by Michael Frost | Jan 3, 2020 | Bible/Jesus
According to church tradition, January 6 is the day to remember one of Jesus’ strangest encounters. It’s called the Feast of the Epiphany and it celebrates the so-called three wise men worshipping the infant Christ. Except, we need to clear a few things up. They weren’t kings. The Bible doesn’t really call them “wise men”. And there’s no evidence there was only three of them. There could have been a whole caravan of them for all we know. Or there might have been just two of them. Tradition has it there was three because they presented the infant Jesus with three gifts (gold, frankincense and myrrh). But their actual number is unknown. I created a bit of a stir recently when I dared to disagree with a much-loved Christmas song, so I’m not going to trash all those Christmas carols about the three wise men/kings, but when Matthew’s Gospel refers to them it’s with the Greek word, mágos. In ordinary usage this word means “magician” or “sorcerer,” as in, illusionist or fortune-teller, even though the KJV and RSV translates it benignly as “wise man”. It can also refer to the priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. So, when Matthew writes that “Magi from the east came to Jerusalem” (2:1), he might have been talking about
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by Michael Frost | Apr 17, 2019 | Bible/Jesus
It’s Easter. A time for chocolate eggs and hot cross buns and hat parades. The sentimentality of Easter can be comforting. Cute bunnies and chicks bursting from eggs conjure thoughts about new life and fresh hope. And preachers can play into it. Easter becomes a time when they’re often reminding us to invite Jesus into our hearts. Sermons are full of references to God’s love and personal forgiveness and fresh starts. But that’s not exactly how the first Christians talked about the Easter event. For the first Christians, the good news was less Here Comes Peter Cottontail and more like Game of Thrones. I’ll give you some examples. In Acts 13 we read the story of Paul preaching in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch. To an audience of Jews and godfearing Gentiles, he recounts a potted history of Israel, including references to their slavery in Egypt, the forty years in the wilderness, the ministry of the prophet Samuel, the anointing of King Saul, and his successor, King David. It’s all about Israel rising from the dust and David ascending to the throne of a great new nation. So far so good for his audience. He then comes to Jesus: “From [David’s] descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised.” (v23) What follows is a Readers Digest
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by Michael Frost | Mar 27, 2018 | Bible/Jesus
It is one of the most famous depictions of the trial of Christ. And the detail of each character is impressive. Pontius Pilate is there, brittle with stress and apprehension, his brow furrowed, his arms awkwardly crossed, sitting in judgement of Christ. The chief priests and elders surround Pilate, badgering him for a verdict in their favor. The baying crowd, held in check by a Roman centurion, lean around each other to catch a glimpse of the accused. One man throws his hands in the air and cries, “Crucify him!” Christ himself, ghostly and otherworldly, stands still in the center of the picture, gazing at the Roman prefect as he vacillates before pronouncing his judgement. Christ Before Pilate was painted by the Hungarian artist, Mihály Munkácsy in 1881 and was an immediate success. During its first showing in Paris it attracted thousands of people every day. Munkácsy then arranged for it to go on a four-year tour across the galleries of Europe. He was hailed as the new Michelangelo or Rembrandt. Those who viewed the enormous canvas, 20 feet long and 13 feet high, reported feeling immersed in its drama, surrounded by the fury and the tension of the scene it depicts. But soon, viewers began to ask who was that young mother of Raphaelic beauty standing by the pillar
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by Michael Frost | Dec 22, 2017 | Bible/Jesus
It’s called Scène du massacre des Innocents (“Scene of the massacre of the Innocents”), and it was painted by the largely overlooked Parisian painter, Léon Cogniet in 1824. Today it hangs in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes. If it’s not the greatest of Christmas paintings, it must be one of the most haunting and affecting. A terrified mother cowers in a darkened corner, muffling the cries of her small infant, while around her the chaos and horror of Herod’s slaughter of the children of Bethlehem rages. Most painters of this scene turn it into a huge biblical spectacle, making it a revolting tableaux of death and mayhem. But Cogniet focuses our attention on one petrified woman, a mother who knows she is about to lose her child. She envelopes her doomed child, her bare feet revealing how vulnerable they are. There’s no way to run. She is cornered. Wisely, Cogniet doesn’t show us the carnage. It is hinted at in the rushing figures in the background. Another mother is seen carrying her own children down the stairs to the left, running for their lives. But Cogniet shows a level of artistic restraint not seen in many depictions of this story. He forces everything to the background in order to draw our attention to the woman’s terrified face. That face! Staring at…
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by Michael Frost | Dec 18, 2017 | Bible/Jesus
Rosalie Kunoth-Monks is an Amatjere woman, born in the outback in 1937 at the height of Australia’s so-called assimilation policy. At that time, it was believed that Aboriginal peoples were so vastly inferior to the culture of white settlers that they would soon die out altogether. The government adopted a policy of forcibly removing indigenous children from their families in order to be assimilated into white society, for “their own good”. (Think Rabbit Proof Fence, if you’ve seen that film) Children were taught to reject their indigenous culture and history and to adopt the ways of white society. Their names were often changed, and they were forbidden to speak their traditional languages. Some children were adopted by white families, and others were placed in institutions, many of which were run by Christian denominations, where abuse and neglect were common. Little Rosalie Kunoth was nine-years-old when her father naively took her to Alice Springs, 260 kilometres from Utopia Cattle Station (Arapunya) where she was born, to “get some white education.” To his horror, his daughter was taken from him permanently and made a ward of the state. “We put our heads in the noose, and it tightened very fast,” is the way Rosalie Kunoth-Monks describes it. Little Rosie was assimilated. Raised and educated in a Christian boarding school, she went on
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by Michael Frost | Dec 13, 2017 | Bible/Jesus
[This is the third in a four-part series on the gifts of Advent. The first post explored BEAUTY and in the second I looked at JUSTICE] Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in. ~ Leonard Cohen The song Anthem first appeared on Leonard Cohen’s 1992 album, The Future, and quickly became one of his most enduring and oft-quoted lyrics. Typical of Cohen’s work, it contains allusions to his Jewish background, as well as references to the Buddhist religion of his adulthood and the Christian faith that continued to intrigue him. These are the words of a man searching for human wholeness. It’s this, the healing and renewal of human beings, and indeed all of creation, that I want to explore in this post. Wholeness is the third gift of Advent. RING THE BELLS THAT STILL CAN RING When Cohen calls on us to ring the bells that still can ring, he’s urging us to keep searching for the holy, to not give up the hope that there is healing in the offing. In his book Diamonds in the Line, he wrote of this lyric, I mean, you have to come up with a philosophical ground. We’re in a dismal situation… and the future
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by Michael Frost | Dec 8, 2017 | Bible/Jesus
[This is the second in a four-part series looking at the gifts given to us in the coming of Jesus. The first gift I explored was BEAUTY. You can read it here.] One of the most powerful ways to show people the truth of Christianity is to serve the common good. ~ Tim Keller In his first advent Jesus promised justice for the oppressed, something that will be ultimately and completely dispensed in his second advent. In this vein, at Christmas we often hear preachers refer to the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah, such as those in Isaiah 9: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. (Isa 9:6-7) The first advent of King Jesus heralds the establishment of a just and equitable kingdom of God on earth. NT Wright calls it “…the explosive news of a different empire, a different emperor, a different kind of emperor.” He continues, Jesus isn’t simply another politician on whom everyone can pin their hopes and who will then let them down. His way
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by Michael Frost | Dec 4, 2017 | Bible/Jesus
Beauty – Katrina Lambert Beauty lives In the hollow of the itch you can’t reach. Its first gift is a jolt of recognition – A reflection of something Deep and hidden within us. Beauty lies In the stitched line of the horizon. Its second gift is the joy of communion – A joining of our inner world With the boundless sky of billions of heavenly bodies. Beauty inhabits A time beyond time. Its third gift is the glory of eternity – As we are pulled through a pinhole in the present To the infinite beyond that is our true home coming. The best poetry doesn’t need analysis, but the author of this poem is also a preacher and her thoughts on beauty are as sharp as they are splendid. Katrina Lambert recounts the three gifts of beauty and I want to use her thoughts to explore beauty as a gift in itself, that is, as a gift of God, given in the first advent of Christ and promised in his second. 1. THE JOLT OF RECOGNITION According to Lambert, beauty presents us with that taste of something delicious we’ve been hungering for, or as she describes it “a reflection of something / Deep and hidden within us”. When we encounter beauty it tugs at our spirit. It triggers a sense
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by Michael Frost | Nov 16, 2017 | Bible/Jesus
Why is it that the people most likely to demand that we “keep Christ in Christmas” seem to know so little about the historical birth of Jesus! If they did, they would have no sentimental attachment to traditional nativity scenes and they definitely wouldn’t want to have them placed in centers of commercialism like shopping malls. This isn’t so much to grouse about the chintz and cheesiness of traditional Christmas celebrations as it is to bemoan the widespread ignorance of the gospel story by the very followers of Jesus. If you knew and believed the story of Christ, you’d know a trad nativity scene is a cartoonish representation of what really happened in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago. This was highlighted for me again when I read about Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler defending the actions of senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of initiating several sexual encounters with teenage girls, including one who was only fourteen, when he was in his thirties. Ziegler’s justification for Moore’s behavior was breathtaking (and not in a good way): “Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.” Aside from the reprehensible action of using the gospel
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by Michael Frost | Sep 4, 2017 | Bible/Jesus
I have previously blogged about how difficult it’s been for those Christians arguing the case against same-sex marriage because of the difficulty of using evidence from the Bible or our religious tradition in a secular debate. You don’t seem to read or hear many ministers quoting Jesus’ words about family while trying to defend traditional marriage. I’ve heard some proponents of the Yes case saying Jesus never talked about homosexuality. Sure, but he spoke about family quite a bit. It’s just that what he said was kinda, well, awkward. When discussing marriage, Jesus quoted the Old Testament book of Genesis (“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” – Gen 2:24; Mt 19:5), but this was in the context of him laying down the law about divorce and remarriage. On that topic Jesus definitely votes NO (except in the case of sexual immorality). Pretty much everything else he says about marriage or family isn’t terribly quotable in a debate about marriage, whether same-sex or traditional. Jesus himself didn’t marry or father children, a highly unusual (indeed suspect) choice at that time. In fact, when his disciples moaned about his harsh teaching on divorce, saying maybe it’d be easier never to marry in the first
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by Michael Frost | Aug 3, 2017 | Bible/Jesus
It’s tempting sometimes to fall into the habit of thinking that God only hears the prayers of those who have achieved some level of holiness above the average. Have you ever found yourself asking your pastor or priest to pray for something as if their prayers are likely to ring louder in the ears of God than yours? We’re taught, Jesus won’t hear your prayers if your motives are selfish. And, Jesus won’t answer you if you don’t believe the right things about him. Really? Because in the Bible we find Jesus not just answering, but honoring, the request of a woman made out of selfish motives and based on an entirely false assumption about him. The nameless woman’s story appears in all three synoptic gospels (Mark 5:25–34, Matthew 9:20–22, Luke 8:43–48) and it’s one of Jesus’ strangest and yet most touching miracles. In all three accounts, the healing of the bleeding woman is presented as an interruption to a larger story – Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead. Jairus, a synagogue leader has approached Jesus, asking him to heal his dying child, and the two of them, together with the disciples, are making their way through a dense crowd of onlookers and supplicants toward Jairus’ house. En route, the nameless woman approaches Jesus in secret, blending in with
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by Michael Frost | Jun 23, 2017 | Bible/Jesus
When you think about Jesus as a shepherd this is what comes to mind, right? Gentle Jesus with a docile lamb nestled in his arms or around his shoulders? The nurturing shepherd, protecting his sheep, loving them one and all? These pictures are everywhere, painted on canvas, etched in stained glass, assembled in mosaics. They are the most popular and enduring images of Jesus and justifiably so. But when Jesus referred to himself as the good shepherd is this only what he had in mind? Images of Jesus with a single pathetic lamb owe more to a parable he told in Matthew 18 and Luke 15 about a shepherd leaving his ninety-nine safe sheep to rescue a single lost one. He told the story to explain to the Pharisees why he hung out with “sinners” (a thing the Pharisees clearly frowned on). But the passage in which he described himself as the good shepherd is John 10. In that passage he’s also tangling with the Pharisees. They have just subjected a poor beggar blind from birth, who had been miraculously healed by Jesus, to nothing short of spiritual abuse. They brutally haul him and his family through various theological panels demanding he explain who Jesus is and where his power comes from. The man is illiterate, uneducated, unsophisticated. In his ignorance
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