be asked. Many today believe hell, judgment and holy war are "skeletons in God's closet," tough topics that, if looked at closely, would reveal a cruel, vindictive tyrant rather than a good and loving God. And we aren't comfortable with the answers we've been given.

• "How can a loving God send people to Hell?"
• "Isn't it arrogant to believe Jesus is the only way to God?"
• "Why is there so much violence in the Old Testament?"

In this book, we'll pull these bones out into the open to exchange popular caricatures for the beauty and power of the real thing. We'll discover these topics were never really skeletons at all . . . but proclamations of a God who is good "in his very bones," not just in what he does, but in who he is. We'll fling the wide the closet door and sing loudly, boldly and clearly:

God is good and coming to redeem his world.

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Many a street preacher has used the “lake of fire,” an image in Revelation, to depict God as a sadistic torturer who likes to roast unrepentant rebels like kalua pigs over an eternal spit once the stopwatch runs out.

But is torture really the point of this image? I would like to suggest, in contrast, that the lake of fire is an apocalyptic symbol for the smoldering rubble of Babylon. It depicts God’s judgment on empire, not the torture of individuals.

Let’s take a quick look at why this is a better interpretation.

Burning Down Babylon

The lake of fire shows up in Revelation, a book filled with apocalyptic symbols. There is a danger in interpreting these symbols too literally. To say Jesus is a lamb does not mean Jesus is on all fours, chewing grass and saying, “Baa!” When a beast rises out of the ocean, we do not expect Godzilla to come walking out of the Atlantic to trample down our cities.

If we did interpret these images this way, John (the author of Revelation) would probably scratch his head and say, “How did you get that?” We’d be missing the point.

We have to ask what these symbols represent. Jesus’ identity as Lamb draws upon the Old Testament history of sacrifice to proclaim that his death atones for the sin of the world. Beasts are an Old Testament symbol for empire, depicting the Gentile powers that arise to rage against God’s world.

So what about the lake of fire?

A good first question to ask is: “What context does the symbol show up in?”

And there is definitely a context. Just before the lake of fire steps onstage for its first appearance in Revelation 19; something dramatic has just happened: God has just judged Babylon with fire.

God is burning down Babylon. This is the immediate context for the symbol. God is judging an empire, not torturing individuals. This is structural judgment, not personal judgment.

Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! . . .

for her sins are piled up to heaven

and God has remembered her crimes . . .

She will be consumed by fire,

for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.

- Revelation 18:2, 5, 9

God is waging holy war on the great city, not roasting people over a flame.

Babylon’s judgment has implications, of course, for individuals whose lives are invested in all that she represents. When the “kings and merchants” (political and economic leaders) see “the smoke of her burning,” they weep and wail, exclaiming,

“Was there ever a city like this great city?” (v.18)

But it is worth recognizing they are not in physical anguish because God is torturing them; they are in emotional anguish because their lives were invested in the empire. They are weeping and gnashing their teeth over the things they’ve lost in the fire.

God is not roasting them over a spit; they are crying because their toys have been taken away.

The Smoke Goes Up

The lake of fire’s backdrop in the Old Testament also confirms this interpretation. I explore a few significant passages that Revelation draws upon in my new book, but let’s look at one. When Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by fire from heaven, Abraham looks out upon the valley where the imperial powerhouses once were, and sees in their place, “dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.” (Genesis 19:28)

The great cities have been judged by fire, and all that is left is their smoldering remains.

Revelation alludes to this verse when Babylon is destroyed, saying, “the smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” (Revelation 19:3) God judges the empire by fire and all that is left, like Sodom and Gomorrah, is smoke rising up from the land.

In the Sodom and Gomorrah allusion, the “smoke from a furnace” is obviously not an underground torture chamber; it is simply a picture of the city destroyed—the smoldering rubble of empire.

When Revelation says the smoke “goes up forever and ever,” it is similarly speaking to the finality of Babylon’s destruction. Sodom and Gomorrah were eventually rebuilt after the smoke faded and rubble was cleared away. But Babylon will never be rebuilt, because God has won his victory over her forever.

The smoke going up forever tells us this: when Babylon goes down, she ain’t getting back up.

Empire vs. Individual

So why is this helpful? There is all the difference in the world between judging an empire and torturing an individual. Consider, for example, when the Allied powers bombed Nazi Germany to bring an end to World War II. Most people today think this was the right thing to do. And this is a picture of an empire being judged by fire from above.

But let’s say after the war ended, convicted Nazi soldiers were lifted high on stakes with piles of wood set aflame beneath their feet, and slowly roasted in agony over the torment of the flames. What’s more, let’s say they were lifted just high enough to stay alive indefinitely. Most of us would think this a cruel and inhumane thing to do—a picture of torture.

Bombing an empire and torturing an individual are two very different things. The former is done to end a war; the latter for revenge.

Judging an empire has obvious implications for its citizens. If you’re a Nazi soldier, it’s bad news when Germany gets bombed. It’s bad news when your side gets defeated in the war. It’s bad news when all you’re left with is the smoldering rubble of your once-glorious civilization.

You will probably weep and wail, feeling an internal sense of anguish and torment at all you sought to build that has now been lost. But this is very different from your victorious enemy throwing you into a concentration camp and torturing you.

Conclusion

The lake of fire is an apocalyptic symbol for the smoldering rubble of Babylon. It does not depict the torture of individuals, but rather God’s judgment on empire. When God has destroyed Babylon by fire, all that is left is a smoking pile of stones. A steaming pillar of debris. A sunken puddle of flame.

The great city that once destroyed the world has been reduced to ashes.

The symbol does not promote a caricature of God as a sadistic torturer, but rather reclaims hope for a world torn apart under the destructive power of empire.

Walking as Living Spectres and Ghosts in the Graveyards of Life

Earlier this morning I put up several collections of Halloween poems on my poetry site and as I did I could hear the many Christian responses of, "Oh! You can't do that! It's not Christian! You're worshipping the devil! It's the devil's holiday!"

But when you come right down to it, these collections of poems were about the hopes and fears, the superstitions, and churchly beliefs, of men, women, and children, in their day and age - if not the very poet himself, or herself, as they attempted to circumscribe the universe by pen and by will.

And given a thorough reading of poems of this nature one can learn a lot about what people think about life and death, God and man, devil and spirit, when stirred in a cast-iron vat of rhyme and poetic passage. Adding ingredients of heartache, dread, and crushing aloneness, to be ladled out in personal litanies of echoing despair, deep anger, boiling resentment, and hot unfairness.

For the astute observer, its important to pay attention to the raw emotions of people who have spoken, filmed, or sung about their inner demons. Of an uncaring, withdrawn society filled with evil witches and warlocks. To research and meditate upon a culture's perennial observations of life and death so that at some later time we might be better able to speak to the various subjects and themes that come from our worst fears and wandering beliefs.

Beliefs about what we expect of one another or God or, perhaps, don't expect of either. Or, fear to ask. Or, if asked, fear receiving the very response we knew would someday come for voicing our personal complaints and deep displeasures. Or, perhaps saying nothing at all to experiences of injustice, sharp unloving tongues, selfish attitudes, actions, and behavior. Becoming both victim and victimizer.

To pay attention to people's basic fears in the middle of the night as they lay awake in a cold sweat on a disheveled bed tossing and turning unable to sleep. And when slumbering dreaming those dark, ugly nightmares from deep within a pained subconscious. Otherwise, how can we expect to minister to people in the middle of the day when fear has been washed away by the common daylight of human companionship and goodwill?

So, in a sense, Halloween can be an everyday event of the year within our lives. It doesn't simply come-and-go on a dark hollow's eve between the hours of 5:00 to 8:00 pm as impish trick-n-treaters squeal, squawk, and dash about in dizzying delight from one house to the next. Or flee for their lives before fun-luvin' pranksters rising from carefully placed frontyard coffins that creak and groan. Or from scary ghoulish spectres greeting children in darkened doorways boding tasty treats and delights. Or from creepy hanging things dangling unseen off dark trees and wires by thread and bobbin.

No, in another sense (h)alloween is with us every day of the year. It is carried within our hearts overburdened by what we have said or haven't said. Did, or didn't do. Saw, but didn't respond to. Felt, but never voicing the hurts and pains carried deep within us locked up like the crypt of the undead.

Or, if we did, we didn't know how to express ourselves as recovering addicts to life's carousels of whimsical delights and never-ending mendacity's. Looking for the next rush that might invigorate a dulled life too dreary to contemplate its endless days and nights. Leading us further and further away from those deep-seated hurts from a dad, a mom, sibling, or friend, who deeply failed us when we needed them most.

Or, harmed us so that now we walk as the living dead. Zombies to life's beauty unseen, untouched, unfelt, and unheard. Wishing to feast on any so unwise or so foolish to come too close to us. Living with those buried hurts and bitter hatreds of the wrongs we suffered so meaninglessly, cruelly, or meanly at the hands of the very devil himself. Cruel hands pinched in our blood, sweat, and tears.

Nay, this is not a day that is so easily made fun of and then forgotten by some of us still living in ghostly shells knit of vaporous skin and hollow filaments. For some of us the night of the living dead lives each day of our nightmarish lives with no end in sight except more pain and lostness.

For those souls hell is already here with no angel or God in sight. Just the Devil and his cruel brigands of death. And yet, isn't this what the Psalmist felt when abandoned by God and by very mankind itself? Or the prophets who wandered alone prophesying doom and judgment upon a careless people gripped by pride and greed? Or even Jesus Himself bowed of hoary head and weary heart in the Garden of Gethsemane praying alone when He most needed another prayer partner by His side?

Yes, it would be naive to think that God's people have not gone through the deep pains of life. But for those who have, you'll find them on the street with an understanding smile, a helping hand, a serving heart. Behind the cash register, at the waitressing table, in the school room, or on the field coaching kids and adults.

You'll find some amongst those special pastors who fill a pulpit with warmth and wisdom while staying true to their humanity when knowing how deeply inhumane life once was for their own hard pasts. Or that kid's counselor at the youth center willing to help if they are allowed. Or the boss who'll make sure you succeed against every particle of your body that wishes to fail. Or that aunt or uncle who was there all the time but you saw them not.

Yes, looked at again, God and His angels are everywhere about us. But we've gotten so use to fleeing from the crypts and coffins of our lives that we've run right by them with sightless eyes filled with self-loathing and hatred.

Forgetting that the crosses of Easter are just as meaningful this time of the year as the ragged crosses staked into the ground on a Hallow Eve's black night. You just have to pull those raggedy stakes out-of-the-ground-of-your-life and turn them the-other-way-around, away from your heart and soul. And when doing so seeing the one Cross of this world that was placed for all the world to see on a hill named Golgotha. A Cross of freedom, healing, and empowerment.

To be drawn to another graveyard on Calvary's hill knowing that there is a Redeemer-God who received death's hells upon His very self so as to provide a resurrection through His Son Jesus to this life's sins and woes. That in the darkened graveyards of our existence can be raised not ghostly spectres, but what we might become in the power of the living Holy Spirit. And that the candies of this world are no longer the food and meat of a Spirit-filled warrior-believer seeking to live life as it was meant to be lived as a crucified, penitent, servant of the Holy God raised beyond the grave of death's hopelessness.

Nay, if one is going to feast at the table of slaughter-and-ruin let it be on the draculas and demons of our sinful heart slain before the Sonlight of this wicked world before the living God of all. It is He who rules the day and night and none other. Be they demon or ghost in this life it is yet our life to valiantly claim and not so easily lay down before the hellish feasts of another. To place a crucified stake in the ground of belief and say with all authority, "Here I stand with my God and my Savior. Though heaven and earth be moved this day I shall stand in the power of the Holy Spirit and be all that I can be till life expires." Amen

R.E. Slater

October 30, 2014

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If God Be For Us Who Can Be Against Us

Romans 8.31-39 (ESV)

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be[i] against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.[j]35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Parable of the Grain of Wheat

John 12.20-36 (ESV)

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

The Son of Man Must Be Lifted Up

27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? Butfor this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. 34 So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” 35 So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”