Greetings!
On behalf of the trustees, faculty and staff of the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies, thank you to all who have generously supported IWS through your gifts of treasure, time and talent! We are grateful for your generosity toward the Lord’s work in and through the mission of our school. May the light of the incarnate Christ shine forth in your lives as we journey into the new year.
The Lord be with you,
James R. Hart, President
If you have yet to make your tax deductible 2011 gift, there is still time to remember the work and mission of IWS. Your participation at any level is vital, creating new opportunities for our students to bring about spiritual transformation through worship renewal. In order for your gift to be counted in calendar year 2011 it must be postmarked by 12/31 (if your gift is mailed) or received by 12/31 (if your gift is made online or delivered). Checks should be made out to IWS, noted “Annual Fund” and/or “Scholarship Fund” and sent to IWS, 151 Kingsley Ave., Orange Park, FL 32073. Donations may also be made online.
Your support of the ongoing mission of IWS is absolutely critical to the work of real spiritual transformation through worship. Thank you for your partnership with IWS!
The Sentimentality of the Season
For the past two years I have sent out a brief Christmas meditation on the sentimentality of the season. With apologies for repetition, I am including a somewhat shortened and revised version below. Feel free to skip it if you read it last year!
“But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” (Galatians 4:4,5 NIV)
Merry 6th Day of Christmas, the Feast Day of St. Anysia, martyred in Thessalonica 304 A.D.
I am struck by the sentimentality of our cultural Christmas celebrations, not the least being my own fanciful and idealistic sensibilities. We say to one another, “Did you have a good Christmas?” Our responses are often dependent on how enjoyable our Christmas day festivities were, how filled they may have been with fun, laughter, warm relationships with family and friends, pleasant bread and thoughtful gift-giving–you know, the wonderful, warm and fuzzy stuff of life.
The above passage from Galatians reminds us that the true meaning of Christmas is not found in warm sentimentality, but in God’s deliverance of his creation from the desperation of sin, evil, death and the powers of darkness. St. Athanasius wrote, “It was, then, out of the question to leave men to the current of corruption; because this would be unseemly, and unworthy of God’s goodness.” (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation).
Stanley Hauerwas, Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School, has stated, “The deepest enemy to Christianity is not atheism, it’s sentimentality.” I think Dr. Hauerwas is on to something. Speaking as someone who can be the chief of holiday sentimentality, I am not suggesting that the warm fuzzies of our common life and holiday celebrations are necessarily the antithesis to our faith. But, to reduce Christmas to those romanticized Currier and Ives images, or to allow them to supercede the Gospel content of the season can certainly mask the real meaning: that God, in his goodness, chose to send his son to deliver us from our corruption.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love.
(“Joy to the World,” by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), verses 3 and 4)
The Lord be with you,
James R. Hart, President