Marginal Christianity

We all know the Christmas story, right? Even if we don’t realize that the angels and shepherds and wise men don’t really belong together in our Nativity scenes we know the basic story from Matthew and Luke and its key point, don’t we? Sure we do – the Savior is born in the manger to a virgin named Mary! And that’s all we really to get, isn’t it? Well, apparently not – because the Bible has a 3 rd Christmas story! Yeah, it really does. And in the most unexpected place. The last place you’d think to look for it. Literally the last – the book of Revelation. That’s right, the book of Revelation. Smack dab in the middle of that strangest of biblical books sits a birth story of the Messiah. Radically and strangely different from Matthew’s and Luke’s stories, I am tempted to borrow Paul Harvey’s trademark phrase and describe John the Seer’s version as “the rest of the story.” It’s found in Revelation 12 and goes something like this: “Revelation does not mention shepherd...

Andrew Perriman Tue, 22/12/2015 - 17:57    A ccording to the tradition that has been passed down to us, Christmas is the time of year when we celebrate God coming to earth in lowly human form to save humankind from sin and death. The glory of the deity has been laid aside, the radiant godhead has been veiled in flesh, the creator of all things has been pleased to dwell as man with man for a while, God-with-us, Immanuel, so that there may be peace on earth, so that God and sinners may be reconciled, so that the sons (and daughters) of earth may experience a second birth and die no more, etc.   That coming is dressed in the robes and regalia of Jewish kingship. The incarnate deity is the newborn king, born in Bethlehem of David’s line. But this is little more than circumstantial detail; the essence of the story is theological rather than political, metaphysical rather than historical. Even O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, perhaps the most Jewish of carols, has in v...