Holiday Season: Characterized by Epicurean Pleasure Pursuit, or by Gratitude, Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, as Taught by the Word of God?

In the United States, Thanksgiving holiday, which is the last Thursday of November, is a kick off into a holiday season toward Christmas. For retailers, the holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas makes up the largest sales revenues, as American consumer spending peaks with more credit cards swiping. The American holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas is, indeed, characterized by consumerism and materialism.

What people are busy with during the holiday season is not just shopping but also partying. It means that they are spending a lot of money for eating and drinking in greater quantities, besides shopping more. There are so many things to buy and so many parties to attend.  Even those who are short on cash can join in this holiday season spending spree by swiping credit cards.

Shop, shop, shop. Eat, eat, eat. Drink, drink, drink. Party, party, party.  Spend now and pay it later.  That’s an American way to prepare for Christmas after Thanksgiving.

Sure, we need to enjoy the season’s festive spirit. Many houses and streets are adorned with beautiful lights. Many Christian families decorates their homes with Christmas lights. However, this festive time is also very stressful time to many, as well. Those who compulsively shop, eat, drink, and party, tend to experience greater stress. Because of excessive eating and drinking, many people find themselves gaining extra pounds, and this adds more stress. Ironically, stress makes our physiology more prone to gain weights due to increased cortisol in the blood. This leads to a vicious cycle of stress and weight gain.  While stress level and BMI increase, the money in bank accounts decreases.

Is this the way we are to spend the holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas – spending more money for shopping, eating, drinking, and partying, to sink in the quagmire of stress and whatever it is associated with?

Because the holiday season that spans from Thanksgiving holiday to Christmas pretty much coincide with the season of Advent, the faithful sure can find a good counsel as to how we should spend the holiday season in light of how we are to spend the Advent season, through the Word of God in the scriptures. In fact, the scripture readings for the First Sunday of Advent (Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122:1-2, 3-4, 4-5, 6-7. 8-9; Romans 13:11-14, and Matthew 24:37-44), which is to set the tone for how we shall spend the holiday season, rather admonishes the Epicurean, worse yet, hedonistic, way of spending the holiday season in the United States. At the same time, the scripture readings are not necessarily teaching us to spend the holiday season stoically, either. The scripture readings rather advise us to focus on the reason for the season: Christ, who is coming, with joyful hope, while preparing the way of his coming. In juxtaposing the preparation for Christmas to the preparation for parousia (the second coming of Christ in eschatos), the second reading (Romans 13:11-14) and the Gospel reading (Matthew 24:37-44) both encourage us not to get ourselves lost in the recklessness of materialism and hedonism, as these are stumbling blocks to recognize the arrival of Christ, when he comes. Jesus rebukes such a life style of pursuit of materialistic pleasure, comparing to the antediluvian life of earthly pleasures, to remind that materialistic and hedonistic life will miss the salvation, which comes with the arrival of Christ.

The world constantly inundates us with both persuasively verbal and subliminal messages to lure us into materialistic and hedonistic way of spending the holiday. This will keeps us too busy for the real reason for the season: Christ, as we need to be more attentive not only to the sings of his coming but also to prepare ourselves through metanoia, departing from life styles of sinful materialism and hedonism in order to focus on Christ. Of course, those who do not care about Christ and the salvation he brings can go on to live a life of materialistic pleasure pursuit, just as Epicurean scholars did not understand the Gospel message that Paul taught in Athens (Acts 17:16-21). It will be too late to recognize the importance of the scriptures teaching when Christ comes, just as those who were living a busy life of earthly pleasures and realize the coming of the Great Flood and, therefore, were not saved (Genesis 6-9; Matthew 23: 37-44). They will be take away from Christ when he comes, while those who are prepared and remained vigilant are taken into his Kingdom, just as Noah and his family were saved from the flood for his righteousness.

A fringe benefit of spending the hectic holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas according to the Word of God, as the scripture readings for the First Sunday of Advent set its tone, is to stave off all the stress. It means that we are less likely to slip into the vicious cycle of holiday stress and weight gain, as we let the Word of God lead the way we spend the holiday.

After all, God does not want see us sinking into the quagmire of holiday stress and weight gain, which are associated with the materialistic and hedonistic life styles, during the holiday season. At the same time, it does not mean that we should refrain from having fun, as long as it does not keep us too busy for Christ, who is the reason for the season. In other words, it is find to shop and party, as long as we keep Christ in the center of our daily life, allowing enough time to pray and thank God, every day.  This way, we can spend the holiday season with hope, peace, joy, and love – just as the four advent candles symbolize. At the same time, we live this season with praising and thanking God out of our sincere heart and respect each other, just as Paul encouraged the Ephesians to:

“Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”(Ephesians 5:19-21).

Given the way many Americans spend Thanksgiving holiday these days make them comparable to those who did not realize the Great Flood as they were busy eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage (Matthew 23:37-39). Before Christ comes, many of them already sink into the quagmire of stress and weight gain, as well as other stress-related psychosomatic symptoms.

As the faithful, on the other hand, we focus on what we have and express our gratitude for it, just as it is the spirit of Thanksgiving holiday. We carry on this spirit of gratitude all the way throughout the holiday season into Christmas, just as reflected in Ephesians 5:19-21 and 2 Corinthians 12:9, as well as Psalm 23:1. This way, we can spend the holiday with hope, peace, joy, and love, while living a materialistically modest life as it is a spiritually rich life. This way, we are less likely to fall spiritually drowsy but remain vigilant until the coming of Christ, who is the greatest gift of the Father’s love for us.

So, do you still want your holiday season to be characterized by Epicurean hedonism and stress, or with gratitude, hope, peace, joy, and love, found in the Word of God?  Is the pleasure you pursue worth forfeiting the salvation that the coming Christ will bring? It is up to you, as free will is a gift from God.

Thanksgiving National Holiday – Not a Day of Gluttony but a Day of Redeeming the Spirit of Unity through Gratitude

Thursday of the last week in November is Thanksgiving national holiday in the United Sates, as instituted by President Abraham Lincoln.  It has two-fold meaning.  Firstly, it is to commemorate the safe arrival of the Puritan Pilgrims to their newly found religious freedom in North America but also being saved from starvation by compassionate Wampanoag tribe Native Americans upon arrival. Secondly, it is to heal the postbellum division of the nation by reminding all Americans how grateful it is to live in the land of freedom – the kind of freedom that the Puritan Pilgrims came all the way to find in this land.

The Puritan Pilgrims escaped from the religious persecution in England and found their freedom in North America.  When they arrived, they were starving and on the verge of death. Because they came to the Wampanoag nation without “visa”, they could have been persecuted by Wampanoag tribes, who deemed them as “invaders”. However, the tribes in Plymouth saw these strange starving newcomers with compassion and invited them to their annual harvest festival. Thus, not only the pilgrims did not experience another persecution but also were spared from starvation, thanks to the tribe’s tolerance and compassion to strangers.

When President Lincoln instituted Thanksgiving as a national holiday, the United States was suffering from a sharp division between the Union states and the Confederate states, as they were in the Civil War. Though the Union states’ victory and preventing the secession of the Confederate states, the nation was still suffering from the division and needed to heal for true unity. Lincoln must have thought that evoking people’s sense of gratitude for living in the land of freedom and bounty would bring the divided people together.

The prototype of the American Thanksgiving celebration is found in Native American’s annual harvest festivals, including the one celebrated by the Wampanoag tribe in the New England.  For centuries, indigenous people expressed their gratitude to Mother Nature for her bounty through their harvest festivals. In this thanksgiving festival for harvest, there is a sense of unity not among people in the community but also with the Mother Nature through her bounties they harvested. When the starving Puritan Pilgrims came all the way from England, Wampanoag tribes invited these strangers into their thanksgiving communion, so that they would not die from hunger. Furthermore, they taught the new comers from England how to grow crops in their newfound freedom, as they had been doing for centuries.

For the Puritan pilgrims, being allowed to join in the Wampanoag harvest thanksgiving festival marked the end of their long ordeals – religious persecution and dangerous journey of crossing the Atlantic Ocean with scarce food. Though starving and exhausted after a long dangerous journey, they made it to America, where they were not only free from persecution but also from starvation, as the Native American hosts shared their thanksgiving bounty and taught how to grow crops, rather than rejecting from their communion. Certainly, the Puritan Pilgrims were saved by the Wampanoag hosts’ kindness and compassion, and the harvest thanksgiving festival in 1620 was also to mark harmonious unity between the Native American hosts and the Puritan Pilgrim new comers. It was also to be the unity that symbolizes the pluralistic unity of the United States, also the unity of the nation that President Lincoln preserved and wanted to celebrate by making Thanksgiving a national holiday.

Unfortunately, the harmonious unity between the Wampanoag hosts and the Puritan Pilgrims newcomers was short-lived.  As more Puritans and other European Christians arrived, they began to rob the Native Americans across the land.  Those who were kind and compassionate to save the new comers were no longer appreciated but to be deprived by those who were saved, benefited and supposed to be grateful. The unity between the compassionate Native American givers and the humble Puritan Pilgrims recipients turned into a widening and deepening division, as the recipients lost their sense of gratitude to their greed. This division has not been healed even after nearly 400 years, even though Thanksgiving has been a national holiday to heal the division wound of the Civil War about 160 years ago by recalling the harmonious unity that the Native American hosts and the Puritan Pilgrims new comers once enjoyed by sharing Thanksgiving.

Today, the way Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated in the United States seems to have forgotten its original spirit of unity through gratitude, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, and so forth. It is because materialism, hypocrisy and narcissism have hijacked this holiday, replicating how the offspring of the Puritan Pilgrims let their greed rob the generous Wampanoag hots.

Thanksgiving holiday has turned into a day of gluttony in the United States, where about 40% edible foods go straight to garbage landfill. It rater symbolizes how much Americans grab and waste. To verify this, you can look into garbage dumpsters in your neighborhood alleys or even your own garbage bin, and see how much still-edible foods are thrown in, after Thanksgiving holiday. If you worry about gaining weights from Thanksgiving dinner and feel like signing up for a gym membership, you must be so far from the original spirit of Thanksgiving, as you are trying to waste your money on top of the food you have already wasted by consuming more than what you really needed.

If we truly observe the spirit of Thanksgiving, which is gratitude, as the Native Americans celebrated, then, not only we make less waste but also we can celebrate pluralistic unity. 

Christ the King - Paradoxical Christological Juxtaposition: Condemned King and Victorious King

The feast  of Christ the King, marking the last Sunday of liturgical year,  is to joyously celebrate the returning of Christ as the King of the Universe at eschatos.  What this feast is celebrating is reflected in Revelation 19:5-16, where Christ is described as riding on a white horse, wearing a cloak that identifies him as the “Word of God” as well as “King of kings and Lord of lords”, as heaven opens.  This victorious event follows conquering all anti-Christ forces, as described from Revelation 6 – 18. This whole process leading to Christ’s victorious return as the King of kings and Lord of lords – the King of the Universe to reign the Kingdom of God reflects Zechariah’s prophecy of the coming of the Day of the Lord (Zechariah 14), echoing the prophecy of coming of the King of Zion, in juxtaposition to coming of the Lord, in Zechariah 9:9-17.

Contrary to the celebratory theme of the feast, the Gospel reading for the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe on Cycle C is taken from Luke 23:35-43. As this Gospel story is about the crucifixion of Jesus, it not seem fitting to celebrate the occasion. It is rather appropriate for Good Friday.

Why do we read a Gospel story about the Lord being described as a poor criminal, unjustly accused,  jeered, denigrated, condemned to most humiliating and agonizing death on the cross, when we are to celebrate the Lord as a victorious?

This is rather puzzling, isn’t it?

In fact, this Christological paradoxical juxtaposition between  – Christ the  victorious King of the Universe, who conquered all Satan’s forces, and Christ the condemned to death on the Cross – touches on the essence of the two-fold purpose of Christ the King.  First, he came to this world through Mary’s immaculate body and conquered death through his death on the Cross.  Then, through his second coming, he conquered Satan and all of his forces.  Conquering death and Satan is Christ’s two-fold mission in order to secure the Kingdom of God.

Comparing the Gospel reading for Christ the King Sunday on Cycle C (Luke 23:35-43) and the scripture texts relevant to Christ the King celebration, such as Revelation 19:5-16, Zechariah 9:9-17, 14, we can draw another Christological juxtaposition:  Jesus the king of the Jew and Jesus Christ the messianic King of kings.  In Luke 23:35-43, we are reminded that Jesus was unjustly accused and condemned to death as king of the Jews, while we celebrate the return of Jesus as the King of kings – the King of the Universe.  King of the Jews the “criminal” and the King of kings the victorious conqueror.   King of the Jews the powerless, who could not save even himself and the King of kings, who is the most powerful, conquering Satan.  Loser and winner.  All of these are integrated to characterize Christ the King.  Therefore,  Christology itself is a paradox: Christology of Jesus as king of the Jews and Christology of Jesus Christ the King of kings, and the paradox is resolved in the Christology of Christ the King.

As prophesized in Isaiah 53, Christ the King was to condemned to die to save God’s people, as the suffering Messiah.   Luke 23:35-43 is one of the fulfilling Gospel narratives to this prophesy.

When Jesus entered the City of Jerusalem, as reflected on Palm Sunday, people of Jerusalem had thought that he was the fulfillment of the prophesized king of Zion in Zechariah 9:9-13.  They had no king ever since the Babylonian seize of Jerusalem in 586 BC and became so delighted to have seem Jesus as the king, whom they had waited for more than 500 years, as prophesized by Zechariah.  However, the same people turned themselves against the king they had longed for and welcomed by waving palms within a week and condemned this king to death, as reflected during the Holy Week.  They condemned him as king of the Jews.

There is one important factor to understand why the people of Jerusalem, who celebrated the coming of the king of Zion, soon became a bunch of bitter accuser of him, as their enemy, with the serious criminal charge of being king of the Jew.

It was the evil conspiracy made by the religious establishment of Jerusalem to incite the Roman authority’s fear and to use it to kill Jesus.  As Matthew 27:18 indicates, it was the “φθόνος”(phthonos) of the religious establishment toward Jesus.  The Greek word, “phthonos” is understood as envy.  Thus,  the religious establishment became envious to Jesus, while feeling  that their position in religious authority was threatened by his astonishing teaching and miracles.  Because of this envy-insecurity feeling toward Jesus, they had to get rid of Jesus, by conspiring the Roman colonial authority, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, and the people of Jerusalem.  For this purpose, the religious establishment made a false accusation of Jesus as a threat to Caesar by proclaiming him as king of the Jews.  At the same time, they must have conspired the people of Jerusalem by instilling their fear that the Romans would destroy them because of Jesus, who is seen as an enemy of Caesar , for he poses himself as king of the Jews.  In other words,  Jesus the Nazarene King of the Jews (Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum), became the charge against Jesus, by the religious establishment’s conspiracy out of their envy-insecurity.

How feeling of envy-insecurity can do great evil is evident with the first murder by Cain (Genesis 4:1-8) and King Herod’s slaughtering of the innocent children (Matthew 2:1-18).  The execution of Jesus in the most humiliating and agonizing way on the Cross, was also prompted by the same evil of envy-insecurity feeling, and the false criminal charge against innocent Jesus, “king of the Jews” or “INRI - Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum) reminds us of this evil conspiracy.

Because of the religious establishment’s evil feeling of envy-insecurity, Jesus was unjustly condemned to death, along with two criminals, who were justly condemned to death. However, the Christ the King Sunday Gospel reading on Cycle C, Luke 23:35-43, tells more than this.

In this Gospel narrative, while the one criminal contemptuously ridiculed Jesus as a “looser”, the other criminal not only rebuked him for being callous to God (callous to Jesus) and recognized Jesus as the messiah King, by humbly acknowledging his criminal charge and ask Jesus to remember him in the King of God.  To this,  Jesus indicated his salvation. Therefore,  in this Good Friday Gospel narrative (Luke 23:35-43), thanks to the criminal who recognized Jesus as the messiah King,  we can draw a Christological juxtaposition between two paradoxical kings: condemned king of the Jews  and messianic King, whose Kingdom is the salvific Paradise. Indeed, what saved the latter criminal is his insight to see the unjustly condemned king of the Jews as the messianic King, who reigns the Kingdom of God, as he revered God.  This criminal was not fooled by the conspiracy, which made most people of Jerusalem believe that Jesus was a dangerous criminal as he threatened Caesar.  This criminal was able to see the king of Zion, who entered Jerusalem, prophesized in Zechariah 9:9-13, on Sunday, was, indeed, the Lord (Zechariah 9:14-17) and the messiah King, whose Kingdom to come, prophesized in Zechariah 14.

The insight of the latter criminal to recognize the King of kings in the condemned king of the Jews on the Cross also echoes what Jesus reminds us in Matthew 25:31-46, in which the King speaks, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’” (Matthew 25:40), while fools, like the criminal who ridiculed Jesus, and the crowds of Jerusalem, who shouted to crucify Jesus,  only see Jesus as a “loser” whom they are callus to.

To better understand why Luke 23:35-43 is used to celebrate the Solemnity feast of Chris the King on Cycle C,  we must focus on the “wise” criminal, whose insight, and perhaps, faith, enabled to see unjustly condemned king of the Jews, as the messianic King – the King of kings – the King of the Universe, whose Kingdom is salvation.  This insight also enables us to better appreciate Jesus’ teaching on salvation – being welcomed into the Kingdom of the King of all kings – in Matthew 25:31-46.

Do we have a kind of Christological insight as that of the latter criminal, to whom Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”(Luke 23:43)?  If we want to be welcomed into the same paradise, the Kingdom of God, then, we must cultivate a Christological insight to find the King of the Universe in those whom this world tends to reject and condemn,  as the latter criminal recognized Jesus as the messianic King, while the religious establishment, the Roman colonial authority, and the people of Jerusalem condemned as king of the Jews.  This Christological insight must be put into our practice of works of mercy, reaching out to Christ the King among those who have been rejected, condemned, and marginalized, as we close the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

On Resurrection : Don’t Even Think about Messing with Jesus! He Would Throw You a Punch!

Within a few days upon entering Jerusalem to complete his salvific mission, a bunch of Sadducees came to Jesus and challenged him for his teaching on resurrection. Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees do not believe resurrection after death. No wonder that Jesus’ teaching on resurrection invited unwanted attention from the Sadducees.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus touched on resurrection in teaching of humility and compassion, while he was still in Galilee with these words:

“When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”  (Luke 14: 12-14)

Namely, according to Jesus, resurrection is a natural consequence of the righteous conducts, such as practicing the virtues of humility and compassion.

Even there was no such a thing like Facebook and Twitter, back then, news about Jesus’ teaching had traveled to Jerusalem faster than Jesus. So, by the time Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, his teaching on resurrection was already known to the Sadducees in Jerusalem.

Imagine if you were one of these Sadducees and just found out that the very person, whose teaching is contrary to what you believe. As a Sadducee, you are adamant that resurrection is a hoax that Jesus made up to mislead people. Then, Jesus is now coming to your town. Wouldn’t you want to confront Jesus and blow your punch on his face so that he would lose his face as a teacher? Perhaps, these Sadducees in the Gospel story felt this way. The punch they threw at Jesus’ face was this question:

“Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her”. Luke 20:28-33

By citing the Levirate Law from Deuteronomy 25:5-10, the Sadducees threw a punch at Jesus through the above question. Probably, they were hoping to make Jesus look “stupid. They wanted Jesus to lose his face, as they were confident that Jesus would not be able to answer their question.

Now, imagine if a bunch of Sadducees asked you the same question, how would you answer?

Perhaps, you would be tempted to answer that this woman is now nobody’s wife, as all the brothers she had married, according to the law, died. But, if you answered this way, then, they would laugh at you contemptuously, because it would also contradict the teaching of resurrection. If the teaching of resurrection is to withstand, then, this woman would never become a widow, as her dead husband would resurrect and take her as his wife again.

So, how would you answer and respond to the Sadducees’ such a question?

Or, would you remain silence, lest that you would be in their “trap” to ridicule you?

In fact, hypocrite religious leaders who tried to attack Jesus in a similar way used this silence technique as they could not answer Jesus’ counter punch, embarrassing themselves to Jesus.

In Luke 20;1-8, chief priests and other religious leaders asked Jesus by what authority he was teaching to people in the Temple are in Jerusalem, and where he received the authority. It was their attempt to incriminate him. In response to this, Jesus asked them, baptism that John the Baptist conducted was of heavenly origin or human origin. They could not answer, because they felt Jesus would criticize them for not believing in what John was doing if they answered “heavenly origin”, also because they was afraid that people would stone then if they said “human origin”, as people had thought of John as a prophet. In a way, Jesus made them look fool and caused them lose their face at that time.

So, this is how Jesus first answered:

“The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage”. Luke 20:34-35.

This is like Jesus telling the Sadducees, “Duh! Guys, why you ask such a stupid question? You guys don’t know what you are talking about!  Life after resurrection is not subject to what the Levirate Law and any other laws any more. What you are asking me is just as stupid as bringing an apple to where you are to bring an orange. Are you thinking that orange will also taste like apple?”

Then, Jesus further tells:

“They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive”, Luke 20:36-38

Now, through Luke 20:34-38, in response to the Sadducee’s question on how the Levirate Law would apply in after-life situations, Jesus elaborates on his teaching and promise on resurrection, which is found in Luke 14:14 and John 6:40.

For those who are faithful, compassionate, and humble enough to enjoy resurrection after their death, all the laws on earth, including the Mosaic Laws, in which the Levirate Law is found, are no longer applicable, though we are subject to these laws until we die. Resurrection is not to “restart” an earthly life elsewhere. This is not about what Hindu reincarnation concept suggests. This is not anything like samsara cycle in Buddhism, either. Therefore, those who are raised as Jesus has taught and promised are also free from the deuteronomic cycle of sins, though we are subject to the laws while in the cycle.

These Sadducees might have thought that they could cause Jesus to lose his face this time by throwing the question on the Levirate Law in the case of after-life. They had thought that such a challenge would force Jesus to invalidate his teaching on resurrection based on the Levirate Law. However, such an attempt of theirs to attack Jesus backfired against them. Now, they look stupid.

So, here is a lesson:

Don’t even think of messing with Jesus. You sure will be made sorry for that.

Back in January 2015, flying from Sri Lanka to the Philippines, Pope Francis humorously and perhaps, hyperbolically, said, “If you insult my mother, expect a punch!”.  Well, if you try to make Jesus look stupid, expect a punch to make yourself stupid!