God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
–Psalm 46:1-3
#Winter's throne, on the hills of Central Finland [2160×1440] [OC] pic.twitter.com/WqzKKnr0yL
— Nature And Animals 🌿 (@naturezem) January 5, 2021
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
–Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
Good wishes for #peace and health from all of us who celebrate #Christmas on January 6, with this beautiful #Armenian Nativity with the Adoration of the Shepherds and Magi, painted by Mesrob of Khizan in 1615 in Isfahan, #Iran (@GettyMuseum Ms. 118) pic.twitter.com/6GlzujWZZo
— Heghnar Watenpaugh (@HeghnarW) January 5, 2021
And even because this day He took not the angels’ nature upon Him, but took our nature in “the seed of Abraham,” therefore hold we this day as a high feast; therefore meet we thus every year in a holy assembly, upon us a dignity which upon the angels He bestowed not. That He, as in the chapter before the Apostle setteth Him forth, That is, “the brightness of His Father’s glory, the very character of His substance, the Heir of all things, by Whom He made the world;” He, when both needed it His taking upon Him their nature and both stood before Him, men and Angels, “the Angels He took not,” but men “He took;” was made Man, was not made an Angel; that is, did more for them than He did for the Angels of Heaven.
Elsewhere the Apostle doth deliver this very point positively, and that, not without some vehemency; “Without all question great is the mystery of godliness: God is manifested in the flesh.” Which is in effect the same that is here said, but that here it is delivered by way of comparison; for this speech is evidently a comparison. If he had thus set it down, “Our nature He took,” that had been positive; but setting it down thus, “Ours He took, the Angels He took not,” it is certainly comparative.
…Now the masters of speech tell us that there is power in the positive if it be given forth with an earnest asseveration, but nothing to that that is in the comparative. It is nothing so full to say, “I will never forget you,” as thus to say it; “Can a mother forget the child of her own womb? Well, if she can, yet will not I forget you.” Nothing so forcible to say thus, “I will hold my word with you,” as thus, “Heaven and earth shall pass, but My word shall not pass.” The comparative expressing is without all question more significant; and this here is such. Theirs, the Angels, nusquam, “at no hand He took, but ours He did.
–From a Christmas sermon in 1605.
Nativity, with double baby, from the front of Duccio's Maestà altarpiece in Siena cathedral. Today is Duccio's day. pic.twitter.com/1Qqq2BpDEy
— Dr. Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) May 20, 2018
Second, face. I wonder how you feel about your own face. Certainly, it bears a lot of your history. It’s true, isn’t it, that a lot of what we go through in life gets etched into our faces; and it’s also true that we read a lot about others by looking at their faces. That’s why face-coverings have made it so hard for us to relate well to one another: we all instinctively try to look one another in the face. We know the value of our masks: we have learned that we can catch and can transmit the virus through mouth and nose, so we readily wear our masks in order to protect ourselves and others. But it is a deprivation: faces matter in relationships.
So, then think about the face of the baby Jesus then, and about Mary and Joseph, looking down, with love beaming out of their faces at the new-born Christ-child. The truth at the heart of the Christmas story is an extraordinary one – that in the birth of Jesus, God himself has come among us, God became incarnate, made human for us. Listen again if you would to the first and last words of our Gospel reading tonight: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God; and the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Christians believe that when we look into the face of Jesus, we see the face of God revealed. And we believe that what we see in that face is grace and truth. Of course, these days, we mostly use the word grace to describe physical movement – in dance perhaps, like Oti Mabusi on Strictly, full of grace. But the Bible uses the word to describe Jesus’ character, and the character of God – not referring to physical movement, though yes, still referring to a kind of beauty. But it is the beauty of mercy, of generous favour, of undeserved kindness.
And of course these days, we mostly use the word truth in relation to facts – and perhaps in the USA and in the UK too, 2020 has seen at least the start of a return of respect for facts, for science, for experts after several years in which we have endured the politics of fake and fantasy. But when the Bible speaks about the truth which we see in the face of Jesus and in the face of God, again it refers to character – to trustworthiness and integrity, reliability and steadfastness.
An unfinished painting of the Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci, 1481.
My favorite example of how it’s possible to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously. pic.twitter.com/W9Hy35X6CW
— Taylor (@taytortot19) January 4, 2019
When we hear someone described as a Good Samaritan, we think about that person taking the time to help another. But it’s also a story told by Jesus about someone taking the risk of reaching out to another who was very different to them. Yes, the person needed help – but they also needed connection.
Christian faith doesn’t promise us a comfortable life. Christ promises us hope, meaning, peace, purpose and joy – but not comfort! It’s about following in the footsteps of Jesus, who took the risk of connecting with people who were separated from him.
We rightly think of lifeboat crews as heroic, although they may be embarrassed to hear that. Yet every time we reach out and connect with someone, it is an act of heroism. Don’t underestimate it.
It could be someone you know. It could be someone you’ve always wanted to connect with but never have. It could be someone you really disagree with.
Let’s go for a heroic New Year’s Resolution. Let’s resolve to reconnect. To reach out to just one person we don’t know, or from whom we have drifted apart.
The Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year Message | The Archbishop Of Canterbury https://t.co/7OrnKEswGv
— Raphael Duckett (@revraphael) January 1, 2020
The Charleston Harbor tidal gauge logged more records in 2020.
It recorded 68 tidal floods — the second-most ever at the station.
The highest year, when water levels reached 7 feet or higher 89 times, was in 2019.
The database of flood events maintained by the National Weather Service dates to 1953.
2020 also brought the highest ever amount of “major” tidal floods, when water levels rise to 8 feet, causing significant disruption in the region. That happened seven times last year, which is an even more remarkable milestone considering the region was not directly affected by a hurricane.
While 2020′s records are just one data point, it’s another sign that tidal flooding in the city driven by man-made climate change is worsening. The pace of flooding is speeding up, according to institutions such as the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, which has plotted an exponential trend of higher seas for Charleston.
While 2020′s records are just one data point, it’s another sign that tidal flooding in the city driven by manmade climate change is worsening. https://t.co/Ts25zkXN7V
— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) January 5, 2021
Enjoy it all from the London Symphony Orchestra.
One is very often asked at present whether we could not have a Christianity stripped, or, as people who asked it say, ‘freed’ from its miraculous elements, a Christianity with the miraculous elements suppressed. Now, it seems to me that precisely the one religion in the world, or, at least the only one I know, with which you could not do that is Christianity. In a religion like Buddhism, if you took away the miracles attributed to Gautama Buddha in some very late sources, there would be no loss; in fact, the religion would get on very much better without them because in that case the miracles largely contradict the teaching. Or even in the case of a religion like Mohammedanism, nothing essential would be altered if you took away the miracles. You could have a great prophet preaching his dogmas without bringing in any miracles; they are only in the nature of a digression, or illuminated capitals. But you cannot possibly do that with Christianity, because the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there nothing specifically Christian left. There may be many admirable human things which Christianity shares with all other systems in the world, but there would be nothing specifically Christian. Conversely, once you have accepted that, then you will see that all other well-established Christian miracles–because, of course, there are ill-established Christian miracles; there are Christian legends just as much as there are heathen legends, or modern journalistic legends–you will see that all the well-established Christian miracles are part of it, that they all either prepare for, or exhibit, or result from the Incarnation. Just as every natural event exhibits the total character of the natural universe at a particular point and space of time; so every miracle exhibits the character of the Incarnation. Now, if one asks whether that central grand miracle in Christianity is itself probable or improbable, of course, quite clearly you cannot be applying Hume’s kind of probability. You cannot mean a probability based on statistics according to which the more often a thing has happened, the more likely it is to happen again (the more often you get indigestion from eating a certain food, the more probable it is, if you eat it again, that you again have indigestion). Certainly the Incarnation cannot be probable in that sense. It is of its very nature to have happened only once. But then it is of the very nature of the history of this world to have happened only once; and if the Incarnation happened at all, it is the central chapter of that history. It is improbable in the same way in which the whole of nature is improbable, because it is only there once, and will happen only once.
–C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Master of Vyšší Brod, 14.vek #Bozic pic.twitter.com/O1IGQ8DGY6
— Mladen Aleksic (@MladenAleksic85) January 7, 2016
O God, who hast made the most glorious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, thine only-begotten Son, to be exceeding sweet and supremely lovable to thy faithful servants: Mercifully grant that all who devoutly venerate this name of Jesus on earth may in this life receive thy holy comfort, and in the life to come attain thine unending joy; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Today's pick: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn: The Circumcision https://t.co/h1lR6w1sli pic.twitter.com/bFbkAN7rCV
— Art and the Bible (@artbible) January 2, 2021
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
–Hebrews 12:1-2
Today's art: The Adoration of the Shepherds – Caravaggio https://t.co/427EQLjouY pic.twitter.com/L50WxBHgRh
— Art and the Bible (@artbible) December 29, 2020
Like we do every year, my parents took my brother and me to see “A Christmas Carol” on stage to get everyone into the Christmas spirit (which is no small feat at the end of November). The story is familiar and heartwarming, but the song they ended their production with struck me: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Set to music a few decades later, this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was written over Christmas of either 1863 or 1864, in the middle of the bloodiest war in American history.
The carol is not cotton candy; it is a beating heart, laid bare in seven stanzas with simple language. At the second-to-last verse, I noticed dimly that I had begun to cry; by the end of the song, my face was wet with tears.
“And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’”
It isn’t quite right to call this a cynic’s carol, but in this verse it is a desperate and bitter one. It’s a carol from a man who has had the nature of the world uncovered before him. It’s one of the only carols that still rings true to me in 2018.
Like all good poets, with “Christmas Bells” Longfellow reached out across almost 155 years of history to take my hand.
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.’”A Carol for the Despairing | Christianity Today https://t.co/coElaMNr26
— Robert Hendrickson (@FrRHendrickson) December 16, 2020
For those who think the idea of the Crusade is one that spoils the idea of the Cross, we can only say that for them the idea of the Cross is spoiled; the idea of the cross is spoiled quite literally in the cradle. It is not here to the purpose to argue with them on the abstract ethics of fighting; the purpose in this place is merely to sum up the combination of ideas that make up the Christian and Catholic idea, and to note that all of them are already crystallised in the first Christmas story. They are three distinct and commonly contrasted things which are nevertheless one thing; but this is the only thing which can make them one.
The first is the human instinct for a heaven that shall be as literal and almost as local as a home. It is the idea pursued by all poets and pagans making myths; that a particular place must be the shrine of the god or the abode of the blest; that fairyland is a land; or that the return of the ghost must be the resurrection of the body. I do not here reason about the refusal of rationalism to satisfy this need. I only say that if the rationalists refuse to satisfy it, the pagans will not be satisfied. This is present in the story of Bethlehem and Jerusalem as it is present in the story of Delos and Delphi; and as it is not present in the whole universe of Lucretius or the whole universe of Herbert Spencer.
The second element is a philosophy larger than other philosophies; larger than that of Lucretius and infinitely larger than that of Herbert Spencer. It looks at the world through a hundred windows where the ancient stoic or the modern agnostic only looks through one. It sees life with thousands of eyes belonging to thousands of different sorts of people, where the other is only the individual standpoint of a stoic or an agnostic. It has something for all moods of man, it finds work for all kinds of men, it understands secrets of psychology, it is aware of depths of evil, it is able to distinguish between ideal and unreal marvels and miraculous exceptions, it trains itself in tact about hard cases, all with a multiplicity and subtlety and imagination about the varieties of life which is far beyond the bald or breezy platitudes of most ancient or modern moral philosophy. In a word, there is more in it; it finds more in existence to think about; it gets more out of life. Masses of this material about our many-sided life have been added since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas. But St. Thomas Aquinas alone would have found himself limited in the world of Confucius or of Comte.
And the third point is this; that while it is local enough for poetry and larger than any other philosophy, it is also a challenge and a fight. While it is deliberately broadened to embrace every aspect of truth, it is still stiffly embattled against every mode of error. It gets every kind of man to fight for it, it gets every kind of weapon to fight with, it widens its knowledge of the things that are fought for and against with every art of curiosity or sympathy; but it never forgets that it is fighting. It proclaims peace on earth and never forgets why there was war in heaven.
This is the trinity of truths symbolised here by the three types in the old Christmas story; the shepherds and the kings and that other king who warred upon the children. It is simply not true to say that other religions and philosophies are in this respect its rivals. It is not true to say that any one of them combines these characters; it is not true to say that any one of them pretends to combine them. Buddhism may profess to be equally mystical; it does not even profess to be equally military. Islam may profess to be equally military; it does not even profess to be equally metaphysical and subtle. Confucianism may profess to satisfy the need of the philosophers for order and reason; it does not even profess to satisfy the need of the mystics for miracle and sacrament and the consecration of concrete things.
There are many evidences of this presence of a spirit at once universal and unique. One will serve here which is the symbol of the subject of this chapter; that no other story, no pagan legend or philosophical anecdote or historical event, does in fact affect any of us with that peculiar and even poignant impression produced on us by the word Bethlehem. No other birth of a god or childhood of a sage seems to us to be Christmas or anything like Christmas. It is either too cold or too frivolous, or too formal and classical, or too simple and savage, or too occult and complicated. Not one of us, whatever his opinions, would ever go to such a scene with the sense that he was going home. He might admire it because it was poetical, or because it was philosophical, or any number of other things in separation; but not because it was itself. The truth is that there is a quite peculiar and individual character about the hold of this story on human nature; it is not in its psychological substance at all like a mere legend or the life of a great man. It does not exactly in the ordinary sense turn our minds to greatness; to those extensions and exaggerations of humanity which are turned into gods and heroes, even by the healthiest sort of hero-worship. It does not exactly work outwards, adventurously, to the wonders to be found at the ends of the earth. It is rather something that surprises us from behind, from the hidden and personal part of our being; like that which can some times take us off our guard in the pathos of small objects or the blind pieties of the poor. It is rather as if a man had found an inner room in the very heart of his own house, which he had never suspected; and seen a light from within. It is as if he found something at the back of his own heart that betrayed him into good. It is not made of what the world would call strong materials; or rather it is made of materials whose strength is in that winged levity with which they brush us and pass. It is all that is in us but a brief tenderness that is there made eternal; all that means no more than a momentary softening that is in some strange fashion become a strengthening and a repose; it is the broken speech and the lost word that are made positive and suspended unbroken; as the strange kings fade into a far country and the mountains resound no more with the feet of the shepherds; and only the night and the cavern lie in fold upon fold over something more human than humanity.
—The Everlasting Man (Radford, Virginia: Wilder Publications, 2008 paperback ed. of the 1925 original), pp. 114-116
Today's pick: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn: The Holy Family with Angels https://t.co/nLizVvCuFK pic.twitter.com/qs2nSg5bIz
— Art and the Bible (@artbible) January 1, 2021
Listen to it all. A reminder of the English translation of the words:
O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord,
lying in a manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
Christ the Lord.
Alleluia!
But there she was on Wednesday, speeding from the North Castle Town Hall in Armonk, N.Y., to the police station in Mt. Kisco, the footwells of her Toyota scattered with spilled llama treats, passing out bushels of fliers: “LOST LLAMA,” one read. “Try not to scare him.”
“Gizmo,” she said aloud, as if a missing llama roving the hills of Bedford Corners, a wealthy, equestrian pocket of Westchester County, could hear her. “Where are you?”
Word of the weekslong hunt for Gizmo, the 7-year-old llama who absconded on Dec. 13, had already ricocheted around the town, the state and far beyond. Prayers and tips poured in from people who knew neither Ms. Heimann nor the first thing about pack animals. But a llama was on the loose, and it had captured the public’s imagination.
As the days stretched into llama-less weeks and concern grew, Ms. Heimann’s increasingly desperate Facebook posts morphed into calls for llama search parties.
Tipsters from around the region began calling her at all hours. Someone sent pictures of a llama — a different llama, safe in its paddock. Someone else sent a photo of “llama” dung that turned out to be the leavings of a deer. Complete strangers took to the hills and dales between the mansions and horse estates of the surrounding towns to find Gizmo. One caller said she had located him — with her psychic.
Feel good story and hilarious read — thank you @SarahMaslinNir
The detail that the poster had a picture of the llama’s rear…. ::chef kiss::https://t.co/AyA8jPtabP
— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) January 3, 2021
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week —
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted — quite unsuccessfully —
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off.
Read it all (my emphasis).
The annunciation to the shepherds, Luke 2:10-11 (NIV): "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord." 15thC Book of Hours [MS 455] #ChristmasEve pic.twitter.com/337zT9Gz8i
— LambethPalaceLibrary (@lampallib) December 24, 2018
The sermon starts about 25 1/2 minutes in; listen carefully for a great H A Ironsides story about San Diego in the 20th century (not the 19th, as I misspoke).
And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked (verses 1–2a). The death to which Paul refers is not a figure of speech, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, ‘This my son was dead’; it is a factual statement of everybody’s spiritual condition outside Christ. And it is traced to their trespasses and sins. These two words seem to have been carefully chosen to give a comprehensive account of human evil. A ‘trespass’ (paraptōma) is a false step, involving either the crossing of a known boundary or a deviation from the right path. A ‘sin’ (hamartia), however, means rather a missing of the mark, a falling short of a standard. Together the two words cover the positive and negative, or active and passive, aspects of human wrongdoing, that is to say, our sins of commission and of omission. Before God we are both rebels and failures. As a result, we are ‘dead’ or ‘alienated from the life of God’ (4:18). For true life, ‘eternal life’, is fellowship with the living God, and spiritual death is the separation from him which sin inevitably brings: ‘Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear.’ (Isaiah 59:2)
–John Stott, The Message of Ephesians (Bible Speaks Today) [Downer’s Grove, Ill. IVP Academic, 1984), pp. 42-43, quoted in yesterday’s sermon by yours truly
Give us grace, O God, to love thee in all things and above all things, that following the example of thy servant Elizabeth Ann Seton we might express our love for thee in the service of others. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
The Feast of St. Elizabeth Seton celebrates the first native-born American saint and patroness of Catholic school education in the United States. She also founded the Sisters of Charity, the first American religious community for women pic.twitter.com/gWmG73xaxS
— Cabrini Mission Fdn (@CabriniMission) January 4, 2021
O almighty God, who hast given unto thy Son Jesus Christ the name which is above every name, and hast taught us that there is none other whereby we may be saved: Mercifully grant that as thy faithful people have comfort and peace in his name, so they may ever labour to publish it unto all nations; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
New Year prayers. pic.twitter.com/t0I4bdpq3j
— Catherine Fox (@FictionFox) January 3, 2021
Restore us again, O God of our salvation,
and put away thy indignation toward us!
Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?
Wilt thou prolong thy anger to all generations?
Wilt thou not revive us again,
that thy people may rejoice in thee?
–Psalm 85:4-6
#ParrotOTD for Monday is the red-and-blue lory (Eos histrio) of the Talaud Islands, Indonesia. Pic by Vic Murayama pic.twitter.com/Wl0NevOMW6
— Parrot of the Day 🦜 – Wear a mask, humans! (@ParrotOfTheDay) November 23, 2015
“In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (chapter 4), cited by yours truly in the morning sermon
From @biblegateway … #CSLewis Daily: Today’s Readinghttps://t.co/1LG19zH8ZU
This is the ultimate law—the seed dies to live, the bread must be cast upon the waters, he that loses his soul will save it. pic.twitter.com/Qe073ozJlu— West Texas Missioner (@westTXmissioner) December 30, 2020
In the ACNA Cycle of Prayer, today we pray for the Province of Sudan and the Most Rev. Ezekiel Kondo, Archbishop; and for the Province of South Sudan and The Rt. Rev. Justin Arama,
Archbishop, and his wife, Joyce.
Almighty Father, we pray that they may be faithful witnesses for Jesus Christ and empowered
by your Holy Spirit to serve you in the world.
“Do not grow tired of praying for Sudan”, Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo pleads#AnglicanNews #Anglican #Anglicanshttps://t.co/OcUUSeGH46
— Anglican Communion News Service (@AnglicanNews) November 17, 2020
Almighty God,
in the birth of your Son
you have poured on us the new light of your incarnate Word,
and shown us the fullness of your love:
help us to walk in his light and dwell in his love
that we may know the fullness of his joy;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
#HaydonBridge today, the white 9th day of #Christmas. pic.twitter.com/36bZnouvWA
— Michael Sadgrove 🇪🇺 (@MichaelSadgrove) January 2, 2021
Blessed be God,
because he has not rejected my prayer
or removed his steadfast love from me!
–Psalm 66:20
✨ A remarkable boy child was born on this day, a long time ago. His legacy grew after his death through his pupils. He painted this Adoration of the Magi, depicting his most famous fellow Christmas child. His name? Abraham Bloemaert.
A merry and blessed Christmas to you all! 🎄 pic.twitter.com/ZHTUYLrOsw— Rembrandt's R👀m 🖌 (@RembrandtsRoom) December 25, 2020
‘We have often heard that people call this day ‘year’s day’, as the first day in the course of the year, but we do not find any explanation in Christian books as to why this day should be appointed the beginning of the year. The ancient Romans, in pagan days, began the calendar of the year on this day; the Jewish people began at the spring equinox, the Greeks at the summer solstice, and the Egyptians began the calendar of their year at harvest. Now our calendar begins on this day, according to the Roman practice, not for any holy reason, but because of ancient custom. Some of our service books begin at the Advent of the Lord, but nonetheless that is not the beginning of our year. There is no reason for it being this day, although our calendars continue to put it in this place.
It is most rightly thought that the beginning of the year should be appointed to the day when the Almighty Creator fixed the sun, moon, and stars and the beginning of all time…
'We habbað oft gehyred þæt men hatað þysne dæg geares dæg, swylce þes dæg fyrmest sy on geares ymbryne' ('We have often heard that people call this day 'Year’s Day', as if this day were first in the year's course…')
An Anglo-Saxon sermon for January 1st https://t.co/ZxYYcuGZf9 pic.twitter.com/kijA35qJDw
— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) January 1, 2021
Part of the reason for Dan Brown’s astonishing success is clearly that he was telling lots of people what they were ready to hear. That Christmas is a fraud, a festival stolen by the Church from pagans, has become a staple of many an atheist meme. Fuelling this trend is the fact that backing for it is to be found in distinguished works of history as well as in thrillers. “The Church was anxious to draw the attention of its members away from the old pagan feast days, and the December date did this very well, for it coincided with the ‘birthday of the invincible Sun’ of Mithraism, and the end of the Roman Saturnalia (December 24).” So writes John North in his book Stonehenge: Neolithic Man and the Cosmos.
Similarly, in his seminal study of the ritual year in Britain, Stations of the Sun, the great historian of paganism Ronald Hutton quotes a Christian writer whom he names “the Scriptor Syrus”, and dates to “the late fourth century”. This Scriptor Syrus — in the passage cited by Hutton — notes both that the birthday of the Sun was celebrated on 25 December, and that Christians as well as pagans took part in the celebrations. “Accordingly, when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day.” The case would seem open and shut.
But is it? In reality, the notion that Christmas is a festival stolen from pagans is quite as much a compound of confusions and inaccuracies as anything believed about the feast day by Christians themselves. There is no evidence — absolutely none — that the birth of Mithras was celebrated on 25 December. The confusion seems to have arisen because Mithras had Sol Invictus, “Unconquered Sun,” as one of his titles, and — according to an ambiguous entry in a mid-4th century almanac — the birthday of a quite different god called Sol Invictus may have been celebrated on the same date. What, though, of the evidence provided by the Scriptor Syrus? This, too, is not what it is widely assumed to be.
Far from providing contemporaneous evidence for the Christian appropriation of the Sun’s birthday, “Syrus” was in reality an anonymous medieval scribe who, back in the 12th century, had annotated a manuscript by a local bishop. “Scriptor Syrus” — literally, “Syrian writer” — was the name given to him in a 19th century edition of this manuscript. The passage quoted by Hutton was not, as has been widely assumed, a reference to the origins of Christmas. Rather, Syrus was trying to explain why Christians in Rome celebrated the birth of Christ on a different date to Christians in the eastern half of the Mediterranean — a date which the scribe himself, unsurprisingly, took for granted was the accurate one. Such, refracted by a process of Chinese whispers, is the origin of the claim so confidently asserted by Sir Leigh Teabing that nothing about Christmas is original. One more winter solstice myth, in short, to add to all the others.
"In reality, the notion that Christmas is a festival stolen from pagans is quite as much a compound of confusions and inaccuracies as anything believed about the feast day by Christians themselves." https://t.co/4xL8gl23KA via @holland_tom
— It's Still Christmas Wyclif (@wyclif) December 26, 2020
A Charles Wesley Hymn for New Years Day
1 Wisdom ascribe, and might and praise
To God, who lengthens out our days,
Who spares us yet another year,
And lets us see His goodness here;
Happy, and wise, the time redeem,
And live, my friends, and die to Him.
2 How often when His arm was bared,
Hath He our sinful Israel spared !
Let them alone, His mercy cried,
And turn’d the vengeful bolt aside,
Indulged another kind reprieve,
And strangely suffer’d us to live.
3 Laid to the root with conscious awe,
But now the threatening axe we saw,
We saw when Jesus stepp’d between,
To part the punishment and sin,
He pleaded for the blood-bought race,
And God vouchsafed a longer space!
4 Still in the doubtful balance weigh’d
We trembled, while the remnant pray’d:
The Father heard His Spirit groan,
And answer’d mild, It is My Son |
He let the prayer of faith prevail,
And mercy turn’d the hovering scale.
5 Merciful God, how shall we raise
Our hearts to pay Thee all Thy praise!
Our hearts shall beat for Thee alone,
Our lives shall make Thy goodness known,
Our souls and bodies shall be Thine,
A living sacrifice Divine.
6 I, and my house, will serve the Lord,
Led by the Spirit and the word;
We plight our faith, assembled here,
To serve our God the ensuing year;
And vow, when time shall be no more,
Through all eternity to adore.
–Charles Wesley as found in The Poetical Works Of John And Charles Wesley, Vol. VI,Ed. G. Osborn (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), pp. 9-10
Pale pink skies on this second day of the new year. pic.twitter.com/lWIzXsRyyl
— Mia Stålnacke (@AngryTheInch) January 2, 2021
Emmanuel, God with us, who didst make thy home in every culture and community on earth: We offer thanks for the raising up of thy servant Samuel Azariah as the first indigenous bishop in India. Grant that we may be strengthened by his witness to thy love without concern for class or caste, and by his labors for the unity of the Church in India, that people of many languages and cultures might with one voice give thee glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
The Church of England also commemorates Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah, Bishop in South India, Evangelist, 1945 https://t.co/LgbzgSu8XW pic.twitter.com/SWUlVygsTx
— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) January 2, 2021
O Almighty God, who alone art without variableness or shadow of turning, and hast safely brought us through the changes of time to the beginning of another year: We beseech thee to pardon the sins we have committed in the year that is past, and give us grace that we may spend the remainder of our days to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
❤️🍁✨ HAPPY NEW YEAR! ✨🍁❤️ pic.twitter.com/iF2Ems1Knl
— Canada (@Canada) January 1, 2021
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.” So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sar’ai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
–Genesis 12:1-7
Allen ein gutes und gesundes Jahr 2021
🍀🍀🍀 pic.twitter.com/fvdJ5S3CgI— Birgit Bea (@BirgitBea) January 1, 2021