Matt Jones' Random Acts of Verbiage

In Dickens’ The Christmas Carol Martha Cratchet asks how tiny Tim was in church and Bob Cratchet responds:

As good as gold and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember, upon Christmas day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.

That line always strikes me. Christ came today to heal me, a beggar and blind man. He came for you too. God Bless.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your weekend has been lovely and that you and your family are all feeling blessed! Please feel free to check out today’s Letters of Faith Through the Seasons post on Luke the Evangelist, I enjoyed it.

And now for your Christmas viewing pleasure:

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Have you ever heard someone say that? Do you ever write “X-mas”? Are you offended by the use of “Xmas”?

Well you oversensitive types have nothing to fear! The abbreviated form of Christmas is not some ploy by those darned atheists to remove Christ from the celebration of his own birthday.

Ἰησοῦς Χριστός

Notice something in the second word? The big “X”? That is the Greek capital letter Chi, the first letter in the word Christ.

Χ and/or ΧP (P is the capital of ρ [rho], the second letter in Christ) were/are common abbreviations used for Christ (at Regent I used Χ/χ and Θ/θ [Theta for θεός theos, God] a lot in taking notes). Saying “X-mas” is still saying Christmas. Even if some people are using the abbreviation to denounce Christ, they are, in fact, still proclaiming him. Enjoy the irony.

Some of you may still have to deal with Christmas being a reclamation of a pagan holiday, but at least you can still keep X-Mas.

Ok, it is only the title, but it does sound pretty interesting! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was announced today as the seventh, and final, book in the series! Again, doesn’t say much… but do note that it is “Hallows” and not “Hollows” - distinctly different. Could it possibly be someone’s holy death? Eh? Eh? You know it’s coming!

UPDATE: February 1st, 2007 - Publish date for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been set for July 21st, 2007 (that’s 7/21/07 - notice a pattern?)! Preorder at Amazon!

UPDATE II: March 28th, 2007 - Deathly Hallows book artwork is unveiled.

UPDATE III: Preorder it at Powell’s Books!

Things have been even slower than intended around here ’cause I have had the flu, it sucks. I don’t often get sick, but when I do, it definitely sucks. I am feeling quite a bit better now, just fairly achy. Anyway…

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper made an excellent statement about the possibility of peace talks with groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah (via LGF):

OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada will not hold talks with “genocidal” groups Hamas and Hezbollah to try to secure Mideast peace, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in an interview with broadcaster CTV, to be aired Saturday.

“We will not solve the Palestinian-Israeli problem, as difficult as that is, through organizations that advocate violence and advocate wiping Israel off the face of the Earth,” Harper said.

“It’s unfortunate because with Hamas, and with Hezbollah in Lebanon, it has made it very difficult to have dialogue — and dialogue is ultimately necessary to have peace in the long term — but we are not going to sit down with people whose objectives are ultimately genocidal.”

“I think all of the civilized world is agreed — and it’s not just Canada — we can’t deal with organizations whose principle and only objective is terrorism and the eradication of the other side.”

Well said I think.

Is “Slow Down” one word or two? Hyphen? Whatever. I am down in the south of Washington, it is quite lively this time of year… Blogging will be light over the next two weeks as I spend more time with family and just slacking off in general. I do still plan on getting up posts on the Lonely Forest show at the Historic University Theater, the Late Tuesday show at the Q Cafe, dad’s side of the family Christmas party, and step-dad’s side of the family Christmas party… eventually. Pretty fun weekend! Even the Saturday at 8:30 am (!!!) UCF board meeting was extremely enjoyable! More to follow!

I hope that your Christmas seasons are blessed!

Yes, I have been busy (go figure) but I wanted to make a quick post because, well Christmas in in a few days. How in the heck did that happen? I know that everyone always links to Amazon which is cool and all, but us folks in Washington State have to pay sales tax!! So since about 1998 I have been shopping at Buy.com (why aren’t they paying me to advertise?) and so you should too! They usually beat Amazon’s prices (actually will beat the book prices by 10%) and have great selection. Thought I would let all you WA folks know, but really, even if you don’t live in Washington, you should shop there.

And also check out CouponChief.com because they have lots of coupons (from numerous vendors). Here are some buy.com coupons to check out. 10 days left! Hurry up! Ok, if you don’t believe me that buy.com is better (which it is), here are some Amazon coupons to use. And in case you want to use any of those coupons on me, here is my Amazon wishlist (although they can still be purchased at buy.com!). Much obliged.

Ok, enough advertising for one day! heh

Today at First Presbyterian Church Doug gave a sermon on Revelation 11:15-19. Verse 15 goes something like this (ESV):

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

The is one of the verses that makes me comfortable with the “now but not yet” theology (that is to say that the Kingdom of God is here now, but not yet fully realized). Jesus heralded the Kingdom, He is the “now”. But until He returns, the Kingdom will not be fully experienced. We have glimpses and experience bits of the Kingdom, but will not get to completely enjoy it until He returns. One of the comments the Doug made that resonated with me was that “we are subject to the kingdom of this world, but not subjects of the kingdom of this world.” Indeed!

This led to a comment about Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In that world, they were subject to the constant winter instituted by the White Witch. That winter would never lead to Christmas, they were always in the “not yet”. The coming of Aslan, Narnia’s Jesus, led to Christmas and the salvation of that Kingdom.

I really enjoy Lewis’ use of this imagery. We are always living in this tension between the now and not yet, but sometimes it can be hard to look forward to what is to come because we don’t really know what to expect. Lewis’ use of winter with the never coming Christmas makes it easy for us to get a picture in our mind. I am, of course, not just talking about not getting presents or having large family dinners. If there was no Christmas, there would be no salvation, no personal relationship with God. Christ’s advent not only allows us to live in the “now” but also in anticipation of that which is still “not yet”.

Relient K wrote an awesome song based on Narnia’s constant cold in their song In Like A Lion on their Apathetic EP (lyrics below). Definitely check it out, it says it all so well!

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