Merry Feast of the Incarnation.

Christianity and history are, frankly, inseparable. From the beginning, orthodox Christianity - as distinct from its Gnostic competitors - has affirmed that God entered the world at a distinct time and place and in a distinct person with a distinct history and tradition. From the beginning, therefore, history has been important to orthodox Christianity because history actually happened. Further, events within history are important because they reflect a playing out of God's purpose within His creation, and since God's creation is good, reality is good and true and meaningful.

The orthodox Christian orientation toward truth contrasts dramatically with Gnosticism. Gnostics inherited the traditional pagan view that reality was an illusion or a warped deterioration from the Real. Accordingly, Gnostics denied the reality of the Incarnation on the completely rational view that an infinite unchanging Deity would hardly clothe Himself in decaying changing material substance. Gnostics, therefore, posited an illusionary Christ who had the mere appearance of reality. Playing out the logic of this assumption, Gnostics denied the Crucifixion. Their Docetic Christ never suffered on the Cross.

In fact, it is because of the Gnostic challenge that we have the four Gospels which we have. I recently asked my Mennonite partner, "what do the Gospels have in common?" He unhestitantly answered, "the Resurrection." I smugly pointed out that the shorter version of Mark does not have a Resurrection. Disturbingly, Mark ends with merely an empty tomb, but no Resurrection, at least until some later redactor added something like a Resurrection encounter. (To be fair to my partner, I have not a shred of doubt that he would have gotten the right answer on further reflection.)

In fact, what is common to all four of the Gospels is the Crucifixion. It was important for the early orthodox Christians to affirm that a living and real Jesus truly suffered and died prior to the Resurrection. That was the linchpin that required defending in the first two centuries of Christianity. Also, as I noted to the partner who referred to my Faith as "transitional paganism," the Gospels were selected by the Universal Church from all of the possible competing Gospels - the well-known existence of which forms the "shocking revelation" of the Da Vinci Code - to fit the Tradition. In this area, Tradition preceded Text.

That observation could have been made in Greek for the effect it had on my nondenominational Protestant partner. My further point had a similar lack of impact. That point was that the Da Vinci Code is a challenge only to nondenominational Protestants, and to people influenced by that view, for whom there is no way of distinguishing between the true Canon of Mark and John and the false canon of Thomas and Mary Magdalene. We believe the Gospel of John because it fits the tradition of an Incarnate Jesus and not vice versa.

Gnosticism is alive and well. Its principle exponents include John Shelby Spong and other active Episcopalian Bishops for whom Christian truths - the Resurrection, the Incarnation - is less important than the "narrative" by which early Christians expressed the "Easter experience." Whether Jesus was the Incarnated Lord is not important compared to the story telling genius of the Jewish people who were expressing a truth that could easily be different from the empirical truth of the observable world. For all their posturing as new and radical thinkers, these folks are peddling the same old, tired Gnosticism that was avante gard in 120 A.D.

All of this is by way of introducing the lyrics of a Christmas song I like. The song is "One Small Child" and although it is an example of McWhorter's thesis that modern music is interesting when performed and comparativiely boring in print, the images in the lyrics invite the listener to contemplate all of God's creation focusing in on a single event in Palestine two millenia ago when a small child was born, and, then, to see the unfolding of God's grace from that small - apparently insignificant - real event into all of history.

One Small Child

One small child in a land of a thousand
One small dream of a savior tonight
One small hand reaching out to the starlight
One small savior of love
One small savior of love

One king bringing His gold and His riches
One king ruling an army of might
One king kneeling with incense and candlelight
One king bringing us life
One king bringing us life

See the shepherds kneeling before Him
See the king's on bended knee
See the mother praising the Father
See His tiny eyelids fall

One small child in a land of a thousand
One small dream of a savior tonight
One small hand reaching out to the starlight
One small savior of life
One small savior of life

See the shepherds kneeling before Him
See the king's on bended knee
See the mother praising the Father
See His tiny eyelids fall
(repeat a lot)

See the shepherds
See the kings
See His mother
See His tiny eyelids fall

God loves His Creation, which includes every one of us. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. But before the Resurrection came the Incarnation when God entered history at a precise time and place, specifically a quiet, peaceful and otherwise unremarkable night in Palestine:

“Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

Luke 2:8-12.

Merry Christmas.