Christmas is not cute

The Birth of Jesus Christ is presented by our pop culture as something that is cute. It has become like a cult of cuteness. But as authors Viola and Sweet have said so eloquently in their book, Jesus Manifesto, the story of Jesus' birth, death and resurrection doesn't compute with cute. They go on:

• The Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to the virgin Mary to tell her she was pregnant, wasn't cute.
• Admitting to Joseph that she was pregnant wasn't cute. [In a shame- based culture as the 1st Century Jewish culture was, she risked being shunned or even being killed-Ed].
• The Magnificat wasn't cute (Lk 1:46-55).
• The little town of Bethlehem wasn't cute.
• The killing of the innocents wasn't cute.
• Jesus' genealogy wasn't cute (His lineage includes a rape victim, an adulteress, and a prostitute)~Jesus Manifesto:Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ, p75.

Please watch this favorite video of mine: O Little Town of Bethlehem, which presents Christmas in all of its rawness, without the tinsel, glitz and candy sweetness.

Making our own prisons

Recently, I did some ticketing door-to-door for a company in a suburb near to where I live. It was an interesting experience. Many homes were so secured with their sliding gates, bars on windows, grilled flyscreens and locked front doors that they were like little prisons.
I knocked on one door and then heard the rattle of keys, and then more rattling. I then heard a voice from inside: "Hang on mate, I can't open the door, I'll have to open the garage". I waited at the garage door and slowly the door automatically lifted up. I felt like Ali Baba entering the den of thieves. The only thing missing was the "open sesame" password.
What sort of society have we become where some are so security conscious that they can't even open their own front doors? A lot of this obsession with security is fear driven. The cost of such security is often a high rate of loneliness and depression.
We also make our own prisons through our addictions, whether they be drugs, money, sex, pornography, power or material things.

The good news is that Jesus came to free us from our prisons, not the prisons we make out of bricks and mortar, but our imprisoned spirits. The verse from the famous hymn by Charles Wesley "And can it be" describes Jesus' work so well:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
fast bound in sin and nature's night:
thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
I woke-the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

Maria Von Trapp

I remember going to the cinema to see The Sound of Music as an eight year old boy. Like many others, I was entranced by the many memorable songs such as 'My Favorite Things,' and 'Edelweiss'. I was thrilled by the breathtaking Austrian mountain scenery. I found out the other day in The End of an Era that ended long ago: Maria Von Trapp that the last of the Von Trapp Family Singers, the last of the children—the real ones—died in February. She was 99 years old. 

I also learnt that in reality, little Maria was part of a group of Christian singers known as the Trapp Family Singers. This Christian aspect is unfortunately not emphasized in the movie. The musical was never meant to be a documentary of the Von Trapp family.

 Maria Augusta Trapp, the governess in the movie who became Maria's stepmother, wrote a book about the singing group in 1949 called 'The Story of the Trapp Family Singers'. The book describes her marriage to the Captain, Georg Von Trapp, in these terms “I greeted it with a heart full of happiness and readiness to serve God where He needed me most—wholeheartedly and cheerfully.” She was evidently a devoted Christian mother.

If you want to find out the real story of the Trapp Family Singers and not the Hollywood version check out the Trapp Family website. You can even holiday at the Trapp Family Lodge!

The Real Von Trapp Family

Thoughts on a drawing by a prisoner

Recently, I went to the opening of the Art from the Inside art exhibition at a Correctional Centre not far from where I live and was impressed by the quality of some the art on display. The theme of the exhibition was 'Searching for the Light' and there were a number of paintings on the theme of light and darkness. But I was struck especially by a coloured pencil drawing by an inmate from Long Bay of the scene of the taking down of Jesus' body from the cross. It showed Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Mary the mother of Jesus and another woman. (I don't know for sure who the other woman is. From John 19:25-26 it could be either Mary's sister or Mary the wife of Clopas or even Mary Magdalena).

Touched by Silence

His caption matches the scene very well: 'His silence is not only Death, it is our Hope and Salvation. Great silence touches my heart.' In his drawing, he also captured the sense of haste in the activity. The Sabbath was fast approaching. Jesus' body had to be quickly taken down for burial. 

I hope this drawing touches your heart as well.

Dancing a PhD

     About 3 years ago, Rob Jacobs posted an interesting video clip on his blog Education Innovation showing how a scientist uses a dancing team to present his PhD. Apparently, scientists are more and more using the dance medium to express complex ideas in their presentations and to make them more memorable. I, with Rob, wonder how we could use the dance medium to make our messages and presentations in our church gatherings more interesting. Take time to watch it and enjoy!

I remember

I Remember

In a ground
that offered little
to console the eye
a wattle tree
erupted into life:
great lave spills
of sulphur-coloured flowers
washed down its slopes
on every side.

With daring,
deafening sound
it broke its winter
mood of gloom
and gave us all
that early spring
a feast of wattle bloom.

Bruce Smith


I remember when the poet who wrote this poem, Bruce Smith, lectured me at Bible College on systematic theology in 1996. He taught me a lot about creation, the trinity, the life, death and ministry of Jesus Christ. He had an acute theological mind.
I remember Bruce as a sort of 'cultural ambassador', taking groups of students to concerts at the Sydney Opera House. He also hosted film nights at his home in Newtown.
I remember Bruce as a spiritual father, at a time when I was suffering a bout of depression and needed one, just as Paul was to the Corinthians 1 Cor 4:15.

Bruce with his students hosting a film night

Fire gutters my old school

     

    Imagine my shock and horror when I first read in the local newspaper that a High School I used to teach at some 13 years ago had been gutted by fire. It brought back memories of my teaching days there at St Clair High. Because the fire happened during the school holidays and at night, no-one was hurt fortunately.
    It brought to mind the transience of things in this world and the Bible verse in 2 Peter 3 which says that  the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire.

In Memoriam Joy Parry

         I use to play for a mixed voice choir known as the Sunrise Choir. When I first started playing for the choir, it was directed by a wonderful Christian conductor: Joy Parry. Joy was originally from New Zealand and had formed a great relationship with the Maori community over there. In fact, she became an honorary Maori and became a personal friend to the Maori Queen. When she moved to Sydney in the eighties, she became involved with the Shell Folkloric Festival at the Opera House.
         Joy was born with only one hand, but that didn't stop her conducting the choir, or playing the organ in church, or serving in the Dutch community. She could have easily been an honorary Dutchy for all the work she has done for the Sunrise Choir and the Rembrandt Club.

         It took about 12 months from the time she was diagnosed with cancer till she passed away, the day after Boxing Day 2002. Joy battled with this disease for 12 months in a way that only demands admiration. Her husband Dennis had been in a nursing home for about 3 years and Joy was having chemotherapy through the year and in November 2002 she found out that it was all to no avail. Then in the same month her husband died. When Sunrise sang at Dennis' funeral she insisted that she wanted to conduct her choir. What courage and determination! But that has been the story of Joy all along.
         Her signature song was a Maori song  Tama Ngakau Marie . Take time to listen to it.

When too much analysis wearies me

The Stars

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Walt Whitman

Harping On

Harps are wonderful instruments! They have an old tradition.

The origin of the harp goes back to Mesopotamia. The earliest harps and lyres were found in Sumer c, 3500 BCE. Several harps were found in burial pits and royal tombs in Ur. The oldest depictions of harps without a forepillar are from 500 BCE, which was the Persian harp of Perspolis/Persia in Iran and from 400 BCE in Egypt.

Harps & lyres feature prominently throughout the Old Testament. There’s not much difference between a lyre and a harp. A lyre is plucked with a plectrum whereas a harp is plucked with a hand. Harps have been mentioned as early as Genesis 31:27.

Lyres & harps were very much part of Israel’s worship life:

So all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouts, with the sounding of rams’ horns and trumpets, and of cymbals, and the playing of lyres and harps (1 Chronicles 15:28).

The psalms are peppered with commands to make music to God on the harp & lyre:

Praise the Lord with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.(Psalm 33:2)

King David was renowned as an accomplished harpist:

One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.” (1 Samuel 16:18)

He worships his God with the harp:

I will praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, my God; I will sing praise to you with the lyre, Holy One of Israel. (Psalm 71:22)

David’s playing was so exceptional that it had a therapeutic effect, or more correctly a spiritual effect on others:

Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him. (1 Samuel 16:23)

But at the end of the age, all who belong to God will shine victoriously in heaven, playing their harps given them by God:

And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God (Revelation 15:2)

The great composer Johannes Brahms captures the beauty of the harp’s sound in his song for women’s choir “Es tönt ein voller Harfenklang” (The full sound of harps rings out).