Merry Condescension

It's the most wonderful time of the year. I come down early every morning, light a fire, turn on the tree lights, and have my quiet time before all the children stir. I listen to John Piper's daily advent reading, listen to a song or two from Sovereign Grace's Christmas album (which is this year's best), and pray.

I also ponder our nativity set, the one we've had since early marriage. It's old and scratched and cute and looks a little like a child's first nativity. This year, I noticed there is one piece missing. You'd hope it would be something like one of the kings or a camel. But no. It's the baby. My nativity has an empty manger. Poor baby Jesus probably went out in all the wrapping paper last year.

I had my own grumpy George Bailey moment. Why do we have to have all these nativity characters anyway?  Why do we not set up only a manger with Jesus in it? I confess that my first reaction was to find a baby Jesus and pitch the rest of the figures so as not to detract from the scene. But then...

...that whole cast of characters lends perspective to the sheer magnitude of the event. That whole cast of characters demonstrates what I've been seeing this year as our pastors preach through the book of Luke: the condescension of God.

Condescension has negative overtones, as in "Don't be so condescending," which usually means that we are looking down from our lofty place on all the little people. But when God condescended, He wasn't looking down; He was coming down among us--to be one of us, to feel the weight of our weakness and redeem us from our own evil. When humans condescend, it is arrogance, but when God condescends, it is a gracious and glorious humility.

My scripture reading is currently taking me through the minor prophets and through Revelation. Reading these with my defective nativity in the background has brought the Incarnation into sharper focus. The message of the prophets is consistent. Israel was unfaithful and rebellious. And God came in the flesh anyway. Israel looked just like the neighboring reprobate nations. And God came in the flesh anyway. Israel wasn't even interested in being saved. And God came in the flesh anyway. That's condescension.

Back to my nativity, the shepherds lend context to God's condescension.
The kings lend context to God's condescension.
Even the stable animals lend context, since all of creation groans.

And Mary and Joseph lends context--if we can get it right.

But unfortunately, a weird mythology has grown up around Mary. Mary was just an ordinary sinner in need of a savior. Following the birth of Jesus, she and Joseph raised five other children, the fruit of their marital intimacy. Then she died. If we change Mary's story from the Biblical narrative, we miss God's condescension to her. And that has far reaching implication.

To miss God's condescension in Mary's story is to make Mary bigger than she is and God smaller than He is.  To make Mary bigger and God smaller is to call into question the reliability of the scriptures. To call into question the reliability of scripture is to call into question the reliability of the gospel.

Therefore, we need to be clear about God's condescension to Jesus' family. God condescended to Joseph in tasking this ordinary man to raise His Son. God condescended to Mary in tasking this ordinary woman to bear His Son.

Anyway, I was thinking about Mary this morning as I looking at my defective nativity scene and reading Revelation:  And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth." Revelation 5:9-10

And it just hit me. Mary birthed and Joseph raised Jesus to be both the final High Priest and the final Lamb of God so that we could be a kingdom and priests to our God. Wow! That's condescension to all of us!  Just as God condescended to Mary and Joseph, He condescends to all on whom His favor rests to raise us up to make us a Holy Family of saints and priests.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for He has looked upon the humble estate of His servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.
And His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation. 
He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His offspring forever. Luke 1:46-55

Merry Condescension to all my fellow saints and priests!

Identity Crisis: I've Got News For You

A preliminary note: First, ***spoilers ahead***if you've never read The Wingfeather Saga or Harry Potter. Second, speaking of Harry Potter:
We are one of those families, the ones who do not let their children read Harry Potter until a certain age. But that is a recent development. Until I finished the series myself this past spring, we were one of the families who never let their children read Harry Potter. I have no regrets. And if you are one of those families, you have my deepest regard. If you are not one of those families, I respect your house rules, too. But may I ask you to wrestle with your children over what the scriptures say about witchcraft? The Bible takes it seriously, and we should, too.
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I've got news for you.
This is not a game.
I've got news for you.
Are you listenin'?
I've got news for you.
We are all to blame.
And when that's understood, we can start to live again.*

We've got an identity crisis on our hands. And I'm not talking about the 'gender/sexuality' shenanigans, either. I'm talking about something much more subtle, much more pervasive, and, therefore, much more dangerous.

I'm almost fifty years old, and I am still impacted by a discussion I had in eighth grade. The headmaster and we students were sitting around a conference table discussing the Iran hostages, who had just been released after 444 days in captivity. Mr. Smith asked us one question.
Are they heroes?
We were incredulous. Of course they were heroes.
What heroic thing did they do? he pressed.
Uhhh... Splutter, splutter. Well, they, uh....
So are they heroes? repeated Mr. Smith.

He had us. There was no way around this. No, the Iran hostages were not heroes. They were victims, but they were not heroes. It was a lesson in both linguistic precision and labels that I have never forgotten.

In the many years since, I have observed that sloppiness in regard to linguistic precision and labels is so common, it's practically part of what it means to be human.
Heroes.
Victims.
Monsters.
We're really good at filing the people we love, including ourselves, into either of the first two categories. And we're really good at piling the people who hurt us into the last one. Truly, our whole system would be laughable if eternity didn't hang in the balance.

Enter Harry Potter. I thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter series. It's a jolly good tale, full of great characters and plot twists. Granted, I wasn't all in until Book 5, which still remains my favorite of the set. And I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying that Harry Potter is the hero. But as a commentary on the human condition, I found it lacking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's the Christ Figure. He's the ideal Victim, a lucky escapee from an attempted murder, an orphan despised and rejected by his adoptive family, who also happens to be the chosen one to do the right thing at the right time.
Victim, victim, victim.
Turned hero, hero, hero.
He also doesn't have a particularly strong moral compass. Like I told my older kids after they read it (after I read it), there's lots of World in Harry Potter. There's lots of Devil, too. But there is no Flesh. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Oh, there was lots of evidence of Flesh. He's smart-alecky with authority; he lies; he's passive-aggressive. But there was no internal battle with the Flesh, no sanctification. Rowling gives him a pass, I guess because, poor thing, he's had such a tough go of it. I didn't particularly like the boy Harry Potter because I couldn't particularly relate to him.

Yet victims or heroes are how we tend to plot ourselves in our own stories, aren't they? We see ourselves as victims in the way we give a pass to sin, in us and in others. "Sure, what I (or s/he) did was bad," we practically shrug. "But I (or s/he) was lost and hurting and felt like life offered me (or him/her) no other choice." And we find a certain self-righteous smugness in our compassion (which is no compassion at all). We see ourselves as heroes when we get ourselves past our wounds or establish solidarity: hashtagmetoo. Sadly we even see it in really bad Christian songs:
No matter the bumps, no matter the bruises, no matter the scars, still the truth is the Cross has made you flawless. 
Where do the scriptures teach us that our flaws come from outside of us? What gospel is that?

Now step with me into Aerwiar, (because...'ere we are...) a place where the World and the Devil are as threatening as they are at Hogwarts.  But, unlike Hogwarts, in Aerwiar, our Flesh is our own worst enemy. Follow the heartbreaking/heartwarming story of the Wingfeather family (Artham might be my favorite literary character OF ALL TIME). Take an honest look at just how much harm your Flesh can do. (Hint: so much more than the World or the Devil can do)

Unlike Harry Potter, The Wingfeather Saga is profoundly gospel because it tells the truth about our condition, about consequences, about the Maker. There are no victims in Aerwiar. There are no heroes. There are monsters. And that is as it should be. That is the gospel.

I've got news for you. You may at some point have been someone's victim. You may at some point have been someone's hero. But your victimization is not your problem. And your heroism is not your salvation. As a friend once said, 'When we pray that the Lord will deliver us from evil, we should be thinking about the evil we do to others much more than the evil others do to us.'

So let's apply our own linguistic precision with labels.
Our identity is not Victim.
Our identity is not Hero.
Our identity is Monster.

When that's understood, our identity crisis is over.
And when that's understood, we can start to live again.
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*I've Got News For You, Randy Stonehill, 1976

Please, I beg of you not to see the new Wingfeather movie. I adore the Saga, and I refuse to watch. Do you remember that awful animated version of The Lord of the Rings all those years ago? Did that do anything for the story? No. You simply must read The Wingfeather Saga, all four books, to understand the riches of this tale. It is profoundly gospel. But if Peter Jackson ever agreed to make the movie...