This is the one thousandth post on this humble blog. The first one (above) was on 30 December 2005. Not a frenetic pace and the response not exactly viral. The good news, dear reader, is that you are, therefore, unlikely to catch anything unpleasant from it.
On this, the Eighth Day of Christmas, according to our Anglican Church of Canada’s calendar, today is
The Naming of Jesus - HD (White)
Within the Octave of Christmas
New Year’s Day
Meanwhile, in our continuing state of ecclesiastical multiple personality disorder and somewhat obscured and relegated to the back pews by the more enlightened and less gloomy, to some, streams of liturgical modernity, the traditional Book of Common Prayer calendar, which you can still get to on the lectionary website, calls today
The Octave Day of Christmas - HD
and the Circumcision of Christ
being New Year’s Day (White)
HD is for Holy Day, not High Definition, by the way—although some winsome and higher definition holiness in our world, contemporary or traditional, wouldn’t be a bad thing.
White refers the seasonal colour for any liturgical accoutrements to be used—stoles, frontals and the like—and, for me, of the winter snow amid which I see my world just now.
An Octave is the five-dollar word for the eighth of a series of daily observances beginning with a festival day; in this case, Christmas.
Notice the difference in names, though—the bloodier and more bodily Circumcision in the BCP as opposed to the less gritty Naming in the contemporary scheme. I suppose one could say that the sharper Circumcision is more logical after the required and more sobering Prayer Book calendar days of Christmas two, three and four observances of the death of St Stephen the Martyr (Boxing Day), John the Apostle and Evangelist (December 26th—not his death, his beheading isn’t observed until August 29th) and the horrendous multiple murders of The Innocents (December 28th). Whereas, according to the BAS, all these darker days are can be optionally transferred from the sugar-plum Christmas ones to months with less of a merry sheen leaving Christmastide to flow brightly.
I have to accept, however, that our Merry and Bright Christmas did come in the context of Herod’s anxiety, machinations and brutality, of many mothers weeping over their children and ultimately The Cross and all martyrdom that continues to this day.
Which brings me to Psalm 136 which came up in our lectionary on Boxing Day. I have to confess that whenever it does I groan a little because it is so repetitive.
Every verse ends with the same words, “For His steadfast love endures forever.” Over and over again. God blesses the Psalmist and the Israelites for His steadfast love endures for ever and God destroys their enemies for his steadfast love endures for ever. Twenty-six times. Not as many as the times Jesus says I am to forgive those who sin against me (77x7=539) but enough for me to notice and wonder. So there must be something in it. Perhaps it needs its own acronym—FHSLEF.
But I have questions. How did His steadfast love endure for St Stephen as he was stoned to death—FHSLEF? How did it endure for St John as he was being danced to death —FHSLEF? And what about all the little boys and their parents in Bethlehem —FHSLEF? Not to mention the 230,000 souls who perished in the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, those affected by the ongoing Aussie wildfires and the victims of the White Island eruption in New Zealand and the thousands of Christians who are suffering for their faith all over the world. I’ve just had a Christmastide conversation with an old friend who is caring for his beloved and who has been praying earnestly for her healing without any result he can see. He listed several Bible verses which clearly promise healing and yet still her condition deteriorates. I have a dear friend who has just moved to an hospice. To add FHSLEF to the items on that list seems as if I’m somehow putting God to the test—almost blasphemous.
I’m also reminded of Jesus and his “prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (Hebrews 5:7–8). Heard, but he still had to die. Perhaps there are brainier people who can come up with a satisfactory explanation. I certainly can’t other than a thought that came to me some years ago (whether it’s from The LORD or not, I don’t know), and that is that, as agonizing and unfair as they may be, suffering and death are not the worse thing. I think I can see FHSLEF in Jesus telling the thief on the cross beside him that today he’d see him in paradise. He still had to die unpleasantly, but…
Deep, disturbing stuff for New Year’s Day.
FHSLEF.
I am still only seeing through my glass darkly.
FHSLEF.
I’m just going to believe it. Perhaps then The LORD will give me 2020 Vision!
FHSLEF!
Christmastide Love in Jesus,
Gene+
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