Author: lakewooducc

You have probably seen the saying, “Put Christ back in Christmas.” This, apparently, is an effort to eradicate the use of the term “Xmas.” I am not sure why we would want to eliminate the use of the term Xmas.

The X in Xmas is the English equivalent of the first letter of the word “Christ” in the Greek language. The Greek word is Χριστός. The X is simply an abbreviation. I have many notes that I have taken from lectures and books in which I have written the letter X to stand for Christ.

Often on a cross or altar we see the letters INRI. This is an abbreviation for the Latin “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum” which means “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews”. We have no problem with using those letters as an abbreviation.

We also use the letters IHS on altars and crosses. These letters refer to the Greek word “Jesus.” IHS is a monogram the first three Greek letters of the word Jesus transliterated into English.

We have no problem using Greek translations for IHS and INRI, so why the problem with X in reference to the Greek word for Christ? I don’t know. I will continue to use X in notes and personal writings and have no problem with using the shortened term Xmas for Christmas. To me, whatever the alphabet, whatever the language, Christ is. We cannot take Christ out of Christmas or anything else. We may shorten the letters, but the love is still the same.

No one has ever seen God;
it is the Only Begotten,
ever at Abbas’ side,
who has revealed God to us.
John 1:18

Prayer: We pray for the openness to see Christ in ourselves and in others. May we see that light and love shining brightly this season of joy and celebration. Amen.

On the 16th of June in 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to go into space. She orbited the earth 48 times and was in space for almost three days. On that voyage, she spent more time in space than all the American astronauts combined up to that date. Just this week, two women were the top candidates in the election for the president of Columbia. With regard to the church, I spoke with a man in the Catholic hierarchy this week who expressed disappointment and regret that Pope Francis has made it known that the ordination of women is not on the table during his papacy. To me, the disappointment of my colleague was a welcome surprise.

In these Advent weeks, we have been thinking about the women in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. Learning about these woman shows the extremely confining social circumstances that they faced. While there may have been reasons for the restrictions within the structure of the society as a whole, it still seems that these narrow roles for women were more than based on need, but also simply outright inequality and oppression.

The agency, courage, and resilience of the women in the genealogy of Jesus inspire our discipleship. We are challenged by these women to live our faith with conviction and creativity. And that includes continuing to work for the equality of women in the church and in society in the US and around the world. That job is not yet done.

In Christ there is no Jew or Greek. slave or citizen, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

Prayer: We are thankful for the wondrous potential that is imbued in the human spirit. We pray for the courage to cultivate that potential in ourselves and in the wider world. Jesus shows us all that life can be when we are free to love and serve. In this season of Advent may we honor the freedom and equality of all people as Jesus did. Amen.

A year ago today, we were stunned by the news of a school shooting in the sleepy town of Newtown, CT. Grief poured from news outlets and social media. President Obama choked up when he spoke.

But then there have been more than 16 mass shootings in the US in the past year and another attack at a school yesterday near Columbine nonetheless. And then there are the multitudes of children killed by gun violence day in and day out not to mention the adults murdered each and every day.

This morning, I heard an interview with a Newtown parent. She spoke of planning a vigil in the aftermath of the tragedy. They struggled over whether to light 26 candles for the children and staff that were murdered or 28 candles including the killer and his mother. They decided to light 28. After all, there were 28 deaths.

I think 28 candles was the right choice. Yes the children and staff were beloved by God, but so were Adam Lanza and his mother. There had to be grief in the heart of God for a precious creature gone so wrong as well as the death of the woman who gave him birth.

Actually, I think that God has still not stopped crying over the continuous murders of precious children by other precious children. Why don’t we get the sacredness, the divinity, at the heart of all of life? If we did, we would end not only gun violence and murder but global climate change, arguably the greatest threat to human life.

And, what must be the worst part of this for God, is that our country, perpetrator of such horrific violence, has so many Christians and people of faith. That’s the crowning irony. We’re supposedly not a “godless” country. And yet we are not allowing ourselves to be transformed by the horror of 20 children murdered at school. “When will they ever learn,” the song “Where have all the flowers gone” asks.

There is a quote attributed to Edmund Burke, statesman of the 1700‘s: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Since the evil of gun violence to continues its rampage in our country, it appears that good people are not doing their part. Violence is not the consequence of having a free society; it is the consequence of having a sick society. We have accepted the pandemic of violence; integrated it into our lives. We have accepted it as being as natural as the air we breathe. For people of God, this acquiescence to violence is delusion, denial, and flat out sin as grave as the apostasies of the Hebrew scriptures rife with the worship of foreign gods. We, too, are worshipping gods foreign to the God of Jesus Christ. We make gods of the Constitution, personal rights, profit, and individualism, at the expense of a peace-loving society.

How many candles will it take to illumine the truth?

They dress my people’s wound carelessly,
saying, “Peace, Peace,” knowing that there is no peace.
Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct?
No, they feel no shame; they don’t even know how to blush.
Jeremiah 8:11-12a

Prayer: Help us to see our complicity with the violence in our society and in our world. This Christmas season, may we receive the Prince of Peace and allow him full sway over our lives, our hearts, our values, and our behavior. May we be converted by the birth of Jesus so that we might be agents of transformation of the world around us. Amen.