Painting Fakes

I was too busy to get my head into writing a Christmas post this year, but this is almost it.  After all, there are 12 days in Christmas, right? This Christmas I've been thinking about something that's not strictly a Christmas story - Jesus' inauguration message in the Nazareth synagogue, as told in Luke 4. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,     because he has anointed me     to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners     and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were faste...

For Christians, the story of Christmas reveals something quite remarkable about God, which we often forget. A subtle piece of mistranslation has led us to have a peculiarly Western take on the birth of Jesus.  In Luke 2:7 we are used to reading something like this: And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. The result is that our Christmas cards show the holy family in the cow-shed among the animals since there were no vacant hotel rooms.  But the word translated 'inn' actually just means 'place to stay' and could just as easily apply to a spare bedroom - a much more likely destination in the context of Middle Eastern hospitality.  So it's a fair bet that the story played out more like this... Mary and Joseph were forced to travel to Bethlehem for the Roman census, even though Mary was due to give birth.  They arrived, tired from their journey, in the main str...

Why would Yahweh, the God of Gods, choose to reveal himself to the Israelites, a tiny oppressed people group on the fringes of Middle Eastern society?  Why not to the Egyptians, the cultural and political leaders of the Bronze Age?  Why not the Babylonians, that magnificent, lordly civilisation at the heart of the fertile Mesopotamian plain?  There were so many options which had a better chance of success. And then, in the midst of the Roman Empire, when he chose to send his greatest Message by the hand of his only son, not only did he bypass the Romans for his previously favoured Jews, but he steered clear of the temple complex in Jerusalem, of the priests and civic leaders, and instead arrived in Galilee among the poor peasants and craftsmen.  How much harder could he make it for himself? Marshall McLuhan famously said 'the medium is the message'.  That is to say, the form and method of delivery shapes and determines the content.  A message delivered ...

So it's Christmas. For some reason this year I've been thinking of this wicked little poem by TS Eliot. The broad-backed hippopotamus Rests on his belly in the mud; Although he seems so firm to us He is merely flesh and blood. Flesh and blood is weak and frail,       Susceptible to nervous shock; While the True Church can never fail For it is based upon a rock. The hippo’s feeble steps may err In compassing material ends,       While the True Church need never stir To gather in its dividends. The ’potamus can never reach The mango on the mango-tree; But fruits of pomegranate and peach       Refresh the Church from over sea. At mating time the hippo’s voice Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd, But every week we hear rejoice The Church, at being one with God.   The hippopotamus’s day Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts; God works in a mysterious way— The Church can sleep and feed at once...

I don't write a lot about advertising and I don't generally have advertising on this blog.  However, recently my TV has been peppered with something quite intriguing.  It's an ad for Apple that they have titled Frankie's Holiday. I have heard it said that advertising is, in a certain sense, the height of cinematic art.  Most people only see a particular movie once, but advertising is meant to be seen over and over again, and it has to attract you to the product, not repel you.  Major campaigns for multinationals like Apple can have bigger production budgets per minute of content than most major cinema productions.  The filmmakers have no more than two minutes to tell their story.  The advertisement is the cinematic equivalent of haiku.  Each word and image has to count. They often crash and burn, but this one hits the spot with precision.  One of the reasons is that it doesn't actually ask you to buy an Apple product.  The i-phone i...

Another December, another War on Christmas. This year it is Australia's Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, stepping out of his portfolio for a moment to call for an "uprising"  to protect Christmas in the face of "political correctness gone mad".  This extraordinary call to arms was prompted by one of his local constituents calling a talkback radio program to complain that the end of year festivities at Kedron State School contained "not one Christmas carol" and that the words to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" had been changed to "we wish you a happy holiday".  Apparently this makes Dutton's blood boil.  We are a Christian country and we should sing Christmas carols. How much do we care?  Well, personally, not at all.  I would happily join in a song wishing a bunch of young children a happy holiday as they disappear for six weeks of leisure in the balmy Brisbane summer.  I pray that this wish comes true. Not that I d...

When I was looking for Christmas songs for church earlier this month, I came across my words and chords for this little gospel music gem we used to sing way back in the early 1980s. It's got a pretty, catchy tune and simple words, and it's easy for a ham guitarist like me to play.  Plus back in the day we were heavily into trying to convert people (not very successfully) and this song really tried hard to do that. Here's the thing though.  It never struck me as odd that although it calls itself 'A Christmas Song for All Year Round' it's actually an Easter song.  Look at the words. I wonder if this Christmas they'll begin to understand The Jesus that they celebrate was much more than a man. Cos the way the world is I don't see how people can deny The only way to save us was for Jesus Christ to die. And I know that if St Nicholas was here he would agree That Jesus gave the greatest gift of all to you and me They led him to the slaughter on ...

It seems that this Christmas I can't get away from renditions of The Little Drummer Boy .  Here is the one I enjoyed most, from Walk Off the Earth. I don't really know what's with the dogs.  If you prefer something more traditional here's an  a capella  version by Pentatonix. In case you haven't had it drummed into you by years of repetition over shopping centre sound systems and in Christmas concerts and pageants, the lyric goes like this: Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum,  rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, So to honour Him, pa rum pum pum pum,  When we come. Little Baby, pa rum pum pum pum I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum That's fit to give a king, pa rum pum pum rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum ...

In Luke's version of the Christmas story an angel announces Jesus' birth to a group of shepherds.  This is how we always heard the story in my youth, taken from the King James Bible. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." In about 1980 I was a young Beach Mission leader and spent part of my Christmas holidays running evangelistic kids' activities at a big caravan park on the Gold Coast.  In the bus on the way to somewhere one of my fellow leaders, an earnest young Calvinist a couple of years older than me, was pontif...

We often hear talk about "the magic of Christmas".  Usually it has something to do with elves and flying reindeer and Santa Claus breaking into your house through the ceiling vent.  However, we shouldn't forget that the original Christmas story (you know, the one with Jesus in it) also features magicians.  Here they are, in the NIV translation of Matthew 2. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Herod consults with his scholars and suggests they try Bethlehem, then asks them to report back to him after they have found the child. After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they sa...

It being Christmas, I've been thinking about Saturnalia, of course, and this led me to remember a fascinating passage in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People.   Writing in 601 AD, Pope Gregory sends Abbot Mellitus to help out Augustine, the first Roman missionary to the Anglo-Saxons in Britain.  Among various instructions, he says this: When, therefore, Almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend Bishop Augustine, our brother, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English, determined upon, viz., that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; tha...

It's nearly Christmas.  Most of us are getting ready to hang out with our extended family, while those of us who are a long way from family are most likely lining up surrogates to stave off the loneliness.  This has come to be what Christmas is about for most Australians.  So with that in mind, here's a little Christmas gem from Kenneth Bailey's marvellous book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes . In our traditional view of the Christmas story, based on Luke 2:1-7, Joseph and Mary set off for Bethelehem.  When they arrive, however, the inn is full and they are forced to sleep out in the stable, where Jesus is born.  The story has become a symbol of Jesus' poverty and his status as a social outcast.  In Bailey's view it is also very European, and is a very unlikely scenario in the context of Middle Eastern culture.  Firstly, Joseph was a descendent of David, going to the City of David.  Hence he almost certainly had relatives in town and these w...