I’m sort of bothered that Christmas is gone already. It’s even worse as an adult waiting all year for Christmas and then having it pass by so quickly. That bugs me. But this year has been a lot of fun for a lot of different reasons and I am unhappy it is over so soon.

I learned a lot about Christmas this year. It’s been a long time since I was able to merely participate in a Christmas Eve worship. I did a little singing this year, but that’s about all. It’s a different thing to sit in the pews on Christmas Eve.

Anyhow, blah, blah, blah. I thought I would share this one last post with you since I’m certain there are other things planned for the not too distant future. There’s a really nice article posted at Credenda agenda that I thought you might be interested in reading. Find it here: How NT Wright Stole Christmas.

I am especially fond of this:

Several years ago, when The Passion of the Christ was making headlines, I realized that N. T. Wright has spoiled every Jesus film.  Once you’ve read Wright, you realize that none of the movies get Jesus right.  Pharisees and scribes are reduced stock villains with caricatured Jewish features.  Pilate has to make an appearance, and Herod, but we are given no sense that first-century Israel was the powder keg that it actually was.

No film ever gives us what Wright says we should be looking for: a “crucifiable” Jesus, a Jesus who does something so provocative to make the Jews murderously hostile.  In the movies, Jesus is a hippy peace-child, a delicate flower of a man, a dew-eyed first-century Jewish Gandhi.  Why would anyone want to hurt Him?  Maybe because He’s so annoyingly precious; but that’s not the story of the gospels.

Just this year, I had another realization.  N. T. Wright has spoiled Christmas too.

NT Wright excites a lot of different emotions in people when he writes, but one thing is for certain: He is going to be honest with his readers. Disagree with Wright we may, but we will never come away from reading his work without being challenged to honestly think about Jesus, Scripture, and how the two shape the faith we call ‘christianity.’

Be a blessing.

HT: Internet Monk