The magi show up.

Matthew 2.1-3.

Too many Christians forget our words Messiah and Christ both mean king.

Yes, they literally translate as “anointed [one].” But the ancients didn’t use these words to mean just anyone who’d been anointed with oil. It referred to Israel’s king, who’d been anointed to represent God granting him the Holy Spirit’s power to lead. It’s a royal title. It means you’re king. If you wandered ancient Israel calling yourself Messiah, people would either think you were crazy, like some bum on the street insisting he’s the emperor; or they’d think you had plans on taking the kingdom away from its then-current occupant.

In 5BC, that’d be Herod bar Antipater. And a lot of Israelis felt he wasn’t the legitimate Messiah. For the past century and a half, the head priests of the Hasmonean family had held the office of king. But 32 years before, in 37BC, Roman triumvir Marcus Antonius had backed Herod as he overthrew Antigonus bar Aristobulus, the last Hasmonean king, and took the title for himself. He was neither a priest, nor a descendant of King David ben Jesse like Jesus is. He wasn’t even Israeli; his father was an Idumean Edomite, and his mother a Nabatean Arab. He’s a descendant of Abraham on both sides, but not Israel, and the Law forbade the Israelis from making a non-Israeli their king. Dt 17.15 Not that they had any say in the matter.

Because of the way he seized power, Herod was super paranoid about anyone who might try to overthrow him. Many tried and failed, including Herod’s own family members; including his own kids. He knew Israelis didn’t want him there. It’s why all his palaces were fortresses, in case he had to defend himself from his own subjects; it’s why most of his bodyguard were Europeans, not fellow middle easterners. So you didn’t wanna get on Herod’s bad side. Cæsar Augustus used to joke he’d rather be Herod’s pig than his son. Herod executed three of his sons, and since Judeans didn’t eat pork, Augustus’s comment was quite apt.

So you can see how today’s story would trigger Herod:

Matthew 2.1-3 KWL

1Around when Jesus is born in Bethlehem, Judea,

in the days of King Herod,

look: Magi from the east come to Jerusalem,

2saying, “Where’s the newborn king of the Judeans?

For we see his star in the east,

and we come to pay him respect.”

3Hearing this agitated King Herod,

and all Jerusalem with him.

Yep, agitating Herod meant he might get murdery, so all Jerusalem was agitated too. Well, the magi didn’t know any better.

St. Stephen, and true martyrdom.

You may remember Στέφανος/Stéfanos “Stephen” from Acts 6-7. He’s not in the bible for very long, but he makes a big impact, ’cause he’s the first Christian to get killed for Jesus. Or martyred, as we put it, although properly martyrdom really only means giving one’s testimony. And hopefully not getting lynched for it.

Stephen’s feast day is actually today—26 December, the second day of Christmas. It’s the day good king Wenceslas looked down, if you know the Christmas carol; maybe you do. We have no idea whether Stephen literally died in December, much less whether it’s the 26th (or 27th, in eastern churches). It’s just where tradition happened to stick it. In some countries it’s an official holiday.

If you’ve read Acts, you know his story. If not, I’ll recap.

In the ancient Hebrew culture, tithes weren’t money, but food. Every year you took 10 percent of your firstfruits and celebrated with it, Dt 14.22-27 and every third year you gave it to the needy. Dt 14.28-29 Apparently the first Christians took on this duty of distributing tithes to the needy. But they were accused of favoring Syriac-speaking Christians over Greek-speaking ones, Ac 6.1 so the Twelve had the church elect seven Greek-speakers to make sure the Greek-speakers were served properly. Ac 6.2-3 Stephen was first in this list, and Acts’ author Luke pointedly called him full of faith and the Holy Spirit, Ac 6.5 full of God’s grace and power. Ac 6.8 Definitely a standout.

The first church still only consisted of Jews. Christianity was a Judean religion—the obvious difference between Christians and Pharisees being we believe Jesus is Messiah, and they believed Messiah hadn’t yet come. Otherwise the first Christians still went to temple and synagogue. It was in synagogue where Stephen got into trouble: The people of his synagogue dragged him before the Judean senate to accuse him of slandering Moses, temple, and the LORD. Custom made slandering Moses and the temple serious, but slandering the LORD coulda got you the death penalty… if the Romans hadn’t forbidden the Judeans from enacting it. But as you know from Jesus’s case, the Judeans could certainly get the Romans to execute you for them. So Stephen was hauled before the senate to defend himself.

Unlike Jesus, who totally admitted he’s Messiah, Stephen defended himself: He retold the history of Israel, up to the construction of the temple. Ac 7.2-47 Then he pointed out God doesn’t live in a building, of all the silly things. Ac 7.48-50 And by the way, the senate was a bunch of Law-breakers who killed Christ. Ac 7.51-53

More than one person has pointed out it’s almost like Stephen was trying to get himself killed. Me, I figure he was young and overzealous and naïve, and had adopted the American myth (centuries before we Americans made it our very own) that if you’re on God’s side, no harm will ever befall you. You can bad-mouth your foes, and God’s hedge of protection will magically defend you when they turn round and try to punch you in the head. You can leap from tall buildings, and angels will catch you. You know, like Satan tried to tempt Jesus with. Mt 4.5-7

That’s not at all how things turned out.

The 12 days of Christmas.

Today’s the first day of Christmas. Happy Christmas!

After which there are 11 more days of it. 26 December—which is also Boxing Day and St. Stephen’s Day—tends to get called “the day after Christmas,” but it’s not. It’s the second day of Christmas.

The Sunday after Christmas (and in many years, including 2025 and 2026, two Sundays after Christmas) is still Christmas. So I go to church and wish people a happy Christmas. And they look at me funny, till I remind them, “Christmas is 12 days, y’know. Like the song.”

Ah, the song. They sing it, but it never clicks what they’re singing about.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me

A partridge in a pear tree.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me

Two turtledoves

And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me

Three french hens

Two turtledoves

And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

Four calling birds

Three french hens

Two turtledoves

And a partridge in a pear tree.

We’re on the fourth day and that’s 20 frickin’ birds. There will be plenty more, what with the swans a-swimming and geese a-laying. Dude was weird for birds. But I digress.

There are 12 days of Christmas. But our culture focuses on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day… and we’re done. Department store policy is to remove the Christmas merchandise on 26 December (if not sooner!) and start putting up New Year’s and St. Valentine’s Day stuff. If the Christmas stuff is already sold out, fill ’em with the next holidays’ stuff now. So the stores grant us two days of Christmas; no more.

Really, many people can’t abide any more days of Christmas than that. When I remind people it’s 12 days, the response is seldom surprise, recognition, or pleasure. It’s tightly controlled rage. Who the [expletive noun] added 11 more days to this [expletive adjective] holiday? They want it done already.

I understand this. If the focus of Christmas isn’t Christ, but instead all the Christian-adjacent cultural traditions we’re forced to practice this time of year, Christmas sucks. Hard. Especially since Mammonists don’t bother to be like Jesus, and practice kindness and generosity. For them Christmas is about being a dick to any clerk who wishes ’em a “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” I don’t blame people for hating that behavior. Really, Christians should hate it. It’s works of the flesh, y’know.

Christmas, the feast of Christ Jesus’s nativity (from whence non-English speakers get their names for Christmas, like Navidad and Noël and Natale) begins 25 December and ends 5 January. What are we to do these other 11 days? Same as we were supposed to do Christmas Day: Remember Jesus. Meditate on his first coming; look forward to his second coming. And rejoice; these are feast days, so the idea is to actually enjoy yourself, and have a good time with loved ones. Eat good food. Hang out. Relax. Or, if you actually like to shop, go right ahead; but if you don’t, by all means don’t.

It’s a holiday. Take a holiday.

When God became human.

INCARNATE 'ɪn.kɑrn.eɪt verb. Put an immaterial thing (i.e. an abstract concept or idea) into a concrete form.

2. Put a deity or spirit into a human form, i.e. Hindu gods.

3. ɪn'kɑr.nət adjective. Embodied in flesh, or concrete form.

[Incarnation ɪn.kɑr'neɪ.ʃən noun, reincarnation 're.ɪn.kɑr.neɪ.ʃən noun.]

Most of our christology lingo tends to come from Greek and Latin. This one too. Why? Because that’s what ancient Christians spoke… and over the centuries westerners got the idea Greek and Latin sound much more formal and sanctimonious than plain English. But they absolutely weren’t formal words in the original languages. When you literally translate ’em, they make people flinch. Incarnate is one of those words: In-carnátio is Latin for “put into meat.”

Yep, put into meat. Nope, this isn’t a mistranslation. And it’s an accurate description of what happened to Jesus. The word of God—meaning God—became flesh. Meat.

John 1.14 KJV

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

This isn’t a temporary change, solely for the few decades Jesus walked the earth. When Jesus was resurrected, he went right back to having a flesh-’n-bone body. When he got raptured up to heaven, he still had, and has, his flesh-’n-bone body; he didn’t shuck it like a molting crustacean. It’s who he is now. God is now meat. Flesh, blood, spit, mucus, cartilage, hair, teeth, bile, tears. MEAT.

God doesn’t merely look human. Nor did he take over an existing human, scoop out the spirit, and replace it with his Holy Spirit. These are some of the dozens of weird theories people coined about how Jesus isn’t really or entirely human. Mainly they were invented by people who can’t have God be human.

To such people, humanity makes God no longer God. It undoes his divinity. He’d have to be limited instead of unlimited. And these people, like most humans, define God by his power. Power’s what they really admire, really covet, about God: His raw, unlimited, sovereign might. Not his character, not his goodness, not his love and kindness and compassion. F--- those things. God has to be mighty, and they can’t respect a God who doesn’t respect power the way they do.

So that, they insist, is who Jesus really is. Beneath a millimeter of skin, Jesus was secretly, but not all that secretly, all that raw unlimited power. He only feigned humanity, for the sake of fearful masses who’d scream out in terror if they ever encountered an undisguised God. He pretended to be one of us. Peel off his human suit, and he’s really omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omni-everything.

To such people incarnation dirties God. It defiles him. Meat is icky. Humanity, mortality, the realness of our everyday existence, is too nasty for God to demean himself to. Sweating. Aching. Pains and sickness. Peeing and pooping. Suffering from acne and bug bites and rashes. Belching and farting. Sometimes the trots from bad shawarma the night before. Waking up with a morning erection.

Have I outraged you yet? You’re hardly the first. But this, as we can all attest, is humanity. Not even sinful humanity; I haven’t touched upon that at all, and I needn’t, ’cause humans don’t have to sin, as Jesus demonstrates. I’m just talking regular, natural, physical humanity. When God became human, he became that. And people can’t abide it.

Yet it’s true. God did it intentionally. He wanted us to be with him. So he made the first move, and became one of us.

The rosary: Meditation… oh, and prayers to Mary.

Some years ago a reader asked me about rosaries.

I gotta admit I don’t have a lot of experience with ’em. Rosaries are a Roman Catholic tradition, and I grew up Fundamentalist—and Fundies are hugely anti-Catholic, so any Catholic traditions are looked upon with suspicion and fear. Many Evangelical Protestants are likewise wary of Catholic practices. Very few do rosaries.

Evangelicals assume a rosary is a string of prayer beads. Actually it’s not. The rosary is the super-long string of rote prayers you recite, and how you keep track of which prayer you’re on, and how many you have left, is with the rosary beads—which yeah, people will just call a rosary, for short. Each rosary bead represents one prayer.

And most of these prayers are the Ave Maria/“Hail Mary.” It’s prayed from 50 to 150 times. Goes like so.

Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee. Lk 1.28

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Lk 1.42

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Yep, it’s not a prayer addressed to God; it’s to his mom. You’re mostly praying to his mom. (And yes she is his mom. Jesus is God; therefore Mary is God’s mother. No she didn’t create God, but she did birth him. If the idea still weirds you out… well that’s fine; incarnation is admittedly weird.)

As for praying to his mom: Very few Evangelicals pray to saints. Okay yeah, some of us talk to our dead loved ones, like a deceased parent or spouse or child or friend, and hope God passes along those messages to that loved one, whom we hope is in paradise. But passing such messages along to anyone else, if that‘s not your tradition, admittedly feels weird and wrong. Praying to Jesus is one thing; praying to his family members Mary, Joseph, James, and Jude, seems strange. (Do we really know these people?) As is praying to his apostles, to medieval saints, to famous dead Christians like C.S. Lewis or Martin Luther King Jr.… I mean, at least those last two guys spoke English, but most other saints died before English even evolved into what we speak nowadays. Pretty sure Mary of Nazareth only knew Syriac and Greek.

But Roman Catholics believe when saints die, they go to heaven, where they’re resurrected. So they’re not dead; they’re alive. Ain’t nothing wrong with talking to living people. That’s what we do when we pray; we talk—and talking to Mary, if she’s alive, is totally fine. Hailing her and calling her blessed is biblical. And asking her to pray to her Son on our behalf is fine too.

But most of the reason people pray a rosary (apart from those who incorrectly think it earns ’em salvation points with God) is meditation. We don’t just recite rote prayers while our minds remain unfruitful: We think about Jesus. Think about the scriptures. Pray silently with our minds, like we do when we pray in tongues.

That’s why some Catholics won’t just pray one rosary in a stretch: They’ll pray two. Or five. They wanna spend significant time meditating on God, and to help ’em focus, they keep their bodies busy with reciting prayer after prayer after prayer, and fix their minds on Jesus. And, if they’re huge fans of his mom, Mary. But if that bothers you, you don’t have to meditate on Mary, or even pray to her. The prayers in one’s rosary are optional, as are all rote prayers.

David and resurrection.

Psalm 16.8-11.

One of the better-known Old Testament references to resurrection comes from a מִכְתָּ֥ם/mikhtám, a type of psalm, which King David ben Jesse wrote in the 11th century BC. Since psalms are poetry, it’s entirely possible David meant this metaphorically—that the LORD’d rescue him as if he were dead and gone and had to be brought back to life. But when Simon Peter quoted this verse in Acts 2, he certainly didn’t understand it this way. He was entirely sure David, a prophet inspired by the Holy Spirit, was actually talking about resurrection. Specifically the resurrection of David’s final successor, Christ Jesus.

In the mikhtám, David switches back and forth between referring to the LORD in third person (“the LORD, who hath given me counsel,” v7), and speaking directly to the LORD in second person (“thou maintainest my lot,” v5). This passage starts in the third person, then moves to second.

Psalm 16.10 KWL

8I always place the LORD in front of me

so he is at my right hand.

I will not shake.

9Therefore my heart is happy.

My honor rejoices; my flesh lives in faith.

10For you¹ will not leave my lifeforce in the afterlife.

You¹ will not leave your¹ loved one to see ruin.

11You¹ will show me the road to life.

I have complete joy in your¹ presence.

It is always pleasant at your¹ right hand.

People nowadays think of one’s “right hand,” or “right-hand man,” as a trusted subordinate position. That’s not how the ancients imagined it. Your right-hand person was a friend. So when the LORD’s at David’s right hand in v8, then David’s at the LORD’s in v11, it means they’re friends. Certainly not that the LORD is David’s subordinate!

More folks are familiar with the KJV’s version of verse 10: “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Ps 16.10 KJV Of course this gives ’em the wrong idea. “Hell” is not an appropriate translation of שְׁא֑וֹל/šeól, meaning “grave” or “afterlife.” This isn’t necessarily a place of torment or punishment, as you’d imagine when you read the word “hell” or even “hades.” Properly it’s the afterlife—the place our ghosts go once we die. Not to dwell forever, but to await resurrection and judgment. I refer you to Jesus’s Dives and Lazarus Story, and what very few details of the afterlife we can glean from it.

“Holy One” is likewise not an appropriate translation of חֲ֝סִידְ/kheçíd, “loving one” or “loved one.” It’s based on the word חֶסֶד/kheçéd, “love,” or sometimes “lovingkindness” or “covenantal love,” depending on the translation. It’s the Old Testament equivalent of ἀγάπη/aghápi, “charitable love,” the love Paul and Sosthenes defined in 1 Corinthians 13, and the love God is. This describes a person who loves God in the very same way God loves us—patiently, kindly, self-denyingly. Okay yeah, this kind of love would make such a person holy, but it’s still not an appropriate translation. So why does the KJV go with it? Because tradition. The Septuagint translated kheçíd as ὅσιόν/ósión, “holy one,” and the Vulgate as sanctum, “holy one”—and John Wycliffe started the whole English-language bible tradition by translating the Vulgate. “Holy one” has leaked into our bibles from there.

Anyway since Simon Peter’s first sermon was to people from all over the Roman Empire and beyond, Ac 2.8-11 he no doubt preached it in Greek, and quoted the Greek bible translation they’d all know—the Septuagint.

Acts 2.25-28 KWL

25For David says of Jesus,

‘I’ve always foreseen the Lord before me,

for he’s at my right hand,

so I might not be shaken.

26This is why my heart is cheered up

and my tongue rejoices

and my body will still live in hope.

27For you¹ won’t leave my lifeforce behind in the afterlife,

nor leave your¹ holy one to see decay.

28You¹ made your¹ living road known to me,

and you’ll¹ fill me with happiness with your¹ presence.’ ” Ps 16.8-11

David, Peter pointed out, was a prophet—and by that time David’d been dead a thousand years, so obviously it wasn’t he who was the “holy one” whose corpse had never seen decay. So he must’ve been talking about someone else—obviously Jesus, who hadn’t remained dead long enough to decay. Ac 2.29-31

Daniel and resurrection.

Daniel 12.1-3.

The book of Daniel was probably written two centuries before Job. In its last chapters (in Protestant bibles; Orthodox and Catholic bibles include two extra chapters from the Septuagint, also known as “Susanna” and “Bel and the Dragon”) we have Daniel’s apocalyptic visions of the End Times. Daniel wanted to know the future, so God told him… and told him, buried under some weird imagery, pretty much all the future.

End Times prognosticators, from Pharisees and Qumranis to our own cranks today, have tried to turn Daniel’s visions into some sort of timeline of events, and insist the future’s gotta unfold exactly the way they see it. Which is why Pharisees utterly missed Jesus’s first advent: They expected him to conform to their timeline. He didn’t. He has his own timeline; something today’s prognosticators need to keep in mind lest they miss out exactly like the Pharisees did.

Daniel’s visions conclude with what’s obviously some sort of tribulation, then resurrection, then some sort of wheat-and-darnel sorting out. An angel, probably Gabriel, is describing all these things to Daniel. Goes like yea.

Daniel 12.1-3 KWL

1“At that time, Michael will stand—

the great leader taking a stand

for your¹ people’s children.

A time of distress has come,

one which hasn’t happened

from the time you became a nation

till that time.

Your¹ people will escape at that time;

all who were found written in the book.

2Many who are sleeping in the earth’s dust—

some of these will awake to eternal life,

and some of these to eternal shame and contempt.

3“The wise will shine like the bright sky,

the many righteous like the stars forever and ever.”

Daniel was then ordered to stop writing and seal his scroll till the End Times. Da 12.4 Which is clearly not the scroll we’re currently reading, since it wasn’t sealed, and people were reading it in Jesus’s day, and basing wonky End Times theories on it. Most interpreters figure Daniel’s sealed scroll is meant to be the one the Lamb unseals at the beginning of Revelation—and even then the heavenly host don’t read it to us; the Lamb unseals it and John gets a freaky vision every time another seal is opened.

But I digress. It’s advent, and I’m writing about resurrection, so I wanna zoom in on verse 2, where Daniel describes what’s basically a resurrection. “Many who are sleeping in the earth’s dust,” i.e. the dead, will be raised either to eternal life or eternal misery. Christians presume the miserable are headed for hell, and the rest are headed for New Jerusalem. And that’s how the End Times end.