Christmas

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Western Christmas in Africa

One of my Ghana colleagues and friends tells of Christmas in his village when he was a child. It was a big celebration. Most of the year people didn’t eat meat. It was a luxury. But at Christmas, my friend’s family butchered and had lots of meat. It was a real treat. Also, children got new clothes or even a pair of shoes. The adults’ Christmas parties involved unrestrained drunkenness.

Ideas about Christmas had leaked into my friends village from surrounding areas, mostly the western secular idea that it was a time to party. But the Christmas story was unknown.

Decorated palm branches

Nowadays, there is a translation of the New Testament in my friend’s language. That has changed how Christmas is celebrated. Families gather colorful flowers and weave them into palm branches that they attach to their doorframes for everyone to see. Children still get new clothes and everyone eats special meals. But now Christmas Eve is a time to go to church. The party has turned into a focus on Christ. People know who he was and what he did. They have allegiance to him.

Whereas secular western traditions of Christmas borrowed from British colonizers debased Christmas for my friend’s village, the Bible in the people’s language elevated it. In the process, the Bible has replaced secular western cultural influence with the real story of that amazing Middle Easterner named Jesus and the salvation he brings.

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How does Jesus sound?

I want you to consider a strange question. If Jesus came down from heaven and spoke to you today, what would he sound like?

  • A hillbilly?
  • British royalty?
  • Someone from the deep South?

Would his speech have a particular affect?

  • Highbrow?
  • Brainy?
  • Sophisticated?
  • Polished?
  • Uncultured?
  • Uneducated?
  • Archaic?
  • Mystical / religious?

Why do you think that?

The Bible records many times when God spoke to people, including the many instances of Jesus speaking that are recorded in the Gospels. On a few occasions, the Bible records the reaction of those who were listening. None of those reactions indicate that Jesus spoke with an accent or an affect. On the other hand, we have several comments about the content of Jesus words.

Everyone was amazed at his teaching. He taught with authority, and not like the teachers of the Law of Moses. – Mark 1:22 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark1:22&version=CEV

The people didn’t comment that Jesus’s words were complicated, deep, mysterious, mystical, or religious. (Perhaps the “teachers of the law” spoke like that.) Rather, Jesus’s words carried authority. So, we are left to conclude that Jesus spoke in a very normal way but said extraordinary things. In fact, the idea that God speaks in some special, religious way is the very rare exception in the Bible. It also clashes with Christmas which celebrates God becoming an ordinary baby. The incarnation is a really big indicator that when God interacts with us, he usually does it in ordinary ways. C. S. Lewis wrote:

… the Incarnation itself ought to shock us. The same divine humility which decreed that God should become a baby at a peasant-woman’s breast, and later an arrested field-preacher in the hands of the Roman police, decreed also that He should be preaching in a [common], prosaic and unliterary language.

I remember a group of village elders and their chief telling us how “genuine” and “real” are the words in the translation into their language. That’s a good translation because it puts the focus on the things said.

I think that if Jesus came and spoke to me, I would be captivated by what he said but not even notice how he said it because that would be so completely ordinary. That’s Christmas – a most extraordinary message in the most ordinary form. That’s also what we strive for in translation – God’s extraordinary message in ordinary, everyday words.

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Language and Christmas

Two stories typify Christmas. One the the story of the Shepherds and the other the story of the wise men. In both stories angels spoke, giving the wise men and shepherds information and instructions. We know that there were many languages spoken in the Middle East at the time, as there are today. So, in what languages did the angels speak? We can safely assume that they spoke in the language(s) of the shepherds and wise men because they intended to be understood.

It is almost certain that the Angels spoke to the shepherds in Aramaic as that was the language of most people.

For the wise men, it’s more complicated. The Bible says only that they came from “The east”. Without a location, it’s difficult to say what languages they spoke. But it’s more complicated than that. At that time people spoke different languages depending on their status in society. (Even today, that’s common in many places.) In any case, it is highly unlikely that God spoke to the wise men in Aramaic.

The Bible prophesies about the birth of Christ were written in Hebrew – a language the Angels did not use to speak to the shepherds or nor God to warn the wise men.

So, the first Christmas happened through translation.

On Christmas day this year, the story of Christmas will be told and celebrated in thousands of languages because of translation. Better, that number continues to grow. That transforms. One of my African friends tells of how his people first adopted a form of Christmas celebration from Western culture. Christmas was a time of wild, drunken parties. When the New Testament was translated into the language and people read it, the celebrations were radically transformed.

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Mary’s song

Courtesy Brooklyn Museum

Mary’s song of praise is part of the story of Christmas. It is found in Luke 1. 

Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.
How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!
For he took notice of his lowly servant girl,
and from now on all generations will call me blessed.
For the Mighty One is holy,
and he has done great things for me.
He shows mercy from generation to generation
to all who fear him.
His mighty arm has done tremendous things!
He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.
He has brought down princes from their thrones
and exalted the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away with empty hands.
He has helped his servant Israel
and remembered to be merciful.
For he made this promise to our ancestors,
to Abraham and his children forever.

Luke 1:46-55 (NLT)

This is quite a display of sophisticated theology for a simple peasant girl! Mary weaves her understanding of the Bible into her understanding of history, her circumstances, God’s promises and their fulfillment.

Lamin Sanneh, a professor at Yale, has written:

The Christian approach …. [contends] that the greatest and most profound religious truths are compatible with everyday language, and [targets] ordinary men and women as worthy bearers of the religious message.
Lamin Sanneh. Christian Missions and the Western Guilt Complex

We see this at work in Africa where large and successful churches were started and led by people with low or no education but who devoured the Bible in their own languages. In fact, that is still happening today. Let none of us think that we are too ordinary to grasp or announce great Bible truths, or that others are too ordinary. The first translations of the Bible into English sprang from that same democratic ideal – that ordinary people would understand. When we translate the Bible into the languages of ordinary people we show that we have the same confidence in them that God has in them and in us. 

That’s actually a Christmas message because Christmas shows us that God has confidence that ordinary humans will understanding his ultimate message when it comes down. 

Merry Christmas - animated banner

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Love and Ender’s Game

Ender's game book coverYears ago, I read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I was reading serious science fiction, including that written by C.S. Lewis. So when Ender’s Game came out as a movie, I had to see it. The movie, like the book, poses two moral dilemmas. The one more in tune with our culture is highlighted. The other is only mentioned – understanding one’s enemy. Ender, the protagonist, is trying to understand an alien species that had attacked earth so that he can defeat them. I’m not sure what was said in the movie, but it was something like the book which reads:

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them …”

Orson Scott Card has captured a truth. When we engage our enemy, or opponent, to truly understand them, some empathy and love usually results. We might find out that some of what we believe about our opponent is only partly true. Even if that is not the case, we get inside their head, which causes us to see things from their perspective, even if we disagree with that perspective. At the moment when we see things from their perspective, we care for them.

Understanding, then love and empathy come from hours of dialog

Understanding, then love and empathy come from hours of dialog

If our faith is weak, the empathy might cause us to stray from that faith. But the other way is equally dangerous to faith. That is to make caricatures of our enemies, which allows us to demonize them. We then risk defeating only the demonized caricatures in our own minds. Plus, we fail to follow Christ in loving our enemies. The route to love for someone very different from myself almost inevitably runs through the hard work of understanding them.

Cross-cultural mission involves trying to understand the other culture. We imitate Christ who left heaven to live like us, become like us, empathize with us, experience our reality. One way we can celebrate Christmas is to imitate that same method – reaching out, crossing boundaries and empathizing the way Jesus did.

This principle applies to all kinds of situations, not just ministering in cross-cultural situations. Whether we are dealing with another culture, people of a very different political ideology, opponents of our faith, or radicals from another religion, it behooves us to understand them to the point of love and love them enough to want to understand them.

Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. (Luke 6:35, NLT)

 

 

 

 

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Ouagadougou Christmas

We are visiting in Burkina Faso; so I thought I would write my observations of Christmas celebrations here.

Daniel and Anne Kompaore with Dayle

Daniel and Anne Kompaore with Dayle

The in the two days before Christmas, our hosts, Daniel and Anne Kompaore, received numerous gifts, mostly food and most of that live animals, especially guinea fowl which is highly valued here.

Daniel’s church had a Christmas eve service from 8 to 10 PM. A good part of it was a program by the children. A local Christian TV station carried a local Christmas eve service in the afternoon. It was also dominated by a children’s program, including reciting of Bible verses in French in unison by a group of children of varying ages. Our friends,  the Tioyes, said that their church’s Christmas eve service lasted until 2 AM and was largely a children’s program including a nativity play and recitation of Bible verses. So it seems that Christmas eve services are the norm.

On Christmas day, we had our celebratory meal at about 1 PM. During the course of the afternoon, people dropped by to say Merry Christmas. Some brought gifts of food. In one case they had called the day before to say exactly what they were bringing. Most stayed only a few minutes. A few,  family I think, stayed long enough to eat part of the meal, even tough they arrived after we ate.Daniel received a number of brief phone calls and SMS messages wishing him Merry Christmas. Even though few here have our number, we got brief phone calls with Christmas greetings.

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The foremost translation

Merry Christmas - animated banner

Christmas. That’s when we celebrate the fact that God came to earth in the person of Jesus.

EmmanuelGod coming to earth in the form of a man is central to the Christian faith. The core of our faith is not a set of doctrines or principles. Rather is a person, Jesus the Christ, whose story we read in the Bible. The simple Bible words, “he became a man and dwelt among us” tell us that God chose to tell us what he is like on our terms. Another translation puts it this way:

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood

We do not need to understand all the eternal mysteries of God; but only the man Jesus. No early language would be able to fully explain God, but all of them can repeat the story of Jesus.

Christmas tells us a lot about God, but it also tells us a lot about how we can be. Jesus crossed the gulf toward us. So, we can cross the gulf of beliefs, culture and language. God did not require that we adapt to him, instead he adapted to us. Too often, Christians expect those outside the faith and those of other languages and cultures to make a journey toward them. But that is not God’s way. This is:

As she was hearing the Christmas story in her language for the first time, an educated Cape Verdian woman put down her Portuguese Bible.  “I let the words fall over me,” she said. “For the first time in my life I felt washed by the Word. I thought I knew the Christmas story by heart, but I must confess that today I feel like I’ve heard it for the very first time.

Christmas animation - mixedSome have said that Jesus’ coming to earth from heaven is the foremost example of translation. They even say that it proves that the message of Jesus is translatable in all languages. After all, the gulf between my language, English, and the language of many Ghanaians, Twi, cannot be bigger than the gulf between us and God. The same is true for all languages. Or are we to say that the message, in the person of Jesus, came one million million miles but cannot go another inch?

The argument sometimes advanced that some language is too humble to contain the lofty truth about God, fails before the lofty God coming and speaking one of our humble languages. Christmas silences it.

Jesus came to common people in his incarnation, and translation into vernacular languages is the only way Jesus will reach common men, women and children today (Desiring God)

This Christmas, may you renew your wonder at God translating himself into human form, and may that rejuvenate your confidence that God speaks to you, and all peoples, in the way each of us understands deep in our hearts.

Manger banner

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Earth, receive your king

Someone pointed out to me that Joy to the Word is much more than a Christmas carol – it is a song about God’s mission in this world. Just read the lyrics and think about them.

Christmas-Sunday-Joy-to-the-WorldJoy to the world! The Lord is come:
let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare him room
and heaven and nature sing.
and heaven and nature sing
and heaven and nature sing

Joy to the world! the Savior reigns:
let men their songs employ
while fields and floods rocks hills and plains
repeat the sounding joy
repeat the sounding joy
repeat the sounding joy

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
far as curse is found
far as curse is found

He rules the earth with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of his righteousness
and wonders of his love
and wonders of his love
and wonders of his love

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The Ram, the Lion and the Lamb

Merry Christmas - animated banner

This is our second Christmas in Ghana. We are celebrating by posting again what we posted for our first Christmas.  It is uniquely Ghanaian.

Ghana has a rich history, culture and beliefs. Long before explorers and missionaries arrived, the Akan people of Ghana developed a rich set of symbols to explain their beliefs. One of them is this stylized representation of rams horns, called “Dwennimmen“

Dwennimmen - Rams hornsA ram will fight fiercely with a predator or another ram. So it is associated with strength, which is why the ram’s horns are found on Dodge Ram trucks. But it also submits quietly to slaughter. In the Dwennimmen symbol, the Akan people captured these opposite qualities of the ram: meekness and strength. It was a reminder to those who are strong to exercise their strength in humility.

At Christmas, we celebrate the all-powerful God coming down and being born as a baby. He was born with animals into a family of modest means. Talk about being meek and being strong!

When Jesus was accused by Pilot, he did not try to defend himself, just like the prediction about Jesus in Isaiah:

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7 ESV)

Again, great strength exercised in great meekness, just like the Akan symbol Dwennimmen.

Another animal used to symbolize Jesus is the Lion. He is called “the lion of the tribe of Judah” (Revelation 5:5). The lion, of course, represents strength and courage The praise chorus “How Great Is Our God“, celebrates the unexpected juxtaposition with the words

Christmas animation - mixedThe Godhead three in one
Father, Spirit, Son
Lion and the Lamb
Lion and the Lamb

When Jesus said that his kingdom is not “of this world”, his meek approach to power must be one of the things he meant. Through simple grassroots action, such as Bible translation, that kingdom is expanding around the world. There is a power in the Gospel even when to this world it seems timid, meek, or irrelevant, just as did Jesus birth.

People associate all kinds of symbols with Christmas: snow, sleighs, Santa, reindeer, trees, wreaths, stars, angels, wise men, shepherds, a stable, a manger, even tin soldiers and more. This Christmas I am adding a Ghanaian symbol to my repertoire – ” Dwennimmen” or rams’ horns.

May you have a blessed Christmas.

Manger banner

This was originally posted in December 2011.