If you are a lover of classical music, as I am, you may be aware that today is a rather notable day. It is the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the great composers, Frederic Chopin. Now, whenever there is a milestone anniversary of the birthday of one of the great composers, it’s a big event, and there are usually a lot of big concerts and releases of recordings in that composer’s name in the classical music world. In fact, we had such an event in 2006 when we celebrated the 250th birthday of Mozart. This year, we have not only Chopin’s 200th to celebrate, but also Robert Schumann’s 200th as well.
Frederic Francois Chopin (or Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, which is the Polish version of his name) was born on March 1, 1810, in the little town of Zelazowa Wola, Poland, which is not far from the capital of Warsaw. You may be thinking that the non-Polish version of his name sounds rather French, and in this you would be correct, for Chopin’s father was a Frenchman who had moved to Poland and married a Polish wife. Chopin showed considerable musical talent from a young age, and music quickly became his career, from which he was able to make a comfortable living. The composer was driven from his homeland by unrest between the Poles and their Russian occupiers, and he never returned, eventually settling in Paris. Still, Chopin remained loyal to his native country his entire life, especially in the music he wrote.
Chopin was a virtuoso pianist, although he was never as flashy in public performances as was his contemporary Franz Liszt. In fact, he is unique among the great composers in that he wrote most of his music for only one instrument, his own, the piano. He never even attempted a symphony, as did most of the great composers, and even the few works he wrote for orchestra contained a major role for the piano, as in the case of his two fine piano concertos. He never wrote much chamber music (which is music for small groups of instruments) or any operas.
Chopin’s entire body of major musical expression can be found in piano works, and many of them are small pieces. He wrote preludes in every one of the 24 musical keys. He perfected and put his own mark on the forms of the nocturne (a “night-time” piece) and the etude (usually a technically demanding piece for students). Some of his other short works are specifically Polish in nature – the mazurkas and the polonaises are patterned after actual Polish national dances, and Chopin was able to make his sound more authentic and original than those composed by many others, Polish or not, before or after him. Other examples of Chopin’s genius came in the form of the waltzes, ballades, and scherzos. More lengthy works for piano include his three piano sonatas and both of his piano concertos, which are regular concert-hall favorites.
One must listen to Chopin in order to understand his music in greater detail than this overview conveys. Some of his pieces might be familiar to ears that do not know classical music well, thanks to the universal popularity of some classical works. Among these well-known works are the “Minute Waltz”, a very fast waltz that, despite its name, has never been played in less than a minute and a half. There is also the famous Funeral March, which is contained in the second piano sonata and is actually followed by a remarkably quick and strangely eerie, but far lesser-known, final movement. There are the upbeat “Heroic” and “Military” polonaises. Two of his etudes are well-known to piano players. The “Revolutionary” Etude is fiery and dramatic, actually a bitter and spontaneous patriotic work written just after the uprising that drove Chopin from Poland failed; and the “Black Key” Etude is just that – a piece played only on the black keys of the piano. The “Raindrop” Prelude (one of the longest of Chopin’s twenty-four in that genre) is quite a descriptive piece – the constant, rhythmic repetition of one note throughout the entire piece suggests steady raindrops to the listener, as the name implies.
All of Chopin’s music, in general, is expressive of a wide range of human emotion. It can be angry and defiant, daring and dramatic, quiet and thoughtful, playful and fanciful, or even tragic and profoundly sorrowful. Some of these emotions can be heard conflicting with each other within the same piece, and by his skillful use of the piano, Chopin was able to convey his meaning in a far deeper and more intimate way than he might have had he attempted to use the most powerful of orchestras to do it. But as I said, one must really listen to and get to know this composer (as is true with any of the others, too) in order to see exactly what I mean.
Chopin’s health was never very strong, and he died of tuberculosis at the age of 39 on October 17, 1849. We can only guess how much more he would have added to his mighty catalog of music had he lived a longer life. Chopin is buried in Paris, but, interestingly, his heart was literally placed in an urn and returned to his native Poland, where it remains today.
Today Frederic Chopin retains his reputation around the world as being among the very greatest of classical composers, and in Poland he is regarded as one of that country’s heroes. He is among my personal favorite composers, and his piano works rank at the top of my favorites for that instrument. In fact, his “Raindrop” Prelude was the first classical piano piece that I ever learned to play, though most of his more difficult pieces remain out of my skill range. I plan to celebrate Chopin’s bicentennial all this month by listening to as much of his music as I can. Whether or not you are a classical music fan, I hope I have helped you learn some interesting things or perhaps inspired you to explore the world of this beautiful music some more on your own.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Klatch and His Kin Ride Again
Perhaps you remember – but then again, maybe you don’t. After all, I am joining the reader in just now remembering that I write blog entries. In fact, I have become so infrequent in my endeavors to that effect as to make my writing a blog entry “from time to time” about the same as the President’s making a State of the Union address to Congress “from time to time” as specified by the Constitution. The only difference is that I can’t even get one half of my readers to get up and heartily cheer my hot air. In fact, if I were to elicit a stifled yawn, a la Harry Reid, I would consider my work here all but accomplished.
But I was in the midst of saying that perhaps you remember that, roughly around this time last year, I wrote an article whose subject concerned the unceremonious dismissal from our glorious mother tongue many words that have fallen into gross disuse. I have not recanted one word of this. Rather, I am so convinced of my rightness in the matter that I am bringing the subject back up and adding more words to the rather short list I compiled last time. I wouldn’t have had this idea but for the fact that I recently used one of the words that will be so honored today, and thus spurring my feeble mind into action.
Since the beginning is usually the best place to start, we shall now discuss the word that I recently used and to which I just referred as having been recently used by me.* That word is “eschew”. Some readers may think of this word as being an ancient form of our modern word “chew”, from which the “es” was dropped from the front after being weighed in the balance and found to be superfluous. For still others, it is a phonetic representation of the way they sneeze (this may be hard to believe, but I have heard sneezes that remind one of anything from a traffic accident to malfunctioning machinery). But I can guarantee you that no one outside of those who are fluent in King James English really knows what it means. “Eschew” is pronounced as it looks, and it means “to avoid or shun”. Since most of us usually say “avoid” or “shun” when we are trying to express this concept, I move that this word be eschewed and thrown out of the dictionary on account of its not being used at all anymore.
Another word of very dubious merit which I found on my random walk through the dictionary is “secern”. Just looking at the word confuses the reader, because it is hard to even guess what it might mean, even if you know how to pronounce it. It turns out that “secern” has a soft “c” and has an almost identical meaning with a word that sounds similar – “discern”. It means “to discriminate in thought” or “to distinguish”. I have never seen or heard the word used before I saw it in the dictionary, and since we already have a frequently-used word with a similar sound and meaning, I submit that “secern” is a candidate to be thrown out of our vocabulary.
Our third word in this second gallery of misfit words is “rathe”. I will give the dictionary credit in at least identifying this word as indeed archaic, which it must be since it is never used in our day. It has nothing to do with “wrath”; “rathe”r, it means “appearing or ripening early in the year”. My father loves to garden, and yet I have never heard him apply this term to any of his work with plants. I suppose this word has a use if one is to study very old literature, and I will admit that the dictionary’s admission that the word is archaic may be the one thing that could keep it in the dictionary on a technicality. Even so, such a technicality is slim support in my book.
“Flinders” is our next word. To some readers this may look like a British name, and to others it may resemble other words in sound, but I doubt many of us have used it or known it to be used. It means “small fragments or splinters”. I have to say that to my ear it is a very interesting word, and even a poetic-sounding one, and for that reason maybe it ought to be used more. But if not, let it fall into disuse and oblivion – for, after all, words are meant to be used, not to sit under glass as in a museum (where no one will ever look at them out of either interest or sympathy). And I find it more than a little interesting that a similar-sounding word, “Flanders”, was once used to identify a major European country or region. But even that has fallen into disuse in exchange for a different name – “Belgium”.
We have time for one more word, and that one is “younker”. It is not a phonetic representation of the German word “Junker”, although it could serve as that. Rather, it is a fairly old term for “young man” or “child”. It sounds almost like our word “youngster”, but I have never heard anyone use it. I find references to it in literature of the 19th century, but nothing extending into the 21st century, when we would prefer to say “kid”, “boy”, or even “lad” if we lived in the United Kingdom. It’s another very strange and interesting word that I didn’t even know existed, but it seems all that it is today is a curiosity, and worthy to be thrown out with the rest of our unused words.
And so, there you have it – Klatch and his kin have ridden again and now ride off into the sunset, to go wherever it is unused words go. I wonder if anybody uses them in that far-off land? Perhaps we’ll never know. And now, as is my custom, I shall try to used the unused words in this volume in one sentence – perhaps I can raise their public visibility a bit and in so doing save their reputation.
The younker secerned that, in consequence of his having picked the old lady’s rathe flowers, he should eschew the neighborhood at all costs, lest the old lady catch him and shake him to flinders.
*Author’s Note: It may here be objected by some nit-picky readers that it is an incorrect, unwieldy, inefficient, and (in my case) just plain cheesy use of language to use the passive voice in the manner in which it was just used by me. It would be replied by the author that this article is being written by said author (and him alone), and that the right is retained by him to use the language in any way that is seen fit by him.
But I was in the midst of saying that perhaps you remember that, roughly around this time last year, I wrote an article whose subject concerned the unceremonious dismissal from our glorious mother tongue many words that have fallen into gross disuse. I have not recanted one word of this. Rather, I am so convinced of my rightness in the matter that I am bringing the subject back up and adding more words to the rather short list I compiled last time. I wouldn’t have had this idea but for the fact that I recently used one of the words that will be so honored today, and thus spurring my feeble mind into action.
Since the beginning is usually the best place to start, we shall now discuss the word that I recently used and to which I just referred as having been recently used by me.* That word is “eschew”. Some readers may think of this word as being an ancient form of our modern word “chew”, from which the “es” was dropped from the front after being weighed in the balance and found to be superfluous. For still others, it is a phonetic representation of the way they sneeze (this may be hard to believe, but I have heard sneezes that remind one of anything from a traffic accident to malfunctioning machinery). But I can guarantee you that no one outside of those who are fluent in King James English really knows what it means. “Eschew” is pronounced as it looks, and it means “to avoid or shun”. Since most of us usually say “avoid” or “shun” when we are trying to express this concept, I move that this word be eschewed and thrown out of the dictionary on account of its not being used at all anymore.
Another word of very dubious merit which I found on my random walk through the dictionary is “secern”. Just looking at the word confuses the reader, because it is hard to even guess what it might mean, even if you know how to pronounce it. It turns out that “secern” has a soft “c” and has an almost identical meaning with a word that sounds similar – “discern”. It means “to discriminate in thought” or “to distinguish”. I have never seen or heard the word used before I saw it in the dictionary, and since we already have a frequently-used word with a similar sound and meaning, I submit that “secern” is a candidate to be thrown out of our vocabulary.
Our third word in this second gallery of misfit words is “rathe”. I will give the dictionary credit in at least identifying this word as indeed archaic, which it must be since it is never used in our day. It has nothing to do with “wrath”; “rathe”r, it means “appearing or ripening early in the year”. My father loves to garden, and yet I have never heard him apply this term to any of his work with plants. I suppose this word has a use if one is to study very old literature, and I will admit that the dictionary’s admission that the word is archaic may be the one thing that could keep it in the dictionary on a technicality. Even so, such a technicality is slim support in my book.
“Flinders” is our next word. To some readers this may look like a British name, and to others it may resemble other words in sound, but I doubt many of us have used it or known it to be used. It means “small fragments or splinters”. I have to say that to my ear it is a very interesting word, and even a poetic-sounding one, and for that reason maybe it ought to be used more. But if not, let it fall into disuse and oblivion – for, after all, words are meant to be used, not to sit under glass as in a museum (where no one will ever look at them out of either interest or sympathy). And I find it more than a little interesting that a similar-sounding word, “Flanders”, was once used to identify a major European country or region. But even that has fallen into disuse in exchange for a different name – “Belgium”.
We have time for one more word, and that one is “younker”. It is not a phonetic representation of the German word “Junker”, although it could serve as that. Rather, it is a fairly old term for “young man” or “child”. It sounds almost like our word “youngster”, but I have never heard anyone use it. I find references to it in literature of the 19th century, but nothing extending into the 21st century, when we would prefer to say “kid”, “boy”, or even “lad” if we lived in the United Kingdom. It’s another very strange and interesting word that I didn’t even know existed, but it seems all that it is today is a curiosity, and worthy to be thrown out with the rest of our unused words.
And so, there you have it – Klatch and his kin have ridden again and now ride off into the sunset, to go wherever it is unused words go. I wonder if anybody uses them in that far-off land? Perhaps we’ll never know. And now, as is my custom, I shall try to used the unused words in this volume in one sentence – perhaps I can raise their public visibility a bit and in so doing save their reputation.
The younker secerned that, in consequence of his having picked the old lady’s rathe flowers, he should eschew the neighborhood at all costs, lest the old lady catch him and shake him to flinders.
*Author’s Note: It may here be objected by some nit-picky readers that it is an incorrect, unwieldy, inefficient, and (in my case) just plain cheesy use of language to use the passive voice in the manner in which it was just used by me. It would be replied by the author that this article is being written by said author (and him alone), and that the right is retained by him to use the language in any way that is seen fit by him.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Arctic Blast 2010 -- A Study in Overreaction
We live in the age of the 24-hour news cycle. There used to be a day when, if there was anything notable going on in the world, we would hear about it on the evening news (or in a special bulletin if it was sufficiently history-altering). This is still somewhat the case today, and the advantage of a 24-hour news cycle is that, if anything earth-shattering does happen, there will not be much of a delay before we all hear about it in more detail than we care to know.
But thanks to the 24-hour news cycle, the networks must keep our attention if they are to keep their ratings up. And since there is only so much interesting news in the world, this means in turn that if there is a shortage of interesting topics, the networks must make something not so interesting as interesting as they can, or risk going off the air (which is hardly a viable option).
Which brings me, rather belatedly, to my main point. Today is January 7, which is smack-dab in the middle of winter. In winter, the weather is cold. I shall pause here while the one person who has lived under a rock his whole life runs to notify the Associated Press with this breaking news. It may surprise everyone else that this is indeed worthy of wall-to-wall news coverage in the city where I live. This sounds (I repeat) unbelievable to some of my readers. Alas, it is all too true, as I shall explain.
I live in the Houston area, which lies far enough south and close enough to the coast to come under the category of being in a “sub-tropical” climate. In our region, our summers are hot and our winters are, well, not summer. Snow is looked upon by the natives as an object of extreme strangeness, the sighting of which is akin to seeing a UFO or perhaps a Houston Texans field goal. It is worthy of wall-to-wall news coverage.
So, too, are hurricanes, but this is legitimate, since hurricanes are destructive of life and property. But today something is happening that you would think is like a hurricane in January. It is getting cold. But not just any cold. We are witnessing the historic “Arctic Blast 2010”.
Now, any time a Houstonian hears the phrase “Arctic Blast” spoken breathlessly by their trusted news-hunter-gatherers, it is a certain signal to go into “full panic mode”. Nothing short of that will do. The reason is that, when temperatures in Houston are set to plunge all the way into the lower 20s – even though millions of people in America experience this regularly during winter-time without bodily harm – this means that we are literally all going to die. It is a foregone conclusion. Why, if you knew you were going to die, would you not go into a full panic mode?
I realize that it sounds strange to more Northern ears that what they would call autumn weather is such a deadly threat to the minds and bodies of Houstonians. You see, we are not used to wearing more than a jacket and – perhaps – a skull cap in winter. We are the type of people who think it is fascinating to be able to see one’s breath (and we have even been known to make a game of it, trying to see whose breath “smokes” more). But when the mercury dips below freezing for an extended period, all jokes, games, and wild-eyed fixation is over. It is now time to concentrate on survival.
And this we do – nay, must do. Some simple-minded people may object that all one has to do is to turn one’s heat up a little more than they are accustomed to, and then stand by the window to watch it get cold outside. Why, this is even the same argument one might hear during a Houston summer, when cold air-conditioning units would, one would think, insulate most people from having to experience (with the exception of perhaps having to walk to and from a vehicle) the torch we call outdoors. But this approach is all too simple, and in any event, if taken seriously by too many of the right people, it would deprive our local news-hunter-gatherers of anything interesting to talk about. And we can’t have that.
And so, today on our local news, we are hearing about how we are all going to die. Not just the homeless people (who, by the way, are really in a bad spot when the weather gets cold). Not just the stray cat down the street. Not just our pipes (which burst at the very mention of the word “ice”). Not just our plants. No – all of us. We are all in mortal danger because the weather is unseasonably cold.
With the definite exception of hurricane season or a flood event, there can be no better boon for the news-hunter-gatherers than an Arctic Blast. They try to duplicate the drastic gravity of the situation when the temperatures go above 100, but it is hard to actually find anybody who is panicking when it’s that hot; after all, they are all in their air-conditioned houses. Besides, you can’t go killing the reporters by having them exert themselves in those kinds of conditions (at least without supplying them, intravenously, with plenty of Gatorade). Snow comes somewhat close to the magnitude of this event, but, outside of reporters from the Weather Channel, it is hard to find anyone panicking when it snows (they are too busy making snowmen and women). Never mind the driving issues when it snows. We can’t drive anyway in Houston, and snow actually makes us slow down to stare.
And so, an Arctic Blast is truly a news event. In fact, the whole corps must be called in to the front (no pun intended; or maybe it was). The weatherman (the one who got national recognition for calling nine out of the last five hurricanes correctly) is literally on 24-hour standby. He does not know when he shall be called upon next to scan the output from the National Weather Service and then come on the air to claim that he has personally been monitoring the weather conditions (while being IN them, mind you) and can now make a new personal, original forecast (which, by the way, is a full two degrees worse than Joe’s on the other station).
That’s not all. The various reporters must be scattered far and wide to stand in hopelessly frigid conditions (facing near-certain death, all for your sake) in order to tell you, firsthand, why you really mustn’t go outside at all (even to get the newspaper) until at least a week from next Sunday (when, knowing Houston weather, it will 75 and sunny). Then there are the special reporters whose duty it is to find the one family in the entire viewing area who is in positively the most dire straits when the front arrives (you know, the one with no heaters and practically no clothes and only one wall in their house). There are also the people who station themselves at little television screens, monitoring the traffic (even though everybody has been warned to stay put indoors). And at the head of this army are the several anchors, who must grimly coordinate and present to you, the viewer, all of the sordid details of this catastrophe.
And so you will not be surprised – perhaps saddened, but not surprised – if this, my first blog entry of 2010, is also my last ever. One hopes that he will emerge alive, though barely (I shrink from uttering the word “unscathed”), from such a situation, which cannot but be described as DEFCON 1, Code RED, and Full-Blown Crisis all wrapped up into one very frigid package. I have already written off most of my teeth, which will be knocked out by their chattering. I will probably lose the use of my fingers from frostbite. I may even have to set my new room on fire to keep warm. But I am determined to emerge from this alive, if I can. Until then, I remain, as always, obediently yours.
But thanks to the 24-hour news cycle, the networks must keep our attention if they are to keep their ratings up. And since there is only so much interesting news in the world, this means in turn that if there is a shortage of interesting topics, the networks must make something not so interesting as interesting as they can, or risk going off the air (which is hardly a viable option).
Which brings me, rather belatedly, to my main point. Today is January 7, which is smack-dab in the middle of winter. In winter, the weather is cold. I shall pause here while the one person who has lived under a rock his whole life runs to notify the Associated Press with this breaking news. It may surprise everyone else that this is indeed worthy of wall-to-wall news coverage in the city where I live. This sounds (I repeat) unbelievable to some of my readers. Alas, it is all too true, as I shall explain.
I live in the Houston area, which lies far enough south and close enough to the coast to come under the category of being in a “sub-tropical” climate. In our region, our summers are hot and our winters are, well, not summer. Snow is looked upon by the natives as an object of extreme strangeness, the sighting of which is akin to seeing a UFO or perhaps a Houston Texans field goal. It is worthy of wall-to-wall news coverage.
So, too, are hurricanes, but this is legitimate, since hurricanes are destructive of life and property. But today something is happening that you would think is like a hurricane in January. It is getting cold. But not just any cold. We are witnessing the historic “Arctic Blast 2010”.
Now, any time a Houstonian hears the phrase “Arctic Blast” spoken breathlessly by their trusted news-hunter-gatherers, it is a certain signal to go into “full panic mode”. Nothing short of that will do. The reason is that, when temperatures in Houston are set to plunge all the way into the lower 20s – even though millions of people in America experience this regularly during winter-time without bodily harm – this means that we are literally all going to die. It is a foregone conclusion. Why, if you knew you were going to die, would you not go into a full panic mode?
I realize that it sounds strange to more Northern ears that what they would call autumn weather is such a deadly threat to the minds and bodies of Houstonians. You see, we are not used to wearing more than a jacket and – perhaps – a skull cap in winter. We are the type of people who think it is fascinating to be able to see one’s breath (and we have even been known to make a game of it, trying to see whose breath “smokes” more). But when the mercury dips below freezing for an extended period, all jokes, games, and wild-eyed fixation is over. It is now time to concentrate on survival.
And this we do – nay, must do. Some simple-minded people may object that all one has to do is to turn one’s heat up a little more than they are accustomed to, and then stand by the window to watch it get cold outside. Why, this is even the same argument one might hear during a Houston summer, when cold air-conditioning units would, one would think, insulate most people from having to experience (with the exception of perhaps having to walk to and from a vehicle) the torch we call outdoors. But this approach is all too simple, and in any event, if taken seriously by too many of the right people, it would deprive our local news-hunter-gatherers of anything interesting to talk about. And we can’t have that.
And so, today on our local news, we are hearing about how we are all going to die. Not just the homeless people (who, by the way, are really in a bad spot when the weather gets cold). Not just the stray cat down the street. Not just our pipes (which burst at the very mention of the word “ice”). Not just our plants. No – all of us. We are all in mortal danger because the weather is unseasonably cold.
With the definite exception of hurricane season or a flood event, there can be no better boon for the news-hunter-gatherers than an Arctic Blast. They try to duplicate the drastic gravity of the situation when the temperatures go above 100, but it is hard to actually find anybody who is panicking when it’s that hot; after all, they are all in their air-conditioned houses. Besides, you can’t go killing the reporters by having them exert themselves in those kinds of conditions (at least without supplying them, intravenously, with plenty of Gatorade). Snow comes somewhat close to the magnitude of this event, but, outside of reporters from the Weather Channel, it is hard to find anyone panicking when it snows (they are too busy making snowmen and women). Never mind the driving issues when it snows. We can’t drive anyway in Houston, and snow actually makes us slow down to stare.
And so, an Arctic Blast is truly a news event. In fact, the whole corps must be called in to the front (no pun intended; or maybe it was). The weatherman (the one who got national recognition for calling nine out of the last five hurricanes correctly) is literally on 24-hour standby. He does not know when he shall be called upon next to scan the output from the National Weather Service and then come on the air to claim that he has personally been monitoring the weather conditions (while being IN them, mind you) and can now make a new personal, original forecast (which, by the way, is a full two degrees worse than Joe’s on the other station).
That’s not all. The various reporters must be scattered far and wide to stand in hopelessly frigid conditions (facing near-certain death, all for your sake) in order to tell you, firsthand, why you really mustn’t go outside at all (even to get the newspaper) until at least a week from next Sunday (when, knowing Houston weather, it will 75 and sunny). Then there are the special reporters whose duty it is to find the one family in the entire viewing area who is in positively the most dire straits when the front arrives (you know, the one with no heaters and practically no clothes and only one wall in their house). There are also the people who station themselves at little television screens, monitoring the traffic (even though everybody has been warned to stay put indoors). And at the head of this army are the several anchors, who must grimly coordinate and present to you, the viewer, all of the sordid details of this catastrophe.
And so you will not be surprised – perhaps saddened, but not surprised – if this, my first blog entry of 2010, is also my last ever. One hopes that he will emerge alive, though barely (I shrink from uttering the word “unscathed”), from such a situation, which cannot but be described as DEFCON 1, Code RED, and Full-Blown Crisis all wrapped up into one very frigid package. I have already written off most of my teeth, which will be knocked out by their chattering. I will probably lose the use of my fingers from frostbite. I may even have to set my new room on fire to keep warm. But I am determined to emerge from this alive, if I can. Until then, I remain, as always, obediently yours.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
At Year's End
That time of year is upon us again – the end of one set of twelve months and the beginning of another. In this particular instance, we call the former “2009” and the latter “2010”. Just what is it about this thing called New Year’s?
For some people, it’s an excuse to have a wild party, complete with more food, beverages, and people than one can stand. And if you doubt the third item on that short list, simply watch the Times Square New Year’s event. If that to you does not look like more people packed into one small area than one person could or should be able to stand, than you are much more of a social butterfly than I.
But in all of my 25 years, I have never gone to a New Year’s party, and I do not plan to break with tradition for the sake of change – or anything else – as 2009 rolls over into 2010. Granted, I may eat more than my share of food tonight, but other than that it will be a more or less solitary observation of the changing of the times and seasons. That is, unless you count as a regular shindig my watching of an occasional neighborhood firework – which, I would have you know, is getting around here to be as risky as flying these days, what with the better-than-even shot (whether due to the ignorance of the shooter or the shabbiness of the design, it is left to the reader to decide) of a firework going astray and aiming for your house.
For almost everyone in our culture, a new year is quite a symbolic event. It affords us the opportunity to look back on the twelve months that have just passed into history and seek to discern the meaning of those things that have transpired therein and to reflect on how our lives have during that time trended to the better or to the worse. At the same time, we take a moment to look forward to the coming year. Some of us undertake the impossible task of trying to divine what the next year will bring for us, for our nation, and for the world. Beyond that, there are the regular “New Year’s resolutions” – decisions (firm in our own minds for at least a week) that we SHALL improve ourselves in this or that area of our personal lives, whether it be in the area of weight, or attitude, or education, or romance, or what-not.
Every so often a new year brings with it a new decade, and such is the case tonight. We’ll say goodbye to the 2000s and say hello to the 2010s. What will the 2000s eventually be known for? Clearly, world-changing events like 9/11 made their mark on the decade and will rightly be seen as one of its hallmarks. So too, is the startlingly rapid advance in technology. Human nature didn’t change, and it never has, but we must acknowledge that this was a rather more dangerous and complex decade than many complacently and optimistically believed it would be as the “new millennium” dawned (but at least the computers didn’t all shut down on January 1, 2000, as a few people I know – and perhaps myself to some degree – thought would or at least feared might happen). But there were bright spots, too, both individually and corporately. You know what they were for you. And you know the not-so-bright moments that also helped make the 2000s what they were for you. It varies from person to person.
The 2010s will be like that, only in a different way. None of us can tell what will be a minute from now, much less what will be the great events of the next decade. History will be made in politics, business, sports, war, and peace. People will look back on the 2010s, as they will soon begin to do on the 2000s, and point out (and perhaps even laugh at) the unique fashions, hairstyles, fads, expressions, events and inventions that make each decade special.
There is much we can’t control or predict about time. The only thing we can control, even though imperfectly, is what we do with the time God allows us. The foremost thing we must do with our time, if we have not already, is to respond to God’s gift of salvation by trusting what Jesus has done on our behalf in dying for our sins so that we might be made right with God. Once that is done, we must each endeavor to live lives that are as pleasing to our Heavenly Father as possible. All the other resolutions may fall by the wayside, but if in 2010 we strive to please and honor the One who gives us life and all good things on this earth, then our new year will not fail to be a fruitful one. Happy New Year!
For some people, it’s an excuse to have a wild party, complete with more food, beverages, and people than one can stand. And if you doubt the third item on that short list, simply watch the Times Square New Year’s event. If that to you does not look like more people packed into one small area than one person could or should be able to stand, than you are much more of a social butterfly than I.
But in all of my 25 years, I have never gone to a New Year’s party, and I do not plan to break with tradition for the sake of change – or anything else – as 2009 rolls over into 2010. Granted, I may eat more than my share of food tonight, but other than that it will be a more or less solitary observation of the changing of the times and seasons. That is, unless you count as a regular shindig my watching of an occasional neighborhood firework – which, I would have you know, is getting around here to be as risky as flying these days, what with the better-than-even shot (whether due to the ignorance of the shooter or the shabbiness of the design, it is left to the reader to decide) of a firework going astray and aiming for your house.
For almost everyone in our culture, a new year is quite a symbolic event. It affords us the opportunity to look back on the twelve months that have just passed into history and seek to discern the meaning of those things that have transpired therein and to reflect on how our lives have during that time trended to the better or to the worse. At the same time, we take a moment to look forward to the coming year. Some of us undertake the impossible task of trying to divine what the next year will bring for us, for our nation, and for the world. Beyond that, there are the regular “New Year’s resolutions” – decisions (firm in our own minds for at least a week) that we SHALL improve ourselves in this or that area of our personal lives, whether it be in the area of weight, or attitude, or education, or romance, or what-not.
Every so often a new year brings with it a new decade, and such is the case tonight. We’ll say goodbye to the 2000s and say hello to the 2010s. What will the 2000s eventually be known for? Clearly, world-changing events like 9/11 made their mark on the decade and will rightly be seen as one of its hallmarks. So too, is the startlingly rapid advance in technology. Human nature didn’t change, and it never has, but we must acknowledge that this was a rather more dangerous and complex decade than many complacently and optimistically believed it would be as the “new millennium” dawned (but at least the computers didn’t all shut down on January 1, 2000, as a few people I know – and perhaps myself to some degree – thought would or at least feared might happen). But there were bright spots, too, both individually and corporately. You know what they were for you. And you know the not-so-bright moments that also helped make the 2000s what they were for you. It varies from person to person.
The 2010s will be like that, only in a different way. None of us can tell what will be a minute from now, much less what will be the great events of the next decade. History will be made in politics, business, sports, war, and peace. People will look back on the 2010s, as they will soon begin to do on the 2000s, and point out (and perhaps even laugh at) the unique fashions, hairstyles, fads, expressions, events and inventions that make each decade special.
There is much we can’t control or predict about time. The only thing we can control, even though imperfectly, is what we do with the time God allows us. The foremost thing we must do with our time, if we have not already, is to respond to God’s gift of salvation by trusting what Jesus has done on our behalf in dying for our sins so that we might be made right with God. Once that is done, we must each endeavor to live lives that are as pleasing to our Heavenly Father as possible. All the other resolutions may fall by the wayside, but if in 2010 we strive to please and honor the One who gives us life and all good things on this earth, then our new year will not fail to be a fruitful one. Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas is All About Easter
The title of this article may seem a little confusing. After all, why combine or confuse two distinct holidays? Granted, Christmas and Easter are similar in that they are both religious holidays and that it could be said of both that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season”. But isn’t it really too much to say that Christmas is all about Easter? I would submit to you that it isn’t too much to say that. In fact, just as it is obvious that Easter would not be possible without Christmas, it is just as true that Christmas would have no meaning without Easter. Let me explain.
Now, in writing this, I am not denying that Christmas has a wonderful quality all its own, without regard to other holidays. What could be more miraculous and breathtaking than the Christmas story? We rightly celebrate, with awe-filled hearts, the fact that God became man and dwelt among us, that He left His throne in heaven to become a human, vulnerable to all the flaws, weaknesses, and sorrows (yet without sin) that we all experience. And not only did God become man, but He first became a helpless baby, born to the most humble of families, in the most humble of circumstances, in a stable of all places and not a palace (the greatest of which in this entire world would have been an unimaginable act of self-humiliation for the Almighty Creator of the universe!).
There are even more amazing Christmas miracles – the birth of the Son of God from the womb of a virgin (thus avoiding Adam’s sin-filled lineage), the star that stood over Bethlehem, the angels who appeared bearing the wonderful news to, of all the people in the world, a few lowly shepherds in Israel. That the Almighty would choose to dwell among men as one of them is perhaps the most wonderful story of all!
I say “perhaps”, because there is an even more wonderful story than that. There must be, if Christmas is to have any meaning. Of course, if the Christmas story ended right at this point, it would be enough. We humans, undeserving of God’s very attention, would be forced to humbly bow at God’s mighty act of self-revelation to the world. But what purpose would that ultimately serve? Would it have changed anything?
No, it wouldn’t have. You see, we still would have been lost in our sins, even though Jesus grew to be a mighty Worker of miracles and a great Teacher of the truth. The reason is that we are unable to please God in our sinful condition, and as such deserve His just punishment, which is death (Romans 6:23). If Jesus, God in the flesh, only came to make an awesome but brief appearance on earth, we would all still have been doomed.
But Jesus didn’t come just to be a mighty Worker of Miracles and a great Teacher of the truth. The jarring reality of the situation is that that baby in the manger came to die – and not just because death is a common human destiny. Jesus Himself said of His life, “No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18).
Jesus’ very purpose on this earth was to die, not for Himself, but for you and me. If we are to be saved from our sin that separates us from a right relationship with God, we must have a Savior. We cannot save ourselves, but neither can God gloss over our sin and let us into His kingdom anyway. Our sin has to be paid for, and God was not content to simply see us pay for it – and so He sent His Son to pay for it. He did so by dying a cruel, violent death by execution on a Roman cross – not for anything wrong that He had done, but for everything wrong that you and I have ever done. Jesus became our Substitute, and all the wrath the God should have poured out on us He instead poured out on His only Son. Thus our sin was transferred to Jesus’ account so that His perfect righteousness could be transferred to the account of those who trust in Him.
And so you might say, “Ah, I see – then Christmas is all about Good Friday, not Easter.” However, even that is not entirely true. You see, in light of Jesus’ many remarkable claims – that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life; that He is able to give eternal life to as many as believe on Him; and that He would rise again the third day after His death, just to name three – His death cannot be the end of the story, for that would make Him a liar, and His death (though pitifully unjust) just another death like all the other ones. It would prove that Jesus was just another person – and also, most horribly, that we are still doomed in our sins.
But that was NOT the end of the story, for three days later, Jesus rose from the dead! And this is the Event of all events, the one we celebrate every year on Easter (and hopefully every other day as well!). The Resurrection of Jesus proved that God accepted the sacrifice of His Son on behalf of sinful man and validated Jesus’ life and ministry, all the remarkable claims He made, and the statement He made just before He died – “It is finished! – which signified that His redemptive work was complete, and not to be added to or subtracted from.
This is why Christmas is all about Easter. On Christmas we celebrate the great Coming of the Savior of the world. But it is a Coming that derives its very meaning from what happened three decades or so after that lowly birth – the death and resurrection of Jesus. Easter is what makes Christmas worth celebrating and saves it from being a story full of miraculous wonder that nonetheless rings hollow and falls short of ultimate meaning in the end. Praise God that He came to earth as a baby and grew up to pay for yours and my sin!
Even so, that is not where the story ends – or at least, it is not where it has to end. Jesus bids all of us who hear His words – and you are reading of them even now – to come to Him in faith, to realize that our sin has hopelessly cut us off from our Creator, and to place all of our hope and trust in the finished work that He accomplished for our salvation. This is the only way to a right relationship with God and to eternal life with Him.
Jesus is bidding you to come to Him even now, but at the same time He forces no one to come to Him. You must make a decision to trust what the Lord has done for you, and I pray you would do so now, and not waste a minute. After all, as it is written in the book of James, our life is but a vapor, and we do not know what will be tomorrow. We all have a meeting with death someday, and after this comes a meeting with Almighty God, who will be our Judge. He will judge us on the basis of what we have done with His Son – did we trust in Him alone for our salvation, or did we count His death and resurrection as worthless when it comes to our eternal destiny? We must make that choice now, because then it will be too late. And don’t forget – the One that came as a baby 2,000 years ago will one day come again to this earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Will you be ready?
Now, in writing this, I am not denying that Christmas has a wonderful quality all its own, without regard to other holidays. What could be more miraculous and breathtaking than the Christmas story? We rightly celebrate, with awe-filled hearts, the fact that God became man and dwelt among us, that He left His throne in heaven to become a human, vulnerable to all the flaws, weaknesses, and sorrows (yet without sin) that we all experience. And not only did God become man, but He first became a helpless baby, born to the most humble of families, in the most humble of circumstances, in a stable of all places and not a palace (the greatest of which in this entire world would have been an unimaginable act of self-humiliation for the Almighty Creator of the universe!).
There are even more amazing Christmas miracles – the birth of the Son of God from the womb of a virgin (thus avoiding Adam’s sin-filled lineage), the star that stood over Bethlehem, the angels who appeared bearing the wonderful news to, of all the people in the world, a few lowly shepherds in Israel. That the Almighty would choose to dwell among men as one of them is perhaps the most wonderful story of all!
I say “perhaps”, because there is an even more wonderful story than that. There must be, if Christmas is to have any meaning. Of course, if the Christmas story ended right at this point, it would be enough. We humans, undeserving of God’s very attention, would be forced to humbly bow at God’s mighty act of self-revelation to the world. But what purpose would that ultimately serve? Would it have changed anything?
No, it wouldn’t have. You see, we still would have been lost in our sins, even though Jesus grew to be a mighty Worker of miracles and a great Teacher of the truth. The reason is that we are unable to please God in our sinful condition, and as such deserve His just punishment, which is death (Romans 6:23). If Jesus, God in the flesh, only came to make an awesome but brief appearance on earth, we would all still have been doomed.
But Jesus didn’t come just to be a mighty Worker of Miracles and a great Teacher of the truth. The jarring reality of the situation is that that baby in the manger came to die – and not just because death is a common human destiny. Jesus Himself said of His life, “No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18).
Jesus’ very purpose on this earth was to die, not for Himself, but for you and me. If we are to be saved from our sin that separates us from a right relationship with God, we must have a Savior. We cannot save ourselves, but neither can God gloss over our sin and let us into His kingdom anyway. Our sin has to be paid for, and God was not content to simply see us pay for it – and so He sent His Son to pay for it. He did so by dying a cruel, violent death by execution on a Roman cross – not for anything wrong that He had done, but for everything wrong that you and I have ever done. Jesus became our Substitute, and all the wrath the God should have poured out on us He instead poured out on His only Son. Thus our sin was transferred to Jesus’ account so that His perfect righteousness could be transferred to the account of those who trust in Him.
And so you might say, “Ah, I see – then Christmas is all about Good Friday, not Easter.” However, even that is not entirely true. You see, in light of Jesus’ many remarkable claims – that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life; that He is able to give eternal life to as many as believe on Him; and that He would rise again the third day after His death, just to name three – His death cannot be the end of the story, for that would make Him a liar, and His death (though pitifully unjust) just another death like all the other ones. It would prove that Jesus was just another person – and also, most horribly, that we are still doomed in our sins.
But that was NOT the end of the story, for three days later, Jesus rose from the dead! And this is the Event of all events, the one we celebrate every year on Easter (and hopefully every other day as well!). The Resurrection of Jesus proved that God accepted the sacrifice of His Son on behalf of sinful man and validated Jesus’ life and ministry, all the remarkable claims He made, and the statement He made just before He died – “It is finished! – which signified that His redemptive work was complete, and not to be added to or subtracted from.
This is why Christmas is all about Easter. On Christmas we celebrate the great Coming of the Savior of the world. But it is a Coming that derives its very meaning from what happened three decades or so after that lowly birth – the death and resurrection of Jesus. Easter is what makes Christmas worth celebrating and saves it from being a story full of miraculous wonder that nonetheless rings hollow and falls short of ultimate meaning in the end. Praise God that He came to earth as a baby and grew up to pay for yours and my sin!
Even so, that is not where the story ends – or at least, it is not where it has to end. Jesus bids all of us who hear His words – and you are reading of them even now – to come to Him in faith, to realize that our sin has hopelessly cut us off from our Creator, and to place all of our hope and trust in the finished work that He accomplished for our salvation. This is the only way to a right relationship with God and to eternal life with Him.
Jesus is bidding you to come to Him even now, but at the same time He forces no one to come to Him. You must make a decision to trust what the Lord has done for you, and I pray you would do so now, and not waste a minute. After all, as it is written in the book of James, our life is but a vapor, and we do not know what will be tomorrow. We all have a meeting with death someday, and after this comes a meeting with Almighty God, who will be our Judge. He will judge us on the basis of what we have done with His Son – did we trust in Him alone for our salvation, or did we count His death and resurrection as worthless when it comes to our eternal destiny? We must make that choice now, because then it will be too late. And don’t forget – the One that came as a baby 2,000 years ago will one day come again to this earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Will you be ready?
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Santa Claus is a Big Fat Hoax; or, Virginia Was Lied To
There was a time I used to believe in Santa Claus, and I am sure that you can say the same. The book I had about Santa was one of my favorites growing up. In fact, the short piece “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” is even now one of my favorite pieces of Christmas literature. But I am here today to tell Virginia that she was lied to. No, there is a not a Santa Claus – for Santa Claus is one big fat hoax.
The only thing that puzzles me is why more children do not smell a rat from the very beginning. Maybe they do, and just play along for the sake of their elders. I know that I was rather taken aback when I was told by my father that there is no Santa. I am sure I had my reservations about some parts of the Santa Claus story – but as for dismissing the entire tale, that was something I never independently did. The fact remains that there are so many holes in the story of Santa Claus – why, so many bold-faced improprieties, incongruities, and impossibilities – that you could drive a whole sleigh pulled by eight or nine reindeer through one of ‘em, and do it easily.
The first whopper I see is rather startling. Who was that first parent who told his child about Santa Claus, and what was he or she thinking? The parents already know that they will be the ones buying the little tot’s favorite toys and things to enjoy for Christmas Day. The logical thing to do would be to tell Junior that Mommy and Daddy are buying gifts for Junior for Christmas because they love him so much. But no – that would make too much sense. Instead, we’re going to tell Junior that some fat old man in a red suit is going to drive down here in a sleigh all the way from the North Pole, climb down our chimney, and deposit all of those presents under our Christmas tree. Why that idea alone is not enough to freak most children out is one of the mysteries of our time.
Nor is that all, for we have much more to observe in this comedy of errors we call the Santa Claus story. Take, for instance, the notion that Santa lives at the North Pole. Why, no person could safely or comfortably live at the top of the world. Have you ever looked for the North Pole on a map or a globe? It’s nothing but ice, because it’s smack-dab in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Nobody lives there (much less Santa Claus), and many who have attempted to get there have perished or barely made it back. It hardly ever gets above freezing at the North Pole, and there are times in the year where there is either sunshine all the time or no sunlight at all. I think they made up Santa living at the North Pole because they don’t want anyone to go looking for him and find that he isn’t there.
Note also the claim that Santa is able, in one night, to deliver Christmas presents to all of the girls and boys in the world. Some even say Santa makes these presents himself with the help of his helpers, who are all elves (and how such tiny personages could be better help in manufacturing than big, strong men is beyond me). He puts all of the presents into a bag in his sleigh and then takes off into the air (with the aid of his flying reindeer – who incidentally can’t fly and don’t live at the North Pole, but in Scandinavia). If Santa is both rich enough and efficient enough to undertake this massive mission in one night and succeed, then he needs to be working as a consultant for the U.S. government ASAP. For my part, I don’t believe a word of it.
And if Santa is making all of these toys for the children, then why is he spotted at the mall every December? Does he need the help of big corporations to make his holiday project happen? Is he on a purchasing assignment? If so, then Santa is just another symbol of Christmas commercialism, and not, as they claim, a symbol of the purity and child-like innocence of Christmas.
That reminds me – every December, children go to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. I myself sat on Santa’s lap once (I asked for, among other things, a real Indian tomahawk; I was a dangerous and violent youngster). But when you see the merry old man perched on his throne in the middle of the concourse, with long lines of impatient families before him, what, pray tell, are nine out of ten children doing when they finally get to sit on his lap? Why, they are wailing so loudly that you would have thought Freddy Krueger just came into their bedroom at midnight. The fact is that children are afraid of Santa Claus when it comes right down to it. And he’s supposed to be the jolliest, kindest, most generous old man of them all. Fiddlesticks.
We are also told that Santa is keeping track of all the boys and girls in the world to see whether they are good or bad in the course of the long year – and if they are not good boys and girls, they won’t get any of the presents he plans to bring them. If this isn’t the biggest piece of hogwash ever perpetrated on the populace since the last act of Congress, tell me a bigger one and I’ll consider it. We all know that if Santa truly kept such a score, he’d be sitting home Christmas Eve night watching “The Biggest Loser”. This is because none of the little boys and girls are really that good the rest of the year. We all know Johnny bit and scratched and hit his little sister more times than we would like to admit, and that Sarah Sue fussed and cried and pouted to get her way and stole here little brother’s Legos and army-men and hid them in the bathtub drain at least twice. If those things aren’t enough to get crossed off Santa’s wonderful list, then Santa is just blowing smoke about the “good little boys and girls” routine. They claim that his gift to the bad children comes in the form of coal in their stockings, but I never once knew anybody that really got coal. And I know quite a few deserving candidates.
Now let us consider a few more elements of this elaborate holiday hoax. We all have heard that children are supposed to be in bed very early on Christmas Eve night so as not to be up when Santa arrives. No explanation is given as to why jolly old Saint Nick wouldn’t want to actually see the people to whom he is being so kind in bringing presents for Christmas (and they also don’t admit that the parents don’t want to be caught off-guard as they are assembling that shiny new bicycle they bought, either).
However, imagine with me (it’s easy if you try). Santa Claus comes, shouting with his trademark laughter, with a big sleigh drawn by eight or nine reindeer (who, incidentally, are not small beasts), and lands upon the roof. How is this not supposed to wake the entire neighborhood, much less the supposedly sleeping children? But it gets better. Santa is now supposed to come down the chimney. Santa is already, according to the story, quite rotund. On top of that, he has been eating quite a bit already, what with all the cookies and milk the children of the world have set out for him before retiring to bed, making him all that much more rotund (what if he gets indigestion?). What if the entirely plausible scenario that Santa gets stuck comes true? Is Roto-Rooter on standby to get him out? And what if the house has no chimney (as has been true with all but one of the houses I have lived in)? Is Santa supposed to just come in the front or back door? How about the window? What about the laws concerning breaking and entering? Do they not apply on Christmas Eve night?
Go along, if you like, with this farce called Santa. Enjoy the warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feelings he brings every 25th of December. I just can’t join you. There are simply too many glaring inconsistencies in the story to even make it fun anymore. In fact, should I have children, I will seriously consider not even bothering to tell them that Santa Claus is real. As they say, telling the truth is easier than lying because at least you can remember it more easily.
And with that, a merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
The only thing that puzzles me is why more children do not smell a rat from the very beginning. Maybe they do, and just play along for the sake of their elders. I know that I was rather taken aback when I was told by my father that there is no Santa. I am sure I had my reservations about some parts of the Santa Claus story – but as for dismissing the entire tale, that was something I never independently did. The fact remains that there are so many holes in the story of Santa Claus – why, so many bold-faced improprieties, incongruities, and impossibilities – that you could drive a whole sleigh pulled by eight or nine reindeer through one of ‘em, and do it easily.
The first whopper I see is rather startling. Who was that first parent who told his child about Santa Claus, and what was he or she thinking? The parents already know that they will be the ones buying the little tot’s favorite toys and things to enjoy for Christmas Day. The logical thing to do would be to tell Junior that Mommy and Daddy are buying gifts for Junior for Christmas because they love him so much. But no – that would make too much sense. Instead, we’re going to tell Junior that some fat old man in a red suit is going to drive down here in a sleigh all the way from the North Pole, climb down our chimney, and deposit all of those presents under our Christmas tree. Why that idea alone is not enough to freak most children out is one of the mysteries of our time.
Nor is that all, for we have much more to observe in this comedy of errors we call the Santa Claus story. Take, for instance, the notion that Santa lives at the North Pole. Why, no person could safely or comfortably live at the top of the world. Have you ever looked for the North Pole on a map or a globe? It’s nothing but ice, because it’s smack-dab in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Nobody lives there (much less Santa Claus), and many who have attempted to get there have perished or barely made it back. It hardly ever gets above freezing at the North Pole, and there are times in the year where there is either sunshine all the time or no sunlight at all. I think they made up Santa living at the North Pole because they don’t want anyone to go looking for him and find that he isn’t there.
Note also the claim that Santa is able, in one night, to deliver Christmas presents to all of the girls and boys in the world. Some even say Santa makes these presents himself with the help of his helpers, who are all elves (and how such tiny personages could be better help in manufacturing than big, strong men is beyond me). He puts all of the presents into a bag in his sleigh and then takes off into the air (with the aid of his flying reindeer – who incidentally can’t fly and don’t live at the North Pole, but in Scandinavia). If Santa is both rich enough and efficient enough to undertake this massive mission in one night and succeed, then he needs to be working as a consultant for the U.S. government ASAP. For my part, I don’t believe a word of it.
And if Santa is making all of these toys for the children, then why is he spotted at the mall every December? Does he need the help of big corporations to make his holiday project happen? Is he on a purchasing assignment? If so, then Santa is just another symbol of Christmas commercialism, and not, as they claim, a symbol of the purity and child-like innocence of Christmas.
That reminds me – every December, children go to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. I myself sat on Santa’s lap once (I asked for, among other things, a real Indian tomahawk; I was a dangerous and violent youngster). But when you see the merry old man perched on his throne in the middle of the concourse, with long lines of impatient families before him, what, pray tell, are nine out of ten children doing when they finally get to sit on his lap? Why, they are wailing so loudly that you would have thought Freddy Krueger just came into their bedroom at midnight. The fact is that children are afraid of Santa Claus when it comes right down to it. And he’s supposed to be the jolliest, kindest, most generous old man of them all. Fiddlesticks.
We are also told that Santa is keeping track of all the boys and girls in the world to see whether they are good or bad in the course of the long year – and if they are not good boys and girls, they won’t get any of the presents he plans to bring them. If this isn’t the biggest piece of hogwash ever perpetrated on the populace since the last act of Congress, tell me a bigger one and I’ll consider it. We all know that if Santa truly kept such a score, he’d be sitting home Christmas Eve night watching “The Biggest Loser”. This is because none of the little boys and girls are really that good the rest of the year. We all know Johnny bit and scratched and hit his little sister more times than we would like to admit, and that Sarah Sue fussed and cried and pouted to get her way and stole here little brother’s Legos and army-men and hid them in the bathtub drain at least twice. If those things aren’t enough to get crossed off Santa’s wonderful list, then Santa is just blowing smoke about the “good little boys and girls” routine. They claim that his gift to the bad children comes in the form of coal in their stockings, but I never once knew anybody that really got coal. And I know quite a few deserving candidates.
Now let us consider a few more elements of this elaborate holiday hoax. We all have heard that children are supposed to be in bed very early on Christmas Eve night so as not to be up when Santa arrives. No explanation is given as to why jolly old Saint Nick wouldn’t want to actually see the people to whom he is being so kind in bringing presents for Christmas (and they also don’t admit that the parents don’t want to be caught off-guard as they are assembling that shiny new bicycle they bought, either).
However, imagine with me (it’s easy if you try). Santa Claus comes, shouting with his trademark laughter, with a big sleigh drawn by eight or nine reindeer (who, incidentally, are not small beasts), and lands upon the roof. How is this not supposed to wake the entire neighborhood, much less the supposedly sleeping children? But it gets better. Santa is now supposed to come down the chimney. Santa is already, according to the story, quite rotund. On top of that, he has been eating quite a bit already, what with all the cookies and milk the children of the world have set out for him before retiring to bed, making him all that much more rotund (what if he gets indigestion?). What if the entirely plausible scenario that Santa gets stuck comes true? Is Roto-Rooter on standby to get him out? And what if the house has no chimney (as has been true with all but one of the houses I have lived in)? Is Santa supposed to just come in the front or back door? How about the window? What about the laws concerning breaking and entering? Do they not apply on Christmas Eve night?
Go along, if you like, with this farce called Santa. Enjoy the warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feelings he brings every 25th of December. I just can’t join you. There are simply too many glaring inconsistencies in the story to even make it fun anymore. In fact, should I have children, I will seriously consider not even bothering to tell them that Santa Claus is real. As they say, telling the truth is easier than lying because at least you can remember it more easily.
And with that, a merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Friday, December 18, 2009
"But Who Do You Say That I Am?"
“And on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, “Who do men say that I am?” So they answered, “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Mark 8:27-29
Life poses to us many important questions – questions that demand a decision. They come in many forms and are asked of us at different points in our lives. What career will I pursue? Where will I go to school? Will I marry, and if so, whom? Where will I live? How will I choose my friends? What church will I attend, if any? Will I have children, and if so, how many and how am I to raise them? How am I to manage my money? And what is the meaning of life – what is my overall philosophy?
We all have our different approaches to answering these questions, and we may order them differently in importance. Some of us are more philosophical, and others are more practical in nature. Some put family and friends first, and others put careers and achievement before all else. Some of us actually sit down and ponder the answers to these questions, while others answer them by the way they live their lives, and not consciously. But all of these questions, in the long run, do get answered in some way – they must by their very nature. But what would you think if I told you that none of these questions, however basic they may be to our human experience, is the most important that any of us will ever answer?
The most important question we will ever answer is, “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?” In the verse that opens this discussion, Jesus posed just that question to the people who followed Him. He first asked what other people said about Him, which the disciples answered. But Jesus did not stop there, for that was not His main point. He went on to ask them a very personal question – “But who do you say that I am?”
It may puzzle you when I say that we, in the year 2009, will never answer a more important question than that regarding a man who lived 2,000 years ago. The reason I say this is that the question is far from equivalent to asking who we think George Washington or John F. Kennedy or Aristotle were. We can read history books to find that out, and even then, it hardly matters who we think they were. Notable men and women, and even great ones, have shaped history (sometimes to a large extent), but they hardly have a direct influence on our personal lives. Some say that Jesus fits this category. Some say that He was a great religious teacher, a Jewish rabbi who came and taught us the right way to live – a man of peace and good works. If this were so, Jesus would be another notable historical figure, perhaps one worth admiring. But I tell you it is not so. For no one who has read what Jesus Himself actually said can come away thinking that He was a great religious teacher.
In John 7:46, there are recorded the words of officers sent by religious leaders to arrest Jesus – “No man ever spoke like this man!” Take a sampling of the things that Jesus Himself said about Himself, and test whether this is true. In John 4:26, in response to a woman who spoke of the coming of the Messiah, Jesus said “I who speak to you am He.” Jesus repeatedly called God His Father, which to the Jews was blasphemy since in so doing He was making Himself equal with God Himself (John 5:18).
Jesus said of Himself, “Most assuredly, he who hears My word and believes on Him who sent Me has everlasting life” (John 5:24). He also claimed, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Jesus said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus lived thousands of years after the time of Abraham, yet He claimed, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58), invoking the name that God gave Himself when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush.
Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). Most astoundingly, especially to our ears in this day of moral relativism, Jesus claimed of Himself, “I AM the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE – no man comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
More than once, Jesus predicted not only that He would die, but where and how He would die – and in the same prediction He claimed that three days after His death He would rise from the dead. And He did.
Read the gospel of John, and the three gospels that come before it in the Bible. There you will find Jesus’ statements just as I have laid them out here, and you will find many others like it. After just this brief sampling of Jesus’ own claims, can the assertion that Jesus was only a great religious teacher be intellectually honest? Jesus did not claim to show the way – He claimed to BE the way. Jesus did not claim to show us how to live – He claimed to BE life itself, and to be able to give eternal life to anyone who believed in Him. Jesus did not claim to help us learn truth – He claimed to BE truth. Jesus claimed, without batting an eye, to be equal with God, Whom He called His Father. If I came to you and made these same claims to you about myself, you would no doubt think I was on a tremendous ego trip (at the very least). You most certainly would not believe me. These kinds of claims are remarkable claims indeed!
The claims of Jesus, you must admit, are remarkable if they are to be taken at face value. Indeed, no man ever spoke like this man. As one man (I believe it was C.S. Lewis) wrote once not so long ago, there are only three conclusions one may come to concerning Jesus of Nazareth – He is a liar, He is a lunatic, or He is Lord.
Jesus is a liar if He made those claims and yet knew that they were patently false. If indeed He was only a normal human being like you and me, and knew it, and yet claimed to be so much more, would that not make Him a flat-out liar? Tell me, would a pathological liar make a suitable great religious teacher in your opinion? Would a liar be someone you would be willing to trust in matters of spirituality – or anything else?
Jesus is a lunatic if He made those claims and seriously believed them though they were false. Only a mentally unstable person would have such a “God-complex” or a “Messianic delusion” concerning his own identity. We would call such a person narcissistic if he or she claimed such things even once or twice. But what about a person who repeatedly makes such claims? Who do you know that does or has ever made such claims so repeatedly? What would you think of them? Would you not regard them as a little crazy? Would a lunatic be worthy of your faith and trust when it comes to the biggest questions of life and eternal destiny? For my part, I think not.
Either way – if Jesus is a deliberate liar or a pathetic lunatic – He is not worthy of our time. Nothing He said could be trusted as true or viewed as sane. And so Jesus would not really be great in any way – He would only be notable for the wrong reasons.
But what if Jesus of Nazareth was correct in His claims? What if He really is the Son of God? What if He really was sent by His Father to pay for your sin and my sin? What if He really is the Way, the Truth, and the Life – the only path to God? What if He really did rise again from His tomb? This is what Jesus said. If He was right, what then?
The only conclusion then would be that Jesus is Lord, and that we had better believe what He said. If we do not, then what He said would be true of us – “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). John the Baptist testified of Jesus, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).
Jesus’ question to His disciples – “Who do YOU say that I am?” – echoes down to us many centuries later. It is a question we must answer, and as I have attempted to show, there are not many different ways to answer it. We must dismiss Jesus as historically notable but insignificant as far as it concerns the pursuit of truth; or we must fall on our knees and acknowledge Him as Lord and as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, our sin. The choice is up to each one of us. Just as with the disciples, Jesus is not satisfied with our answer as to what everyone else thinks of Him. He wants to know what WE think of Him individually. He will not force us to answer a certain way. But He does demand an answer. As for me, I confess that Jesus of Nazareth is my Lord, and the One Who, as my Savior, bore my sins in His own body on the cross, that I may have eternal life and be declared righteous in God’s sight. Who do you say that Jesus is?
Mark 8:27-29
Life poses to us many important questions – questions that demand a decision. They come in many forms and are asked of us at different points in our lives. What career will I pursue? Where will I go to school? Will I marry, and if so, whom? Where will I live? How will I choose my friends? What church will I attend, if any? Will I have children, and if so, how many and how am I to raise them? How am I to manage my money? And what is the meaning of life – what is my overall philosophy?
We all have our different approaches to answering these questions, and we may order them differently in importance. Some of us are more philosophical, and others are more practical in nature. Some put family and friends first, and others put careers and achievement before all else. Some of us actually sit down and ponder the answers to these questions, while others answer them by the way they live their lives, and not consciously. But all of these questions, in the long run, do get answered in some way – they must by their very nature. But what would you think if I told you that none of these questions, however basic they may be to our human experience, is the most important that any of us will ever answer?
The most important question we will ever answer is, “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?” In the verse that opens this discussion, Jesus posed just that question to the people who followed Him. He first asked what other people said about Him, which the disciples answered. But Jesus did not stop there, for that was not His main point. He went on to ask them a very personal question – “But who do you say that I am?”
It may puzzle you when I say that we, in the year 2009, will never answer a more important question than that regarding a man who lived 2,000 years ago. The reason I say this is that the question is far from equivalent to asking who we think George Washington or John F. Kennedy or Aristotle were. We can read history books to find that out, and even then, it hardly matters who we think they were. Notable men and women, and even great ones, have shaped history (sometimes to a large extent), but they hardly have a direct influence on our personal lives. Some say that Jesus fits this category. Some say that He was a great religious teacher, a Jewish rabbi who came and taught us the right way to live – a man of peace and good works. If this were so, Jesus would be another notable historical figure, perhaps one worth admiring. But I tell you it is not so. For no one who has read what Jesus Himself actually said can come away thinking that He was a great religious teacher.
In John 7:46, there are recorded the words of officers sent by religious leaders to arrest Jesus – “No man ever spoke like this man!” Take a sampling of the things that Jesus Himself said about Himself, and test whether this is true. In John 4:26, in response to a woman who spoke of the coming of the Messiah, Jesus said “I who speak to you am He.” Jesus repeatedly called God His Father, which to the Jews was blasphemy since in so doing He was making Himself equal with God Himself (John 5:18).
Jesus said of Himself, “Most assuredly, he who hears My word and believes on Him who sent Me has everlasting life” (John 5:24). He also claimed, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Jesus said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus lived thousands of years after the time of Abraham, yet He claimed, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58), invoking the name that God gave Himself when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush.
Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). Most astoundingly, especially to our ears in this day of moral relativism, Jesus claimed of Himself, “I AM the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE – no man comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
More than once, Jesus predicted not only that He would die, but where and how He would die – and in the same prediction He claimed that three days after His death He would rise from the dead. And He did.
Read the gospel of John, and the three gospels that come before it in the Bible. There you will find Jesus’ statements just as I have laid them out here, and you will find many others like it. After just this brief sampling of Jesus’ own claims, can the assertion that Jesus was only a great religious teacher be intellectually honest? Jesus did not claim to show the way – He claimed to BE the way. Jesus did not claim to show us how to live – He claimed to BE life itself, and to be able to give eternal life to anyone who believed in Him. Jesus did not claim to help us learn truth – He claimed to BE truth. Jesus claimed, without batting an eye, to be equal with God, Whom He called His Father. If I came to you and made these same claims to you about myself, you would no doubt think I was on a tremendous ego trip (at the very least). You most certainly would not believe me. These kinds of claims are remarkable claims indeed!
The claims of Jesus, you must admit, are remarkable if they are to be taken at face value. Indeed, no man ever spoke like this man. As one man (I believe it was C.S. Lewis) wrote once not so long ago, there are only three conclusions one may come to concerning Jesus of Nazareth – He is a liar, He is a lunatic, or He is Lord.
Jesus is a liar if He made those claims and yet knew that they were patently false. If indeed He was only a normal human being like you and me, and knew it, and yet claimed to be so much more, would that not make Him a flat-out liar? Tell me, would a pathological liar make a suitable great religious teacher in your opinion? Would a liar be someone you would be willing to trust in matters of spirituality – or anything else?
Jesus is a lunatic if He made those claims and seriously believed them though they were false. Only a mentally unstable person would have such a “God-complex” or a “Messianic delusion” concerning his own identity. We would call such a person narcissistic if he or she claimed such things even once or twice. But what about a person who repeatedly makes such claims? Who do you know that does or has ever made such claims so repeatedly? What would you think of them? Would you not regard them as a little crazy? Would a lunatic be worthy of your faith and trust when it comes to the biggest questions of life and eternal destiny? For my part, I think not.
Either way – if Jesus is a deliberate liar or a pathetic lunatic – He is not worthy of our time. Nothing He said could be trusted as true or viewed as sane. And so Jesus would not really be great in any way – He would only be notable for the wrong reasons.
But what if Jesus of Nazareth was correct in His claims? What if He really is the Son of God? What if He really was sent by His Father to pay for your sin and my sin? What if He really is the Way, the Truth, and the Life – the only path to God? What if He really did rise again from His tomb? This is what Jesus said. If He was right, what then?
The only conclusion then would be that Jesus is Lord, and that we had better believe what He said. If we do not, then what He said would be true of us – “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). John the Baptist testified of Jesus, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).
Jesus’ question to His disciples – “Who do YOU say that I am?” – echoes down to us many centuries later. It is a question we must answer, and as I have attempted to show, there are not many different ways to answer it. We must dismiss Jesus as historically notable but insignificant as far as it concerns the pursuit of truth; or we must fall on our knees and acknowledge Him as Lord and as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, our sin. The choice is up to each one of us. Just as with the disciples, Jesus is not satisfied with our answer as to what everyone else thinks of Him. He wants to know what WE think of Him individually. He will not force us to answer a certain way. But He does demand an answer. As for me, I confess that Jesus of Nazareth is my Lord, and the One Who, as my Savior, bore my sins in His own body on the cross, that I may have eternal life and be declared righteous in God’s sight. Who do you say that Jesus is?
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