Travelers have reported seeing various signs posted for the benefit of English-speaking tourists in different places around the world:
• in a hotel elevator in Paris: Please leave your values at the front desk.
• in a hotel for skiers in Austria: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.
• in a campground in Germany’s Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our Black Forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.
• in a Laundromat in Rome: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.
• in a hotel in Acapulco: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.
• regarding the air conditioner in a Japanese hotel room: Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.
Perhaps you now have a better understanding of what is meant when we say that, for Christians, Christmas is the celebration of the right Word at the right time.
Although the events that transpired in Bethlehem that night long ago may have initially seemed both curious and insignificant, Scripture attests that, in fact, at just the right time, God’s Word—Jesus Christ—came into the world.
For example, in what serves as St. John’s description of what took place beginning that holy night: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Many significant titles
The Bible bestows many significant titles on that Baby born in Bethlehem to non-descript Jewish parents en route to obey what was for Mary, in particular, a very inconvenient political directive.
The no-account shepherds who initially received the angelic announcement heard the Child identified as “a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.”
The wise men that traveled from afar advertised they were in search of he who had been born “King of the Jews.”
Centuries before either the angels or the sages used these arresting terms to refer to the Christ-child, the prophet Isaiah prophesied the arrival of the infant who would eventually be called, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
The balance of Scripture is replete with pregnant descriptions affirming Christ’s role during His majestic mission—Redeemer, Friend of sinners, Good Shepherd, Teacher, Mediator, Advocate—to name only a few.
Yet to the average participant in the high-tech communications era of the early 21st century, perhaps no designation has more potential meaning concerning the One whose birth we celebrate at year’s end than that used repeatedly by St. John in the opening verses of his Gospel: the Word.
The divine logos
The Greek term is logos, an expression with different shades of meaning for the various people groups of the world into which Christ was born.
The Greeks attached a philosophical understanding to logos, interpreting it as a reference to the soul or the rational principle of the universe. Popular philosophers spoke of the divine logos as an omnipresent wisdom by which all things were steered. The Stoics, for instance, took it to mean an impersonal principle or force.
Drawing on his Jewish background, John demonstrates a concern to define the logos in clear association with the opening words of the Torah, “in the beginning.” For Christ’s beloved disciple, as Leon Morris suggests, “The Word is God’s creative Word,” and through it, or better yet, through Him, all things were made.
In several of his songs and writings, contemporary songwriter, musician and New Testament scholar Michael Card portrays the Word as a succinct expression of what Almighty God had and still has to say to sinful mankind.
“You and me we use so many empty, clumsy words,” Card sings, “the noise of what we often say is not worth being heard. When the Father’s wisdom wanted to communicate his love, He spoke it in one final, perfect Word. He spoke the incarnation and then so was born the Son, His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.”
Card’s insights into the communicative dimension of our Lord’s identity as the Word have significant implications for all Christ-followers seeking to worship the Babe of Bethlehem in spirit and in truth this Christmas season.
Bombarded by words
Today, we are bombarded by words from the moment the clock radio initially assaults our eardrums in the morning until we turn off the evening newscast last thing at night. It seems everybody has something to say to us.
Throughout the workweek, the technological marvels associated with e-mail, cell phones, text messaging and voice-mail combine with normal conversation to render us so communication-dependent that silence is no longer golden because it’s non-existent. We both want and need to say things to others.
Given the ease with which we can instantly communicate with people on the other side of the world and the never-ending assortment of electronic mediums being given us to do so, it’s not surprising that, as compared to the quill and inkpot days known by our forefathers, our words are much more abundant.
Which introduces a problem.
It’s not a new problem. In fact, the writer of Proverbs identified it in his day. “When words are many, sin is not absent,” is how he put it in Proverbs 10:19, making one wonder what he might say to us today in this regard.
Sadly, inflammatory rhetoric has become a staple in the daily discourse that characterizes the so-called culture wars being fought on both sides of the 49th parallel. From the coffee shops of Vancouver Island to the media centres in Toronto and on to the university classrooms of the Atlantic provinces, Canadians in large numbers have something to say about the role of Canada’s Supreme Court, gay marriage and the current government of the United States, to mention but a few popular topics.
Not surprisingly, because many of these controversies are perceived to be eroding or encroaching on Christian values, a significant number of believers across “the true North strong and free” are entering the fray. On air, on paper and online, Canadian Christians are increasingly speaking up in defense of biblical perspectives and Judeo-Christian values.
They profess an unwillingness to let truth and righteousness take a beating in the public square. Many maintain they are properly committed to the traditional values that Canadian soldiers fought and died for in the wars of yesteryear. Not a few speak of such involvement in the public arena in terms of it being a direct service to their Lord and Saviour.
As far as their commitment to emulating Christ by articulating truth is concerned, they are to be applauded and commended. Indeed, St. John tells us that when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, He was “full of truth.” That is, Jesus Christ both lived and spoke truth.
Unfortunately, the emotional heat frequently generated by participation in the culture wars tends to desensitize us to the corresponding dynamic St. John identified as a trait in the life of the Word—He was also “full of grace.”
In search of gracious words
In our attempts to better comprehend the personal implications of God’s indescribable gift to us in Christ, we do well to note Scripture’s clarity that the living Word was consistently gracious in His dealings with those who represented unsavory values and pursuits. In fact, Christ’s strongest rhetoric was aimed not at those we moderns might call “secularists,” but at the religious elite of his day.
Which is why, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in these waning days of 2004, those of us who regularly employ words to participate in the ideological and philosophical battles being waged in Canada’s public square are well advised to kneel at the manger and there solicit for our tongues, pens and keyboards a refreshing touch of grace from the living Word.
Tim Callaway is the Alberta correspondent for ChristianWeek.
