Darkness

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:5

 

Friday was a day of deep darkness in our nation.  A gunman loose in an elementary school.  Twenty 1^st graders dead.  Teachers and administrators slain.  Lives taken away…and other lives changed forever.  A community and nation traumatized.   Yes, darkness has settled in.  It’s hard to detect any light in the midst of it.  It’s hard to understand how a loving God could allow such pain.  Why, God?  Why?

We live in a season of darkness.  We literally experience it as the daylight fades by 4:30, but our lives sense it in family squabbles, in money anxieties, in depression, in loneliness, in uncertainty about the future, in an abiding sense of loss of those we love.  Every person experiences moments of deep darkness…despair…hopelessness.  It can seem that light will never shine again.

In the midst of the darkness, a light shines: the light of Jesus Christ. This isn’t the church simply being Pollyanna.  It’s not just wishful thinking.  It’s not self-delusion.  It’s reality.  We proclaim the God who came to live among us, who experienced the grief that death brings, who knew what it felt like to be abandoned by everyone around him, who knew the physical pain of torture, who cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”  Jesus knows darkness as well as anyone.

We proclaim the God who rose from the dead, defeating death forever.  The light of Christ shines on earth, beginning in a manger in Bethlehem, continuing in an empty tomb in Jerusalem, and continuing forever.  This light will never go out.  Darkness can, and will, come into our lives.  We don’t deny that!  But darkness cannot have the last word.  We are never alone in the darkness of this world.  Jesus came to be with us, comforting us, caring for us, loving us.  Sometimes it’s hard to remember that.  Sometimes the darkness seems too deep to overcome.  Yet in the midst of darkness…a flicker…a flame of light pierces the darkness.  Evil and death will be defeated...in that we hope.

May we sense the presence of Christ in these dark days...and may Jesus use us as a light to others in darkness around us.

It's Greek to Me!

Last week this popped up on my Facebook account:

After laughing out loud for a bit a realization hit me: most non-pastor people have NO idea what it is talking about (and they completely miss the humor)!  

 

 

The New Testament was originally written in Greek, not English, so the word ‘Jesus’ looked like Ἰησοῦς  and ‘Christ’ was written Χριστός.  If you look at the first two letters of Χριστός, you see a big X (the Greek letter ‘chi’) and something that looks like a ‘p’ (it’s actually the Greek letter ‘rho’).  For centuries, these two letters standing together have become a symbol for ‘Christ.’  So the P with an X in the middle of it from the image above: Chi Rho…Christ! 

And to shorten it even more, the letter chi (X) has often been used on its own as a way to say ‘Christ.’  When I was in seminary, I never took the time to write ‘Christ’ in my notes.  I always simply used an ‘X’.  When people write Merry Xmas, they aren’t ‘dissing’ Jesus, they are simply using the long-standing Greek abbreviation for Christ (though I suspect they don’t realize it).

The Christian church abounds in symbols.  Take this fish for example.  People put it on the bumpers of their cars as a subtle way to show their faith, but what does it mean?  Again, we go back to Greek.  If you take the first letters of the phrase ‘Jesus Christ Son of God Savior’ you get ICQUS, which is the Greek for fish.  Who knew that by putting a fish on your car you were using Greek??

How about this one: IHS (it shows up in churches quite often).  That doesn’t look Greek, does it?  Actually, it is!  Remember Ἰησοῦς?   IHS gives the first three letters of it (when the letters are capitalized).

If people don’t understand a symbol it loses its power and meaning.  While teaching about some of the ancient symbols can be very helpful for people, I am a much stronger advocate for using Christian symbols which have more obvious meanings (and don’t take so much explanation).  Having to explain a symbol is like having to explain the punch line of a joke to someone: it misses something!

So…Merry Xmas.  I mean that in the most Christian sense possible!