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The Meaning of the Circumcision of Christ

The circumcision of Christ may seem like an odd topic, but it is an event that the church has remembered and celebrated as the 8th day of Christmas. Right after the famous Christmas passage about the shepherds, we have the less famous passage about the circumcision of Christ: “On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived” (Luke 2:21). This was the time in which Jesus was officially inducted into the people of God and given the name Jesus.

This event has a much greater significance for Jesus and for us. John Milton has captured in a beautiful poem the abiding significance of this event for Christians. Here it is:

Upon the Circumcision

Ye flaming Powers, and wingèd Warriors bright,
That erst with music, and triumphant song,
First heard by happy watchful Shepherds’ ear,
So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along,
Through the soft silence of the listening night,—
Now mourn; and if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distill no tear, Continue reading “The Meaning of the Circumcision of Christ”

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Satan’s Doubts

In Book I of Paradise Lost, Milton envisions the self-vindication of Satan and his host. You can read a summary of it here. It is a forceful and specious defense of Satan’s rebellion. How should we answer it?

In Book IV, Milton provides a rebuttal to Satan’s self-vindication. It comes from the mouth of Satan himself. After he falls to earth, he expresses doubt about his rebellion.

Satan considers all that God had given him and how little he asked in return:

“He deserved no such return from me, whom he created what I was in that bright eminence, and with his good upbraided none: nor was his service hard. What could be less than to afford him praise, the easiest recompense, and pay him thanks, how due!” (4.42–48).

Continue reading “Satan’s Doubts”

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Why Everyone Should Watch A Christmas Story

“I watched the first 15 minutes, and then I had to turn it off. I couldn’t take it.” That was my friend’s analysis of A Christmas Story.

So, I said to him, “Why don’t we watch it together, and I’ll see if I can decode it for you?” He agreed.

We watched the first 15 minutes together, and then I thought, “Why do I like this movie? How can I recommend it? Is this my award for defending this Christmas classic?” But then the plot began to unfold, and the reason it was a classic stood out to me like a lamp in a window on a dark winter’s evening. Now, A Christmas Story is not just a movie to me, it is a work of comedic art. Here’s why.

1. Nostalgia. We love Christmas stories because of the nostalgia. A Christmas Story is as nostalgic as it gets. There is the middle class house, the brick school, the toys, the snow, the downtown, the tree, the turkey, the family, the fighting, the carols, the Santa, and on and on. This movie is packed full of all sorts of things that evoke a nostalgic remembrance of Christmases past. Continue reading “Why Everyone Should Watch A Christmas Story“

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Fulfilling Our Created Purpose in Everyday Life

God is not just for Sunday mornings, church or Bible reading. Life with God is an all day, every day affair. But how do we learn to see God’s presence in every day life?

We go back to creation. We see that God created culture and work life as the way in which Adam and Eve would live for him in this world. Understanding that, we can see our own work and play as glorifying to God.

In his magnificent poem, Paradise Lost, John Milton imagines how Adam might have seen the life of working, sleeping, and eating in light of His created purpose to live for God every moment. With a little imagination, we can apply this poem to our own eating, sleeping, and working. Here is a section from Book 4 of Paradise Lost. Here Adam describes the work they have to do and all the pleasures they can experience, noting that God’s one prohibition is not hard at all and surrounded by so many good things.

Sole partner and sole part of all these joys,
Dearer thy self then all; needs must the Power
That made us, and for us this ample World
Be infinitely good, and of his good
As liberal and free as infinite, [ 415 ] Continue reading “Fulfilling Our Created Purpose in Everyday Life”

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Ambrose & Cicero on the Virtue of Serving the Community

Saint Ambrose of Milan (340–397) was a military governor turned Christian bishop. As such, he was concerned about the conduct of the priests under him. He wrote his tract On the Duties of the Clergy, in order to encourage his priests to live virtuous lives. In doing so, he copied the pattern, many of the arguments, and even some of the illustrations of Cicero’s work, On Duties (read about it here).

The structure of both books is the same. As Ambrose explains it: “The philosophers considered that duties were derived from what is virtuous and what is useful, and that from these two one should choose the better” (1.9.27). Both authors explain what is virtuous in the first book, then what is useful in the second, and then how to deal with a conflict between the two in the third.

In explaining the conflict between the two, Ambrose and Cicero are very similar. Ambrose says, “Let not, therefore, expediency get the better of virtue, but virtue of expediency” (3.6.37). Again, “True expediency does not therefore exist where virtue loses more than expediency gains” (3.6.44). Cicero says, “When men detach the useful from the honourable, they undermine the very foundations of nature” (On Obligations, 119).

Pursuing Justice
They are also very similar in their instance on the active life. Both men believed that virtue must have an outward face. The virtuous person does not hide in seclusion but seeks justice for the whole community. As Ambrose says, “We must think it a far more noble thing to labour for our country than to pass a quiet life at ease in the full enjoyment of leisure” (3.3.23). Cicero says, “you should embark on activities which are of course important and highly useful, but are in addition extremely taxing, full of toils and dangers which threaten both life and the many strands that compose it” (24). Activity not passivity is the characteristic of virtue. Continue reading “Ambrose & Cicero on the Virtue of Serving the Community”

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