Amy-Jill Levine - Light of the World: A Beginners Guide to Advent

Light of the World

Light of the World

A Beginners Guide to Advent

Light of the World

978-1-5018-8435-1

978-1-5018-8436-8 eBook

Light of the World DVD

978-1-5018-8430-6

Light of the World Leader Guide

978-1-5018-8438-2

978-1-5018-8439-9 eBook

AMY-JILL LEVINE

A BEGINNERS GUIDE to ADVENT

LIGHT OF THE WORLD

A Beginners Guide to Advent

Copyright 2019 Amy-Jill Levine

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Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are taken from the Common English Bible, copyright 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked (NRSV) are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org/

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crowns patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Scripture quotations marked (CEV) are from the Contemporary English Version Copyright 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.

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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Once again, to the churches, synods, presbyteries, dioceses, and other Christian groups that have welcomed me, in gratitude for your hospitality.

You are the light of the world.... Let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 5:14, 16

Jesus spoke to the people again, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me wont walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

John 8:12

I love Christmas. When I was a child, I sang Christmas carols in the public schools in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and to this day, in the car, or in the shower, or sometimes in the hallways of Vanderbilt Divinity School, Ill find myself humming pa rum pa pum pum or fa la la la la. I did on occasion get the lyrics wrong: Later on, well perspire, as we sit, by the fire is comprehensible, but not quite right. My mother told me that I used to cry when I heard Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer; that the other reindeer would not play with him remains distressing to me.

When I was very little, I thought of Christmas as about tinsel and toys, candy canes and poinsettia plants. Seeing decorated trees inside peoples homes, Id think to myself, Christians live here. Houses that had lights on the outside indicated that the people inside were really Christian. Somehow I got the impression that all these decorations were designed to make Jewish people happy. They certainly made me happy. They still do.

I also knew Christmas had something to do with a baby lying on straw and a pretty lady with a veil; there were some men in fancy bathrobes and crowns and other men in plain bathrobes with towels on their heads, and there was a donkey. But the story itself remained a mystery to me. I learned a little from the 1965 A Charlie Brown Christmas, in which Linus reads the story of the shepherds and the angels from Luke 2:8-14. The ending, from the King James Version, is the familiar (but not necessarily correct) translation from the Greek, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men (2:14). I liked the idea, but I did wonder what peace on earth had to do with Santa Claus, elves, or that donkey.

I still love Christmas, but now I appreciate not only the decorated tree but also the fruits the good trees bear. There is more beauty to Advent than Christmas music and artistic depictions of Madonna and Child. There is more value to the joy the season brings and the hopes it raises when we recognize the fascinating, rich, and provocative aspects of the stories of Jesus birth.

Knowing the historical context of Linuss citation matters, as does recognizing how references to angels and shepherds in Luke 2:8-14 would have been heard two thousand years ago. How much more profound does the text read when we discover that, beneath the expression good tidings of great joy, is the word for Gospel, euangelion, literally, good news. The import of the text is enhanced when we see how mentions of the city of David and of King David himself are essential to the good news and when we see how divine rule and earthly peace are connected.

The more I read the Nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, the more drawn in I am; each sentence, each word, shimmers with significancewith allusions to Jewish texts and Roman history, with connections to other words and stories in the Gospels, and with multiple meanings for the present, about birth and death, youth and aging, taxation and immigration, revelation and hopefor any reader who opens the book. Each time I read these texts, I see something new; therefore, each time I read the texts, they still speak to me.

Knowing the history also helps us realize that Christmas is so much more than a childrens holiday. I know a number of people who concluded that Santa isnt real and then leapt to the conclusion that the Christmas storiesof angelic appearances and prescient dreams, miraculous conceptions and stars that function like a GPSare superstitious nonsense. Thus, they dismiss the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke; they relegate the Advent messages to the space next to the elf on the shelf (not to be confused with Hanukkahs mensch on a bench) where the Gospel chapters gather dust alongside the little drummer boy, the manger in the snow globe, and Olive, the other reindeer.

Ive met far too many people, and in this case one person is too many, who have left the church because they could not believe the Christmas stories. Still others, noticing discrepancies in the narrativesMatthew has Magi, and Luke has shepherds; Matthew locates Joseph and Mary in their home in Bethlehem, and Luke has the birth in a stable; the genealogies of Joseph disagree, and so onconclude that both accounts are untrustworthy.