Gowin Family Christmas Ecard 2013 from Michael Gowin on Vimeo.
Note: After the series of Thanksgiving videos, we realize this is not what some of you were expecting. Patience, friends.
Our journey together
Gowin Family Christmas Ecard 2013 from Michael Gowin on Vimeo.
Note: After the series of Thanksgiving videos, we realize this is not what some of you were expecting. Patience, friends.
Note: This is a repost from 2010. Merry Christmas.
Since 2009, we’ve been placing a red dragon in one of our manger scenes—that’s it in the photo above. Why? The apostle John puts a dragon in his Christmas narrative in Revelation 12.1-5:
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. (NIV)
Our friend and mentor Bob Lowery has done this for years. Read his essay, “Christmas on Patmos,” and you’ll want to add a red dragon to your nativity scene as well.
Side note: this year our dragon keeps finding himself placed on his back some distance away from the baby Jesus. Evidently our girls have been doing this to indicate the dragon’s defeat. Our children understand what Christmas is about.
Note: I gave this communion meditation at church this morning. Thought you might appreciate it.
Have you ever wondered why you remember what you do? How does that work?
Socials scientists and the people who study these things have a number of theories and have identified several factors that influence memory. One of those is surprise. When something unexpected happens, we tend to remember it. Surprise gets our attention because it lifts us out of our routines, takes us out of the ordinary. Let me give you an example.
Many, many Christmases ago, when my brother, Marc, and I were probably 3 and 4, we were very eager to open our Christmas presents. My parents knew this and suspected that we might get up before everyone else to get a head start on the gift opening, so they posted my grandfather as a guard in the living room. We got up out of bed, Marc and I, at one point and Gramps chased us back to bed, presents safe, mission accomplished.
But then we got up again. And Gramps was sleeping on the sofa. And we got into the living room. And Gramps didn’t wake up.
So we started to open presents. Only, we couldn’t read the nametags so we didn’t know which presents were ours. So we just unwrapped all of them.
Every. Single. One.
And my grandfather slept through the whole thing.
Now, why is that memorable?
In part, because it’s unexpected. We all have holiday traditions and, though they might vary somewhat, they probably go like this: get up, have breakfast, open gifts, play, eat lunch, go to grandmas house, watch football, play a game–you get the idea. On that particular Christmas, though, Marc and I broke the pattern. We did something surprising, something unexpected, and that’s what makes it memorable.
You’re probably thinking of some holiday yourself–a Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthday–where something didn’t go as planned, either good or bad, and you remember it.
Now, before you get lost in that thought, listen to this: Jesus, at the last supper with his disciples, did something surprising as well.
For hundreds of years, God’s people had celebrated the Passover. They shared a meal together as a way to remember how God led them out of slavery in Egypt. When Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples that last time, he took the bread that would represent his broken body and said, “This is my body. Do this in remembrance of me.” He did the same with the cup, a cup that represented God’s promise of redemption. “Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus was identifying himself as both the Passover sacrifice and the fulfillment of God’s saving promise. No one else could or would have done that.
He broke the pattern, did something unexpected, something surprising at that last Passover. Because he was going to do something even more surprising than that: break the pattern of sin and death that had enslaved us all and give us new life and new hope.
I love Christmas music.
There, I’ve said it.
But the local radio station starts playing Christmas songs on Thanksgiving weekend and I get burned out on their 100-song rotation. Who will save us?
For me, the best Christmas songs are songs of faith, songs that speak to the mystery and wonder of God Incarnate. And I’m also interested in arrangements and interpretations of traditional songs that give them new life.
Two albums that never get old for me are Bruce Cockburn’s Christmas and Sufjan Stevens’ Songs for Christmas. Cockburn’s record contains some gems but his simple rendition of “Silent Night” is money. My favorite songs on Stevens’ album actually aren’t the Christmas songs but two hymns, “Come Thou Fount” and “Holy Holy Holy.” Not a fan of all the graphics in the videos below; close your eyes and enjoy the tunes.
What records are you listening to in the Christmas season?