Today the church remembers St. Stephen, Deacon and Proto-Martyr.

It may seem odd to place the feast day of a martyr so close to The Nativity, but the reality is that Jesus came into a world of violence, no matter how loudly you sing “Silent Night.”

The pairing of the birth of the Messiah with the first martyr was intentional: Christ’s arrival is meant to redeem and reform our violent ways…but we’re not there yet.

St. Stephen appears in the Acts of the Apostles as a follower of Jesus whose defining characteristic is love. Even as he was being stoned to death, he prayed for his persecutors. We don’t know anything else about this disciple who apparently led a short, but noteworthy, life.

St. Stephen is joined by two other feast days directly on the heels of The Nativity: the Holy Innocents and St. John. All three will form a few days of peaks and valleys as the 12 Days of Christmastide play out. St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents will remind the us of the tragic nature of our world. St. John, the only Apostle said to have died of natural causes, will remind us that not everything is bad. This back-and-forth swing of the feasts of the church provide a rhythm that calls us to both work for justice, as not everything is well, and thank God for life and creation, because not everything is bad.

By the way, you sing of St. Stephen every year in the Christmas Carol “Good King Wenceslas” who, if you recall, “looked out on the Feast of Stephen, when the snow lay round about, clean and crisp and even…”

St. Stephen is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that love is powerful, and it’s what we cling to and are held by in this life.

-icon written by Theophilia

Today the church honors the Festival of the Incarnation, also known as Christmas.

While not originally one of the major feasts of the early church, Christmas has become both a major sacred observance (usually following the ancient rite of observing a feast day starting on the evening before the actual day), as well as a secular cultural observance of immense proportions in many places throughout the world. Christmas is now the feeding trough of nostalgia and celebration and kitsch while also remaining an important holy day for those who keep the feast!

Many Christians may be surprised to learn that Christmas was not a high holy day for the first church, but it makes sense when we remember that the first church was more focused on the acts of the Christ rather than the birthday of the baby (and because that birth story is only told in two Gospel accounts, and even those don’t agree with one another on the major details). The early church was more interested in the Resurrection and the Festival of the Pentecost (the latter being uniquely Christian in flavor), but because ancient winter festivals were so prominent in the local zeitgeist of so many cultures, the church adapted these local practices and melded them into a celebration of the birth of the Christ and, boom: Christmas was born.

Melding the nativity of Jesus with other observances (Saint Nicholas, Saint Lucy, Saturnalia, and Yule games), eventually an Odin-like character (Santa) would deliver presents (like Nicholas) in many places, taking on an elvish persona that reflected northern Scandinavian lore more than any Palestinian birth story.

When confronted with these melding of customs and lore an observer is given a few options: adopt them, adapt them, or rebel against them.

The church has done each of these, for better or worse, at different points in history. But let’s not pretend that today originated as anythjng Christian. If anything, this feast above all others is an example of Christianity being nimble (which is ironic because it has only become more inflexible as the years progressed and it’s secular power has been threatened).

Still, the Festival of the Incarnation is a beautiful feast with many local traditions focusing on that first family of the faith by gathering their own families from far and wide. And if your family couldn’t gather together you’d wait eagerly for that “Christmas letter” from kin across the ocean, the precursor to those staged Christmas cards that stress so many out.

At its best today is a reminder that the Divine still breaks into this world in unusual and hidden ways. After all, God coming in such a lowly manner to an ordinary woman of no note is odd, and the fact that the first to witness it are shepherds (who couldn’t even testify in ancient courts because they were considered so unreliable!) makes the whole thing even odder! This inconceivable conception is worth a gift-giving tradition, yes? May we all receive the odd gift of the Divine presence in our lives.

At its worst it’s overly romanticized and divorced from the powerful story it is.

A world in turmoil is visited by God not through a conquering war cry from a general on a horse, but through the cry of a baby born in the food trough of a horse. And the fact that the ancient lands where this story was said to take place is once again in upheaval is even more of a reminder to dismiss the romanticism and embrace the radical subversive nature of the whole thing.

The Festival of the Incarnation is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that God is still showing up in odd and powerful ways…if only we’d remove our romantic blinders long enough to see it!

-icon written by Kelly Latimore Icons highlighting how the Holy Family would be in a tent city, or worse, under rubble were this story to be made real today. A recent icon, commissioned in the last few weeks does indeed show the Holy Family born in the rubble of Gaza, but I chose this one because for those of us Stateside this scene hits home.

Indeed…it is real today for too many. Far too many…

Tonight the unwed mother and confused father make their trek, carrying eternity across the back roads of the world for the lost and forsaken.

Merry Christmas, Beloved.

(painting by Jesus Mafa)

“O Ruler!” are the words sung by the church today. “O Rex!”

In our most honest moments we admit that we both like leadership, and like to rebel against it…humans are fickle.

We’re all ruled by something. Even the most unique individual allows that uniqueness to guide them to a fault. The most “don’t tread on me” flag waving person has a hook in their nose and their ideology is steering the ship.

What rules in your life?

At its best this call is a plea that our basest desires will no longer rule us, and that something more holy will do it. Perhaps peace will rule. Or love. The best of the Divine attributes!

At its worst, well, we’ve turned Jesus into just another self-styled tyrant to whom we demand others give their allegiance…

-art by Vincent Crosby

Today the church remembers a saint you know quite well: Saint Thomas, Apostle and Patron Saint of Those Who Ask Questions.

No doubt most everyone remembers Saint Thomas for his, well, supposed doubting of the resurrection as reported in Saint John’s account of the story, but that’s an accident of historical memory more than a reality. Saint Thomas didn’t doubt so much as he asked questions and sought verification.

And more people of faith should ask more questions, IMHO.

His name means “Twin,” and there is a tradition where Thomas is the twin of Jesus (or at least his doppelganger), but that’s largely conjecture. What is more probable is that Thomas, with his inquiry and deep searching for truth in the Gospel of John, is meant to be the reader’s twin in the story.

Or, in other words, you (and I) are the twin of Thomas, seeking to touch the Divine wounds, wondering if it could all be true, honestly desiring to say, “My Lord and God” with conviction and love because our eyes have seen it in real life.

Lore has it that Thomas took to being a missionary in India, planting the Martoma church tradition there that lives in a robust witness of the faith. There is a 3rd Century piece of literature, the Acts of Thomas that says he lived as an apostle carpenter in India, performing miracles, healing the sick, and was eventually martyred near madras. Within the pages of that interesting work is a beautiful Syriac poem, the Hymn of the Soul, a much pondered allegory of humanity’s search for beauty and meaning.

Fitting for a work dedicated to this saint, no?

While most modern scholars think that Saint Thomas probably was a missionary somewhere between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, never actually reaching India, the presence of the Martoma church and tradition give testimony to his legend and impact all the same, and it is the case that when European missionaries arrived in India in the 16th Century they found a robust Christian faith and practice thousands of years old.

Saint Thomas is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that asking questions and continually chasing deeper and truer truth has been part of the faith from the beginning.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

-historical bits gleaned from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations

-commentary mine

-icon written by Byzantine icon writer “Krillyboy”

“O Oriens!” the church cries on the morning of the Winter Solstice. “O Dawn!” is what it literally means, both a bit ironic and exasperated on this shortest day of the year.

You know, my son Finn was born with two “true knots” in his umbilical cord. In ancient days this sign would have probably been taken as an omen of either his greatness or his mischievousness (and it would have been right on both counts!).

But living in a scientific age we have no need for these signs, right?

Well, I’d suggest the opposite. After another year with so much death, and with depression so rampant, we need reminders of our greatness, Beloved.

It’s all a reminder that, with every dawn, with every dayspring, something amazing is possible.

The dawn, the bright and morning star, is an ever-rising sign that something amazing is possible.

So stick around, Beloved. In case you didn’t know it, it’s good you exist and, well, amazing things are always possible with every dawn…

(Art by Edward Fielding)

Today the church uses its parched tongue to cry out, “O Radix Jesse!” or “O Root of Jesse!”

The ask here is that the dead stump of a family line, scourged and ravaged by one conquering after another, eating away at the Family Tree, somehow live again.

This dead-end of a year may feel very stump-ish to you.

It’s also just true that while we may have eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we have not learned its wisdom. That ancient tree is dead in our hands as we call what is evil, good, and what is good, evil.

Come quickly, Holy One.

On December 18th in Advent the church raises its voice to cry out, “O Adonai!” or “O Lord!”

This is, perhaps, the most honest prayer there is, Beloved. In times of trial and joy, “Oh God” or “My Lord” slips from our lips.

In the ancient context of Advent, this cry is both an invocation and a statement of political priorities. The Empire of old (and now?) would have you believe that power is Lord, that grievance is Lord, that Caesar is Lord.

In fact, all the ancient steles and decrees said just that: Caesar is Lord.

But the church, at its best, says that the Divine is Lord.

It’s a political statement. We’ve forgotten that…but we can remember. There is time.

-art is by Michael Adonai, an Eritrean painter, entitled “Back to Homeland.” You can imagine crying out “O Lord” when longing to return to your mother…