THE CRÈCHE AND THE CROSS

The Nativity scene, or “Crèche,” was once a common American sight during the Advent season, not only on church properties but in homes and town squares. Today, secularization has banished its presence from many public places and governmental locations. Yet Christmas has survived the political “humbugs” of modern scrooges, despite how its true meaning is often lost in the annual busyness of holiday activities.

When set up inside or outside a church, Christ’s Crèche may be in visual proximity to His Cross. Both sights, taken together, offer crucial insight into the true meaning of Christmas, as expressed in John 3:16 (NKJV), “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

The name Christmas comes from “Christ’s Mass,” a Eucharistic celebration to honor the birth of Jesus. Yet the bread and wine on the Table is a spiritual “communion” with His body and blood, sacrificed on the Cross to purchase salvation for all who believe. It was a divine plan: Jesus was born in Bethlehem so that He could die on Golgotha’s hill.

In 2006, while taking Holy Communion at a Christmas Eve service, I was meditating on Christ’s words in John 6:54-56, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” It put this bond of the Crèche with the Cross to the forefront of my thoughts, and on Christmas Day I wrote the following poem:

CHRISTMAS EVE COMMUNION(1)

Last night I fed on Christmas in the broken bread and wine.

I tasted sacred nourishment that brought God’s life to mine.

With thoughts of Mary’s holy Child, by candlelight and songs,

I worshiped at the Table where all Adam’s race belongs.

I pondered how the sweetness of our Lord’s nativity

Should never be seen separate from His death upon the tree;

How God, wrapped up in human flesh, sojourned with human need,

How hands that sculpted human form could feel our pain and bleed;

How incarnation taught Him through life’s weariness and sweat;

How only after learning these, He chose to pay our debt.

Last night I fed on Christmas, and the strength I gained was real.

Our present peace and future hope draw meaning from that Meal.

Our banishment is ended; our empty lostness gone.

The Babe and Lamb of Bethlehem is Whom I feasted on.

— David L. Hatton, 12/25/2006

When I wrote that poem, the union of the Crèche and the Cross wasn’t new to me. I had poetically tried to capture the same concept 14 years earlier in another, longer poem. In it, I attempted to intermingle Mary’s heart of grief at the foot of the Cross with her remembrance of the Christmas story as recorded in the Gospels:

MARY AT THE CROSS (2)

Time suspended, time that stops

In between the crimson drops:

As they tumble to the ground

Somehow she can stare around

Seeing scenes of yesterday,

Hearing angel’s words that say,

“Highly favored, have no fear!

From your virgin womb this year

By the Spirit’s power alone

Comes the King for David’s throne,

Sinner’s Savior, Holy One,

God Almighty’s only Son.”

Then, the words her cousin told

(As it trickles red and cold,

His life-blood before the tomb),

“Blest, the fruit that fills your womb!

Blest are you of womankind,

Mother of our Lord Divine!”

And her song sung in reply,

“My soul praises God on high!

In my Savior I rejoice!

Making me His humble choice,

Causing all to call me ‘blest,’

God has done for me the best!

Mighty is His holy name,

Ageless grace, and endless fame!”

As she stands before His cross,

Feeling pain, heart-rending loss,

She remembers public shame,

Pregnant with no man to blame.

She recalls dear Joseph’s care:

Taught by dreams her task to share,

How he guarded her from scorn

Till the baby boy was born . . .

Worried when her pains began

As they came to Bethlehem,

He implored each house and hall

Just to find a stable stall.

In its filth the baby came

’Neath an oily torch’s flame.

Wakened by a holy light,

Shepherds visited that night.

Angels beckoned them to run

To the town to find the One

Called the Christ whose wondrous birth

Brought down Heaven’s peace to earth.

On the hill called Calvary

Witnessing his agony,

Aching with a dreadful sob,

Hearing laughter from the mob,

She, with other women’s tears,

Weeps and dreams back through the years

To the visit of the Three:

Magi from the East to see

Little Jesus on her lap

Swaddled in a woolen wrap.

Frankincense and myrrh and gold,

“Royal presents,” they were told.

One day he would reign as King. . .

How could they have said this thing,

When with torment now he cries

Up to cold and silent skies?

Darkness gathers, shadows fall,

Thunder echoes with his call. . .

Mournful cry: “My God!  My God!”

She falls prostrate on the sod.

Then she somehow overhears

Whispered words that ease her fears,

Words that re-ignite the dream

Shattered by her son’s last scream.

“It is finished!” he had cried.

Now the guard that pierced his side

Whispers when the deed is done,

“Surely He was God’s own Son!”

Mary keeps that faithful word

In her thoughts until she’s heard

Peter tell her, “He arose,”

Smiles, and nods as if she knows. . .

How could it be otherwise?

And again her heart replies,

Filled with overwhelming love,

“My soul praises God above!

In my Savior I rejoice!

Making me His humble choice,

Causing all to call me ‘blest,’

God has done for me the best!

Mighty is His holy name,

Ageless grace, and endless fame!”

— David L. Hatton, 2/8/1992

In my 25 years of helping laboring moms in the hospital, I had to work half of my Christmases. It was always a sentimental thrill to see babies delivered on the day set aside to celebrate Christ’s birth. The joy of their entry into the world, however, could be dampened by knowing that each of them would someday have to face their departure from this life. But that same contemplation on Christ’s Creche and Cross—and the hope they together offer to the human race—makes a Christian’s journey from the cradle to the grave extravagantly hopeful.

Christmas reminds us of that hope, if we have placed our trust in Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem and the sacrificial “Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.” As the Advent season closes the old year and initiates a new one, so faith in Christ ends an old self-directed life and begins a new God-directed one. And, as my favorite quote at Christmastime says:

“Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born,

 If he’s not born in thee thy soul is still forlorn.

 Should Christ be born a thousand times anew,

 Despair, O man, unless he’s born in you!”

  — Angelus Silesius (1624-1677)

___________________________
(1) from Poems Between Birth and Resurrection ©2013.
(2) from Poems Between Darkness and Light ©1994.

THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST’S ATONEMENT

It may interest, anger, befuddle or flabbergast you, but there’s no one specific view of Christ’s atonement that fully explains the spiritual transaction in history and in eternity that transpired at the Cross of Calvary. It remains as mysterious as the doctrines of the Trinity or the Incarnation.

Those interested can survey the various theories of the Atonement on the Web. My purpose here is not to recount them, but to decry how so many Bible teachers haughtily assume theirs to be the right one: “How dare anyone question the legal-penal substitution theory? Doesn’t it undergird all our evangelical preaching?” A better question is, “How could the church even use the word atonement to describe what happened on the Cross?” Most theologians readily admit that it’s a major misappropriation of terminology in Christian thinking, but also that it's a term we're stuck with.

In the Old Testament usage of the Hebrew word atonement (kaphar, “to cover over”) is a concept of hiding sin’s guilt by covering it with the blood of animal sacrifices. Ecclesiastic prudery insists that God clothed the first sinners with animal skins to approve or accommodate the very first independent idea and action of their sin nature: a felt need to hide their bodies. A view more in keeping with His gracious character is that God was providing His delinquent image-bearers either physically—with warmth and protection in a fallen world—or spiritually—with the first recorded kaphar, an atonement or covering for their sin.

Not only is the concept of atonement etymologically absent from the New Testament, but a new idea is introduced. We first hear it from the lips of John the Baptist upon seeing Jesus at the Jordan: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Jesus came to take away sins, not to cover over them, which was all that animal sacrifices could do. These sacrificial repetitions, year after year, only reminded sinners that personal guilt was put away from sight not taken away (Hebrews 10:4-5). Jesus accomplished the latter.

But how did the transaction at the Cross work? Was it a debt repayment, a redemptive trade-off, a substituted punishment, an absorption of divine wrath? A narrow focus on the Cross alone, in conjunction with certain Scriptures, might elevate any of these motifs to the exclusion of others. But there is a larger picture, one that weaves the Cross and the Resurrection into one solid and inseparable tapestry of redemption. That is the ransom or restoration theory of the Atonement.

In Gustaf Aulén’s book, Christus Victor, I learned that this understanding of the Atonement dominated Christian thought for the first millennium of Church history. C. S. Lewis employed it as the basis for his allegorical representation of the death of Christ in Aslan’s death for “the traitor” and subsequent resurrection in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When I first read Christus Victor, I was inspired to write the following poem with the same title, as an attempt to capture this idea of strategic ransom:

            CHRISTUS VICTOR

Drawn into a web of darkness,

Duped and drugged with sin's seduction,

Down we drank the Devil's lie

And were lost within the starkness

Of a wasteland of destruction,

Damned and doomed, condemned to die.

Love Almighty, Love Creator,

Love, Who breathed His image in us,

Love, the awesome Trinity,

Planned to foil the Fabricator,

Planned to plunder hell and win us

By strategic mystery.

God descended and invaded

Human flesh and limitation,

Preaching Heaven's Reign begun,

Waging war where sin pervaded,

Buying reconciliation,

Tasting death for everyone.

Had they known the power hidden

In the Lion's crucifixion,

Hell would not have killed the Son.

Now the human race is bidden

To depart from self-addiction

Through the victory Jesus won.

Christus Victor!  God descended

To fulfil the Law's postponement.

Slain, He slew the death we died!

Christ is risen!  God ascended!

Sinners, purchased by atonement,

Rise with Christ, the Crucified!

Christ Triumphant!  Christus Victor!

Captives freed by hell's disruption

Soar like eagles taking wing!

Ransomed by the Liberator,

Slaves to sin and death's corruption

Gain new life in Christ the King!

            -- David L. Hatton, 11/21/95

Because of its heavy dependence on a realistic view of the Incarnation, this atonement theory has quietly influenced the development of my theological thinking. Yet, in general, I forgot my initial excitement in discovering it . . . until recently, when I saw the video clip of Brian Zahnd giving, “The Gospel in Chairs.” I encourage you to watch it, maybe more than one time. If it doesn’t immediately blow your mind, then ask yourself, “Does how I view and preach the Cross accurately represent the heart of the Heavenly Father who ‘so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son’?” You may find yourself reaching back to the minds and helpful illustrations of our early Christian ancestors for a balanced view of this mystery.

It’s important to approach unfathomable mysteries in the Christian faith with deep reverence and godly humility. Glib confidence and sometimes outright cockiness in Christians mouthing their beliefs may not only be a turn-off for the prospective convert, but a point of great future embarrassment, or even tears of regret, in the presence of our risen, conquering King, Christus Victor.