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soul - ache - ideas, sounds and images between the already and the not-yet

text and context 2: lukan pairs and "good news which shall be unto ALL people"

***sorry I've been away for a bit--youth ski trip last week, but more on that later. in the meantime, here's last week's text and context. more to come tomorrow!***

       
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In the waning days of 2007 Jen and I were driving between myriad Christmas parties/obligations when we started trying to imagine what the post-Nativity days were like. The infant Jesus, crying and gurgling and laughing and doing all the other various bodily functions known to all newborns, even the God-man. It had to be pretty rough. The next time Jesus pops up in the Scripture is in the latter half of Luke 2--the presentation of the boy Jesus at the Temple and the subsequent prophecies uttered by Simeon and the proclamation of the Savior by the prophetess Anna.

As we talked about that passage, it became abundantly clear that there was plenty of material here for a sermon, or two, or two-in-one. I threw the idea out to our pastor of Jen and I co-preaching this text and he said he was game. The whole sermon follows at the end of this post for those who would like to listen in, but in the meantime I thought it was worth passing along a few more details on something I learned while doing my homework.

It turns out Simeon and Anna are neither the first nor the last of male/female dyads in Luke's gospel. While the angel visited Elizabeth, Zechariah is the one singing the song. When Jesus heals a Roman centurion's son he next visits Peter's mother-in-law. It would be tempting to read Luke's narrative intent as something akin to an egalitarian effort at affirmative action, but this betrays the heart of Luke's message. The angels appearing to the shepherds, the ones that were, as Linus says in A Charlie Brown Christmas "sore afraid", they say "Fear not, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be unto ALL people." 

Luke's intent is quite clear--the gospel is no respecter of persons, not merely for the rich, nor solely for the poor, not compartmentalized for the male, the aristocrat, the leper, the bourgeoisie, the harlot, the tax collector, the righteous. In a wonderful book entitled Women and Christian Origins Mary Rose D'angelo points out that these narrative pairs form an architecture of sorts--a bit of twin pillaring or, as I would prefer to think of it, a delicate arch of sorts. (see pictures 3 and 4). I can almost see it as Simeon and Anna jointly lift the infant Christ in the air, showing the one who literally and figuratively would cause the rising and falling of many in Israel, while still  being a "light unto the Gentiles".

It doesn't stop with Luke's gospel, however. Luke the Sequel, or the Book of Acts as it is more popularly known, maintains a tight narrative structure--where Luke 2 details the birth, presentation and "growth in wisdom and stature" of the Savior, Acts 2 give the birth, presentation and "growth in those added to their number" within the early Church. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that "men and women are being added daily", or that Lydia and her household are baptized, soon to be followed by a Philippian jailer and his household. It's narrative integrity, but it's more than that.

The bridge to the kingdom of God that is both already and not-yet is shored up by the stories of those who followed, male AND female, of every creed, ethnicity, social class and status. It is the good news to ALL people and Luke is reminding the close reader that anything less betrays the fullness of the one who came in swaddling clothes. It is the promise that bigger things, greater things--huge, MEGA-sized things, are still to come in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost ends of the earth. 

Greater Things by Jen & Trey Lyon  
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Filed under  //   gospel of luke   jen & trey   simeon & anna   text & context  
Posted January 5, 2009
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text and context 1: John's birth narrative

After reading a great post by a friend yesterday I decided to try something new. For the weekends I'll make one post that tries to look at a familiar passages of Scripture in its original context. I'm shooting to put things out there that you probably didn't hear in Sunday School. I think I'll alternate between New Testament and Old Testament. I'll leave out footnotes so as not to bog it down, but if you want those kind of nerdy things, let me know and I'll send them to you! I'd love to know how to shape it better, so please feel free to give me any feedback you can.

If you've ever seen A Charlie Brown Christmas, chances are good you can recite the birth narrative from the Gospel of Luke by memory. Linus reminds us in the King James of shepherds that were "sore afraid." During the Advent season, we turn to the gospels to set our hierarchy in the nativity. Most of this information comes from the second chapters of Luke and Matthew. Mark has no birth narrative and it is widely asserted that John lacks the familiar Christmas story. 

It's true, there are no shepherds to be found, no mystical magi wandering over from the East, no tyrants ordering the slaughter of first-born males. Instead, John uses an existing philosophical construct (the Logos) to give breadth and meaning to the incarnation of Jesus. And he's making a point, literally and figuratively.

A   1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.

B 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 

C 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

D 6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John.7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all of humanity might believe.

C´ 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

 B´ 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 

A´ 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

 14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.


Remember British Literature when you learned about sonnets, iambic pentameter, ABBA patterns, all that junk? Turns out poetry has been doing that since cuneiform. There's structure to John's gospel and he's making a point. You can see it diagrammed in the passage above. 

Verses 1-2 mirror 11-12 in the origins of creation, first the Logos, then the "children of God"

Verse 3 says the world was made through him, which 10 affirms, but adds that world "did not know him."

Verses 4-5 speak to the coming of the light, while 8-9 clarify that John was not the light--that light was still to come.

And the fulcrum is verse 7--that through John's witness to the light, all humanity might believe.

The author makes no bones about showing that this is about believing that Jesus is the Logos. The incarnation of the stuff that makes universes and worlds. There are no "so-and-so begat so-and-so, who begat so-and-so, who begat Jesus."John's birth narrative isn't from the genealogy of Joseph, or anyone else born "of human decision." It's from the cosmos. It's creation language. "In the beginning was the word (Logos)"

The revolutionary thing for John's audience wasn't the concept of the Logos, but the idea that the Logos would take on flesh. For the Gnostics, the Stoics and other philosophical schools, Logos represented the eternal, the origin of the universe, the eternal soup from whence came the souls of humanity. In this view, the material world is passive and functionally useless. Put another way, the eternal soul is good, the flesh is bad.

John says the Word became flesh and made his dwelling with us.

Eugene Peterson does this justice in The Message: "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood!"

It's the idea that the force that whirls galaxies into existence, that shapes the mortal soul and gives it meaning--that life-giving, meaning-making incarnational power came down at Christmas.

This isn't just some long-awaited Savior of a certain group of people--this is the Creator of all things come to make his dwelling among men.

The author of the Gospel of John stands the Stoics on their head.The God of Earth and Outer Space took the form of a human, entering it like a human being, living like a human being, showing us how to do it, how to make sense of it all, that all of humanity might believe.

That's good news--for everybody.

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Filed under  //   advent   jesus   john's gospel   text & context  
Posted December 20, 2008
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