Christmas dinner more than a meal

 

In ancient Greek, there were at least four words that can be translated into English as “love” (or into Spanish as “amor”). Rather than one catchall term for a set of highly nuanced relationships and accompanying emotions, the Greeks had separate words. The most central to New Testament teaching is ἀγάπη (agape), which means love which seeks nothing for itself, only the well-being of the beloved. This is the love of which St. John speaks when he says, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). God is agape; He needs nothing from us, yet gave His Son that we might have eternal life. Agape is most often used describe this divine love, the character of which is reflected in us when we show to others this love. “Agape” sometimes is translated as “charity”, which is a similar concept in Latin, but since charity to us often means a duty to be done rather than a Holy Spirit-driven response to God’s grace, it loses something in that translation. I would refer anyone with further interest to “The Four Loves” by C.S. Lewis, an easy-to-read introduction to agape and the other Greek words for love.

But the plural, ἀγάπαις (agapais) sometimes refers to“love-feasts”, communal meals served at the place of worship in anticipation of the Eucharist in the early church. The brethren were at liberty to eat before going to the meeting; but all present had to be in a fit condition to receive the Lord’s Supper. So food was provided for all, even the poorest of the congregation at the expense of the wealthy. At least, that was how it was supposed to work. The agape feasts are mentioned in Jude 1:12, and you may notice the commentary is not very positive.

“These are blemishes on your love feasts (ἀγάπαις), as they feast with you without fear, looking after themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”

St. Paul deals more directly with abuses of the agape feast in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17 and following. The consensus of many New Testament scholars is that the Christians of Corinth gathered in the evening for meetings that would last for hours and had a common meal in anticipation of the Lord’s Supper. As the hour for the meal came, the more well-to-do brought forward hastily their own supper, and sat down with their family and particular friends. The custom had been for the members to bring what they could afford for the purpose, the food then being divided equally among all. But now the poor people had little or nothing, and therefore went hungry, while the wealthier members ate and drank to excess, even getting drunk on the wine intended for communion.

“What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:22.

In his Letter 97 to the EmperorTrajan, Pliny the Younger, a Roman magistrate who investigated the strange group called Christians, suggests that by the beginning of the second century A.D., the meal was normally taken separately from the Eucharistic celebration: he speaks of the Christians separating after the hour of worship and reassembling later for a common meal.

Those of us who grew up with potlucks in the church basement know, thanks be to God, the tradition of meals at the church for fellowship among the faithful and for care of the surrounding community was never entirely abandoned. Even “coffee hour” between the morning service and Bible class is an echo of the agape feast. For me, something very close to the agape feast was the pancake breakfast between the Easter sunrise service and the regular morning service on the Sunday of the Resurrection.

In the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, it has long been the practice to invite the surrounding community to a Christmas dinner. In my last newsletter, I explained how the traditional Venezuelan dinner consists of an hallaca, pan de jamón (bread filled with ham and olives) and chicken salad, and how many Venezuelan families would not be able to afford the complete package, even if all the components were available.

One story has it that one Christmas, the bishop of Caracas asked faithful Roman Catholics to donate their leftovers to natives and slaves, and also urged everyone to eat the same as the slaves did, to avoid huge amounts of food being wasted. They accepted the demand, and thus began the tradition of eating hallacas on Christmas. The dish is an icon of Venezuelan multicultural heritage, as its preparation includes European ingredients (such as raisins, nuts and olives), indigenous ingredients (corn meal colored with annatto seeds and onions), and African ingredients (smoked plantain leaves used for wrapping).

The preparation of hallacas is in itself a Venezuelan Christmas tradition, as family and friends gather to chop and prep the ingredients. Like Christmas cookies and candy elsewhere, hallacas are not made for only one household, but as gifts to be shared with neighbors and friends.

So our Christmas dinner for the mission on December 24 had to include hallacas and also we managed the chicken salad. Pan de jamón still is hard to come by. Attending to the material needs of our members and neighbors through the distribution of food is important, but events like these also provide companionship and emotional support to people for whom this holiday is marked by the breakup of families, job loss and disease. We announced and invited people to our Christmas Eve service, but we did not publicize the meal afterward. Nevertheless the chapel was filled to at least the mandated 40 percent of capacity as the congregation listened to the message of sure hope in Titus 2:11-14.

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present age; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for himself a special people, zealous of good works.”

What about that “Christmas Star”?

Well, we didn’t see it due to overcast nights. But the photography on the social networks was impressive. Was it the same “star” that shown over Bethlehem? The idea that the Magi were guided by a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was first proposed by Johannes Kepler in 1604.

Kepler, as a matter of fact, was a Lutheran. So Lutheran that he attended seminary with plans of becoming a pastor. His extraordinary skill in mathematics made it easier for him to find work as an astronomer instead. As a man of science, he believed that the “heavens declare the handiwork of the Lord” (Psalm 19:1) and that the Lord might use natural phenomena to reveal His will. Kepler calculated that in the year 7 B.C. there were not one, but three conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn: Once in May, again in October and finally in December. Of course, the theory rests on the assumption that Jesus was born in December, when the Holy Scriptures do not give a precise day and month of His birth. Also that He was born in 7 B.C., which may seem odd; Jesus Christ being born before Christ. But it has long been argued that Jesus was born between 2 and 7 B.C. This is because, and these are mathematical waters a little deep for me, there is no Year Zero in the western European calendar system. Anything that happened either happened B.C. or A.D. Also, there has been debate about the dates of events used as points of comparison for the chronology.

But the question remains, could God have used a natural phenomenon to guide the Magi? Perhaps. The angel told the shepherds that their sign would be a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. There is nothing supernatural about a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes; the Word of God is what makes it a sign. In other cases, such as the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection of Jesus, the overturning of the order of creation is the essence of the sign.

A gift to get one moving

Speaking of overcast skies: Our array of solar panels has done a satisfactory job of providing emergency power during a blackout of less than six hours. But what if we had a blackout for a longer period of time (our record has been three days) and several days of thick cloud cover? Decreased sunlight increases the amount of time needed for the solar backup system to recharge.

We received a Christmas gift to address this problem from Ruth Carpenter of Bryan, Texas, a longtime supporter of our mission, and Ken Torino, founder and president of K-TOR®, LLC , is company based in Clayton, North Carolina, that specializes in developing and manufacturing human energy-driven portable power generators. Ken is a former IBM executive and electrical engineer, with over 30 years of experience.

“I created K-TOR®, because I saw a need for a personal generator that was small, light, inexpensive, versatile and easy to use. I have, personally, been inconvenienced many times by a dead cell phone or flashlight while traveling or hiking. I have seen news reports of difficulty and suffering in many parts of the world, due to natural disasters or the lack of electricity. K-TOR® can provide electricity where there is none — regardless of the circumstances.”

We warned Ken that shipping anything to Venezuela would be costly and that there was great danger of theft once the shipment reached Venezuela. But he went ahead and sent us a Power Box 50 by DHL Express. But we received the package in about 10 days and there was only one complication: DHL assured Ken that they could delivered it right to our door, which I doubted would happen. Sure enough, when the package arrived in Barquisimeto (three hours drive north of Barinas), we were told that we would have to pick it up there. Thanks to Pastor Eliezer Montoya, Nancy and Anny Mora of Cristo es Amor Lutheran Church in Barquisimeto, the package was picked up and reshipped to Barinas.

The true Festival of Lights

Although there is no historical connection, the progressive lighting of Advent wreath candles bears some resemblance to the lighting of one of the branches of the menorah on each night of Hanukkah. The Jewish festival is celebrated for eight days between the end of November and the beginning of December.

Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, that is, the temple built after the captivity in Babylon, and the successful rebellion of the Maccabees against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Greco-Syrian dictator, about 200 years before Christ, We find this story in the deuterocanonical books of I and II Maccabees, which are found in the Septuagint, the version of the Old Testament translated into Greek before Christ, but not in the original Hebrew canon inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Antiochus desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem with idols and pig sacrifices. Jewish tradition speaks of a miracle, in which the menorah or candelabra of the Temple was lit for eight consecutive days with a meager amount of oil, which was enough for only one day, for the purification and consecration of the temple again. For this reason, Hanukkah is called the Festival of Lights or Luminaries.

It is also known as the Feast of the Rededication and that is what is mentioned in the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 22. The text says that Jesus and His disciples walked in the Temple during this feast. On that occasion, He answered the question whether He was the Christ, or the Messiah promised to the Jews in the Old Testament. However, the Jews expected a messiah like Judas Maccabeus, a military and political chieftain who came to establish his kingdom by means of the sword. Jesus was the true Messiah who came to suffer on the cross and overcome the power of sin, death and the devil. Then, to answer, Jesus referred to his works that fulfilled the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.

Furthermore, he told them, "I and the Father are one." The meaning of this statement is that Jesus and the Father are, with the Holy Spirit, three persons in one divine essence.

Then, in the book of Revelation, St. John saw the risen Christ among seven golden candlesticks, which Jesus told him symbolized the seven churches in Asia Minor that Jesus commanded John to dedicate his book. But, the book of Revelation is also for the whole church until the second coming of Christ. Therefore, the seven candlesticks mean that Christ is present in the heavenly Jerusalem temple, also in every church where the Word of God is preached in its purity and the sacraments are administered according to the Lord's command. Hanukkah celebrates the independence of the Jews until the conquest by the Romans. In our feast of lights, that is, the lights of the choir of angels and the star of Bethlehem, we celebrate the eternal victory of Jesus Christ.

Fast forward with Zoom

This month Luz Maria wrapped up her work with mentoring deaconess students in a course on Luke’s Gospel and the Book of Acts, delivered by a series of Zoom videoconferences with instructors from Concordia El Reformador Seminary in the Dominican Republic. On December 13, the third Sunday of Advent, we had a successful videoconference with Pastor Bruce Keseman’s adult Bible class at Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church in Freeburg, Illinois (this is my mother’s congregation). If anyone else would like a presentation about our mission via Zoom, talk to us about scheduling.