Φως `ιλαρον

On Christmas Day, I wrote about the beginnings of my pilgrimage toward a greater appreciation for the celebration of Christmas. I mentioned that the line of thought that gave me insight into the deeper significance of George Bailey's character, which I explained in my last post, eventually led me to realize how appropriate it is that we celebrate the birth of Jesus at the time of winter solstice. 


Here's the roundabout version of how it happened: before I came to see the image of Christ in the story of It's a Wonderful Life, I discovered him while teaching through the stories of Elisha in 2 Kings, which are some of the most bizarre narratives in the whole Bible: floating axe heads, bears mauling boys, "death in the pot", and the like. The full explanation of that will have to wait until later, but suffice it to say that it opened up an entirely new perspective on the Old Testament and what is meant by "all the things concerning Jesus" (Lk 24:27) in the Scriptures. At about the same time, I began to expose myself to the teaching of Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City. At first I found his approach to the Scriptures, in which he draws out of every text its supposed fulfillment in Jesus, artificial and forced, schooled as I was in conservative evangelical literalism that is highly suspicious of allegorical or spiritual approaches to Scripture. But the more I listened, the more I came to see the approach to be not only biblical, in that it put every text not just in its immediate literary context, but in its broader theological and redemptive context, but also extremely refreshing spiritually, in that it gave me a view of the colors and contours of the person and work of Christ, which view is the central spiritual act of the Christian life (2 Cor 3:18; Gal 3:1). Before long, I began to absorb from Keller the instinct I believe he caught from Jonathan Edwards of seeing all things in relation to divine truth and images or echoes of divine truth in all things. Keller does this well with psychological habits common in our culture and typical social interactions from the world of film and literature, which I suppose was the catalyst for my interpretation of It's a Wonderful Life. Gradually, other insights that came through this paradigm seemed to confirm it, often with poignant relevance to my immediate experience.


This year, after experiencing a personal spiritual awakening in January, I found myself increasingly transfixed with this vision of the Scriptures that sees foreshadowing, allusion, and images of Christ in the Old Testament. My father and I attended the national conference of the Gospel Coalition in April, which had as its theme "Preaching Christ in the Old Testament." I was hoping to learn more about the Christological approach to Scripture, but the conference was aimed at practitioners, and the closest it came to answering my questions was a panel discussion that shied away from an impasse, and a conversation with a rep from Westminster Seminary, who recommended the works of Geerhardus Vos. The panel reached an impasse over the question of whether we should preach the atonement from "Thou shalt not steal." I was hoping for some resolution, and though the discussion didn't offer it, God dumped an answer in my lap in my personal study later that day. 


In hindsight, that was just the beginning; the type of insight God gave me that day seemed to run over into every area of life for the rest of the year. "Images of divine things" jumped out to me in the nature of light, odd providences such as sleep deprivation, a bear lurking around our vacation house, bike ride routes, Tour de France results, even signs passed on ride routes. I could go on, but if you want to see more, just go back through my blog for the past six months. There's been some form of this in just about all of the posts. It's led me to a firm persuasion that God speaks in types and images in Scripture and creation. I'm not the first one to think this; Jonathan Edwards writes 

For indeed the whole outward creation, which is but the shadows of beings, is so made as to represent spiritual things. It might be demonstrated by the wonderful agreement in thousands of things, much of the same kind as is between the types of the Old Testament and their antitypes, and by spiritual things being so often and continually compared with them in the Word of God. And it's agreeable to God's wisdom that it should be so, that the inferior and shadowy parts of his works should be made to represent those things that are more real and excellent, spiritual and divine, to represent the things that immediately concern himself and the highest parts of his work. Spiritual things are the crown and glory, the head and soul, the very end and alpha and omega of all other works: what therefore can be more agreeable to wisdom, than that they should be so made as to shadow them forth?
And we know that this is according to God's method which his wisdom has chosen in other matters. Thus, the inferior dispensation of the gospel was all to shadow forth the highest and most excellent, which was its end; thus almost everything that was said or done that we have recorded in Scripture from Adam to Christ, was typical of gospel things: persons were typical persons, their actions were typical actions, the cities were typical cities, the nation of the Jews and other nations were typical nations, the land was a typical land, God's providences towards them were typical providences, their worship was typical worship, their houses were typical houses, their magistrates typical magistrates, their clothes typical clothes, and indeed the world was a typical world. And this is God's manner, to make inferior things shadows of the superior and most excellent, outward things shadows of spiritual, and all other things shadows of those things that are the end of all things and the crown of all things. Thus God glorifies himself and instructs the minds that he has made. ("Miscellanies" no. 362) 

I have a theory that by His providence, God often makes people, objects, and events meaningful in this sense at a personal level. In this I go beyond Edwards, at least what I've read of him so far, which isn't much. But Edwards does see these things as a means of God's communicating with us:

If we look on these shadows of divine things as the voice of God, purposely, by them, teaching us these and those spiritual and divine things, to show of what excellent advantage it will be, how agreeably and clearly it will tend to convey instruction to our minds, and to impress things on the mind, and to affect the mind. By that we may as it were hear God speaking to us. Wherever we are and whatever we are about, we may see divine things excellently represented and held forth, and it will abundantly tend to confirm the Scriptures, for there is an excellent agreement between these things and the Holy Scriptures. (Images of Divine Things, no. 70)

No way!

Unbelievable!

I'm inclined to make such a bold claim because I've seen it so many times this year. From a spectrum appearing on my ceiling while I read about electromagnetic waves to God getting my attention through conspicuous events revolving around bicycling, Scripture, numbers, and pancakes (those who know me well will appreciate the significance of those means to me), to a splinter hitting me in the eye while chopping logs to remind me of hypocrisy in my heart (see Matt. 7), to a real life parable of Jesus' return on May 21, to seeing crepuscular rays the night I met Dr. Ray :-), to this past weekend's trio of findings surrounding Epiphany: I found two fascinating books along this trajectory of an ontology of divine relationality; as I meditated with great profit on the rainbow signed covenant of Genesis 9, I saw a brilliant double halo around the moon all the way across the sky, and the next afternoon a rainbow; Sunday, two friends returned goodies I thought were permanently lost...it was truly a weekend of hidden things coming to light, and I went between laughing and crying for joy I was so stoked.  Perhaps I could put my theory in Edwardsean terms: a divine and supernatural impression (or type/image?) immediately imparted to the soul by the providence and Spirit of God...whether it will be shown to be a Scriptural and rational doctrine remains to be seen. At this point, I have at least recorded it as a theorem in divinity, as Edwards would say.

ευρηκα!

So what does all of this have to do with the observation of Christmas? Just this: that though the early Christians adopted the date of winter solstice for Christmas for symbolic reasons and to counter pagan feasts of Sol Invictus and Saturnalia, as the book pictured at right explains, they inadvertently timed Christmas perfectly, in my opinion. I mentioned in my last post that all the best Christmas movies feature a depressed person (e.g., Charlie Brown, Ebenezer Scrooge, George Bailey, etc.) transformed into joyful gratitude. Why do these resonate with us so deeply, and why is the alignment of Christmas with pagan rituals to the sun so fitting? Because just as daylight reverses its trend from shortening to lengthening on the solstice (or as ancient polytheistic pagans thought, the sun is "reborn"), bringing increased light and renewal of life to plants and animals and man alike, so at the birth of Jesus "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Is 9:2), "the sun of righteousness (rose) with healing in its wings" (Mal 4:2), and the life of Jesus is the "light of men" that "shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (Jn 1:4-5). As I see it, the celebration of Christ's birth belongs at the winter solstice not because that's when Jesus was born in the year, but because the year and its seasons are a microcosm of the history of the human race, and in view of the cosmic significance of the advent of Christ (e.g, Lk 2:13-14; Eph 3:9-10; Col 1:15-20), the birth of Jesus is the "winter solstice" of the entire cosmos.


Now that we're past the solstice and the days are growing, here are a few thoughts to close on what we're headed for both in the year and in the history of redemption:

The changes that pass on the face of the earth by the gradual approach of the sun is a remarkable type of what will come to pass in the visible church of God and world of mankind, in the approach of the church's latter-day glory. The latter will be gradual, as the former is. The light and warmth of the sun in the former is often interrupted by returns of clouds and cold, and the fruits of the earth kept back from a too-sudden growth, and a too-quick transition from their dead state in winter to their summer's glory, which in the end would be hurtful to them and would kill them. So it is in the spiritual world. If there should be such warm weather constantly without interruption, as we have sometimes in February, March and April, the fruits of the earth would flourish mightily for a little while, but would not be prepared for the summer's heat, but that would kill 'em. This is typical of what is true concerning the church of God, and particular souls. The earth being stripped of its white winter garments, in which all looked clean but all was dead, and the making of it so dirty, as it is early in the spring, in order to fit it for more beautiful clothing in a living state in summer, is also typical of what passes in the spiritual change of the world, and also, a particular soul. The surface of the earth is as it were dissolved in the spring. The ground is loosened and broke up, and softened with moisture, and its filthiness never so much appears as then; and then is the most windy turbulent season of all. (Edwards, Images of Divine Things, no. 152)

Though we're in January, on a bigger scale we're already into the spring, and looking forward to the summer day that will never end:

The sands of time are sinking,

The dawn of heaven breaks;

The summer morn I’ve sighed for -

The fair, sweet morn awakes:

Dark, dark had been the midnight 

But dayspring is at hand, 

And glory, glory dwelleth

In Emmanuel’s land. 

-Anne Cousin