Enanthropoises by Chris Krycho (12)

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It's the third song, "Enanthropoises".


Chris wrote a little post to go with it:
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Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel!

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ἐνανθρωπήσαντα (enanthropoisis—enhumanment)

We sing songs of reflection, as we should. The incarnation is a stunning moment, worthy of all our quiet meditation. But it should also remind us that we are at war. The enhumanment of God the Son was not an olive branch—it was a frontal assault on the very fortress of the enemy, an arrow to the eye of the dragon.

We think of the baby in a manger as God's peace offering to the world, when in reality he was exactly what the Jews expected the Messiah to be: a mighty king who would smash through the enemy's resistance and humble every power in the world. They failed to recognize the enemy. We forget there is an enemy. They got the trees wrong. We ask, "What's a forest?"

That celebrated birth was a martial act, the most stunning entry in the millennia-long war. The manger was the first step on the long march to Golgotha.

Remember, this Christmas, as you celebrate the beauty of that silent, holy night: it was an act of war.

Christus Victor.

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Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel has come for thee, oh Israel!

Christmas is Coming by Tim Graf (11)

How does the song go? "God rest you merry, gentlemen / Let nothing you dismay / For Jesus Christ our Savior / Was born upon this day"? I think that's how it goes. The song lies of course; Jesus wasn't really born on Christmas (assuming the song only makes sense if sung on Christmas). Nobody knows when Jesus was born. I suppose he could have been born on Christmas, but it seems unlikely, given all of his other options. In Russia, Jesus was born in January.

And according to that other song, there are twelve days of Christmas. (Someone told me not long ago that people have calculated how much it would cost to buy all of the gifts mentioned in that song. The answer: some ungodly amount.) I honestly had no idea why Christmas had twelve days or what that was all about, until a few minutes ago, in fact. I'd always kind of assumed it was some sort of expectant waiting period leading up to Christmas Day, kind of like Advent, except set to a catchy tune. And I suppose Christmas Day, December 25, is really Christmas, but in my family that has always seemed (to me at least) more true of Christmas Eve. By evening on Christmas Day we're tired of celebrating.

So anyway, I had always thought the twelve days of Christmas ended with Christmas Day, and I expect most Americans do too. They actually begin with December 25 and end on January 5, AKA Twelfth Night, the day before Epiphany (January 6). It pains me to try to expound on what any of these dates mean, since they mean different things to different churches and in some cases don't even fall on the same days. I can tell you that the most important event in the liturgical calendar of the Eastern church is without question Pascha (their name for Easter). I don't know where the Nativity ranks in the hierarchy, but I've always found it amusing that eight days after Christ's birth the Eastern Orthodox celebrate his circumcision. On the other hand, there are Christian churches and denominations out there that do not observe any of these holidays because they're not in the Bible.

I suppose there is value in a community gathering together to expectantly await the commemoration of an event of great import to us. I just wish it wasn't a month long. Christmas today is a bloated colossus of consumerism. I'm also slightly intrigued by the question of when or what Christmas is. About a week and a half ago I said it was Christmas, and my friend Alex told me I was wrong. But was I? To some extent the celebrations had already begun. And how do our ethical obligations to our fellow man change around Christmas, if indeed they do? Christmas is a time we take to be extra nice to people, to visit family and friends we don't normally see, to buy gifts and send cards. Charities appeal to be compassionate because it's Christmas. But there's never a time when you can excuse yourself for being a jackass by saying, "Well, it wasn't Christmas." And what is Black Friday all about? Why do those early-bird sales start at, what, five in the morning? Wouldn't we all be happier if we all made some kind of collective agreement - a social contract, if you will - to sleep in a few extra hours on Black Friday? But then again, what do I know about shopping? I've never worked retail.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: Jesus is going to be born in a couple of days. I hope he likes my sweater.

Prince of Peace by Steven Eiler (10)

He came down, the Prince of Peace,
and traded his crown for our anxieties.
He came down the Prince of Peace.

He gave up perfect love
and settled for our string-tied affections.
He gave up perfect love.

He poured out endless joy
to be filled with the fears of a growing boy.
He poured out endless joy.

That I may know peace, he took my mind.
That I may know love, he took my heart.
That I may know joy, he took my soul
and he made it his own.

That I may know...
That I may know him...
That I may know him, he made me his own...
That I may know him...

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9)The Holiday by Stephen Carradini (9)

Christmas isn’t just a holiday. It’s the holiday. It’s the one that my family goes all-out for. If the rest of the holidays were playing king of the hill in a swimming pool, Christmas would dunk the Fourth of July’s head over and over. That’s just the way it is. My family loves Christmas, so I love Christmas, so everyone should love Christmas.

But as I age, my family’s influence on my opinions is fading. This is normal and even to be desired; it’s a part of growing up. It means that I have to start deciding for myself what is important and what is to be treasured. If I don’t consciously choose to make something important in my life, it will not spontaneously become important.

I didn’t realize that I must prioritize Christmas. Previously, I had Joyeux Noel imposed upon me; on a particular day, Christmas ensued when Mom said, “Go get the decorations.” I didn’t even think about the possibility of not celebrating Christmas.

But when there’s no one to say, “Go get the decorations,” it gets harder. I’ve been super-busy this year and haven’t taken time to celebrate Christmas properly. I didn’t buy a tree (even a little Charlie Brown one) or decorate the house. I haven’t been listening to much Christmas music. I’ve barely started shopping for presents (something I love to do). I haven’t taken initiative; I haven’t made it a point to celebrate Christmas.

Subsequently, I’ve been depressed in the Christmas arena. James actually sent back my first essay on Christmas because it was “anti-“ and “wishy-washy.” Which it was, because I’m anti- and wish-washy on this Christmas. And that’s my fault. I let life get in the way of celebrating Christmas. If I continue to do this, I will never celebrate anything or enjoy life. And that’s wrong. I’m not going to let that happen.
Like a lot of other things that happen to you when you’re growing up, no one really tells you how to start celebrating holidays. They just assume you will. So, consider this my stake in the ground. From now on, I’m celebrating Christmas the way I should, as a real person. Christmas is still the holiday. I just have to make celebrating it a priority as a newly minted adult.

O What a Scandal by Steven Eiler (8)

Mary, young and full of grace, a servant of the Lord,
still wore the veil upon her face when she received the Word.
Her family could not conceive what they could not compare.
Oh, what a scandal did she bear!

Joseph, patient neighbor of the mother of the Lord,
did pledge to build their home with love ('twas all he could afford).
His canopy was laden with the weight of the affair.
Oh, what a scandal did he bear!

Jesus, child of God and woman, born and fostered Lord,
who called our yoke his equal burden, mighty, meek, assured,
was put to death for claim to be the kingdom's rightful heir.
Oh, what a scandal did He bear!

We the church, all called apart, betrothed of the Lord,
now carry in our deepest heart the king to be restored.
Though we must show we cannot see the father we declare.
Oh, what a scandal do we bear!

Grace by Greg Wilson (7)

The semester is coming to a close,
And we fool ourselves into believing
that by putting the final cherry on top -- finals,
we've just reached perfection, and all our problems are gone.

We've slaved well in academia,
And seem to maybe have achieved
the goal of a satisfied self-image?

But wait, there still remains the task of being merry!
Christmas is here!
School is out!
How could you not be merry?

We feel the pressure to embrace
the seasonal high.
It irks me, though, deep down.
I hunger for reality,
To be accepted for who I am,
In the midst of my troubles.

Somehow we tend to quickly glance
at the reason for this bliss,
and then go crazy with all the hedonistic activity called
"Celebrating."

What we missed was something called
Grace.
Jesus came to kill perfectionism,
To say, "I love you even when you fail
to meet the expectations that earn acceptance."

We are not just innocent, broken people though.
We were by nature children of wrath,
And there was a price to be paid.
Jesus took that place for us,
Gave us grace unconditional.
Invites us back to life, and takes our death.

And he is with us in the everyday humdrum,
He gives us hope,
and loves us as we are.

May you not feel an external, inauthentic season of bliss,
But a comforting, quiet touch, to subdue all your angst.

You are loved just the way you are,
because of
Grace.

Descender by Carl Z. Nellis (6)

Seed of the birth torn,
waking, breaking
Free of the world worn
serpents and snaking

tunnlers, stealers, sleeping terrors
taking their moth bites from peace.
This redeemer vanishes beneath

Skin of the one womb
gifted, lifted
Out of the hard heart
drifters and sifted

asheaps, gatemound gathered acres
housing things men have refused.
Actias Luna eclosing the tomb

Wings on the high wind
aflutter, astutter
up to the grand oak
muttering goldbutter

wonder in breaking free, thunderous glorying,
sundering everything binding and burying,
dying and carrying, heartily marrying
god to the golddust,
the man to divine.

Birth of Hope by Jaimie Krycho (5)

The sacrifice, the price too great: I cannot pay.
It will always be this way:
I grasp for anything to remind me I’m human.
Holes that not a thing can fill
Calling me forward to death
Futility uncoils
Killing me quietly
O come, O come, Emmanuel!
Arriving quietly
Redemption shows his face
Lifting me out from my mess
Holiness awe can’t relate
I weep—the babe is Messiah and the Lamb of God!
It will always be this way:
The sacrifice, the price fulfilled: Jesus will pay.

On Christmas, Waiting, and John Lennon by Gregory McArthur (4)

Every Holiday season is rough for me. I have numerous falling-outs, family problems, money problems, big changes, and in the midst of it all, somehow or another, John Lennon becomes my soundtrack to this season.

Now...that seems like an odd choice. To me, at least. As the one doing the listening and as an outside observer, John doesn't seem...Christmas-ey. His songs are filled with pain, hurt, regret, bitterness, and strife. But they're also filled with hope, love, peace, and a call to action for all of us to make something out of this screwed-up planet.

But wait a minute. What does this have to do with Christmas? Well...everything. Absolutely everything. You see, there is one season the greeting card companies forgot about that also occurs this time of year, possibly just the very thing that makes Christmas the most wonderful and magnificent day of the year.

Advent. Something not many people talk about or think about. If you're Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Episcopal, or Methodist, chances are you've known about this season since you were little. For those of us not brought up in these streams of Christianity, Advent is something foreign to our language. It is a strange concept at first, yet the very thing that makes Christmas really Christmas.

Advent serves a reminder both of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting of Christians for the second coming of Christ. It is a period of longing, of straining forward to better things. We know that the waiting was eventually paid off by the first coming of Christ, thus also we know that all our suffering will be paid off by the second coming. Not only that, but every tomorrow that God gives us is an opportunity to become people of peace, love, compassion, justice, understanding, grace, and mercy. To be a part of God's seemingly insane approach to redeeming the world, and to become more like Him.

Christianity is and has always been about being transformed by the light and love of Christ and spreading that transformation out to others. God didn't just leave us in the dark to wallow in our misery. He promised us abundant life, made possible by the coming (and suffering, death, and resurrection) of His Son.

But back to John Lennon. With songs like "Hold On," "Gimme Some Truth," and "Watching the Wheels," he talks honestly about his frustration with the world and with people who try to give him advice but never take the time to honestly get to know him. I feel like that most of the Advent and Christmas season. Things never go right, and I wonder what is so wrong with the world that it is full of hypocrisy and lies and hate and gossip. It makes me weep, and rifts between myself and other people are caused.

But on the other hand, I cannot deny the fact that I serve a God who came through on His promise in a most miraculous way: by becoming one of us and dying to conquer death so that we may have life! So that we may be a people grinding against the status quo and the empire, and spreading a community of love and peace all around the world that cannot be gotten rid of.

On the flip side for John, he has songs like "Imagine," "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," and "Give Peace a Chance." All of them songs that reflect the hope that Christmas gives us. Yes, war CAN be over if we want it! Peace is the way! Put aside all of your differences (religion, race, social class, economic status, continent, health, age, hair color, eye color) and make this world a better place. God has given us the tools to do so, so let's get to the doing.

He won't leave us in the dark. After all, that's what Advent and Christmas are all about. The Light of the World piercing into the darkness, illuminating our hearts and the world, and showing all of us that God is good and wants what is good for us, His creatures, even if it sometimes means we have to wait for the miracle. But if there's one thing to learn from history, it's that God is worth waiting on. You will not be disappointed.

The Jews waited thousands of years for their Messiah. Two more days until I move? Nothin.

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men." -The Angels to the shepherds, Luke 2:14

"War is over if you want it." -John Lennon

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Rom. 5:1-5

Indwelling Incarnation by James Metelak (3)

The words spilled out of the bloom in a rush
Filling a void and forming dust
Consonants congeal to planets
And vowels spill over into mountains
In the beginning was the Word
Resting on God's silent lip
In an infinite mind pregnant
The Word was within and was and with
Weaving threads that formed the atoms
That formed the man

We are God-spit and earth
We are the wound of serpent's whispers
The man walked and he chose
He spoke; Eve gave birth
To a new earth, an old ache,
A murderous son and eternal pain
We forgot the words
Between our fingers
Between the dirt
Sin sparked genocides and wars
We forgot our names
The fabric in our veins
We cut with knives
We cursed our lives
And died
Hate and poison inside
We died

The letters, no, the sound
Seeded a teenage virgin womb
And began to pulse and divide
The word put on flesh
And indwelt a mom
What cells are these?
What flesh that walks
With perfect love and wood-carved hands?
The kingdom came
The baby king
Magi and angels and shepherds all agreed:
The God in skin
The God in diapers
And the world did not recognize him

The Logos was wrapped in swaddling clothes
My heartbeat is his clap
The fabric of the universe, God-spit woven into a placenta growing to
God with piss and tears, blood and sweat
Immanuel, the Great I am
With wood-cut back
And nail-ripped hands
Ankles pierced the Word made death
The Word became death
The veil tore
The temple cracked
Total eclipse
The sky turned black

And in the nothing
The grave
Clocks turned back
The deep magic, the deepest science
Was unmade and reformed and reborn
Resurrected Lord
And death died to us
Bringing life

And the Word became breath
And in his death
Spit on our eyes
And came inside
The Kingdom comes to us
The Godman King breathes in us
Indwelling our shoes and our love
And we are life, we are alive
And his breath inflates our lungs

What child is this?
What breath?

The Incarnation by Bethany Marroquin (2)

-The Incarnation-

I thought I saw you, there in the grey,
where all of us are piled up
and wilting away, rivers turning to asphalt.

You look so different -
wearing our sewage, breathing our air.
Didn't they tell you
this isn't the place for a god?

You shouldn't be here,
but oh, please don't leave me -
because when I see you,
I think I feel my heart again,
I think I feel my heart.

This isn't the place for a god -
you break your feet on the shattered glass,
and shatter your soul on the broken hearts -
but still you keep on coming.

I've grown used to screeching tires and
hollow winds over dying fields,
but you sound like music.

You shouldn't be here,
but oh, please don't leave me -
because when I see you,
I think I feel my heart again,
I think I feel my heart.

And I'm soaking in the color, and I'm breathing in the light...

Could this be what grass smells like?
It's been so long, I can't remember --
a love that's a gift and not a debt to pay back,
a mercy that breaks all the rules.
Could this be what hope feels like -
When everything you touch bursts into growing?
And I'm soaking in your color,
and I'm breathing in your life.

I think I feel my heart.


Hail the heavenborn prince of peace,
hail the Son of Righteousness.
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings!
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.

4:32 a.m. by Michelle Hindman (1)

4 :32 a.m. - A deserted parking garage, silent night suddenly shattered by screams, echoing, of a young woman, her sweaty hair tangled around her straining neck, who is leaning against the cool, gasoline-smelling wall, eyes rimmed-red, and breath coming short with pain, one white-knuckled hand gripping the collar of old sweatshirt, naked otherwise, the other clenching the calloused hand of the man speaking slowly, shakily . His steady hands don’t say he is scared all the same by the blood, oh God, why her(e)? he is thinking, but he whispers encouragement, lips closely to her damp forehead, which knocks against his teeth painfully at once as she, shifting suddenly, cries out and braces, breathlessly, for another wave.

Both too weary for the wonder of it, scant energy for the scandal, as joy and desperation and a newborn’s wail resound through the garage, they laugh wearily at the soft coat in a clean box laying nearby, Eyebrows raised and hands thrown up, smilingly taking the child gently from her limp and thin arms, the young man rests the small red burden in the makeshift crib, the cardboard creche. Next he takes her as carefully as he can under the knees and back and moves her shuddering with pain from the halo of blood beneath her, hardly immaculate, wholly human, she falls asleep against the wall as he makes an embarrassed attempt to clean her up a little. He takes her in his arms instead and lets her sleep against his chest, her mouth a little open. Carefully he covers her so as not to wake her .

Quite a desperate scene, really, certainly not the kind of thing children act in pageants or sweet songs croon about - a young couple with a trail of shame in a small town on a busy night and not a clue where they’re going next. And this is how Christmas comes. Not in gold and glitter, but flesh and cries that cut through trite Christmas cards and commercialism. The Almighty pieced on frailty and dressed Himself in something we could understand, coming through blood and screams later to give His own. Behold Him, “wearing our sewage, breathing our air”, coming to a world ready to ignore Him, slow to understand, coming to our world, in a truth so mysterious it feels like blasphemy. It simply won’t do, we think, as we look on the God of the universe as a pinkened ball of flesh, that will suffer and grow up and love and die like we do, but yet unlike we do - it simply can’t be that this is how Christmas comes, a Savior descended through prostitutes and Kings and a scared teenage girl.

Part of us sings Silent Night and Away in a Manger, and looks at the serene, pale face of Mary in the stained glass, and really believes it all happened with beams of light and haloes and pink cherubs peeking over the side of a picturesque stable. And then we wonder why we can’t feel the Christmas spirit and why the nativity feels so distant and get all worked up about how little the world appreciates what things are really about and shake our head at political correctness, but the thing is, in our excitement over the wise men and the shepherds bowing down and worshipping, we forget that the vast majority of Bethlehem residents were asleep and unaware, that mostly the unusual star was just a centerpiece of small-talk as they waited in line at the malls, and that thousands who had unwittingly lived through the greatest miracle in history went about their business without the least echo of angel’s songs. And this is how Christmas comes.

It comes to a world very like our own, convinced after 400 years of silence that miracles and exoduses have solidified into the comfortable religion we know and practice, to us who are convinced that if we keep the Sabbath and try not to see R-rated movies and write a check to Salvation Army now and then and listen to the Pharisees debate back and forth and try to be good Roman-American citizens, God will be with us. Not too close, just enough to give a benevolent push to our everyday goings on, just enough of God with us to make us feel good. But that is not the way God chose to be with us. He came as Emmanuel, God really and truly with us, as us, clothing Himself in ourselves to such perfection that we can never quite be comfortable in our own skins again.

I think sometimes we feel like we can’t quite feel Christmas because it is located in some kind of musical-world where peasants burst into song and rhyme at the coming of God and everyone understood what was happening, instead of for what it really is:
The God-man coming, covered in blood and all the unpleasant trappings of mortality, in secret and shame to a world that promptly ignored Him. A world with its own squabbling church divisions of conservatives and liberals giving a horrific representation of God to the unbelieving, a world ridden with commercialism, even if in marble columns instead of designer bags, to a world of sexual molesters and half-hearted charity and imperfect love and violent warfare, where also worlds were conquered for the sake of oil or just for the sake of owning them, and people were killed for sport and spousal abuse and slavery and gossip...

And this is how Christmas comes. Saving the world that never asked to be saved, without thanks, without recognition, with only its own love for reward.

And this is how Christmas comes to us. The medievals had a philosophical idea that man is a microcosm of the universe, and I think there’s some truth to that. That Christ comes to us in our 400 years of silence and our divisions and our filfth and is born in us. In our scandalous, broken souls, in the empty parking garages of our impoverished humanity, he makes camp and sets up to live forever.

We are Christmas, you and I

It is always there. The miracle of God in the midst of sin, the incarnation of love in selfishness, as real as the sweet breath of God in a dung-smelling stable. And despite our best efforts, despite our most determined ignorance of the heavenly star and the angels song that announces God come to us, He is there to stay, Christ inside of us who will grow to maturity and spread love to all around us.
And this is how Christmas comes.