The Living Word.6

"I tell you now: I am the way, the truth, and the life; no on can recognize the Father, except by my introduction." 

--Jesus

Rumor has it that Santa has become a 

Calvinist! Realizing the gravity of 'inherent depravity' he's put us ALL on the 'naughty list!'

Oh my!

I am a fan of Tim Allen's "Santa" in The Santa Clause movies. There are several scenes when, upon returning to his "normal" self, he still has little children recognizing "Santa" and lining up to let him know they've been good!Most movies about the Jolly Old Elf have much to do with 'belief' and the point when a person abandons child-like faith in the goodness of a benevolent, gift-giving Being who tracks and encourages good behavior.

The Santa Clause    does a marvelous job of portraying the joy of restored faith!

Icon or Idol

Interestingly, I recall my own moment when, in the same year, about the age of eight, I learned the painful "truth" about both Santa and the Easter Bunny!

Then as a mature and serious parent I thought it my duty to speak the "truth" about Santa to my children, "protecting" them from a similar painful fate, hoping to avoid the possibility that they, when they got older, might feel violated by my lack of candor when they finally realize "Santa" is not real!

(To demonstrate how effective we were in conveying the "truth" about Santa, son Stevie, at the manly age of three, squashed the giddy excitement of a little girl in a doctor's office waiting room. As she excitedly chattered about the things Santa was going to bring her, he stoically reprimanded her declaring "Santa is not real!" Shocked, she ran crying into an angry mother's lap! Painful...)

Having grown up a practicing Protestant, I really have little understanding of "Icons" in religious symbolism. But I recently read an interesting insight by writer Rod Dreher, a former Methodist turned Catholic turned Eastern Orthodox, in his book "How Dante Can Save Your Life":

"An icon is an image for contemplating a reality that transcends the specific image; the image leads the mind, through the senses, to direct communion with the intelligibles...icons, damaged though they may be, [are vehicles] through which the light of God [shines]. They [are] not ends, but imperfect means to the perfect end: God... 

[we ought to] judge all things by the degree to which the light of God shines through them, and to which they serve as a sign pointing toward God...The pilgrim’s movement toward unity with God is measured by his increasing ability to see things as they really are. Believing is seeing."

Dreher makes the point that icons can become idols when, rather then seeing them as pointing us to higher Truth and toward God himself, we put our hope or trust in the icon itself.

Jesus constantly repudiated the religious leaders of his day for their failure to recognize the truth of God in the things he said and did! And rather than offer himself up as some kind of imperfect icon hoping to nudge them toward truth, he made it perfectly clear that unless they recognized His divine God-ness, the very God they purported to represent would be unrecognizable to them!

So have fun with Santa, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, et al insofar as they give us an iconic view of the nature and character of God, and teach us and our children how to recognize Jesus in His grace and goodness!

The Promise Of The Spirit.1

"It is the Spirit
 that has the power
 to give life."

                      -Jesus

Another Christmas season is upon us.  Do you suppose Jesus gets annoyed at all the people who won't celebrate the season properly?  Wait, what is the proper way to celebrate, it is His birthday after all?  
-Purge the urge to get caught up in the commercialism? (saw a young Amish-man at Walmart picking out a Nerf-gun, presumably for a child...are there no sanctuaries of simplicity left in this world?!). 
-Feel indignant at the insufferable secular infiltration into His important incursion? (Believe in Santa/Don't believe in Santa...)  
-Pout at the potency of pitiful popular sentiment? ("The Dog Who Saved Christmas"...seriously?)
-Antagonize atheists who attack our sacred symbols?  (Stop making me say "Happy Holidays!"...darn you!)

Or maybe its to quietly and thankfully remember that this season represents all that Jesus is about: attracting to himself all that makes life troublesome - our lack or want magnified by our inability to satisfy it!

My Christmas wish for you, follower of Jesus, is to be reminded of these wonderful truths, from friend George Mac:

• that the soul [filled with] harmony has more life, a larger being, than the soul consumed of cares;

• that the sage is a larger life than the clown;

• that the poet is more alive than the man whose life flows out that money may come in;

• that the man who loves his fellow is infinitely more alive than he whose chief effort is to exalt himself above him;

• that the man who strives to be better, is better, than he who longs for the praise of the many;

• And, best of all, that the man to whom God is all in all, who feels his life-roots hid with Christ in God, who knows himself the inheritor of all wealth and worlds and ages, yea, of power essential and in itself, that man has begun to be alive indeed.

Image Author Unknown

"Let us in all the troubles of life remember—that our one lack is life—that what we need is more life—more of the life-making presence in us making us more, and more largely, alive." 

--George MacDonald, Life, Unspoken Sermons II

May you, by the Power of the Spirit, experience more and more of the Life He came into this world to let us taste, and in our tasting create a greater longing for, the love that satisfies as it ever expands its own life-giving presence -- in us and through us!