Emmanuel: God With Us

"Sometimes just showing up is 90% of the job".

I forget where I heard the above quote, but it apparently is similar to a comment by Woody Allen. We celebrate Christmas as the promised appearance of God on earth in human form: when God showed up.

Jesus showed up. He showed up as a baby born in a stable. He showed up at weddings like the wedding in Cana. He showed up at funerals; although he was late to his friend Lazarus' funeral, he made up for it. He showed up for supper– invited himself to Zaccheus' place once, you will recall. He showed up at the bedsides of the sick. He showed up at church.

Jesus showed up in Jerusalem even when he knew it was dangerous. He also showed up early in the morning on the third day after he was tortured and murdered, and numerous times after that, so the Scriptures tell us.

You may have read the cover story in U.S. News and World Report this past week: "The Gospel Truth: Why Some Old Books are Stirring Up a New Debate About the Meaning of Jesus" by Jay Tolson (12/18/2006). The author is referring to the so-called 'Gnostic Gospels', early religious texts which were not included in the Canon of the Bible.

...They offered a strikingly different slant on the teachings of Jesus, one that emphasized esoteric knowledge (gnosis in Greek), and particularly self-knowledge as the path to salvation. More troubling to those who claimed to be orthodox Christians, Gnostic writers tended to view the virgin birth, the Resurrection, and other elements of the Jesus story not as literal, historical events but as symbolic keys to a "higher understanding" .... Steeped in Plato and other Greek learning, the Gnostics held that the body and the physical world were irredeemably evil. Some even believed that the material world was the creation of a lesser god, designed to blind humans to the inner spiritual "spark" and its connections with the true God. (page 72)

He goes on to say:

But can there really be any reconcilliation of those who believe that salvation comes from the outside, through the redemptive act of a divine savior, with those who believe that it comes through self-knowledge?

In a word, no.

The distinctions reflect profound theological and anthropological convictions about human nature and its relation to the divine.

The problem is that the core Christian teaching is wrong if the Gnostics are right, which they are not even though their ideas may be attractive to contemporary society. Tolson quotes Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright (Judas and the Gospel of Jesus: Have We Missed the Truth About Christianity):

...In other words, you are not the spark of light, you are part of the problem. And if you look deep within your heart, and you are true to what is deep within your heart, then you will actually mislead yourself and others that you drag down with you. (page 79)

Never mind the DaVinci Code and all that. There was no cover up. The early church openly threw out the Gnostic writings as not compatible with the experience of the Apostles, which was criteria for inclusion in the Bible.

We know that the Scriptures are true because God showed up, and continues to show up. So much for Gnosticism.

Paul wrote in Romans, some time after Jesus showed up on that road to Damascus, "For I know that nothing good dwells within me... I can will what is right but I cannot do it....Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

Cut to Messiah, the chorus just before the last great Amen: "But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

In the words of John of Patmos, who gets the last word in the Scriptures: "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."

Love,
Theophilus