The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens – at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences … To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other … Those who do not know that this great myth became fact, when the Virgin conceived are, indeed to be pitied … We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome. If God chooses to be mythopoeic … shall we refuse to be mythopathic? For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.
-C.S. Lewis, from his essay ‘Myth Became Fact’
Yearly Archives: 2010 - Page 2
Myth became fact
The impossible christmas
This does not fit with the modern idea that we are all getting through to God in our own way. No, says Matthew. God has got through to us in this way. And Jesus is no great teacher, no guru, no peer of Mohammed or Gandhi. He is God with us. That is the essential claim on which Christianity is built. It is a claim which cannot be abandoned without abandoning the faith entirely. –Michael Green
I think it’s hard, really, to reflect on Christmas.
Many times we’ve heard the account of the journey to Bethlehem and the birth in the manger…maybe too many times. We recognize the Three Wise Men from our nativity scenes and we’ve sung the Carols year after year. I think it’s hard, really, to get proper perspective on the Christmas event…not just every year, but EVER. How are we to even begin understanding that God came down, that the Creator entered His creation, that Timelessness and Limitlessness took form in a time and place, that the hands of He who sculpted mountains and painted oceans could barely cling to his mother’s finger, that the great Sustainer of Life became totally dependent on the care of His earthly parents, nuzzling in their arms that Christmas morning?
I think Christmas tends to evade us in one of 2 ways. Either we believe conceptually in the miracle and get lost in the traditions or the traditions have somehow kept us from the miracle altogether. In the first case, we may celebrate even in a very positive way—believing it’s all about giving, for example—but in the process lose the Gift that is for us. In the second case, when Christmas is synonymous with trimming trees and a jolly old man in a red suit, we remove the Big God from it altogether. We’ve tamed Him into images we’re more capable of wrapping our heads around. It’s easy to see how this God could come for a visit…
Merry mixmas
I have in years past sent mix CDs, crafted with much love, as Christmas gifts. Many of you email me every year to tell me your listening to old “Very Bs”. I didn’t have the time this year to manufacturer the discs, but here is the code for Very B Christmas ’10. If you click the link, it will allow you to buy the songs in iTunes.
I consider this my Christmas hug to you through your iPod. I hope it does something to increase your enjoyment and reflection on this special time of year.
With Love, Merry Christmas….. inklingz
