christmas carol theology

Christmas carols are more than a welcome (or unwelcome) addition to the radio come December every year. It can be easy to take them at face value, but go a little deeper into the words and remember the verses that are cut out of many recordings, and you can find truths that go beyond the usual Christmas card platitudes.

(All links to the recordings are from the church I attend, Veritas Community Church)

Mild he lays his glory by.
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King.

That is Christmas. That is the Gospel. The words of that familiar Christmas carol echo Paul’s words in his letter to the Philippians about the attitude of the Christ

“Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:6-11)

The rightful king of creation makes his earthly debut as a baby born, most likely in a cave with only his mother and father in attendance. Those who came and visited the makeshift delivery room are shepherds, outcasts of society. The ruler of the time wanted to kill this threat to his reign, this blameless child he saw as a usurper of the throne. It is a very humble beginning of a savior, a very humble beginning for a child who becomes the focal point of all of history.

And so what is our response?

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

(It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, from the verses you've most likely skipped over. And this arrangement is way better than anything else you've heard)

People are at war with each other. We are at war with ourselves. We are too busy, too skeptical, too proud, or perhaps simply too deaf to hear a great heavenly host singing a song of glory and praise about the one true God. The shepherds were simply minding their own business, tending their flock, perhaps trying just to stay warm and find some food so they can survive another day, to continue a boring existence, when the host of angels broke into the night and changed their lives. There are angels singing the glories of God today. Men and women can now join with them.

Christmas will come and go. The songs on the radio will disappear for 10 or 11 months. The lights will gradually come of the houses and trees, the decorations will go back into storage. The church pews will empty, breaks and vacations will end, and back to school and work people will go. The spirit of goodwill and cheer will slowly fade away.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel, shall come to thee oh Israel

Perhaps feelings of goodwill and cheer go away, but God does not. Emannuel, God with us, is more than Hebrew trivia. It is a reality.

In Isaiah 9, the famous prophecy of a savior, the prophet writes that on the people who walked in darkness, “a great light has shone”

The Gospel of John is the only one of the four Gospel accounts that does not tell the story of the birth of Christ, at least not in the traditional sense. But it does open with this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
(John 1:1-5, 9-13)

That is Immanuel. He has come into the world as the light, and the darkness has not overcome it. Life will resume like normal on December 26th, but to walk in darkness is no longer necessary. A mighty God has laid his glory by, the angels and now the world can testify to this, and he is now with us.

This is why we sing. This is why we celebrate. Merry Christmas.

thoughts on the hobbitses (or part 2)

A few years ago, the mind of James Cameron took a recycled plotline and dressed it up with fancy computer graphics and out came Avatar, or as I like to call it: Blue Pocahontas in Space with No Musical Numbers. The Western-European clashing with an indignant people metaphor had been played out on the big screen several times before, but the stunning visual effects of some distant planet was enough to distract people from the fact that this plot had been explored before, and that the acting and storytelling simply wasn’t that great.

(This is a continuation of some previous thoughts)

In today’s cinema, the use of CGI lets movie makers create expansive, beautiful, detailed worlds. Despite what your feelings about the overuse of this technology, it is impossible to deny the beauty of the environments they create in contrast to a green screen. CGI allows for extended and more intricate battle and action sequences. Watching a fight unfold on screen is infinitely more exciting and infinitely less confusing than reading a play by play of the mechanics of a swordsman.

A movie maker only has a few short (or long, depending on how much you enjoy the film) hours to sweep the audience into the fictional world. Some do this by throwing the viewer into the world through action sequence after action sequence, to get the heart pumping, to hurry up and get into the thrill ride without paying attention to the rest of the surroundings. And when the viewer does get a chance to catch his breath, he will see beautifully rendered computer generated environments and then after a brief reprise, it is back to the action.

However, what makes a fictional world come to life is not look of the surroundings, but the people and creatures who populate them. Are they believable? Can they sustain an existence in that universe after the screen has gone black, or do they exist simply for the purposes of moving the plot forward?

There are several themes present in Tolkien’s works. This idea of pride and corrupting power, the necessity and strength of camaraderie and brotherhood, are both set against a much larger backdrop of a cosmic clash between good and evil. The goal film adaptations should bring these themes to the screen, where the characters who play their roles are believable and can be empathized with. These overarching themes are definitely present in the latest Hobbit film, but will the viewer care about them?

In all of Tolkien’s books, he is very deliberate. He takes the time to make sure every detail is known in his long and extended conversation with the reader. He has the page space to do so. And this adds to the feeling that Bilbo’s adventure is a long (unexpected) journey. There is a lot of walking to be done, and much to be experienced in this expansive Middle-earth that Bilbo is slowly discovering.

The Desolation of Smaug contrasted with the book, is more of a sprint, an elaborate chase scene. It is one that looks great on screen, that will keep one entertained, but at the end of the day, it could be argued that it is no more than a glorified action movie with its themes tucked away in the background, and when the quieter moments come the viewer is reminded that those themes are still there, but we must ask ourselves, do we care? Do we remember why we are here in the first place? Is the stubborn pride of the dwarves, the allure of power and the symbolism of the Arkenstone, do they justify the action that has taken place on screen? Does the tension between elf and dwarf feel organic or is it forced? When one crosses party lines to help the other side, is it groundbreaking or predictable? Are the citizens of Lake-town honest hardworking people who are have slaved under the rule of a drunken corrupt master or do they just populate the poverty stricken city as a collective damsel  in distress awaiting their heroes?

The underlying question is this: Is the world that the movie portrays a world where the audience can work, breathe, and live in, or is it just a pretty picture on the wall to be admired from a distance, and then after enough time has passed, they can move on to the next one?

Action movies are praised for the fight scenes, the car chases, the explosions, and the carnage. Plot holes abound in these types. But people don’t go into these movies expecting some sort of life lesson or revelation. Relationships are thrown in to add a douse of humanity, an obligatory love interest, some cheesy dialogue, and the audience bemoans these scenes and simply wants to get back to the action.

The preface to Tolkien’s Epic trilogy should establish familiar themes that will continue through the rest of the story and shed light on the lesser known corners of Middle-earth. The Hobbit movies certainly attempt to do so. Perhaps it is dealt an unfortunate task and an impossible follow up to the trilogy that truly transported audiences to Middle-earth a decade ago. Still, it is very possible. If a young sixth grader like myself many years ago could pick up The Hobbit and stumble through words that were too big and concepts that I did not fully understand, then surely, movie makers who are much smarter than I was once can recapture that same awe on the screen.

It happened once before. I wish it would happen again. 

thoughts on the two hobbits (part 1)

There is a big difference between a movie being “based on real events” and being “inspired by real events.” If a movie is based on real events, it tries it’s best to stay faithful to the original story and plot, without changing characters and  being very limited in its use of creative license. A movie inspired by true events will take a story and add new plot details and characters around it to make it more box office friendly.

The same could be said about movie adaptations of books and comics. Fans of the original works are always quick to point out the inconsistencies between the print on the page and the images on the screen.

Peter Jackson’s latest Hobbit adventure is inspired by the book. Somehow through two movies, almost six hours of film has not been enough to accurately tell Tolkien’s shortest book of the saga. However, I’m not here to dwell on the differences between the book and film. The question I would like to address is this: would a more accurate and faithful depiction of the book make for a good movie? Was that even the goal, and is it feasible?

Books and movies both are mediums to express a story. However they accomplish this in different ways. Reading a book is a very subjective experience. As great as an author may be at describing scenery and setting, much of the visual interpretation is still up to the reader. A book like The Hobbit  is told through the use of a third person limited point of view (Thanks 8^th grade honors English!), meaning that the reader will experience the inner monologues of the main character, but from a safe distance. The use of this mechanism allows the reader to feel like he is walking alongside Bilbo in his adventure and can hear his thoughts, but has some advantages (or disadvantages) of not seeing things directly through his eyes. The reader is free to speculate and other matters that Bilbo is oblivious to. Despite book clubs or discussion groups, reading is a very personal experience. The author is writing for one person, and is having a conversation with the reader.

A movie on the other hand is more of an objective experience (although clearly there is room for subjective interpretation). The movie maker gives his audience non-negotiable visuals and they are at the mercy of his interpretation. Most movies are told from the third person omniscient point of view, being able to see the entire universe of the film, not limited to just the protagonists. The inner dialogue of characters is very hard to capture. 1^st person monologues are rare, and so directors rely on the skill of their cast, the chemistry of the actors, to portray the desired feelings. If a book is more of a conversation between the author and a reader, a movie is like a lecture between the director and a theater full of people.

When I first read The Hobbit I was in the sixth grade, around the same time that Peter Jackson released the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I did not know much about Tolkien and the world of Middle-earth. Yet I was enthralled by this adventure that Bilbo embarked on. Like Bilbo, I was oblivious to much of the world outside my 6^th grade social circle as he was very content to sit in his hole in the ground in the shire and smoke a pipe and drink some tea. The unassuming Hobbit however is thrown into a world much bigger than his own. The world that he only knew through the stuff of legends, he was about to experience.

I did not know how expansive the realm of Middle-earth was. I did not know the worlds, the histories, and the backstories that Tolkien has created in his mind where he set his epic adventure. But the conversation that was taking place between a young reader and a professor of Oxford College did not need to delve into that information. Every normal conversation we have with another human being does not involve learning everything about that person at the first meeting. The longer time is spent, the more conversations, the more that is revealed. Despite not knowing anything about Middle-earth, by the end of the book, enough is known for that story, that chapter of time in the saga to be complete.

With the latest Hobbit trilogy as a prequel to a story where audiences already know the ending, it is impossible to capture the same feeling of wonder, of being thrust into a new uncharted world. Even for those who have never read the books, they have seen the movies, and had conversations with their more nerdy friends about the dealings of Middle-earth. This latest lecture from Peter Jackson is not an introductory class. The audiences want to see how this “new” material relates back to the LOTR trilogy. And while some fanboys would rather him not give into these demands, one must remember, that this is still a business. The massive global audience must be satisfied in one sweeping take. That means transplanted characters (or created) will appear in Jackson’s interpretation. Would three hours of Bilbo’s thought process and inner wonderings be very exciting to watch unfold onscreen? When Gandalf leaves the party of dwarfs to attend to other matters, why wouldn’t the movie makers take that opportunity to show what that might have looked like? The book has zero female characters in it and in this day of political correctness and necessary love interests, a female lead is needed to satisfy a movie goer. The lecture must meet the desires of the entire classroom, not just the select few who sit in the front rows. Of course in doing so, no one will be completely satisfied, but satisfaction is not the goal as much as getting people in the seats to be entertained is.

I have much more to say on this subject, but this post is getting too long. Like Peter Jackson, it looks like I will have to stretch out this line of thought into multiple parts.

coffee smelling clothes

Spend any amount of time in a coffee house and you will reek of lattes and espresso shots for the rest of the day. So you go home and take a shower to replace the aroma of stale coffee with a fresh clean scent. But as you dry off, you remember that you don’t want to do more laundry than you already have. So you grab the clothes you were wearing, the ones that have been permeated with the smell of the coffee beans. You also have an image to uphold, the style that says that you don’t care about your appearance, but you don’t want to chance running into someone again that day after changing your clothes. Then you’d have to explain yourself and why you’ve undergone a middle of the day wardrobe change. So the old coffee smelling clothes go back on, not as repugnant as they once were as time has passed by. But you certainly don’t smell clean anymore, and no one save for the utility company will know that the hot water was running twice on that day.

 “As a dog returns to his vomit so a fool repeats his folly”

Proverbs 26:11