 On Sunday, December 5th, from 7-8pm, Chad and Dave will be hosting a very special event: The Christmas Story Live! I know what you're thinking . . . How can Chad and Dave perform a Living Christmas Tree all by themselves?! First of all, how dare you question our abilities. Between the two of us, we have played Gabriel, Joseph, two shepherds, the innkeeper, a palm tree, and a little boy buying golden shoes. Our range is infinite and the heavens are our limits.
But the world also has enough Living Christmas Trees and not enough of whatever it is we plan to do on Sunday night. So what exactly can you expect? There will be music (turns out the Christmas Story has lots of it). There will be hot chocolate (would have been nice if the Magi had brought that instead). There will be special guests, humor, inspiration, rubber ducks, and chairs to sit on! In other words, it will be Festive with a capital F. Because we are in such high demand this time of year, this is a tickets-only event, and you can order your tickets here. We have a variety of discounted ticket packages, including options that include a signed copy of the book, family pricing, college student bargains, and even an option for the two of you who already have the book. (And ALL options come with coffee/hot chocolate/water and a cookie!) The Christmas Story Live will take place at The Creek Downtown in Jefferson City, TN. For more information, contact Dave at [email protected]. We hope to see you Sunday!
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 The Grinch. Ebenezer Scrooge. Your uncle Don. What do all of these people have in common? They hate Christmas, they hate all of its traditions, and they are happy to tell you about it. And while I am certainly not on their level, there are some things associated with Christmas that just bug me, and I’ve got to get them off my chest. So here are a few of my least favorite things about Christmas, in no particular order.
1) Jingle Bells as a Christmas Song. If you ever have the misfortune of going Christmas caroling (this should be its own bullet on this list), this one will make the playlist on every stop. Yet, it doesn’t have one darn thing to do with Christmas. Nothing at all. Jingle Bells is just a song about winter in general. It’s about some dude taking a sleigh ride (hint: the dude is NOT Santa). And if you read all the lyrics, it is just a cheap way for this guy to pick up girls, and he just ends up wrecking into a snow bank halfway through the song, which is less than ideal on a date. Then, after he wrecks the sleigh with the first girl, he just starts picking up girls in general. I don’t get it. Besides that, no one even owns a sleigh anymore. It just doesn’t make any sense. And it probably doesn’t even snow often in December where you live, and certainly not enough to warrant getting out the sleigh (Chad and Dave’s current Christmas forecast appears to be 50 degrees and partly cloudy.) 2) Ugly Christmas Sweaters as a Cottage Industry. Admittedly, this was a funny idea when it first started. It was funny because a lot of people bought and gave tacky Christmas sweaters, unironically. Your grandma bought these sweaters for you annually because she thought they were so pretty, and your mom made you wear it where MiMi could see it, even though you both knew it was ugly and embarrassing. Now, we mock that childhood trauma by having “ugly Christmas sweater parties.” But in a strange turn of events, a thing that began as a way to mock trendy, mainstream fashion has itself become a trendy, mainstream fashion. When you intentionally buy a Christmas sweater specifically because it is ugly, you have now become the butt of your own joke. Now, stores sell these things on purpose. Why? Because you will spend $40 on this stupid thing that you will wear one time ever to your office Christmas party, which probably required that everyone else in the office wear one, too. See also: if your company or your university alma mater sells ugly Christmas sweaters, but that also just happen to be completely “on brand” or make use to the company logo, you have once again become the butt of your own joke. 3) “Advent” Calendars That Are Really Just a “Countdown to Christmas.” Repeat after me: “Advent is not the same thing as Christmas.” Say it again. And again. Now also go tell your mother. And that lady at church that gives you a new Advent calendar every year around Thanksgiving. Advent is the season on the Church calendar that immediately precedes the season of Christmas. Advent should be marked by preparation, hope, and maybe even a little repentance sprinkled in for good measure. It should not be marked by cookies, more gifts, and rampant consumerism. If your “Advent” calendar requires you to give or open a new gift every morning, you are doing it wrong. If your “Advent” calendar shows you a new cookie recipe or a way to serve yet another holiday finger food, you are doing it wrong. 4) Christmas Caroling. Okay, I am still hung up on this one from earlier. I wish I could get past it, but I can’t. Christmas caroling is dumb. There. I said it. We get together with a bunch of people from our church, nearly no one in the group can actually sing except the one person who is leading this ridiculous expedition and who made you go in the first place (shoutout to our good friend Melodie!). Half your group doesn’t know the lyrics. People have no idea what to do when you show up at their house. You just dragged someone away from whatever they were watching on TV, warm and cozy under a blanket, and now they are standing on the porch in their jammies shivering, watching your group do a poor rendition of Silent Night, even though everyone knew we started it 8 keys too high in the first place, so now everyone drops out on the first “sleep in heavenly peeeee----eace”. It’s just awkward. **Bonus story: Chad’s dad served as a music minister during much of Chad’s childhood, and thus dragged Chad along for many a caroling outing. The best one was at a nursing home, when we caroled on the move, walking through the halls as we sang. Chad’s dad was walking backwards, facing the group, directing the song (because how could anyone ever possibly sing without the music director waving his arms to keep time?? Without that 4/4 arm metronome going, we would descend into certain chaos!). As he neared a lady in a wheelchair, she reached up and grabbed a handful of his rather ample booty. We all saw it. We all saw it coming; didn’t intervene. We all were rendered inert in our singing, unable to breath from the laughter. The old lady that groped my dad while Christmas caroling is easily in the top 5 times I have laughed the hardest in my lifetime. This list could obviously go on for days, but I’m afraid if I keep going I am going to make (even more) people mad. So what things do you want to add to the list?  Artwork: "Magnificat" by Ben Wildflower. For more of Ben Wildflower's exceptional work, visit BenWildflower.com. Today, the Wheel of Advent Content has landed on "Apocryphal Chapters Excerpt" and we're offering a little sneak peak into some of the bonus content you can find in our "Apocryphal Chapters." This week, it's fitting that we fix our attention on Mary's Song - or, as your many Latin-speaking friends prefer to refer to it, The Magnificat - as it is an optional Scriptural reading in the Revised Common Lectionary for both last Sunday and this Sunday. As we pored over what is perhaps the first ever praise song Jesus heard, we couldn't help but dig into the Greek a little bit and create a more expansive translation/paraphrase that might help highlight some of the themes that are sometimes prone to get lost in the vaulted ceilings of the cathedrals where this song is typically sung. So, without further ado, we present to you "All That I Am For All That He Is: A Contemporary Magnificat Paraphrase." Everything I have
is invested in everything He is. Just as my body is bursting with life, my spirit is bursting with joy - all because of God my Liberator - because His generous eyes have noticed the bankrupt state of His servant. Now, all of Eve’s descendants will see in me the abundant wealth of God His healing hands deliver Life, Even as He has insured that those who miscarry justice will have no offspring, A stillborn legacy. To those beyond poverty’s reach, He has clipped their artificial wings But to those who can only dream of flying, His goodness has eclipsed even the gravity of their situation. All of this from a God whose promises return again and again to mercy-memories, One continuous, unbroken cord of grace tethering our ancestors even to our descendants.  Today as we spin the Wheel of Advent Content, we land on “A Few of Our Favorite Things.” Today, let’s visit Chad’s favorite obscure Christmas album: Do You See What I See? by Todd Agnew (and friends). The album was made in 2006, and nearly every song is an original piece—this isn’t a Christmas album where they just do yet another tired remix of “Go Tell It On The Mountain” or a peppy version of “Silent Night.” This album is playful, prayerful, and poetic. Todd Agnew is probably not the most household of names, and you would be forgiven if you said, “Who in the world is that?” He’s a humble artist who never really tried to compete in a world full of Chris Tomlins, dc Talks, and Steven Curtis Chapmans. Some listeners do not like his low, gravelly voice—if you are looking for the vocal gymnastics of Mariah Carey, keep moving. For me, I love the thoughtfulness and reflection of Agnew. I had him as a worship leader at a youth camp once, and he was one of those guys that didn’t want the spotlight, didn’t just play whatever worship song was trendy, and always aimed his songs back at a carefully crafted theological idea that helped you see something in a new and different way. His method of leading worship didn’t take you on an emotionally-manipulated trip through well-timed key changes; his method led you on a journey to think about things in a different way, and maybe feel things in new ways, too. And that is exactly what this Christmas album does. The back cover of the CD describes the album this way: “What did the first Christmas look like to the people involved? They didn’t get the benefit of 2000 years of understanding the context. They just had to live it. The gospels record their amazement, confusion, heartbreak, and joy. My friends and I have the privilege of recording songs that we hope bring their wonder into our world.” What I love about this album is that it explores so much of the emotion of the characters in the story, and it does it in deep and imaginative ways. The songs are almost entirely written from a first-person perspective of some character within the birth stories. As a sample, here are a few examples. The innkeeper track, “No Room,” opens with this line: “There’s no room, no room in the inn // if you were someone important, we might try to fit you in // but there’s no room in here for you.” Or consider some of these lines from “Did You Know?” (which is not a “Mary, did you know” track, but more of a “Jesus, did you know” track): “Were Mary’s the first eyes you saw // or did you remember choosing that shade of brown?” “Did you know? Did you shudder each time your hammer struck a nail?” Or my favorite, “Did you remember the brightness of your glory // or did you just notice it was cold and dark here?” There is a track that explores the helplessness and inadequacies that Joseph must have felt as the father of the creator of the world. There is a Magnificat track that understands the economic justice and revolutionary language of that subversive song. There is even a lullaby from Elizabeth to her son, John. Or, if you want to hear a bit, here is “Did You Know”, quoted above. If you feel the itch to buy a Christmas album, this is a good choice, and definitely one of my favorite parts of Christmas!
 Chad has two favorite Christmas songs—assuming, of course, that “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” doesn’t count as a proper Christmas song. One of them is perfect for the first week of Advent: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Advent, of course, is not—I repeat, NOT—a synonym for “Christmas,” even if nobody in your church seems to know that. “Advent” means “coming” or “arrival,” and it is the season that immediately precedes Christmas on the Church calendar (officially, Christmas begins on Dec 25th on the Church calendar—again, even if no one in your church seems to know that, and even if half your congregation wants to “start Christmas” shortly after Halloween). Advent, then, is primarily a season of preparation (and we aren’t talking about Black Friday shopping or hanging lights on the house, to be clear). Advent is about preparation, anticipation, and hope. Hope. Now there is a tricky concept. Hope doesn’t mean a whole lot unless it follows some sort of despair or desperation (or, as Harvey Dent taught us in the Batman saga, “The night is always darkest before the dawn”). The typical texts that we read on the first week of Advent include Isaiah 40, which is a text written to Israel in Exile. Israel is removed from its ancestral land. The Temple has been destroyed. They are oppressed by a foreign power, inundated with messages about pagan deities, and even left wondering if their God was killed or defeated by those deities. Desperation has set in—alone, abandoned, defeated. Israel is in desperate need of rescue. It is into that context that Isaiah 40 is spoken. The text is an oracle that promises deliverance. Rescue is coming, and this Exile will soon end. God is going to rescue the people and lead them back home, plowing a road right through the middle of the desert! Every valley will be raised up, and every mountain will be leveled. Rescue is coming! Hope is spoken into the darkness. The hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” captures this theme so well, and it is why it is my favorite Advent hymn. It is a hymn for “captive Israel”—it is a song of the Exile, a song of the desperate ones clinging to the hope of rescue. It is a prayer for God to come and “ransom captive Israel”—a prayer for rescue and redemption. And what is Captive Israel doing in this song? Not wrapping presents, stringing lights, and listening to Bing Crosby, that’s for sure! Israel is mourning—“that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears.” It is a song that recognizes the despair and the need for rescue, ransom, and redemption. But the chorus sounds the note of hope: Rejoice! Emmanuel is coming! I love this song because it does not race off to the joy of Christ coming into the world before it grapples with the desperate need for Christ to show up in the first place. Redemption doesn’t matter until I realize how much I need to be redeemed. The first week of Advent is the ideal time to grapple with both the desperation and the hope. And this is my favorite song to help take me there—placing me in Babylon with Captive Israel, waiting for rescue. I hope you get to sing that song reflectively this week. But I still want a hippopotamus for Christmas. Editor's Note: Below is a lovely contemporary rendition of "O Come O Come Emmanuel," featuring people doing dangerous things like having lit candles on a piano and wearing baseball caps while singin' to Jesus.  Both Chad and Dave grew up deep in the South, and as children of the South, we are no strangers to the annual “War on Christmas.” We’ve seen everything from the famed debacle over the red Starbucks cup, to the controversy over the Walmart greeter wishing us “Happy Holidays,” to the White House “holiday tree.” We’ve listened to preachers complain that schools aren’t even allowed to talk about Jesus or display a nativity scene, even though literally every school in the South does both of those things. A lot.
But nothing—and I mean nothing!—can raise the rancor of a Christmas culture warrior quite like the appearance of that magic 4-letter word. No, not THOSE 4-letter words . . . this one: XMAS. There. I typed it. My computer didn’t explode. The internet wasn’t struck by lightning. The cry-less baby Jesus didn’t suddenly start weeping. It’s okay. In fact, let me tell you why it is not only okay to say “xmas,” but why maybe you in fact should use it every now and then. Brace yourselves. Southern cultural crusaders tell us that “xmas” is the equivalent of crossing out Jesus’ name because the X has replaced “Christ.” Thus, quite literally, Christ has been x-ed out of Christmas. There is your war on Christmas, plain as day; those pinko Commie leftist pagans aren’t even trying to hide it anymore! Only that’s not true. To the contrary, the letter X is the first letter in the word “Christ.” In Greek, the X is the letter “chi” (remember back to your college fraternity and sorority training, you probably already know this letter), transliterated with the English letters “ch.” Transliterated into English letters, the name “Christ” is spelled “Xristos.” Further, the second letter is “rho,” or the English “r,” but in Greek, it looks like the English “p.” So when you see XP together (settle down, D&D fans, this isn’t what you think it is), it stands for “chi rho,” or “ch-r,” or the first two letters in the name of Jesus. This is probably the oldest known abbreviation for the name of Christ, and far from being an insult or a means of scratching Christ out of his own holiday, it is a sacred and revered symbol that is close to 2000 years old. So, whenever you see “xmas,” no one is actually x-ing out the name of Christ; in fact, they are employing the oldest known symbol for the name “Christ,” even if they don’t know they are doing it. The X doesn’t eliminate Christ; the X is a (very ancient) symbol for Christ. So the next time you hear someone fussing about how “xmas” is scratching out Christ, feel free to drop some knowledge on them (after, of course, you smugly and self-righteously look down your nose at them for their gross ignorance!).  Today's spin of Chad and Dave's Wheel of Advent Content landed on "Underappreciated Xmas Songs." In this segment, we highlight Advent/Christmas/Holiday songs that may not be well-known but certainly deserve to be. Many years ago, I was traveling alone on an airplane, which provided me with hours of undiluted reading time. Deciding the moment was perfect for a nice quick novel, I pulled out The Notebook and commenced reading. Just moments before the plane began its descent, my shoulders were heaving and my tear ducts were getting a high-altitude workout as the concerned travelers around me averted their gazes. If there is an Advent analogue to The Notebook, it is - without a doubt - “I Will Find a Way” by Andy Gullahorn and Jason Gray (but best performed by Andy Gullahorn and Jill Phillips). Based on the short story “Advent Monologue” by Walter Wangerin, Jr., “I Will Find a Way” asks the question, “If God came in human form today, what would that look like?” Emmanuel, indeed. I Will Find a Way By Andy Gullahorn and Jason Gray At the end of this run down tenement hall Is the room of a girl I know She cowers behind all the dead bolt locks Afraid of the outside world So how should I come to the one I love? I will find a way Many thieves and collectors have used that door But they only brought her shame So she won't even open it anymore Still I will find a way I could call out her name with love through the walls But condemnation is all she hears I could break down the door and take her into my arms But she might die from the fear So how should I come to the one I love? I will find a way, I will find a way How should I come to the one I love? I will find a way No hiding place ever kept her safe So she hides inside herself Now to reach her heart the only way Is to hide in there as well I will hide in there as well She gave up on love waiting for a change But a change is coming soon How could she not love the helpless babe Who is waking in her womb? I found way, I found a way She'll know I am coming before I am here When she hangs her head she'll see me there And then when I come she won't run away All the beauty and joy will return to her face And what of the loneliness? Now it is gone Lost in the bond of a mother and son Every sin that she suffered at the hands of men Every single disgrace will be washed clean again I will love her completely and when I am grown I will carry her out of that tenement room I am doing a new thing and soon you will see I am coming among you and my name shall be Emmanuel, Emmanuel, Emmanuel  One of the real gifts of writing a book is that you learn lots of strange things you did not know before. Sometimes, you start looking for a random bit of information to put in a footnote, and the next thing you know, you’ve gotten lost in a Google rabbit hole, and the only thing that comes of it is a text message to your co-author that begins, “This isn’t useful, but you are not gonna believe this . . .” Sometimes you find out that things you have believed most of your life are wrong, but you try to play it off in the book as if you were enlightened all along. And still other times, you find out that you were just plain stupid about something (okay, this was mostly just Chad).
So here is a very incomplete list of things we learned, with minimal annotation.
And remember that you, too, can learn lots of cool things like this, and for the low price of $14.99! Coming in November! Tell your friends! Avoid other things happening in November! Hand them out as Christmas presents! And watch the world change for the better. Alright everybody, with the countdown on to the close of our Kickstarter campaign (August 31st), we decided to offer up a speed round of FAQs from the questions you've sent in over the past few weeks. Let's go! Q: What kind of book is this exactly? (Garin Hill) A: A rectangular one. Q: Is Bethlehem really in Pennsylvania, and was Jesus born there? (Brian Austin) A: Yes and no, but you know who was born in Bethlehem, PA? Actor Daniel Roebuck, who played the high school science teacher Dr. Leslie Arzt in Lost. Q: Why did you choose to start with the Christmas story? (Why not something like 2 Kings 2:23-25)? (Joe McKee) A: It’s the only part of the Bible Chad has read. Q: Did Jesus appropriately appreciate the Christmas shoes the little boy bought for his mama right before she died? (Mary Baldridge) A: Sadly, the boy’s mother was cremated, Christmas shoes and all. Very tragic. Completely understandable why they cut that verse from the song. Q: Knowing that the modern bible translations are centuries from the original texts, do you have a modern translation that you believe to have the most fidelity to the original? (Clyde Smith) We recommend this one or this one. Q: I have a question I would love to read your thoughts on. The Christmas story in Luke explains that Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem because Caesar Augustus declared that all the world must be taxed. We know that Rome taxed non-Romans based on their possessions. So wouldn't it be counter-intuitive for Mary and Joseph to leave their home and travel a great distance away from all their possessions to somehow be taxed? If the purpose of the story is to make Jesus's birth fit a prophetic narrative, shouldn't Luke have written a story that his readers would believe, as they would have known that's not how we pay our taxes? Does that make sense? (Nick Smith) A: Yes. Q: Here’s a question I need y’all to answer... when the Bible says “She wrapped him in swaddling clothes” what are we talking about? We talking a Kaylin Batman onesie? Some sort of romper? What was the kiddo wearing?! (Megan Potter) A:   Today’s question comes from Ben Basden, a friend of Chad’s from Texas, and the Minister of Music at CrossRoads Fellowship Church, a church that Chad helped start in 2003. Ben writes, “Does your book cover the topic of how there’s basically a 1/365 chance that Jesus was actually born on December 25 and that it was easier to just stick it on a pagan holiday?”
Looks like we should have just let Ben write the book! First, no, somehow none of that ended up in the book. We are probably going to realize later that the book has more holes in it than a QAnon conspiracy theory. Second, yes, every bit of what Ben wrote is accurate. Thanks, Ben, for the leading question, and thanks for ruining everyone’s Christmas. You have definitely captured the spirit of the book. So let’s have some honest truth: we don’t have a darn clue when Jesus was born. Heck, it’s hard enough to narrow it down to the right YEAR, much less the date. It wasn’t in the year 1 A.D., though—can you imagine people sitting around at their Millennium Party, counting down from year 1 B.C. to year 1 A.D., saying, “We don’t know who this ‘Christ’ is, but boy is this the party of a lifetime! 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .”? We don’t have much to work with on the calendar, but mean ol’ Herod was dead by 4 B.C., so Jesus must have been born sometime before that. But again, we don’t know the year, much less the date. Apparently no one who mattered thought this kid was very important at the time, so they didn’t write it down. *Note to parents: this right here is why you should keep a scrapbook; you never know when your child will grow up to be the founder of a major world religion. So how did we end up on December 25th? Call me skeptical, but I have serious doubts that a full-term pregnant lady made a lengthy donkey-back road trip through mostly desert terrain in the dead of winter. I just don’t see it happening. So how did we end up there? Well, centuries later, when Christians decided they had to park the birth of Jesus somewhere, they did a little better than just throw a dart at the calendar. They decided this was also the perfect opportunity to stomp out a little paganism while they were at it. December 25 was the winter solstice (okay, it’s not, but they thought it was; they weren’t the Mayans when it came to calendar-making, okay?), and thus it was the perfect date to mark the birth of deities—the hope of new life, spring is coming, all that stuff. Lots—and I mean LOTS—of deities were said to be born on that date, including Sol Invictus, Horus, Osiris, Attis, Heracles, Dionysus, and a whole bunch of others in lots of different cultures, most of whom also had a worship cult associated with them. The most important of those is Mithras. Mithras—and Mithraism, the religion named for him—is probably the most important religion you’ve never heard of (unless some college professor told you about it once and blew your mind), because not only was he born on Dec 25, there were tons of other similarities in the birth story, including a visitation by shepherds at birth. Most importantly, it was the official religion of the Roman Empire just before Constantine issued an official edict that read, in formal Latin, “New Rule: we are doing the Jesus thing now.” Sadly, the holiday song “All Hail, King Mithras” just never took off. It did appear in the Methodist hymnal, though, as recently as 1950. *checks notes*—actually, that’s not true at all. We don’t want any hateful comments from our Wesleyan friends, please. So what happened? As Christianity began to spread, it needed a date to commemorate the birth of its Messiah. No one knew when that was exactly, so they had to pick one. So if you park your holiday right on top of all those pagan birthdays, you not only get to celebrate YOUR deity, you also get to stomp out THEIR celebration, and gradually over time you get to say, “Not your god, but my God.” So we did that. That’s just true, even if most of us had no idea. People still get bent out of shape about it, though, thinking that if Christianity is not 100% original storyline, then it must be made up or fake, so folks often dig in their heels and refuse to believe what is easily provable here. Don’t be like that. Normally, especially with religious movements, if everything is completely new storylines, that is the mark of a crazy cult group (looking at you, Scientology! Like, what even is that anyway?? Cognitive pop psychology with a heavy dose of aliens? Points for being original, but my goodness, y’all jumped the shark on that one!) So yeah. We stole the birthday from the pagans. And we stomped out their paganism so hard, no one even remembers they were a thing. Take that, pagans! And also, know that when Chad or Dave wish you “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, there is at least a little part of us that is most definitely thinking about Mithras. |
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