…smoke gets in your eyes” – so the song goes.  In a recent set of posts the editor of CRN? attacks a youth pastor for asking a tactical ministry question: “Have you ever taught a dedicated lesson to your whole group on stealing or have you limited it to when it comes up in other contexts” – [my paraphrase].

The point of the fire and smoke metaphor is emotion can cloud your judgment.  I hope this has happened to the Editor at CRN?, either that or this post is premeditated deception.  Those are the two options I came up with; either the editor is purposefully (pun intended) twisting and misrepresenting what was written in the pastor’s blog, or his/her disdain for anything Saddleback has so clouded the mind that clarity of thought and true discernment is no longer possible.  When your heat is on fire smoke gets in your eyes.

The title of the post shows the deception or confusion: Saddleback Youth Pastor Uncertain If He Should Teach Against Stealing.  A casual reading of the title might make you think that Joshua Griffin, youth pastor at Saddleback, is uncertain whether or not stealing is a sin, or if this sin should be taught against.  In the article itself the editor asks “Has Youth Pastor Josh ever heard of the Ten Commandments?!?”  And goes on to scold him since “Apparently the Biblical mandate against stealing was not enough to convince Youth Pastor Josh from Saddleback Church that stealing should be addressed to the whole ministry.”

Of course, a simple reading of the original blog, which is only one paragraph long immediattly dispels any issue.  It is simply a question of tactics in teaching… nothing more.

This is either a case of gross misunderstanding (smoke in eye) or a gross case of pure deception… for the sake of the editor and the cause of Christ, I hope it’s the former.

Sometimes Guilt by Association is enough and no further comment is needed.  On CRN? the “editor” posted an excerpt of a story about Evangelicals adopting Advent.  When I followed the link, I discovered it was not an excerpt but the whole story.  The story is simply “Evangelicals are adopting and adapting Advent rituals.”  No reason is given by either the editor or the watcher why this is an issue except the tag that these are Roman Catholic rituals.  Apparently GBA stands on its own.

What both sites fail to do (as usual) is to exercise true discernment and investigate how Advent is being adopted and adapted by Evangelicals… What meanings are being taught, what practices are being adopted, how are they being adapted to take them from a Roman Catholic ritual into an evangelical experience…?  but then again, that’s probably moot – if the Catholics do it (or ever did) we should not.

When you focus on external behaviors regardless of meaning, when you assume that your way of doing things is the only true way regardless of biblical teaching, when you narrow the method of true worship to a certain time and a certain place… you are forced into a pretty narrow (and extra-biblical) definition of what is orthopraxy – acceptable practices.

It’s a shame to see the worship of God limited to the praxis developed by a Western Culture in a period after the 16th Century but before the 1960’s – anything before this period is too Roman… anything after is too everything else… What a burden they bear, to constantly lift their own cultural praxis to the level of orthpraxis while also constantly making sure the immutable God does not escape from the box they have created for him.

BTW – our thoroughly evangelical and orthodox church has been observing advent for 17 years… I guess we’re ahead of the apostasy wave… who knew?

In Part I of this series, we examined the need to view the entire Christmas story arc, and in Part II we discussed the probability of Jesus’ birthday on Sukkot (mid-September to early-October), and in Part III, we took a closer look at Mary and Joseph and their outcast status.

Today, we will be viewing the stage upon which much of the Christmas story is set – the “stable”.

The Word

First, let us examine the actual scriptural references (all from Luke 2) to the place where Jesus was born:

While they were [in Bethlehem], the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. [...]

The angel said to [the shepherds], “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” [...]

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.

This is it – no mention of a ’stable’, just a child, wrapped in cloths, in a manger.

The Manger

What, exactly, is a “manger”, in the context of this passage? If we look at the dictionary definition, we will find:

A trough or an open box in which feed for livestock is placed.

We should realize, though, that the English translation of the word phatne as ‘manger’ is more in line with the first part of that definition (the trough/open box) and the entire place in which the ‘manger’ exists (which we refer to as a ’stable’). In Israel, you did not pen animals and feed them, as we tend to do in European farming (as it existed during the time the Bible was translated to English) and modern farming. Rather than this, a ‘manger’ was used for water, not food, and was typically a trough in the ground or a stone used to put water for the animals.

So, contrary to the image we get in “Away in a Manger” of Jesus comfortably asleep in a raised wooden rack-manger full of straw, what we should see is a trough in the ground with just some bits of cloth wrapping him.

The Animals

Bethlehem sits right on the edge of where the land of milk (sheep and goats) meets the land of honey (fruit and grain), and nowhere near the Jezreel Valley or coastal plain of Israel. In Bethlehem during the first century, as well as now, there would be no cattle present, no camels, no horses and few donkeys. The animals you would find in Bethlehem would all be sheep and goats, with the possibility of a few oxen (though most likely not).

The principal livestock in Bethlehem was sheep. In fact, during the first century, from Josephus we know that only sheep raised in Bethlehem could be used for Passover sacrifice in the Temple (basically as part of a corrupt racket run by the Sadducee party). So, contrary to “Away in a Manger”, there would be no cattle ‘lowing’, and contrary to most Nativity scenes, the plethora of animal species would not have been present. Just sheep and (maybe) goats.

We’re also clued in to this by the use of phatne, as well, because the only places you will find a ‘manger’ in Bethlehem would be in shepherd’s caves, of which the area around Bethlehem is full. Which brings us to…

The “Stable”

In our Nativity scenes, we are greeted with the image of a free-standing shack/barn.  In all truth, you would be hard-pressed to find enough wood with which to build a single “stable” of this sort in Bethlehem. Everything was built of stones.  Or in the case of housing livestock, shepherds kept their sheep in penned-in caves (which is still practiced in the Galilee region today – see the picture (left) of livestock caves in Mt. Arbel).

So, rather than a wooden stable, an accurate Nativity Scene would be set in a shepherd’s cave.

Most of these types of caves have the same general layout:

1) A large common area where the sheep are kept, with a floor which might be 6 inches to several feet thick with centuries’-worth of sheep waste.

2) A small area near the front of the cave blocked off with rocks, where the shepherds can sleep and where they can keep their few belongings without fear of them being trampled by the sheep, and where they could attend sick or wounded sheep.

3) A slightly raised area – typically mad of stone – with a trough (manger) in which to put water for the sheep, between the shepherds and the sheep.

Such a cave would have smelled awful, but it would have been a safe place to stay, out of the elements, but close to Bethlehem.

From Luke, we already know that it was the time of year in which the shepherds were in the fields with the sheep at night (see Part II for more significance of this), which would have left their caves mostly unused during this time of year. Additionally, we are told that Jesus was in the phatne because there was no room in an inn. Additionally, the angels told the shepherds that Jesus would be found in a manger, and the shepherds seem to have known where to look for him from just those directions.

Painting the Scene

So, if we are to look at the Nativity within the context of the scripture and the culture in which it happened and was written, we get a much different and more powerful picture.

The Lamb of God, who existed in the beginning and was with God and was God, lowered himself to the very bottom of those at the bottom. The Lamb of God was born in a cave used for sheep, the son of young, poor, ostracized parents whose only cradle was a water trough in that cave.

The Lamb of God, who would later be sacrificed for the sins of the whole world, was born – literally – in the midst of the flocks of Bethlehem, the only sheep which were fit for sacrifice in the Temple, according to the rules of the day.

When we gloss over Jesus’ humble beginnings and sanitize them, we miss the image of the power and the humility expressed by God who came to walk among men.

Let us not forget or sanitize him and everything he was – 100% human and 100% God.

One of us…

It’s the Christmas season now, and one of our most ‘popular’ articles last December had this festive rendition of “O Holy Night” as its centerpiece.

Now, as you can imagine, some folks who cannot seem to discern the difference between worshiping Christ and worshiping the works of men found this offensive. However, as an interesting counterpoint, Matt B did some research into the origins of the song, itself, finding:

The [song's] writer was a wine seller and didn’t regularly attend church. He later walked away from the church and became a socialist. The musician who wrote the music didn’t even believe Jesus was God. The song was commissioned by a Catholic priest and it’s first performance was in a Catholic church.

This created an illustrative moment of dissonance, where the average reader was left to ponder how a) singing a man-made song (w/o any Scripture in it) was highly offensive, yet b) singing the song, itself, with origins that would put its writer on the ADM “firing squad” list, was not at all offensive.

Ah yes, the modern-day Sanhedrin at its finest…

And so it is, remembering this lesson (along with the question – “Must a Joyful Noise be a Beautiful One?“) that we repost this Holiday classic,

Enjoy!

 

 O Holyu Night: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download