MattRob.com - Part 19

Why I Hate (Love) Christmas Music

I used to not like Christmas music. For me, the season brought on headaches from my eyes being in a constant state of rolling to show my disdain and convince myself I had superior aesthetic taste. My favorite radio stations would be taken over by the holiday spirit. Me, complaining that top 40 radio stations played such abysmal, tasteless music between Thanksgiving and December 25th, as if this was a break from the norm. Just a few months earlier, I would be complaining that they played the same songs over and over again.

Yep. I was a moron.

But honestly, I still don’t like about 80% of Christmas songs. Mainly the syrupy sweet, saccharine nonsense that threatens to overwhelm your emotional pancreas. So no thanks, Bing Crosby. I still don’t need your White Christmas, and that includes the movie about the snow and the retired general and the ski resort and the crazy tap dancing.

But give me “Joy to the World.” Fill the air with the majesty and theological richness of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” Let me get caught up in the desperate plea of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

I could probably listen to (and sing along with) skillful renditions of these songs all year long.

What changed?

The music certainly didn’t. These songs are much older than I am, and I’ll bet you 13 gazillion dollars that they will still be around long after I’m dead.

There are two things that changed. First, I had to get over my stuffiness and condescension over the general celebration. But even then, I was a Christmas agnostic, shrugging my shoulders in a “live and let live” kind of way. This was not ideal, but a necessary step that performed the right kind of controlled demolition to my core assumptions.

This leads to the second and primary reason I get into the spirit: I better understand the narrative arc of creation.

The story of Jesus, beginning with the wonder and mystery of the Incarnation, really is the greatest story ever told, because it is the climax of the Story. As Christians, we should always be aware of where we are in the Story. It should be the background of all of our thinking. And like many good stories, this one is a vast, sweeping epic, and has its highs and lows.

And one of the highs is the birth of the true King. The Anointed One who would crush Israel’s enemies and the Enemy. The Lion of Judah who would go to face the giant alone. The Root of Jesse who would rise in defiance of death. But first…he had to be born.

The only peak higher than the Incarnation is the Resurrection. Songs that try and harness just a little bit of that vast sweep resonate deeply, because it was a glorious moment filled with hope and promise…and yet we know that even then, the best is yet to come. The bow has been strung and drawn, arrow notched. The tension becomes thick. We are on the edge of our seats.

Yes, even though we know the end, we are on the edge of our seats. Because these songs, the good ones, act as a master storyteller who spin a yarn so well as to make it seem new again, doing their best to imitate the Storyteller, who is actually in the process of making ALL things new.

And so when we are taken back to that night in the City of David, we can truly say with the heavenly host,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Because God became a man, and everything changed. And that was just the beginning.

And so that’s why I have come to like Christmas music. And not only the classics. I don’t discriminate against contemporary Christmas music, as long as it assumes and understands the weight of glory inherent in the part of the story it is trying to relate. But honestly, nothing really tops the classics.

What are your thoughts on Christmas music? What is your favorite (non-lame) song?

A Socialist Jubilee and Our Real Equality

The Jubilee Laws of Leviticus 25 are prized poster boys for Christian socialists everywhere. Every seven weeks of years, the 50th year would be consecrated with the sounds of a trumpet, the slaves would be freed, land sold would be returned to its rightful owner and have its Sabbath rest, and debt would be forgiven. This is where God finally becomes an egalitarian. He’s just as economically ignorant as the rest of us!

But the problem with using Jubilee as justification for a socialist paradise is that the set of laws screams just the opposite.

First, they presuppose some sort of inequality in order to even be obeyed, and this is in line with the rest of Biblical revelation, including that of the rest of the Pentateuch. Just look to the Ten Commandments. “You shall not steal” and “You shall not covet” tell us two things immediately: that private property is a real thing that is to be protected, and that some will have more of it than others.

Second, the Jubilee Laws actually maintains certain inequalities and locks them in. Lev. 25:29-30 specifically makes exception for dwellings within walled cities. If one is sold and is not redeemed within a year, it would remain with the new owner in perpetuity and would NOT be release for during the Jubilee.

Not surprisingly, to find the real point of Jubilee, you just need to look at the text.

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine.” (Lev. 25:23)(ESV)

“For it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (Lev. 25:55)

Both rich and poort are equal in this way: what they have is really God’s, and they both rely on his mercy for their possessions no matter the quantity. And it is the ending of servitude to each other, only to affirm the people’s total servitude, both rich and poor, toward God.

Distributing goods more fairly among a certain number of people is not the message of Jubilee. The real message is that, for goods to be distributed more fairly, everything would go back to God, and our hands would be empty. That is real fairness. That is our real equality. Anything more than destitution is a mercy.

Thanks be to God for his great mercy.

Thanksgiving Psalms and Food

Psalm 147:9

He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry. (ESV)

Psalm 136:25

he who gives food to all flesh, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 111:5

He provides food for those who fear him.

Psalm 104:14-15

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man’s heart.

Psalm 104:27, talking about all of creation:

These all look to you to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

In fact, just go read Psalm 104 in its entirety. I’ll wait until you are finished.

Done?

Jesus is probably pulling from the ideas expressed in these (certainly not exhaustive) Psalms, and in turn from Deuteronomy when he says in Matthew 6:26

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

We are the same as the animals because, like them, we are completely dependent on God. But we are not like them, because we are in the image of God, and are more valuable.

So do not worry. Be thankful, for our Father’s mercy endures forever. Be filled with good things.

Happy Thanksgiving.

A Dent in the Universe – Steve Jobs

I’ve had some time to reflect on the passing of Steve Jobs and absorb some of the various eulogies. Some better than others, of course.

People have been pulling about some of his best quotes and dusting them off. The most striking I’ve seen is the following:

“We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?”

This is always followed by affirmation that yes, Steve did put a dent in the universe. And I concur. A true visionary force. He helped bring computing to the mainstream, helped bring smart phones into the mainstream, and then uncovered a treasure trove of buried demand for tablets that no one thought existed.

But that’s not all. Through Pixar, he gathered talent around him which resulted in the creation of movies with heart and soul when it seemed Disney had forgotten how, ushering in another golden age of animated storytelling. How long will these ripples last?

So yes, there is probably a part of the universe that is a little bit warped from the Jobs footprint.

And yet…

The only way these statements makes any sense is through some sort of Christian worldview. The only possible way you could classify anything as a “dent”, or even anything as an “improvement” is to have some absolute standard with which to measure things. So many of the people trying to affirm that Jobs’ made said “dent” have no way to actually define it.

If you believe that we live in nothing but a naturalistic universe, then anything you do, anything Steve Jobs did, is completely meaningless. There is no dent. There is nothing. You can try and pretend that there is something that gives all these particulars meaning (and since you are created in the image of God, you certainly will try), but you are being inconsistent with your own presuppositions.

His achievements will eventually whither and be forgotten, both in memory and actuality. Everything was simply a series of chemical reactions that caused some other chemical reactions somewhere else. Even Jobs’ own pantheistic Buddhism reduces everything down to sameness. There is no difference between cruelty and non-cruetly. No difference between creativity and dullness. No difference between iPhone and Android. There is no real meaning to any interaction of matter and energy. And so without the Christian answer, nobody leaves a dent in the universe, including Jobs. Including you. The question asked above simply becomes one of complete despair.

But I can affirm, with the Christian assumptions in my mind, that Steve Jobs improved lives and in many ways made the world a better place. I thank God for him, for his vision, and for the couple who adopted him. Yes, he did indeed leave a dent in the universe. He directly impacted people’s lives for the better.

Logically, can you really say the same thing?

P.S. As an aside, here is a recent quote from Albert Mohler that I think is important. We all put dents in the universe everyday. That is part of what it means to be man in God’s image.

…that the mother tending her child, the farmer planting his crops, the father protecting his family, the couple faithfully living out their marital vows, the factory worker laboring to support his family, and the preacher preparing to preach the Word of God, are all doing even more important work.

The Sinful Tragedy of Boredom

Nathan Bingham offers some thoughts on the constant problem of boredom in our world. “We are all adrift in a ship of boredom, floating on a sea of wonders.” He makes a few points:

Most evident in children, because they come up to us and tell us that they are bored. But it’s a problem we don’t grow out of.
It’s not only tragic. It’s sinful. And it begets severe ingratitude. The world God has created for us is full of wonder.
The antidote to boredom is a strong doctrine of creation.

One challenge. Try to look at something “mundane” sideways, in a new way. Learn everything you can about it. Study it. It will surprise you.

For help jolting your mind from the humdrum and helping you put on goggles of wonder, I highly recommend Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl.