The Beginning of a Revolution

Today in the church calendar is the Feast of the Visitation of Our Lady. This is the day when we remember the visit of Mary, the mother of Jesus, to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, when both were carrying their boys in their respective wombs. Thus, the Gospel lectionary reading for today is from Luke 1:39-56....

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.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 powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

The impossible thing that God did in Mary was the start of a revolution. First, the conception of Jesus was the beginning of a moral revolution. Mary said in her prayer which we know as the Magnificat: "he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts."

William Barclay once wrote, "Christianity is the death of pride. Why? Because if a man sets his life beside that of Christ it tears the last vestiges of pride from him.... Christ enables a man to see himself. It is the deathblow to pride. The moral revolution has begun."

Secondly, the virgin conception of Jesus was the beginning of a social revolution. Mary said, "He has brought down the powerful from their thrones." Barclay says, "Christianity puts an end to the world's labels and prestige.... When we have realized what Christ did for all men, it is no longer possible to speak about a common man. The social grades are gone."

Thirdly, the virgin conception of Christ was the beginning of an economic revolution. "He has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty." Again, Barclay says, "A non-Christian society is an acquisitive society where each man is out to amass as much as he can get. A Christian society is a society where no man dares to have too much while others have too little, where every man must get only to give away."

Many years ago, I took my oldest son Christmas shopping for the first time, to give him a chance to buy presents for the rest of our family. I wanted him to begin to see that Christmas is about giving as well as receiving. My son James had $5 saved from his allowance. So I went to Eckerd's Drug Store with my 6 year old son and his $5 in change in a plastic bag. We found presents for our whole family, but you can't buy three presents for $5 even at Eckerd's. I had to chip in an additional $4. Then after we had paid for the presents I remembered that we needed to buy wrapping paper. It was at that moment that my 6 year old realized we had spent all his money. He complained, "Why didn't you tell me I was spending all my money? I wanted to keep some of it for myself."

At that point I felt like a teachable moment had arrived. I bent down and asked, "Do you know what God gave us on Christmas?" Either my son didn't know or didn't want to answer. So I said, "He gave us his Son Jesus. And his Son Jesus gave up everything in heaven to come and be born as a human baby and die for us on a cross." Then I asked what was probably an unfair question to ask a six year old at that moment: "Do you think that since Jesus gave up everything for us, that maybe you can give up your money to buy presents for your family at Christmas time?"

That probably was an unfair question to ask a six year old. But it is not unfair to ask ourselves as adult Christians: "Considering what Jesus gave up for us, what might we give up, or give to him?"

Jesus coming to earth was the start of a moral, a social, and an economic revolution, a revolution that can continue with us as our hearts are transformed by his love.

Comments

C. S. Lewis on Homosexuality

Arthur Greeves In light of recent developments in the United States on the issue of gay marriage, I thought it would be interesting to revisit what C. S. Lewis thought about homosexuality. Lewis, who died in 1963, never wrote about same-sex marriage, but he did write, occasionally, about the topic of homosexuality in general. In the following I am quoting from my book, Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis . For detailed references and footnotes, you may obtain a copy from Amazon, your local library, or by clicking on the book cover at the right.... In Surprised by Joy , Lewis claimed that homosexuality was a vice to which he was never tempted and that he found opaque to the imagination. For this reason he refused to say anything too strongly against the pederasty that he encountered at Malvern College, where he attended school from the age of fifteen to sixteen. Lewis did not rate pederasty as the greatest evil of the school because he felt the cruelty displa...

Fact, Faith, Feeling

"Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods 'where to get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith." Mere Christianity Many years ago, when I was a young Christian, I remember seeing the graphic illustration above of what C. S. Lewis has, here, so...

C. S. Lewis Tour--London

The final two days of our C. S. Lewis Tour of Ireland & England were spent in London. Upon our arrival we enjoyed a panoramic tour of the city that included Westminster Abbey. A number of our tour participants chose to tour the inside of the Abbey where they were able to view the new C. S. Lewis plaque in Poets' Corner. Though London was not one of Lewis' favorite places to visit, there are a number of locations associated with him. One which I have noted in my new book, In the Footsteps of C. S. Lewis , is Endsleigh Palace Hospital (25 Gordon Street, London) where Lewis recovered from his wounds received during the First World War.... Not too far away from this location is King's College, part of the University of London, located on the Strand, just off the River Thames. This is the location where Lewis gave the annual commemoration oration entitled The Inner Ring on 14 December 1944.... C. S. Lewis occasionally attended theatrical events in London....

The Shepherds' Perspective on Christmas

On December 21, 2015, the following headline appeared in the International Business Times: “Bethlehem Christmas 2015 Cancelled”. To be fully accurate, religious celebrations of Jesus’ birth went forward last year in Bethlehem, but many of the secular celebrations of Christmas that usually surround it were toned down due to instability in the area. Looking back a decade, there was even one year when Christian Arabs canceled community celebrations of Christmas in support of the Palestinian uprising. However, the Jewish government would have no part of that, so the Israeli military sponsored its own holiday celebrations in the area. It is also interesting to note who celebrated the first Christmas and who didn’t. The first Christmas was not celebrated by the emperor Caesar Augustus, nor Quirinius, the governor of Syria, nor was it celebrated by the lowly innkeeper. But Christmas was celebrated by a few lonely shepherds along with Joseph and Mary and the angels of heaven. How ...

C. S. Lewis on Church Attendance

A friend's blog written yesterday ( http://wesroberts.typepad.com/ ) got me thinking about C. S. Lewis's experience of the church. I wrote this in a comment on Wes Robert's blog: It is interesting to note that C. S. Lewis attended the same small church for over thirty years. The experience was nothing spectacular on a weekly basis. For most of those years Lewis didn't care much for the sermons; he even sat behind a pillar so that the priest would not see the expression on his face. He attended the service without music because he so disliked hymns. And he left right after holy communion was served probably because he didn't like to engage in small talk with other parishioners after the service. But that life-long obedience in the same direction shaped Lewis in a way that nothing else could. Lewis was once asked, "Is attendance at a place of worship or membership with a Christian community necessary to a Christian way of life?" His answer w...

A Prayer at Ground Zero

Does the Bible mention treating animals with kindness?

When I solicited questions to be addressed in this series, a member of the congregation wrote this to me: “Animals are mentioned in the Bible as beasts of burden and sacrificial animals. Is there any mention of treating animals with kindness?” The short answer to that question is: yes. However, it is important to note that what the Bible says about caring for animals comes in the midst of a great narrative. It is a narrative of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. Let’s look at these three great acts in the narrative play of world history one by one. First, let’s look at creation. Creation At the very beginning of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verses 26 through 28, we read this: Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing th...

Christmas Day Thought from Henri Nouwen

" I keep thinking about the Christmas scene that Anthony arranged under the altar. This probably is the most meaningful "crib" I have ever seen. Three small woodcarved figures made in India: a poor woman, a poor man, and a small child between them. The carving is simple, nearly primitive. No eyes, no ears, no mouths, just the contours of the faces. The figures are smaller than a human hand - nearly too small to attract attention at all. "But then - a beam of light shines on the three figures and projects large shadows on the wall of the sanctuary. That says it all. The light thrown on the smallness of Mary, Joseph, and the Child projects them as large, hopeful shadows against the walls of our life and our world. "While looking at the intimate scene we already see the first outlines of the majesty and glory they represent. While witnessing the most human of human events, I see the majesty of God appearing on the horizon of my existence. While...

Glenmerle

Glenmerle in the 1950s In 2013 I published a biography on one of my favorite authors, Sheldon Vanauken. If you are interested, you can learn more and/or purchase a signed copy here: Signed Copy or an unsigned copy here: Amazon . One of the things that got me writing the book was my search for the location of Glenmerle, Vanauken's childhood home, so lovingly described in his book, A Severe Mercy . A visit to Van's alma mater, Staunton Military Academy, alerted me to the fact that Van grew up in Carmel, Indiana. Then, with the help of a local historian, we identified the location of Glenmerle. Because Van had suggested, in my first conversation with him, that Glenmerle was destroyed, I naturally assumed that the house no longer existed. However, another one of Van's fans recently contacted me to let me know that she believed she had found Glenmerle still in existence. I was able to look up the house on a real estate web site and compare current interior p...

Sheldon Vanauken Remembered

A good crowd gathered at the White Hart Cafe in Lynchburg, Virginia on Saturday, February 7 for a powerpoint presentation I gave on the life and work of Sheldon Vanauken. Van, as he was known to family and friends, was best known as the author of A Severe Mercy , the autobiography of his love relationship with his wife Jean "Davy" Palmer Davis. While living in Oxford, England in the early 1950's, Van and Davy came to faith in Christ through the influence of C. S. Lewis. Van was a professor of history and English literature at Lynchburg College from 1948 until his retirement around 1980. A Severe Mercy tells the story of Davy's death from a mysterious liver ailment in 1955 and Van's subsequent dealing with grief. Van himself died from cancer in 1996. It was my privilege to know Van for a brief period of time during the last year of his life. However, present at the White Hart on February 7 were some who knew Van far better than I did--Floyd Newman, one of Van...

Will Vaus

Search This Blog